Background
According to Franz Steiner, he was born in the village of Tell al-Gabarti in the northern Delta province of Beheira, Egypt.
According to Franz Steiner, he was born in the village of Tell al-Gabarti in the northern Delta province of Beheira, Egypt.
Little is known of Al-Jabarti's life. Abdulkader Saleh asserts that Al-Jabarti was instead born in Cairo. Al-Jabarti's family was of Somali background.
Al-Jabarti was trained as a Sheikh at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He began keeping a monthly chronicle of local events. This document, which is generally known in English simply as Al-Jabarti's History of Egypt and known in Arabic as Aja'ib al-athar fi al-tarajim wal-akhbar (عجائب الاَثار في التراجم والاخبار), became a world-famous historical text by virtue of its eyewitness accounts of Napoleon's invasion and Muhammad Ali's seizure of power.
The entries from his chronicle dealing with the French expedition and occupation have been excerpted and compiled in English as a separate volume entitled Napoleon in Egypt. According to Marsot, at the end of his life, Al-Jabarti chose to be buried in Tell al-Gabarti, the town to which he traced his descent.
According to his writings, his name comes from his "seventh-degree grandfather," Abd al-Rahman, who was the earliest member of his family known to him.