A01562 - El Ifrani, 18th Century Moroccan Biographer and Historian

 Wafrani (Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad al-Wafrani) (Muhammad al-Ifrani)  (Mohammed al-Ifrani) (Muhammad al-Saghir ibn al-hajj Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Ifrani al-Marakkushi) (El Ifrani) (b. 1669/1670, Marrakesh, Morocco - d. 1727/1747 Marrakesh, Morocco).  Moroccan biographer and historian.  He is best known as the author of the great chronicle of the Sa‘di Sharifs of Morocco, covering the period from 1511 to the end of the seventeenth century.

Little is known about the life of El Ifrani. He was born in Marrakesh in 1669/1670, studied there and in Fez, and may have held a post in the entourage of Mulay Ismael Alawi, sultan of Morocco (1645-1727), on whose reign he wrote a now lost chronicle. Later in life, he became imam and khatib of the Ben Youssef Medrassa (also known as al-Yusufiyya) in Marrakesh. Certain sultans like Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah (1757-1790), were very strict in what the content of the education should be and even gave out manuals with regulations and works to be treated, but the teachers did as they pleased and that is how El Ifrani in the beginning of the 17th century wrote a work on the life of Ibn Sahl of Sevilla, an Andalusian poet of the 12th century while pretending to be teaching law and the hadith.

A number of the works of El Ifrani have survived, the most important of which is his biographical dictionary of men of the eleventh century of the hijra: Safwat man intashar min Akhbar Sulaha Al Qarn Al Hadi Ashar, briefly called "Safwat man intashar". This work contains the biographies of saints who lived in 17th century Morocco. It is the classic biographical dictionary of that time. Also famous is his history of the Saadi Dynasty, Nuzhat al-hadi bi-akhbar muluk al-qarn al-hadi, written shortly before 1724. The work, among others, relates the conquest of the Songhai Empire by the Saadian sultans.