, Marḍī (or Murḍā) b. ʿAlī b. Marḍī, enigmatic writer in Arabic on military topics. His dates are unknown, but he flourished in the later 6th/12th century and seems to have lived in Alexandria.
He composed for the Ayyūbid sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn [q.v.] a treatise, Tabṣirat arbāb al-albāb fī kayfiyyat al-nad̲j̲āt fi ’l-ḥurūb min al-aswāʾ wa-nas̲h̲r aʿlām al-iʿlām fi ’l-ʿudad , extant in the Bodleian unicum Hunt 264 ¶ (extracts ed. and tr. Cl. Cahen, Un traité d’armurerie composé pour Saladin , in BEO, xii [1947-8], 1-47, 150-63). It deals with weapons such as the sword, bow, lance,…