al-Baladhuri

البلاذري

c. 892 CE · c. 279 AH

Abbasid historian and poet, author of 'Futuh al-Buldan' and 'Ansab al-Ashraf'; the Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif edition gives his kunya variously as Abu Bakr, Abu Ja'far or Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Jabir ibn Dawud al-Baghdadi, his birth date unknown, and his death disputed — some say he died in al-Mu'tamad's caliphate, others that he reached al-Mu'tadid's era, while some moderns set it at 279 AH; he heard from a body of scholars and littérateurs including Abdullah ibn Salih al-Ijli, Abu al-Hasan al-Mada'ini, Hisham ibn Ammar, Muhammad ibn Musaffa, Khalaf ibn Hisham, Shayban ibn Farrukh, Abu Ubayda, Ali ibn al-Madini, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Dawraqi, Muhammad ibn al-Sabbah al-Dawlabi and Muhammad ibn Sa'd, al-Waqidi's secretary; transmitting from him were Muhammad ibn al-Nadim, Ahmad ibn Ammar, Ja'far ibn Qudama and Ya'qub ibn Nu'aym, and he was biographied by Yaqut in Mu'jam al-udaba' and Ibn Asakir in Tarikh Dimashq; at al-Musta'in's court he recited a praise ode — being told 'if so, I have raised your reward, give it' — on the cloak, including 'the cloak suspects you are its owner, as though it were the elect's cloak when you wrap yourself in it', whereupon he was given it and wore it; Ubayd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Tahir said of him 'his are excellent books — the author of the Book of the Lands, who composed it and composed it well' (edition's introduction pp. 3–7).