al-Dahhak dhu al-afwah

Al-Dahhak Dhu al-Afwah, a figure that al-Mas'udi mentions in the accounts of the Persians. The Persians and the Arabs differed about his origin. ²

Al-Mas'udi relates that two serpents came out of his shoulders that could only be fed on human brains, and that his vizier killed a ram and a man every day and fed them their brains. He says that whoever escaped fled to the mountains, and that some say the Kurds began from them. Then Afridun fought him and bound him in Mount Dunbawand. ²

Ibn al-Nadim relates from Abu Sahl ibn Nawbakht that he built a city in which he gathered learning and the learned, and built in it twelve palaces, according to the number of the signs of the zodiac. ³