Yazid b. Muhammad al-Azdi

Abu Zakariyya Yazid b. Muhammad b. Iyas b. al-Qasim al-Azdi was a historian of Mosul who died in 334 AH (945-6). His father, Muhammad b. Iyas al-Azdi, is listed in the record Muhammad b. Iyas al-Azdi. The work on Mosul by Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. Yazid al-Mawsili, who lived a generation before him, was concerned only with the biographies of religious scholars. Al-Azdi wrote both on the classes of hadith scholars of Mosul and on the political history of Mosul, in one combined work or in two separate ones. ¹

His treatment of the hadith scholars is known only from quotations and seems to have been limited to the information usually found in works on the transmitters. His political annals of the city, the first work on this subject, are preserved for the years 101 AH (719-20) to 224 AH (838-9). They treat the history of Mosul within the framework of general contemporary history, and are a creditable achievement of early Muslim historiography. ¹