Save
Authors:
C.H. Becker
Search for other papers by C.H. Becker in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
and
F. Rosenthal
Search for other papers by F. Rosenthal in
Current site
Google Scholar Close

(1,336 words)

, aḥmad b. yaḥyā b. ḏj̲ābir b. dāwūd , one of the greatest Arabic historians of the 3rd/9th century. Little is known of his life. Neither the year of his birth nor that of his death is directly attested. From the dates of his teachers, it is evident that he cannot have been born later than the beginning of the second decade of the 9th century A.D.; for the date of his death, Muslim authors suggest, as the latest and most likely date, ca. 892 A.D. As he is said to have been a translator from the Persian, Persian origin has been arbitrarily assumed for him, but already his grandfather was a secretary in the service of al-Ḵh̲aṣīb in Egypt D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, fol. 162 a). He probably was born, and certainly spent most of his life, in Bag̲h̲dād and its environs. His studies led him to Damascus, Emesa, and Antioch, and in ʿIrāḳ: he studied, among others, with such famous historians as al-Madāʾinī, Ibn Saʿd, and Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī. He was a boon companion of al-Mutawakkil; his influence at the court appears to have continued under al-Mustaʿīn, but his fortunes declined sharply under al-Muʿtamid. The statement that he was a tutor of the poet, Ibn al-Muʿtazz, appears to be the result of a confusion of our historian with the grammarian, T̲h̲aʿlab, and the story that he died mentally deranged through inadvertent use of balād̲h̲ur ( Semecarpus Anacardium L. , marking-nut), a drug believed bénéficial for one’s mind and memory, is meant to refer not to him but to his grandfather, but even so, it constitutes a puzzle for which no satisfactory explanation is offered by the sources.
Title:
al-Balād̲h̲urī
Authors:
C.H. Becker
and
F. Rosenthal
Encyclopaedia of Islam New Edition Online (EI-2 English)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0094
Language:
English
Source Editors:
P.J. Bearman
First-online:
24 Apr 2012
ISSN:
1573-3912
Publisher:
Brill

Content Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 69 44 13
Full Text Views 139 103 7
PDF Views & Downloads 0 0 0