Al-Baladhuri

ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī (Arabic: أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري‎) was a 9th-century Muslim historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and enjoyed great influence at the court of the caliph al-Mutawakkil. He traveled in Syria and Iraq, compiling information for his major works.

Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri
Title	al-Baladhuri
Personal
Died	278-279 AH/892 CE[1][2]
Religion	Islam
Era	Islamic golden age
Region	Iraq
Main interest(s)	History
Notable work(s)	Kitab Futuh al-Buldan and Ansab al-Ashraf

His full name was Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Al-Baladhuri (Arabic: أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري‎), Balazry Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Abul Hasan[3] or Abi al-Hassan Baladhuri.[4]

Biography

Al-Baladhuri's ethnicity has been described as Arab[5][6] and Persian,[7][5] although his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Masudi refers to one of his works in which he rejects Baladhuri's condemnation of non-Arab nationalism Shu'ubiyya.[2]

He lived at the court of the caliphs al-Mutawakkil and Al-Musta'in and was tutor to the son of al-Mutazz. He died in 892 as the result of a drug called baladhur (hence his name).[2] (Baladhur is Semecarpus anacardium, known as the "marking nut"; medieval Arabic and Jewish writers describe it as a memory-enhancer).[8]

Works

His chief extant work, a condensation of a longer history, Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (فتوح البلدان), "Book of the Conquests of Lands", translated by Phillip Hitti (1916) and Francis Clark Murgotten (1924) in The Origins of the Islamic State, tells of the wars and conquests of the Arabs from the 7th century, and the terms made with the residents of the conquered territories. It covers the conquests of lands from Arabia west to Egypt, North Africa, and Spain and east to Iraq, Iran, and Sind.

His history, in turn, was much used by later writers. Ansab al-Ashraf (أنساب الأشراف, “Lineage of the Nobles”), also extant, is a biographical work in genealogical order devoted to the Arab aristocracy, from Muhammad and his contemporaries to the Umayyad and Abbāsid caliphs. It contains histories of the reigns of rulers.[9]

His discussions of the rise and fall of powerful dynasties provide a political moral. His commentaries on methodology are sparse, other than assertions of accuracy.[10]

See also

• List of Iranian scholars
• List of Islamic scholars

References

1. Translation of Futuh al-Buldan by Hitti
2.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Balādhurī". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 233.
3. Salaam Knowledge
4. Answering-Ansar.org :: Fadak; The property of Fatima al-Zahra [as] Archived 2007-01-25 at the Wayback Machine
5. Gholamali Haddad Adel; Mohammad Jafar Elmi; Hassan Taromi-Rad (31 January 2013). Historians of the Islamic World: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. pp. 2–. ISBN 978-1-908433-12-1.
6. Bosworth, C. E. "BALĀḎORĪ". ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
7. Saunders, J.J. (2006). A history of Medieval Islam (Reprint. ed.). London [u.a.]: Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 0-415-05914-3. Baladhuri was probably of Persian origin: he lived and wrote in Baghdad, and died in 892.
8. Bos, Gerrit: " 'Baladhur' (Marking-Nut): A Popular Medieval Drug for Strengthening Memory", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 59, No. 2 (1996), pp. 229-236 (full-text via JSTOR; article's first page available for all)
9. "Balādhurī, al-." Encyclopædia Britannica 2006.
10. "Baladhuri, Ahmad ibn Yahya al- - Oxford Islamic Studies Online". www.oxfordislamicstudies.com. Retrieved 2020-05-10.

External links

• Media related to Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Al-Baladhuri at Wikiquote
• Al-Balādhurī, britannica.com
• Al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā (1957). Futūḥ al-Buldān. Beirut: Dār al-Nashr li-al-Jāmi‘īyīn.
• Al-Balādhurī (1916). The Origins of the Islamic State: Translation with Annotations Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān of al-Imâm abu-l'Abbâs Aḥmad ibn-Jâbir al-Balâdhuri. 1. Translated by Philip Khuri Hitti. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Al-Baladhuri (1924). The Origins Of The Islamic State. 2. Translated by Francis Clark Murgotten. New York: Columbia University Press.