BALADHURI (

See also:

• ABU

ABU-L-'ABBAS AHMAD

See also:

• IBN

IBN YAHYA IBN JABIR AL-BALADHURi)  , Arabian historian, was a Persian by birth, though his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Mas'udi refers to one of his works in which he refuted the Shu'ubites (see Ant `UBAIDA) . He lived at the court of the caliphs aI-Mutawakkil and al-Musta'in and was tutor to the son of al-Mu'tazz . He died in 892 as the result of a drug called baladhur (hence his name) . The work by which he is best known is the Futuh ul-Bulddn (Conquests of Lands),. edited by M . J. de Goeje as Liber expugnationis regionum (Leiden, 187o ; Cairo, 1901) .. This work is a digest of a larger one, which is now Iost . It contains an account of the early conquests of Mahomet and the early caliphs . Baladhuri is said to have spared no trouble in collecting traditions, and to have visited various parts of 'north Syria and Mesopotamia for this purpose . Another great historical work of his was the Ansdb ul-Ashraf (Genealogies of the Nobles), of which he is said to have written forty parts when he died . Of this work the eleventh book has been published by W . Ahlwardt (Greifswald, 1883), and another part is known in manuscript (see Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxviii. pp . 382-406) .

He also made some

translations from Persian into Arabic . (G . W .