Ajay Kumar at 20:58, 29 August 2023

2023-08-29T20:58:46Z

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{{Short description|Abbasid-era Muslim historian (820-892)}}
{{Infobox religious biography
|religion=[[Islam]]
| era = [[Islamic golden age]] <br> ([[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid Era]])
| name = Ahmad Ibn Yahya ibn Jabir al-Baladhuri
| title= Al-Baladhuri
| birth_date = c. 820
| birth_place = [[Baghdad]], [[Abbasid Caliphate]]
| death_date = {{death year and age|892|820}}<ref>Translation of Futuh al-Buldan by Hitti</ref><ref name="Britannica">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Balādhurī|volume=3|page=233}}</ref>
| death_place = [[Baghdad]], Abbasid Caliphate
| Maddhab = [[Sunni]]
| school_tradition=
| ethnicity =
| region = [[Mesopotamia]]
| main_interests = [[History]]
| notable_ideas=
| works = <small>[[Kitab Futuh al-Buldan]] and [[Ansab al-Ashraf]]</small>
| influences =
| influenced =
}}

'''ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī''' ({{lang-ar|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 travelled in [[Syria]] and [[Iraq]], compiling information for his major works.

His full name was Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Al-Baladhuri ({{lang-ar|أحمد بن يحيى بن جابر البلاذري}}), Balazry Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Abul Hasan<ref name="salaam.co.uk">[http://www.salaam.co.uk/knowledge/biography/viewentry.php?id=460 Salaam Knowledge]</ref> or Abi al-Hassan Baladhuri.<ref>[http://www.answering-ansar.org/answers/fadak/en/chap2.php Answering-Ansar.org :: Fadak; The property of Fatima al-Zahra [as]] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070125224232/http://www.answering-ansar.org/answers/fadak/en/chap2.php |date=2007-01-25 }}</ref>

==Biography==
Al-Baladhuri's ethnicity has been described as [[Arab people|Arab]]<ref name="AdelElmi2013" /><ref>{{cite web|last1=Bosworth|first1=C. E.|title=BALĀḎORĪ|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baladori-abul-hasan|publisher=ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA|access-date=22 November 2016}}</ref> and [[Persian people|Persian]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=Saunders|first1=J.J.|title=A history of Medieval Islam|url=https://archive.org/details/historymedievali00saun_900|url-access=limited|date=2006|publisher=Routledge|location=London [u.a.]|isbn=0-415-05914-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/historymedievali00saun_900/page/n74 58]|edition=Reprint.|quote=Baladhuri was probably of Persian origin: he lived and wrote in Baghdad, and died in 892.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Vacca |first1=Alison |title=[[Non-Muslim Provinces under Early Islam: Islamic Rule and Iranian Legitimacy in Armenia and Caucasian Albania]] |date=2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1107188518 |page=1 |quote=In the second half of the ninth century, an Iranian historian named Aḥmad b. Yaḥy āl-Balādhurī wrote ''The Conquests of the Lands'', an Arabic history about the Islamic conquest of the Near East and the formation of the Caliphate.}}</ref><ref name="AdelElmi2013">{{cite book|author1=Gholamali Haddad Adel|author2=Mohammad Jafar Elmi|author3=Hassan Taromi-Rad|title=Historians of the Islamic World: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3CAYThJIQUgC&pg=PA2|date=31 January 2013|publisher=EWI Press|isbn=978-1-908433-12-1|pages=2–}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="Britannica"/>

He lived at the court of the [[caliph]]s [[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).<ref name="Britannica"/> (''Baladhur'' is ''Semecarpus anacardium'', known as the "marking nut"; medieval Arabic and Jewish writers describe it as a memory-enhancer).<ref name="Bos">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/619709 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)</ref>

==Works==
{{wikisource author}}
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.<ref>"Balādhurī, al-." ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 2006.</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Baladhuri, Ahmad ibn Yahya al- - Oxford Islamic Studies Online|url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e283?_hi=5&_pos=1|website=www.oxfordislamicstudies.com|access-date=2020-05-10}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[List of Islamic scholars]]

==References==
<references />

==Further reading==
* {{Encyclopaedia Islamica|last1=Bahramian|first1=Ali|last2=Esots|first2=Janis|last3=Asatryan|first3=Mushegh|title=al-Balādhurī |url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-islamica/al-baladhuri-COM_00000052|year=2015}}

==External links==
*{{commons category-inline}}
*{{Wikiquote-inline}}
*[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9011889/al-Baladhuri Al-Balādhurī, ''britannica.com'']
*{{cite book|author-last=Al-Balādhurī|author-first=Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā |title=Futūḥ al-Buldān |place=Beirut|publisher=Dār al-Nashr li-al-Jāmi‘īyīn| year=1957}}
*{{cite book| author=Al-Balādhurī |title=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 |place=New York|publisher=Columbia University Press| year=1916 |volume=1 |translator=[[Philip Khuri Hitti]] | url=https://archive.org/details/originsofislamic00balarich}}
*{{cite book |author =Al-Baladhuri|author-link=Al-Baladhuri | title = The Origins Of The Islamic State|url= https://archive.org/details/originsoftheisla032520mbp |translator=Francis Clark Murgotten| year = 1924 |volume=2 |location=New York | publisher = Columbia University Press}}
{{Historians of Islam}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baladhuri, Ahmad Ibn Yahya}}
[[Category:892 deaths]]
[[Category:9th-century Iranian historians]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:9th-century Arabic writers]]
[[Category:Court scholars]]
[[Category:Courtiers of the Abbasid Caliphate]]
[[Category:Iranian historians of Islam]]
[[Category:820 births]]

Al-Baladhuri - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 20:58, 29 August 2023