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104
Abu '
ON THE FIRST DISCOURSE
All Muhammad 'ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abdu'llah
at-Tamfmi .al-Bal'amt was minister to the Sa'.nanf King Mansiir I
ibn Ijluh ibn Nasr (reigned A.H. 350-366; A.D. 961-976), for whom he,
translated Tabarf's great history, from Arabia into Persian. This Persian
version was lithographed at 'Lucknow in 1291/1874 (800 pages), and
a French translation of it 'by Hermann Zo^nberg was published in
Paris in four volumes (186,7-1874). This Bal'ami (Abu 'Ah')
is often
confused with his father Abu'1-Fadl, who also bore the name of Muhammad,
was minister to Isma'il the Samani, and died in 329/940-1,
while the son, with whom we are here concerned, died in 386/996.
Bal'am, from which both derive their nisba, is said to be a towr* in
Asia Minor. See Sam'ani's Ansdb (Gibb Series, vol. xx, f. 90*), where,
however, an alternative statement represents Bal'am as a district in the
village of Balashjird near Merv.
Ahmad ibnu'l-Hasan al-Maymandi, entitled Shamsu'l-
Kufat, was for fwenty years minister to Sultan Mahmiid o Ghazna
and his son Mas'ild, and died in 424/1033. He was a noted stylist, and
caused all official documents to be written in Arabic, not, as had pre,-
viously been the case, in Persian. His 'biography is given by al-'Utbij,
Abu'1-Fadl Bayhaqf, 'Awfi in his Lubdbu'l-Albdb, Ibnu'l-Athfr, the
Athdrifl- Wuzard of Sayfu'd-Dm al-'Aqili and the DasturnU- Wuzard
of Khwandamir. For the references see the footnotes on pp. 98-9 of
the Persian text.
Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Muhammad al-
Kunduri, entitled 'Amfdu'1-Mulk, was for a long while P,rime
Minister to the Saljdqs Tughril Beg and Alp Arslan, and was finally
put to death at the instigation of his yet more celebrated successor the
Nizamu'1-Mulk in 456/1064, or, according to Sam'ani f. (Ansdb, 488 b
),
about 460/1067-8.
' Muhammad [ibn] Abduh" is mentioned again on p. 24 of thfc
text as one of the secretaries of Bughra Khan of the Khaniyya (Turkish)
dynasty of Transoxiana. He flourished in the latter part of the fourth
and beginning of the fifth centuries of the hijra, and bis poems are
frequently cited in evidence by Rashidu'd-Din Watwat in his Had&iqitsihr,
or "Gardens of Magic," a well-known work