Ibn Qutaiba, Abu Muhammad Abdallah Ibn Muslim

Ibn Qutaiba, Abu Muhammad Abdallah Ibn Muslim 

Born 828 in Baghdad; died there circa 889. Arab philologist, historian, and writer.

Ibn Qutaiba’s ancestors came from the city of Merv (present-day Mary in the Turkmen SSR). The founder of the Baghdad school of Arab philology, he collected, systematized, studied, and commented on the major works of ancient literature. His most important works include Sources of News (ten books), one of the earliest extensive prose anthologies of historical, literary, and didactic content in Arabic literature; Mirror of the Writer’, and Book of Poetry and Poets, a bibliographic dictionary listing the works of Arab poets from the sixth through the ninth centuries.

REFERENCES

Krachkovskii, I. lu. Izbr. soch., vol. 2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1956.
Rosen, V. “Zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte der ālteren Zeit. I. Ibn Quteiba: Kitāb ‘Ujûn al-akhbâr.” Bulletin de l’Académic Imp. des sciences de St.-Pétersbourg, 1881, vol. 27, no. 1.