Balami, Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Muhammad

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Balami, Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Muhammad

 

Born in Merv. Year of birth unknown; died in 974 or 996. Persian-Tadzhik writer, vizier.

Balami was the author of the oldest prose work in Dari— Tabari’s History (written in 963)—which was a treatment of the well-known history of al-Tabari. Balami added to it a description of many episodes from the life of Iranian peoples, a heroic epos and early subjects that existed until the tenth century, and numerous legends and stories (the dastan Bahram Chubiri).

WORKS

Tarikhe Tabari. Kanpur 1896. (A translation into Farsi of al-Tabari’s works [lithographed edition].)

REFERENCES

Gafurov, B. G. Istoriia tadzhikskogo naroda,3rd ed., vol. 1. Moscow, 1955.
Braginskii, I. S. Ocherki iz istorii tadzhikskoi literatury. Stalinabad, 1956.
Griaznevich, P. A., and A. N. Boldyrev. “O dvukh redaktsiiakh Ta’rikh-i Tabari Balami.” Sovetskoe vostokovedenie,1957, no. 3.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.