Al-Hamadhānī

(969 - 1008)

Born with the full name Badīʿ al-Zamān Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hamadhānī, the author Al-Hamadhānī became widely known by the pithier appellation Badīʿ al-Zamān (“Wonder of the Age”). Al-Hamadhānī traveled widely through Khorasan, Sīstān, and Ḡazna (now Afghanistan and Iran) before finally settling down in Herāt, where he married, is said to have gone mad, and died at the age of forty. He is credited with introducing the maqāma (“assembly”) genre to Arabic literature. Only fifty-two of these maqāmāt, survive today.