Badi' al-Zamān al-Hamadāni or al-Hamadhāni was a Medieval Arab man of letters born in Hamathah (in modern days Iran). He is best known for his work the maqamat, a collection of 52 episodic stories of a rogue, Abu al-Fath al-Iskandari, as recounted by a narrator, 'Isa b. Hisham. He was also known as "Badi uz-Zaman" (the wonder of the age).

Hamadhani was born and educated in Hamedan. In 990 he went to Gorgan

Gorgan

Gorgan Some east of Gorgan is the Golestan National Park. The city has a regional airport and several universities. Gorgan Airport was opened in September 2005.-Etymology:...

, where he remained two years; then passing to Nishapur

Nishapur

Nishapur or Nishabur , is a city in the Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran, situated in a fertile plain at the foot of the Binalud Mountains, near the regional capital of Mashhad...

, where he rivalled and surpassed the learned Khwarizmi. After journeying through Khorasan

Greater Khorasan

Greater Khorasan or Ancient Khorasan is a historical region of Greater Iran mentioned in sources from Sassanid and Islamic eras which "frequently" had a denotation wider than current three provinces of Khorasan in Iran...

 and Sijistan (modern Sistan

Sistan

Sīstān is a border region in eastern Iran , southwestern Afghanistan and northern tip of Southwestern Pakistan .-Etymology:...

), he finally settled in Herat

Herat

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

 under the protection of the vizir of Mahmud, the Ghaznevid sultan. There he died at the age of forty. He was renowned for a remarkable memory and for fluency of speech, as well as for the purity of his language.

His letters were first published at Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 (1881), and with commentary at Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

 (1890); his maqamas at Constantinople, and with commentary at Beirut (1889). A good idea of the latter may be obtained from Silvestre de Sacy

Silvestre de Sacy

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy , was a French linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist.-Early life:...

s edition of six of the maqamas with French translation and notes in his Chrestomathie arabe, vol. iii. (2nd ed., Paris, 1827). A specimen of the letters is translated into German in A. von Kremers Culturgeschichte des Orients, ii. 470 sqq.

External links

• The Maqámát of Badí‘ al-Zamán al-Hamadhání English translation at sacred-texts.com