Hamdani

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Abu Muhammad Al-hasan Ibn Ahmad Al-hamdani (ca. 893 - 945), Arabic (أبو محمد الحسن بن احمد الهمداني ), was an Arab geographer, poet, grammarian, historian, and astronomer. He was one of the best representatives of Islamic culture during the last effective years of the Abbasid caliphate.

The biographic data of al-Hamdani is hardly well-known, despite his extensive scientific work. He was held in repute as a grammarian, wrote much poetry, compiled astronomical tables, devoted most of his life to the study of the ancient history and geography of Arabia, and died in prison in San‘a’, Yemen in 945.

His Geography of the Arabian Peninsula (Kiidl Jazirat ul-Arab) is by far the most important work on the subject. After being used in manuscript by A. Sprenger in his Post- und Reiseroulen des Orients (Leipzig, 1864) and further in his Alte Geographic Arabiens (Bern, 1875), it was edited by D.H. Müller (Leiden, 1884; cf. Sprenger's criticism in Zeitschrift der der Usehen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vol. 45, pp. 361-394).

Much has also been written on this work by E. Glaser in his various publications on ancient Arabia. The other great work of Hamdani is the Iklil (Crown) concerning the genealogies of the Himyarites and the wars of their kings in ten volumes. Of this, part 8, on the citadels and castles of south Arabia, has been edited and annotated by Müller in Die Burgen und Schlösser Sudarabiens (Vienna, 1879-1881).

For other works said to have been written by Hamdani see G Flügel's Die grammatischen Schulen der Araber (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 220-221.