Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani

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Maqamat Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani

Badi' al-Zamān al-Hamadāni or Badi' al-Zamān al-Hamadhāni (967 - 1007; Arabic: بديع الزمان الهمذاني) was a tenth century master of Arabic prose. His main work was 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 at Hamedan, the ancient capital of the Medes and Persians known in antiquity as Ecbatana, in what is now Iran. In 990 he went to Jurjan, where he remained two years; then passing to Nishapur, where he rivalled and surpassed the learned Khwarizmi. After journeying through Khorasan and Sijistan (modern Sistan), he finally settled in Herat 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. He was one of the first to renew the use of rhymed prose both in letters and maqamas.

His letters were first published at Constantinople (1881), and with commentary at Beirut (1890); his maqamas at Constantinople, and with commentary at Beirut (1889). A good idea of the latter may be obtained from Silvestre de Sacys 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.