Abū al-ʿAynāʾ, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim b. Khallād al-Baṣrī (191–282/807–895), was an ʿAbbāsid rāwiya (transmitter of reports and sayings) and a discerning adīb (man of letters). His grandfather, Khallād, was from the al-Yamāma region, and was a client (mawlā) of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr, which is why his family was also called both al-Yamāmī and al-Hāshimī (al-Jāḥiẓ, 5/189; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, 2/145, 4/50; al-Khaṭīb, 3/170–171). He was called Abū al-ʿAynāʾ because as a youth he had asked his teacher, Abū Zayd al-Naḥwī, about the diminutive form of ʿayn (eye). In respon…