Abū al-Muʾayyad Balkhī, a writer and poet of the 4th/10th century and one of the first compilers of the Shāhnāmah. Little is known about his life and education. However, surviving fragments of his Garshāsb-nāmah (see Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 35–37) and certain topics he brings into the Shāhnāmah (see ʿUnṣur al-Maʿālī, 4; Mujmal al-tawārīkh, 2; Ibn Isfandiyār, 1/60) suggest that he was familiar with Pahlavi myths and legends and had seen the Bundahishn, Khudāy-nāmah or Siyar al-mulūk. He was also fluent in the Pahlavi language and its terms and …