Abū ʿAlī Balkhī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, was the author of one of the oldest versions of the Shāhnāmah. There is no information on his life. Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (p. 99) merely refers to him as a poet in his al-Āthār al-bāqiya, and also attributes a version of the Shāhnāmah to him. This Shāhnāmah cannot be dated with any exactitude, but it can be said that, along with the Shāhnāmahs of Masʿūdī Marwazī, Abū al-Muʾayyid Balkhī (q.v.) and also the Abū Manṣūrī Shāhnāmah (see below) his version is one of the oldest prior to Firdawsī's epic poem (see Qazwīnī, Bīst maqāla, 2/10 ff.).

The lack of adequate hi…