Abū Bakr Quhistānī, ʿAmīd al-Mulk ʿAlī b. Ḥasan (d. 435/1044), was a man of letters and courtier in the time of the Ghaznawid sultans Maḥmūd and Muḥammad in the first half of the 5th/11th century.

Al-Bākharzī says that he was from Rukhkhaj (2/127), but in the early sources he is called ‘Quhistānī’ (for example, see Farrukhī, 169, 195; al-Thaʿālibī, 2/73; Gardīzī, 397). In his youth, Quhistānī was a boon companion (nadīm) to the Ghaznawid sultan, Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030). According to one report, Sulṭān Maḥmūd opposed the ʿAbbāsid caliph, al-Qādir bi'llāh (r. 3…