Abū Naṣr Mushkān or Manṣūr b. Mushkān, known as al-Shaykh al-ʿAmīd (d. 431/1040), was a man of letters, court minister, and influential advisor to the Ghaznawid sultans Maḥmūd and Masʿūd. The name Manṣūr is found only in certain literary works from the Ghaznawid era (al-Thaʿālibī, Khāṣṣ al-khāṣṣ, 598; al-Bākharzī, 2/976). The kunya Abū Manṣūr, which is attributed to him in al-Thaʿālibī's Tatimma (2/62), is probably the result of a copyist's error. There is no precise information as to when or where Abū Naṣr was born. Al-Thaʿālibī includes him among the poets of Nīsābūr (Yatīma, 4/450), …