Abū Sahl Ḥamdawī, Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Abū Sahl (d. after 432/1041), was a prominent Ghaznawid administrator, vizier, emir and man of letters. In some sources his name is recorded as Ḥamdūʾī or even Ḥamdūnī; but his contemporary, the author al-Thaʿālibī, gives his name and title as Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Ḥamdawī. He is also referred to as Ḥamdawī in Arabic and Persian verses by his eulogists (al-Thaʿālibī, 2/60, 74; Farrukhī, 400; Qazwīnī, 4/161, 162).
According to Abū al-Faḍl Bayhaqī, whose history—especially those passages dealing with Abū Sahl's life during the time of Masʿūd G…