Al-Ābī, Abū Saʿd Manṣūr b. al-Ḥusayn, known as al-Wazīr Dhū al-Maʿālī and Zayn al-Kufāt (d. 421/1030 or 422/1031 and more likely 432/1040) was a Twelver Shiʿi author, poet and statesman. He was born in Āba (or Āwa), and Abū Saʿd was almost certainly his kunya (Yāqūt, Buldān, 1/51; al-Amīn, 10/138). It is not unlikely that in his youth he narrated ḥadīths from Ibn Bābawayh, al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 381/991), but it is doubtful that he was a disciple of the other great Twelver Shiʿi scholar, al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) (Ibn Bābawayh, 105; Aqā Buzurg, 5/195). Also,…