al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Jābir b. Dāwūd (d. ca. 279/892), a prominent author, poet, translator, historiographer and genealogist of the 3rd/9th century. The earliest sources of information on his life and activities, such as the Kitāb Baghdād of Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr (d. 280/893) or the Muʿjam al-shuʿarāʾ of Muḥammad b. ʿImrān al-Marzubānī (d. ca. 380/990), have survived only in part, and one has to rely on quotations from these books in the works of later authors in order to reconstruct what…