al-Basawī (also al-Fasawī), Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Sufyān b. Jawān al-Fārisī (d. 277/890), was a Persian traditionist and historian. He was born in Basā or Pasā (Fasā), a major suburb of the district of Dārābgird in Fārs. The exact date of his birth is not known. Occurences of the nisba ‘al-Nasawī’ can be put down to scribal error (taṣḥīf) (see al-Khaṭīb, 9/428; Ibn Shahrāshūb, 1/8; al-Rūdānī, 374). Some sources give 280/893 or 281/894 as the year of his death (see Ibn Ḥibbān, 9/287), and given that he was over eighty at the time he died (al-Dhahabī, al-ʿIbar, 1/399), he w…