Banū al-Munajjim, or Āl al-Munajjim, the name given to the family descended from Ibn Abī Manṣūr, a Persian court astrologer (munajjim) and mathematician who embraced Islam during the reign of the seventh ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–833). Over five generations the Banū al-Munajjim made their mark at the ʿAbbāsid court, initially in the field of astrology and the mathematical sciences, but later in music as well as literature and Arabic poetry.

The original ancestor of the family, Abān Ḥasīs or Fīrūzān (known as Abū Manṣūr), who claimed descent from the…