Abū Bakr Muḥammad Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī (255–97/868–909) was a legal scholar of Baghdad known for his poetry anthology, Kitāb al-zahra. He was born in Baghdad, the son and successor of the Kufan jurist Dāwūd b. ʿAlī (202–70/818–84), who founded the Ẓāhirī school of law in Baghdad. After his father’s death, Ibn Dāwūd succeeded him as the leader of that school. However, his fame is not based on his activities as a jurist, but rather on the anthology of poetry.

Little is known about Ibn Dāwūd’s life. Half of the twenty-two preserved anecdotes about him (Raven, Ibn Dâwûd, 36–57) deal with his …