AL BILA′DURI′.
II.
FUTU′HU-L BULDA′N
OF
AHMAD BIN YAHYA IBN JA′BIR
AL BILA′DURI′.
THIS work is in the Leyden University Library, and has been described by Hamaker, at pp. 7 and 239 of his “Specimen Catalogi, Codd MSS. Orientalium,” An abstract of it is given in an appendix contained in the third volume of Dr. Gustave Weil’s Geschichte der Chalifen, and the entire chapter on the conquest of Sind, has been edited by M. Reinaud in the Journal Asiatique for February 1845, reprinted with additional notes in his valuable “Fragments Arabes et Persans inedits relatifs a l’ Inde. [There is also a copy in the British Museum. The complete text has lately been admirably printed at Leyden, under the editorship of M. de Goeje.]
The author is Ahmad bin Yahya, bin Jábir, surnamed also Abú Ja’far and Abú-l Hasan, but more usually known as Biládurí, who lived towards the middle of the ninth century of our era, at the court of the Khalif Al Mutawakkal, where he was engaged as instructor to one of the princes of his family. He died A.H. 279, A.D. 892-3 This is according to Reinaud’s statement—Pascual de Grayangos while he gives the same year of his death, on the authority of Abú-l Mahásin, says he lived at Baghdád in the Khalifat of Al-Mu’tamad. He left a large as well as a small edition of the Futúhu-l Buldán.
