ABŪ NAṢR FĀMĪ, ṮEQAT-AL-DĪN ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN B. ʿABD-AL-JABBĀR B. ʿOṮMĀN, 472-546/1079-1151, local historian of Herat in the Saljuq period. The scanty biographical information we possess derives only from Samʿānī [Leiden], fol. 418b) and from Ebn al-ʿEmād (Šaḏarāt al-ḏahab, Cairo, 1350-51/1931-33, IV, p. 140). These authors describe him as pious and modest, a ḥāfeẓ, traditionist, and copyist of sacred texts, from whom many scholars in Herat and Pūšang subsequently related Traditions. It is curious that Samʿānī does not explain the nesba al-Fāmī, but this presumably related to a quarter in Herat or to one of the surrounding villages. Abū Naṣr’s Taʾrīḵ Harāt (it is uncertain if it was composed in Arabic or Persian) is one of seven listed by Ḥāǰǰī Ḵalīfa (Kašf al-ẓonūn [Leipzig] II, pp. 157-58). It seems to have been especially detailed on the legendary origins and pre-Islamic history of the town and is quoted for these early times by the two surviving histories of Herat: Sayf b. Moḥammad Haravī’s Tārīḵ-nāme-ye Harāt (ed. M. L. al-Ṣeddīqī, Calcutta, 1955, pp. 25-26; cf. editor’s intro., pp. viii-ix); and Moḥammad Moʿīn-al-dīn Zamčī Esfezārī’s Rawżat al-ǰannāt fī awṣāf madīn a Harāt (ed. S. M. K. Emām, Tehran, 1338-39/1959-60, I, pp. 42, 55, 87 and passim)
Bibliography:Given in the text.
(C. E. Bosworth)
Originally Published: December 15, 1983
Last Updated: July 21, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 4, p. 350
C. E. Bosworth, “ABŪ NAṢR FĀMĪ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, p. 350; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abu-nasr-fami-eqat-al-din-abd-al-rahman-b (accessed on 30 January 2014).
