WikiJournal of Humanities/Volume 3 Issue 1

Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Ḥaytham al-Umawī al-Iṣfahānī (died after 356AH/967CE) was a litterateur, genealogist, poet, musicologist, scribe, and boon companion in the tenth century, mainly based in Baghdad. He is best known as the author of Kitāb al-Aghānī (“The Book of Songs”), a unique work which includes abundant information about the earliest attested periods of Arabic music (from the seventh to the ninth centuries) and the lives of poets and musicians from the pre-Islamic period to al-Iṣfahānī’s time. Given his contribution to the documentation of the history of Arabic music, al-Iṣfahānī is characterised by Sawa as “a true prophet of modern ethnomusicology”.