al-Balkhī, Abū Zayd - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Biesterfeldt, Hans Hinrich
Leiden
Brill
(1,119 words)
Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Balkhī (d. 322/934) was a prolific author who wrote works-most of which are lost-on philosophy, medicine, geography, cultural history, theology, and religious history in the encyclopaedic tradition of al-Kindī (d. soon after 256/870), in whose Baghdad circle he is said to have moved. Al-Balkhī is best known as one of the founders of Islamic geography; his work-consisting of perhaps twenty regional maps with commentaries that provided information, beyond physical geography, on climate, agricultural products, and their influence