Negating the Attribution of Ajaib al-Donya to Abu’l-Moʾayyad Balkhi According to Historical and Textual Evidence

There are two scholarly viewpoints regarding the book Ajaib al-Donya: some consider it a rewritten version of the book Ajaib al-bar Va’lbahr by Abu’l-Moʾayyad Balkhi, and others consider it an independent book, merely one of its sources being a book by Abu’l-Moʾayyad Balkhi. According to the information presented at the beginning and introduction of the three surviving manuscripts, the style of writing of the text, and the information given in Tarikh-e Sistan about Abu’l-Moʾayyad, besides what the author of Ajaib al-Donya implies about himself throughout the anecdotes, and finally, regarding the resemblance between the anecdotes in this book and those of Garšāsp-nama, this study shows that Ajaib al-Donya is not a rewritten version of the book of Abu’l-Moʾayyad; it is rather an independent book and merely one of the sources used by its author, Ibn Muhadith Tabrizi, was a book by Abu’l-Moʾayyad, most possibly Garšāsp-nama, and that Ibn Muhadith, while quoting from Abu’l-Moʾayyad, has also quoted from others, including Najib Hamedani, with a similar structure. Since the text of the introduction has been lost over time, it seems probable that the author's explanations about Abu’l-Moʾayyad Abu Motiʿ al-Balkhi at the beginning of the first surviving anecdote were mistaken to be the introduction of the book and later, according to some quotations from Abu’l-Moʾayyad in Ajaib al-Donya, and due to Abu’l-Moʾayyad’s fame, the book was attributed to him. The reference to the name “Abu’l-Moʾayyad Abu Motiʿ al-Balkhi” in one of the manuscripts is the proof of this dispute. All of the other arguments offered by different scholars in attributing this work to Abu’l-Moʾayyad bear various weak points and shortcomings.