HAMADHANI [ABTI-L FADL AHMAD IBN UL-HUSAIN UL HAMADHANI] (967-1007), Arabian writer, known as Badi` uz Zaman (the wonder of the age), was born and educated at Hamadhan. After 990 he travelled in Jorjan, Nishapur, Khorasan and Sijistan, and finally settled in Herat under the protection of the vizir of Mahmud, the Ghaznevid sultan. He was renowned for a remarkable memory and for fluency of speech, as well as for the purity of his language. He was one of the first to renew the use of rhymed prose both in letters and maqdmas. (See ARABIA : Literature, section "Belles Lettres.") His letters were published at Constantinople (1881) , and with com mentary at Beirut (189o) ; his maqamas at Constantinople (1881) , and with commentary at Beirut (1889) . S. de Sacy has edited six of the maqamas with French trans. in Chrestomathie arabe, vol. iii. (2nd ed., 1827) . See also A. von Kremer's Culturgeschichte des Orients, ii. (Vienna, 1877) .