This name is known only from some citations by al-Ghūzūli, although Ḥamīdallāh argued that he was identical to the Muhadhdhab ibn al-Zubayr whose poetry is cited in al-Maqrīzī's Khiṭaṭ.
The other parts of his Arabic name are his kunya Abū l-Ḥusayn ('father of al-Ḥusayn') and his nasab, Ibn al-Zubayr, referring to the name of an ancestor.
[4] Shākir Muṣṭafā identifies al-Ghūzūli's Ibn al-Zubayr with the 12th-century judge and al-Maqrīzī's with his brother, a poet who died in 1166.
In 1052 or 1053, he witnessed at Tinnīs the transshipment of gifts sent by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX and bound for Cairo and the court of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustanṣir.
At Tinnīs in 1070, he was told by Khaṭīr al-Mulk Muḥammad, son of the vizier al-Yāzurī, about a gift sent to al-Mustanṣir by King Iqbāl al-Dawla of Dénia [ca].
[6][7] Both al-Maqrīzī in his Khiṭaṭ and Ittiʿāẓ al-Hunafā and al-Ghūzūli's Maṭāliʿ quote excerpts not included in al-Awḥadī's compendium.
[8] At the end of the sole surviving copy, al-Awḥadī calls the book he compiled from Kitāb al-Hadāyā waʾl-tuḥaf, 'Book of Gifts and Rarities'.
[11] The first edition of the Book of Gifts and Rarities was published as the first volume in Kuwait's "Arab Heritage" series in 1999 under the title Kitāb adh-dhakhāʾir waʾt-tuḥaf.
[14] The earliest episode recounted in the surviving version of the text is the gifts sent to the rulers of China, India and Tibet by the Sasanian king Khosrow I (531–579).
[17] The Book is the most important source for two famous pearls of great size, al-Yatīma (Orphan) and al-ʿAẓīma (Enormous).