However the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam notes that according to other sources (citing al-Marzubani), he was born in 752/753, which can be treated as "his approximate year of birth".
[2] Al-Mada'ini and his family were clients (mawlas) of Abd al-Rahman ibn Samura al-Qurashi (died 670/1), a companion of Muhammad and a commander of the early Muslim armies who battled in the regions of Sijistan, Khurasan, Kabul, and Zabulistan.
[1] Al-Mada'ini was "a highly productive scholar with many-sided interests", producing over 200 works over his career, including such diverse fields like zoology, geography, Arabic literature and poetry.
Most of his writings however focus on historical subjects, dealing with the history of the Islamic world from the pre-Islamic times to his own day.
[3] Among Muslim scholars, al-Mada'ini was especially prized as a reliable source on the transmission (akhbar) of the hadith, particularly from the eastern parts of the Islamic world, Khurasan and India.