Born into a family of Sabian bureaucrats, al-Ṣābi converted to Islam in 402-403 A.H/1012 AD.
[1] First working under the Buyid amir Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, he later became the Director of the Chancery[1] under Baha' al-Daula's vizier Fakhr al-Mulk.
Perhaps his most famous book is the Rusum dar al-khilafa which is a manual for behavior and work in the Abbasid court of late Buyid Baghdad.
Though it is designed as a set of instructions and advice, the book contains numerous statistics, anecdotes and historical asides.
This too survives only in fragmentary form, but its fragments fill a gap in the chronicles of the late Buyid era, up to the year 393 hijri (1003 AD).