Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Iṣfahānī, also known as Abul-Faraj, was a writer, historian, genealogist, poet, musicologist and scribe. He was of Arab-Quraysh origin and mainly based in Baghdad. He is best known as the author of Kitab al-Aghani, which includes information about the earliest attested periods of Arabic music and the lives of poets and musicians from the pre-Islamic period to al-Isfahani's time. Given his contribution to the documentation of the history of Arabic music, al-Isfahani is characterised by George Sawa as "a true prophet of modern ethnomusicology".
