?Adud al-Dawla (d. 983), a Persian Shi?i tribal leader, entered Baghdad in 979 and was appointed the Amir al-?Umara, prince of princes, by the Sunni ?Abbasid caliph al-Ta?i (r. 974-991). ?Adud al-Dawla arose from the Daylamites, an isolated tribe in the isolated mountains of northern Iran. But, as the Buyid ruler in Baghdad, he attempted to use every means at his disposal to claim authority to rule, whether it meant drawing upon Arab, Persian, Sunni, Shi?i, or pre-Islamic Zoroastrian symbols. Scholars of Buyid history have overwhelmingly focused on the Persianate aspects of Buyid claims to authority and legitimacy, such as their adoption of the title “Shahanshah” and their forged genealogy linking the Buyid dynasty to the pre-Islamic Sasanid shahs. However, what has been ignored is the creative ways in which the Buyids sought to Arabize this Persian past for a heterogeneous audience made up of Persian and Arab Muslims. For example, ‘Adud al-Dawla claimed that the Daylamites were actually a lost Arab tribe and not Persian at all. Further, while claiming the pre-Islamic Persian title of Shahanshah and descent from the Sasanids, ‘Adud al-Dawla emphasized the Arab heritage of these Sasanid ancestors, chosing a Sasanid shah as his predecessor (Bahram Gur) who was best known for being raised by the Arab Lakhmid tribe and for winning his throne backed by an Arab army. Finally, while ‘Adud al-Dawla visited the ancient Persian city of Persepolis, the inscriptions that he left to commemorate his royal glory were in Arabic, not Persian. Finally, he also patronized the work of the famous Arab poet al-Mutanabbi, in which al-Mutanabbi highlighted Arab feelings of alienation in a Persian environment. These creative ways that the Buyids sought to claim legitimacy and authority through Arabizing their Persian heritage have been ignored by modern scholars. These Buyid appeals do not fit neatly into the conceptual categories that are typically used to define religious and ethnic identity in this era. Using Buyid-sponsored historical texts, such as the Kitab al-Taji of Abu Ishaq al-Sabi and the Tajarib al-Umam of al-Miskawayh, along with panegyric poetry written by al-Mutanabbi and carvings left at Persepolis, this paper will explore the ways in which ?Adud al-Dawla embodied the spirit of a tenth-century Islamic world that was only just becoming predominately Muslim and grappling with the influx of converts with a motley assortment of pre-Islamic identities.