In Volume 1-1: Qurʾānic Literature, History, and Biography | Section 2, History, Biography, etc.

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§ 458. Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī, whose name is not more precisely known, was a Balk̲h̲ī by descent but he was brought up in Fārs, where his grandfather was Mustaufī circ. 492/1098–9 under the Atābak K̲h̲umārtigīn in the reign of the Saljūqid Barkiyāruq (ah 487/1094–498/1104). It was at the command of Barkiyāruq’s brother and successor G̲h̲iyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad (ah 498/1104–511/1117) that Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī wrote his Fārs-nāmah. He originally intended to include in it a general history of Islām from the Prophet’s time to his own day but afterwards decided to make the general history a separate work. Whether he ever wrote this general history is unknown.

Fārs-nāmah, a history and geography of Fārs beginning with an account of the Pre-Islāmic Persian dynasties which occupies nearly two-thirds of the whole: British Museum Or. 5983 (early 14th cent.), Blochet i 503 (ah 1273/1856, apparently transcribed from the preceding).

Edition: The Fársnáma of Ibnu ’l-Balkhí. Edited by G. le Strange and R.A. Nicholson, London 1921°* (Gibb Memorial Series, n.s. 1).

English translation of the geographical portion: Description of the Province of Fars … at the beginning of the twelfth century A.D., translated from the MS. of Ibn-al-Balkhí in the British Museum, by G. le Strange (in the jras. 1912 pp. 1–30, 311–39, 865–89, and also, as a separate volume, in the Asiatic Society Monographs (no. 14)).

¶ [Autobiographical statements of the author (for which see the m.s. edition, pp. x–xi).]

§ 459. Muʿīn al-Dīn Abū ’l -ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Abī ’l-K̲h̲air S̲h̲irāzī, called Ibn i Zarkūb i S̲h̲īrāzī, was a grandson of S̲h̲aik̲h̲ [ʿIzz al-Dīn] Zarkūb i S̲h̲īrāzī. On his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca in 734/1333–4 he went to Bag̲h̲dād and stayed there for two years. In 744/1343–4 he completed his S̲h̲īrāz-nāmah. having previously written a two-volume history of Amīr S̲h̲aik̲h̲ Abū Isḥāq [Injū], who became ruler of S̲h̲īrāz in 743/1342–3. He died in 789/1387.

S̲h̲īrāz-nāmah, a history of S̲h̲īrāz to ah 744/1343–4, in a muqaddimah (on the merits of Fārs, the beauties of S̲h̲īrāz and its foundation), two faṣls ((1) the rulers of Fārs; Buwaihids, Saljūqids, Salg̲h̲urids, Mongols, Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh, Masʿūd S̲h̲āh and Abū Isḥāq, (2) S̲h̲aik̲h̲s and Imāms of S̲h̲īrāz) and a k̲h̲ātimah (on Saiyids who entered S̲h̲īrāz and some saints whose shrines are there): Rieu i 204b (ah 1068/1658), 205b (ah 1099/1688), 205b (early 19th cent.), Blochet i 504 (defective. 18th cent.), Dorn 305 (extends to ah 763/1352), Dorn a.m. p. 374, Berlin 63 (1) (ah 1208/1794), 534 (1) (modern), Strassburg 24 (ah 1251/1835).

Edition: Ṭihrān a.h.s. 1310/ah 1350/ad 1932‡ (Introduction dated 1311) (edited by Bahman Karīmī).

[Muʿīn al-Dīn Junaid al-S̲h̲īrāzī, S̲h̲add al-izār (Rieu Arabic Suppt. p. 462); Introduction to the Ṭihrān edition.]

§ 460. For the Riyāḍ al-firdaus, a general history of Persia, but more especially of Fārs, Kūhgīlūyah and K̲h̲ūzistān, completed in 1082/1671–2 by M. Mīrak b. Masʿūd al-Ḥusainī, see p. 185 supra.

§ 461. M. Mufīd Mustaufī b. Najm al-Dīn Maḥmūd Bāfqī Yazdī became in 1077/1666–7 Mustaufī of the Waqfs and two years later Nāẓir of the Waqfs of Yazd, his native city. In Rajab 1081/1670 he went to Iṣfahān and thence to al-Najaf, Karbalāʾ and al-Baṣrah. In 1082/1671 he sailed from al-Baṣrah to Sūrat, and proceeded thence to Delhi and Ḥaidarābād. In 1084/1673–4 he was at Burhānpūr, in 1086/1675–6 at Delhi and in Ṣafar 1088/1677 at Ujjain, where he entered the service of Prince M. Akbar, Aurangzēb’s fourth son, as k̲h̲ānsāmān.

In addition to the Jāmiʿ i Mufīdī he wrote the Majālis al-mulūk (see p. 185 supra), the Muk̲h̲taṣar i Mufīd (see p. 185 supra) and a short autobiography (Bodleian 423).

Jāmiʿ i Mufīdī, begun at Baṣraḥ ah 1082/1671, completed at Multān ah 1090/1679, a history of Yazd and its famous men in three mujallads ¶ (1) from Alexander to the Tīmūrids, (2) the Ṣafawids to S̲h̲āh Sulaimān. Written in S̲h̲āhjahānābād ah 1088/1677, (3) biographical and topographical information concerning Yazd, the author’s life and travels¹ etc.): Blochet iv 2294 (vol. iii. ah 1090/1679. Transcribed under the author’s supervision), i 351 (vol. i only. 18th cent.), Rieu iii 1039a (extracts from vol. ii. Circ. ad 1850), i 207b (vol. iii. ah 1089–90/1678–9, autograph).

§ 462. M. Jaʿfar K̲h̲ūrmūjī has already been mentioned (p. 269 supra) as the author of the Ḥaqāʾīq al-ak̲h̲bār i Nāṣirī, published at Ṭihrān in 1284/1867.

Āt̲h̲ār i Jaʿfarī, on the topography and history of Fārs, with a sketch of the history and geography of the world.

Edition: [Ṭihrān ?] 1276/1860°.

§ 463. According to Clément Huart it was in 1888 that Mīrzā Ḥusain “T̲h̲uraiyā” Ṭihrānī wrote for Iḥtis̲h̲ām al-Daulah, the son of Prince Farhād Mīrzā Muʿtamad al-Daulah, ² when he was governor of Fārs, his work

Dar aḥwāl i Sīwand, a very brief (2 foll.) account of Sīwand followed by a vocabulary of the dialect spoken there and by poems in various dialects: Browne Coll. i. 9 (9).

French translation of the account of Sīwand and most of the vocabulary: Le dialecte persan de Sîwend. Par C. Huart (in Journal asiatique, 9^e série, tome i (March–April 1893) pp. 241–65.

Description: Notes on the poetry of the Persian dialects. By E.G. Browne (in jras. 1895), pp. 775–7.

[Although this work appears among the local histories in the catalogue of the Browne Collection, the account of Sīwand is descriptive, not historical, and the work should not occur in this section.]

§ 464. Ḥājjī Mīrzā Ḥasan, called Fasāʾī and Ṭabīb, b. Ḥasan S̲h̲īrāzī.

Fārs-nāmah i Nāṣirī, a history and geography of Fārs.

Edition: Ṭihrān 1313/1895–6° (cf. Browne Lit. Hist. iii p. 162).

§ 465. M. Naṣīr, called Furṣat and Mīrzā Āqā, Ḥusainī.

Āt̲h̲ār i ʿAjam, on the archæology, geography, history, and celebrated men of south-eastern Persia.

Edition: Bombay 1314/1896°*.

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