Peacock A.C.S. Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Bal'ami's Tarikhnamah

221 Pages·2.835 MB·English

Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and
Political Legitimacy
Tārīkhnāma is the earliest work of Persian prose and one of the most
influential works of Islamic historical writing, subsequently being translated into Arabic
and Turkish and remaining in circulation for a thousand years. Although it purports to be
a Persian translation of al-Tabari’s famous Arabic universal history, in fact it is an
independent work, presenting the history of the world from Creation down to Islamic
times.
A.C.S.Peacock’s new book, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political
Legitimacy: Tārīkhnāma is the first research monograph on this major
historical work and shows how its composition and reception were influenced by political
circumstances. Commissioned by the ruler of one of the largest and most powerful
Muslim states of the tenth century, the Samanid dynasty of Central Asia, and composed
by his vizier, the Tārīkhnāma tells us much about the politics and ideology of the
Samanid state, which remains comparatively unstudied despite its importance in Islamic
history. Future generations continued to adapt the text in accordance with their own
political concerns, meaning its manuscripts vary immensely from one another.
Using newly discovered manuscripts, this study sheds much new light, not just on
mediaeval Islamic history and the development of Islamic historiography, but also on
problems in manuscripts and the transmission of their texts.

Dr Andrew Peacock was educated at Oxford and Cambridge universities, and is a
research associate at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in the history of
Anatolia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and is the author of several articles on aspects
of mediaeval Islamic history and historiography.
Routledge Studies in the History of Iran
and Turkey
Edited by
Carole Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh
This series publishes important studies dealing with the history of Iran and Turkey in the
period 1000–1700 AD. This period is significant because it heralds the advent of large
numbers of nomadic Turks from Central Asia into the Islamic world. Their influence was
felt particularly strongly in Iran and Turkey, territories which they permanently
transformed.
The series presents translations of medieval Arabic and Persian texts which chronicle
the history of the medieval Turks and Persians, and also publishes scholarly monographs
which handle themes of medieval Turkish and Iranian history such as historiography,
nomadization and folk Islam.
History of the Seljuq Turks
The Saljuq-nama of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri
Translated by Kenneth Allin Luther
Edited by Edmund Bosworth
The Annals of the Saljuq Turks
Selections from al-Kamil of Ibn al-Athir
D.S.Richards
Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth Century Iran
A Persian Renaissance
George Lane
Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy
Tārīkhnāma
A.C.S.Peacock
Mediaeval Islamic Historiography
and Political Legitimacy
Tārīkhnāma
A.C.S.Peacock

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2007
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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© 2007 A.C.S.Peacock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or
in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Peacock, A.C.S. (Andrew C.S.)
Mediaeval Islamic historiography and political legitimacy:
Tārīkhnāma/A.C.S.Peacock.
p. cm.—(Studies in the history of Iran and Turkey)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. fl. 946–973.

2. 838?–923.
3. Islamic Empire—History—Historiography.
I. Title. DS38.2.T325173 2007 907.2–dc22 2006028990
ISBN 0-203-96422-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0-415-40025-2 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-203-96422-5 (Print Edition) (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-40025-1 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-96422-4 (Print Edition) (ebk)
To my parents

Contents

List of Figures and Tables viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Abbreviations xii

Introduction 1
1 Politics, religion and culture in the late Sāmānid state 14
2 The transmission of the Tārīkhnāma’s text 48
3 reshaping of History 73
4 103
The contents and purpose of alterations to
History
5 The Tārīkhnāma after 137
6 General conclusions 161

Appendix I: Comparison of postulated redactions of the Tārīkhnāma 168
Appendix Comparison of the Arabic translation of the Tārīkhnāma and the 171

II: Persian text
Appendix Addenda and corrigenda to Daniel’s ‘An Annotated Inventory of 175

III: Manuscripts’
Bibliography 180
Subject index 193
Manuscript index 206
Figures and Tables
Figure

2.1 The colophon of Cambridge University Library, MS 8360 66
Tables

3.1 Proportion of text devoted to pre-Islamic history in selected 94

manuscripts of the Tārīkhnāma
3.2 Proportion of text of the pre-Islamic sections of the Tārīkhnāma 95

devoted to Iranian history (up to the Genealogy of )
3.3 Proportion of the total text of selected manuscripts of the 101
Tārīkhnāma devoted to events occurring after the death of
Marwān in 132/750
Preface
Historical writing and prose literature in New Persian1 both begin with the History
(Tārīkhnāma) of Abu 2 composed in Central Asia in the fourth/tenth
century. Before the Arab conquest of Iran in the first/seventh century, the Persians of the
Sāsānian Empire had a historiographical tradition of their own, written in Pahlavī or
Middle Persian, a language similar to New Persian in grammar and syntax, but different
in script and lacking the many Arabic works the Persians adopted into their language on
conversion to Islam. However, much of this tradition is lost to us, surviving mainly in
later New Persian works such as the great early poet Firdawsī’s monumental verse
Shāhnāma (‘Book of Kings’). In contrast, Tārīkhnāma marks the beginning
of a long and influential historiographical tradition in Persian based on Arabic, Islamic
models rather than Sāsānian ones.
The Tārīkhnāma is a large work, occupying five substantial volumes in the most recent
edition, and covers history from Creation down to Muslim times. It became extremely
popular—indeed, it was by far the most widely read work of Persian historiography, and
was translated into other Islamic languages such as Arabic, Ottoman and Chaghatay
Turkish, and Urdu. Manuscripts of it continued to be copied, and later printed, until the
beginning of the twentieth century. No other historical work in Persian, and few in
Arabic, approaches the scale or the longevity of the Tārīkhnāma’s popularity. The mere
fact that it was the principal source of knowledge about the past in the eastern Islamic
world for nearly a thousand years makes it worthy of attention. The great influence it had
over countless Muslims is reflected in the vast number of manuscripts of it that survive
and its frequent citation in other works. Yet, as I hope to demonstrate in the course of this
book, the Tārīkhnāma is of much interest in its own right.
The Tārīkhnāma is also significant because it seems to have possessed great political
importance at the time it was composed. It was commissioned by the amir
who was ruler of much of Central Asia and parts of Iran. The dynasty
to which belonged, the Sāmānids, are today best known for their role in
reviving the Persian literary language after its eclipse by Arabic in the wake of the
Muslim conquests. Their court in Bukhārā became famous as a cultural centre where both

1 New Persian is written in the Arabic script and developed in the centuries after the Arab
conquests. Except where confusion with other varieties of Persian, such as Middle Persian/ Pahlavī,
is likely, I shall refer to it simply as Persian.
2 work is referred to by different names in the manuscripts, usually as the
the or the In this book, I shall call it the
Tārīkhnāma to avoid confusion with the numerous other Arabic and Persian works that have the
title Tārīkh.