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Local Historiography in Early Medieval Iran and the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Parvaneh Pourshariati
Parvaneh Pourshariati*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

During the medieval period iran produced one of the richest repertoires of local histories in the Islamic world. Ibn Funduq, the author of the local history of Bayhaq studied here, enumerates 15 local histories of Khurasan alone. These include three local histories of Marv by al-ᶜAbbas b. Musᶜab b. Bishr, Abu'l-Hasan Ahmad b. Sayyar (198-268/814-881), and Abu'l-ᶜAbbas b. Saᶜid al-Maᶜdani (d. 375/986). (al-Sakhawi calls Musᶜab b. Bishr's work a “history of (the city).“) To these Ibn Funduq adds two local histories of Herat by Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Yunis (?) al-Bazzaz and Abu Ishaq Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Saᶜid al-Haddad. (Sakhawi, apparently confused, attributes both histories to Abu Ishaq Muhammad b. Yasin al-Harawi al-Haddad); a Tārīkh-i Bukhārā va Samarqand by Saᶜd b. Janah; two histories of Khwarazm by al-Sari b. Dalwiya and Abu ᶜAbdallah Muhammad b. Saᶜid respectively; a history of Balkh by Abu ᶜAbdallah Muhammad b. ᶜAqil al-Faqih;

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Articles
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Iranian Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 1-2 , Spring Winter 2000 , pp. 133 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2000

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Jürgen Paul for the kindness and care with which he read drafts of the present paper and for his valuable comments on it. I would also like to thank him for providing me with detailed information on the Russian works on the Tārīkh-i Bukhārā of Narshakhi—not included in the present article due to considerations of space. I am also indebted to Prof. Charles Melville for his kind comments on this article.

References

1. See Franz Rosenthal's translation of al-Sakhawi's al-Iᶜlān bi'l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawārīkh in A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968)Google Scholar (page 477 for al-Sakhawi's comment on Musᶜab's work). Rosenthal notes (168) that for “most of the older local histories down to the end of the tenth century, our information is insufficient. This applies, for instance, to the work of Ahmad b. Sayyar which, however, was called aḫbār, and therefore, may not have contained alphabetically arranged biographies.” We should note also that Rosenthal discusses Ahmad b. Sayyar's work in the context of local histories which he calls theological, i.e. non-secular, local historiography. Saᶜid al-Maᶜdani's work is characterized in al-Iᶜlān as being alphabetically arranged (477).

2. Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, 483Google Scholar, notes 4 & 5.

3. According to Rosenthal this Muhammad b. ᶜAqil al-Faqih “can hardly be identical with ᶜAli b. ᶜAqil or ᶜAli's grandfather Muhammad b. ᶜAqil, but he could be Muhammad b. ᶜAqil al-Azhari al-Balḫî who died in 316/928-29 and who, among other works, wrote a History.” Muslim Historiography, 463, note 3.

4. See Abu'l-Hasan ᶜAli b. Zayd Bayhaqi, Funduq, Ibn, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, ed. Bahmanyar, Ahmad, with an introduction by Qazvini, Muhammad, (Tehran, 1361), 21.Google Scholar

5. See al-Hamawi, Yaqut, Muᶜjam al-Udabā˒, Ihsan Abbas edited, 7 volumes, (Beirut, 1993), vol. 5Google Scholar, 2364 and 2349; vol. 1, p 359-360, respectively.

6. Rosenthal, 467.

7. al-Qadi defines the genre of biographical dictionaries as including two kinds of works: “general biographical dictionaries” which “include biographies of individuals from all walks of life” and “restricted biographical dictionaries” those whose subjects “share one common yet specific trait.” What this definition excludes, she observes, “are works whose primary structure is not that of a series of biographies, in spite of the fact that they may contain a large number of biographies, and in fact, the biographies included in them may be an essential component of the book…” See al-Qadi, Wadad, “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance,” in The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, edited by Atiyeh, George N., (Albany: State University of New York, 1995), 93–123Google Scholar; here, 94-95, and 95-96.

8. Some of the most noteworthy of these which certainly fall outside the genre of biographical dictionaries, include: Tārīkh-i Sīstān, Anonym, (composed from 445 to 725/1053 to 1325), Malik al-Shuᶜara Bahar edited, (Tehran, 1314); Fārsnāmah of Ibn Balkhi (composed between 474-510/1082-1116), annotated by Mansur Rastgar Fasayi based on the edited text of Le Strange and Nicholson, (Tehran, 1374); Tārīkh-i Bukhārā of Muhammad b. Jaᶜfar al-Narshakhi (286-339/899-950), originally composed in Arabic; Tārīkh-i Qum of Hasan b. Muhammad b. Hasan al-Qumi, (composed originally in Arabic in 378/988 and translated into Persian in 805-06/1403 by Hasan b. ᶜAli b. Hasan b. ᶜAbd al-Malik Qumi,) edited by Sayyid Jalal al-Din Tehrani, (Tehran, 1361). Among the sources used for the Tārīkh-i Qum, Hasan al-Qumi mentions the Kitāb-i Iṣfahān of Abu ᶜAbdallah Hamza b. Isfahani (270-360/884-971), Kitāb-i Hamadān of Abu ᶜAli ᶜAbd al-Rahman b. ᶜIsa b. Hammad Hamadani, and finally Kitāb-i Rayy, all of which were evidently written prior to the production of the Tārīkh-i Qum by al-Qumi in the tenth century. For information on the sources of Tārīkh-i Qum see Lambton's, A. K. S. “An Account of the Tārīkhi Qumm,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xii, 3 and 4, (1948): 586–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Maḥāsin Iṣfahān of al-Mafarrukhi, Mufaddal (composed in Arabic in 421/1030), (Tehran 1312/1933)Google Scholar; Mafākhir Khurasan by the famous Muᶜtazilite scholar Abu'l-Qasim al-Balkhi (d. 319/931), Isfandiyar's, Ibn Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristän (composed early in the seventh/thirteenth century), Iqbal, Abbas edited, (Tehran, 1320/1942).Google Scholar

9. See, e.g., Rosenthal, Muslim Historiography, 160-162 and Lambton, Ann K. “Persian Local Histories: The tradition behind them and the assumption of their authors,” in Scarcia Amoretti, Biancamaria and Rostagno, Lucia, eds., Yad-Nama in memoria di Alessandro Bausani, vol. 1: Islamistica, (Rome: Bardi Editore, 1991), 227–38Google Scholar.; Stephen Humphreys, R., Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. Revised edition, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 128–36Google Scholar and Scott Meisami, Julie, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 9–10.Google Scholar

10. Lambton, “Persian Local Histories” 227.Google Scholar

11. al-Qumi, Tārīkh-i Qum, 52-56.

12. Ibn Balkhi, Fārsnāmah, 372-379.

13. A farsang being four to six kilometers.

14. Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 14,15.

15. See Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 14, 15, where the re-emergence of a previously existing spring in the city (shāristān) is promised at the coming of the millennium with reference to the Book of the Zoroastrians (kitāb-i ibn dihishtī-i Gabrakān), i. e., Bundahishn, and another spring near Bust which contained gold, the former existence of which the author mentions by quoting the Book of the Zoroastrians. In both cases Abu'l Mu˒ayyid Balkhi is also quoted as a source. This Abu'l Mu˒ayyid Balkhi is the author of one of the first, but no longer extant, prose Shāhnāmahs. He composed it at the beginning of the fourth/tenth century. See Safa, D., Ḥamāsa Sarā˒ī dar Iran, (Tehran, 1324/1945), 93.Google Scholar The Garshāspnāmah, ᶜAjā˒ib al-Barr wa'l-Baḥr and ᶜAjā˒ib al-Buldān are other works attributed to him. Tārīkh-i Sīstān, vāv, zih.

16. Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 30-33.

17. “On the taxation of Bukhārā and its suburbs.” Narshakhi, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Razavi, Mudarris, (Tehran, 1984), 46.Google Scholar

18. “The Taxation Regulation of Pārs,” Fārsnāmah, 398-401.

19. Tārīkh-i Qum, 122.

20. In the table of contents of the Tārīkh-i Qum, where one gets a sense of the nolonger-extant sections of the work, there is a promise of even more information on the taxation practices of Qum in the eleventh, fourteenth, and fifteenth chapters. Chapter nineteen is also said to have had information on the taxes imposed on the Jews and Zoroastrians of Qum. Tārīkh-i Qum, 17-18.

21. Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 32.

22. Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 42.

23. Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 61-65.

24. Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān, 57.

25. Fārsnāmah, xi-xiii.

26. Tārīkh-i Qum, 48.

27. Tārīkh-i Qum, 48-9.

28. Tārīkh-i Qum, 23, 33-35, 41, 48-9, 242-265.

29. Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 12-16, 42, 61-65, 67-73, 73-81.

30. See for example, Lambton, A. K. S., “Persian Biographical Literature,” in Lewis, Bernard and Holt, P. M., eds., Historians of the Middle East (London, 1962), 141–51.Google Scholar

31. Rosenthal, F., Muslim Historiography, 160.Google Scholar

32. According to Meisami, the terms “local or regional history” are “slightly misleading” for “many such works, both in Arabic and later in Persian, while devoting much space to description of their respective regions, are chiefly concerned with the history of the rulers of those regions.” (Scott Meisami, Julie, Persian Historiography, 9.Google Scholar) Whatever the terminology, it is clear that we cannot characterize such important local histories as Tārīkh-i Sīstān, Tārīkh-i Qum, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, i Fārsnāmah, and Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān, and others which seem to have followed the format of these (see note 8 above), as histories “chiefly concerned with the history of rulers,” of these regions. We must further acknowledge the paradigmatic shift of the local histories away from a “universalistic” conception and towards more localized concerns.

33. al-Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries,” 107-108; Lambton, “Persian Local Histories, 228-29.

34. H. A. R. Gibb, “Islamic Biographical Literature,” in Historians of the Middle East, 54-58.

35. Gibb, H. A. R., “Tarikh” in Shaw, Stanford and Polk, William, eds., Studies on the Civilization of Islam, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 108–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Mottahedeh, Roy P., “The Shuᶜûbîyah and the social history of early Islamic Iran,” International Journal of Middle East 7 (1976): 161–82.Google Scholar

37. Goldziher, Ignaz, Muslim Studies, (London, 1967), 137–197.Google Scholar Gibb, H. A. R., “The Social Significance of the Shu'ubiya,” Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), 62–73.Google Scholar For a recent work dealing with the controversy see Marlow, Louise, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah,” 165.Google Scholar

39. “Oh men, We have created you from a male and a female and We have made you into groups (shuᶜûb) and tribes (qabâ˒il) that you may come to know one another; truly, the noblest (akram) among you before God is the most righteous (atqâ) among you: Truly God is All knowing, All-seeing,” as quoted in Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah,” 164.

40. Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah” 166.Google Scholar My italics.

41. Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah” 168.Google Scholar

42. “Oh men, know that We have created you all, white and black, rich and poor, great and small, Arab and client (maulā) from one man and one woman. We have made you one city (shahr) after another and one tribe after another so that when you asked “do you know each other?” — so that people may know where you are from — you say “such-and-such city from such-and-such village (dih) of such-and-such locality (maḥallat)” and of such-and-such tribe, son of so-and-so,” so that you may know each other. It is for this reason that we have given names (nām-hā) designating relationships, not so that you \should assert pride in this respect over one another.” Anon., Tafsīr-i Qur˒ān-i Majīd, ed. Matini, Jalal, (Tehran, 1349/1970)Google Scholar, quoted from Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah,” 167.

43. Mottahedeh, “The Shuᶜûbîyah,” 169-70. My emphasis. “I think, therefore, it is fair to say that we have an interpretation which was favored by one group of Iranians (and especially Khurasānian) commentators… The Shuᶜûbîs … found in the Qur˒an itself a warrant for the nontribal and nongeneological organization of the societies to which they belonged. They did so by interpreting shaᶜb as a people united by a territorial principal, and it is largely for this reason that their movement continued to be called after shuᶜûb, a single word in 49:13.” Mottahedeh, 170-71.

44. See note 8.

45. For information on his life and works see Kalimullah Husaini's, Q. S., “Life & Works of Zahir U'D-Din Al-Bayhaqi, the Author of Tarikh-i-Bayhaq,” Islamic Culture 28 (1954): 297–318Google Scholar; “Contributions of Zahir U'D-Din al-Bayhaqi to Arabic and Persian Literature, Islamic Culture 34 (1960): 40–89Google Scholar; and “The Tarikh-i-Bayhaq of Zahir U'D-Din Abul Hasan ᶜAli b. Abil Qasim Zayd al-Bayhaqi,” Islamic Culture 28 (1959): 188–202Google Scholar; Safa, Dhabihullah, Tārīkh-i Adabīyāt dar Iran (Tehran, 1371), 2:311Google Scholar; Halm, H., “al-Bayhaqi,” EIr 2: 895–96Google Scholar; Meisami, Persian Historiography, 209, 217Google Scholar, 222, 228.

46. Safa, Tārīkh-i Adabīyāt dar Iran 2: 311–13.Google Scholar

47. Husaini, “Life & Works of Zahir U'D-Din Al-Bayhaqi” 304.Google Scholar

48. Yaqut, Muᶜjam al-Udabā˒ 4:1762–63.Google Scholar

49. There are a number of extant manuscripts of this work. A critical edition of it by Muhammad Shafiᶜ was published in 1351/1932-33 in Lahore. It was translated into Persian in the seventh/thirteenth century and titled Durrat al-Akhbār. (Safa, Tārīkh-i Adabīyāt, 2: 312).

50. The editor of Tārīkh-i Bayhaq notes that a very defective copy of the Lubāb al-Ansāb, an extremely rare ms., was found in the library of the Madrasa-i Sipahsalar catalogued under the title Nihāyat al-Ansāb. This copy was used by the editor in correcting, as far as was possible, some of the names in the present edition of the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq. See the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 65, n. 1.

51. See Bahmanyar's introduction to Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, yad-yat.

52. Husaini, “Life & Works of Zahir U'D-Din Al-Bayhaqi,” 304-305.

53. Ibid., 305.

54. Ibid., 298.

55. Among these Ibn Funduq mentions the Mabādī al-Lugha when discussing the etymology of the nisba Fami, 127; the Mazīd al-Tavārīkh, which he cites in numerous instances for information on the elite families of Bayhaq, such as the Ziyadiyan, the Awlad-i Kama, and the Fuladvand family, 132, 133; the Dumyat al-Qaṣr of ᶜAli b. al-Hasan al-Bakharzi, 196, 221, 228; Mi˒atun Ḥārithatun of Ahmad ᶜUmayra, 197; the Lubāb al-Albāb of Yaᶜqub, 209; the Ta˒rīkh of Abu ᶜAli Sallami, 228; the Qalā˒id al-Sharaf of Abu ᶜAmir Jurjani, 228; the Mafākhir Nīshāpūr of Abu'l-Qasim Kaᶜbi (d. 317/929) 255; the Kitāb-i Qānūn, 280; Thimār al-Qulūb of Abu Mansur Thaᶜalibi for the story of the sarv of Farivmad and Kashmar, 281; Mada˒ini for information on the Muhallabids, 91; ḥikāyas from the trustworthy men (thiqāt), 128; from his jadd, 274; another ḥikāya about the arrival of the “sultan of the Arab and the ᶜAjam,” Masᶜud b. Mahmud to the qaṣaba, 274.

56. Aubin, Jean, “L'aristocratie urbaine dans l'Iran seldjukide: l'exemple de Sabzavâr,” in Mélange offert à René Crozet, (Poitiers: Société d'Études Médiévales, 1966), 1: 325.Google Scholar Also see below. I would like to thank Charles Melville for bringing this article to my attention.

57. For the role of the Saᶜidi family in the socio-political history of Nishapur see Bulliet, R., ‘The political-religious History of Nishapur in the Eleventh Century,” in Richards, D. S., ed., Islamic Civilisation 950-1150, (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1973), 75–83.Google Scholar

58. Husaini, “Life & Works of Zahir U'D-Din Al-Bayhaqi,” 312.Google Scholar

59. His teachers included Imam Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Ahmad b. al-Fadl al-Farisi, Imam Abu ᶜAbdallah al-Husayn b. Abi'l-Hasan al-Kashgari, Shams al-ᶜUlama˒ Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Abi Sahl al-Sarakhsi, and Imam Abu Bakr Muhammad b. ᶜAli b. al-Haydar al-Jaᶜfari. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 106.

60. He is said to have refused al-Kunduri's robe of honor (khalᶜat), requesting justice instead. “He said: I desire only public benefaction which is justice, not private reward. For private reward in times of injustice and disturbance is of no avail.” (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 110-111.)

61. Husaini, “Life & Works,” 310.Google Scholar

62. The version of Tārīkh-i Bayhaq on which the present study is based was edited by Ahmad Bahmanyar and includes an introduction by Muhammad Qazvini. It is based on two manuscripts: the earliest dates to 735/1334-35 and is in the British Museum while the other, a later copy, belongs to the public library of Berlin. (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, dal, hih, vav.)

63. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, yaj.

64. Introduced under three separate chapter (faṣl) headings. (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 7-17.)

65. Although Julie Scott Meisami has observed that in this Ibn Funduq seems to be following the ideas expounded by Abu’ l-Fadl Bayhaqi and Miskawayh. Meisami, Persian Historiography, 211.

66. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 17-19.

67. Here he mentions the Maghāzī of Muhammad b. Ishaq, Kitāb al-Mubtada˒ of Wahb b. Munabbih, the “tārīkh-i kabīr” of Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, Futūḥ of Ibn Aᶜtham, Tawārīkh al-Mulūk of Ibn al-Muqaffaᶜ, the Tahdhīb al-Ta˒rīkh and Tajārib al-Umam of Ibn Miskawayh, the histories of the Buyids of “Ṣābī and others,” Kitāb-i Yamīnī “from the end of which to the present, I have made a history entitled Mashārib al-Tajārib wa Ghawārib al-Gharā˒ib,” Mazīd al-Tavārīkh from Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad b. Sulayman, composed during the period of Sultan Mahmud, al-Tadhkira wa ‘l-Tabṣira of Ibn Tabataba al-ᶜAlawi in history and genealogy, and finally Tārīkh-i Āl-i Maḥmūd of Abu'l-Fadl al-Bayhaqi. (Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 17-19.)

68. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 20-22. The list of local histories starts with Ta˒rīkh Baghdād “in ten volumes” (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 20).

69. The author of Tārīkh-i Qum also points out that one of the three stimuli that encouraged him to write a history of Qum was the fact that Hamza Isfahani had composed the Tārīkh-i Iṣfahān but had not mentioned any of the stories (qiṣaṣ) and traditions (akhbār) of Qum (al-Qumi, Tārīkh-i Qum, 11). Similarly, the author of the Tārīkh-i Jadīd-i Yazd, Husayn ᶜAli Katib, felt that Jaᶜfari who had written the Tārīkh-i Yazd shortly before him “had not performed this task adequately, since chand faṣl taḥqīq nākarda nivishta būd, and [he] intended to do a better job.” (See Miller, , “Local History in Ninth/Fifteenth Century Yazd,” Iran 27 (1989): 75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. “Chapter on the virtues of Bayhaq,” 22 and “On those Companions, May God be pleased with them, who have been in Bayhaq,” 23-28.

71. For a detailed examination of this and its significance in establishing early Arab settlement in Bayhaq, see, Pourshariati, Parvaneh, “Local Histories of Khurasan and the Pattern of Arab Settlement,” Studia Iranica, 27 (1998): 41–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72. Abu'l-Qasim Hamza b. Yusuf b. Ibrahim al-Sahmi, Ta˒rīkh Jurjān aw Kitäb Maᶜrifa ᶜUlamā˒ Ahl Jurjān, ed. Muhammad Abd al-ᶜAmid Khan (Haydarabad, 1387/1967).Google Scholar

73. Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 23-25. The accounts of conquest in both the Tārīkhi Bayhaq and the Ta˒rīkh Nīshāpūr make it clear that neither of the regions submitted peacefully to the ᶜArab army. See also Abu ᶜAbdallah Hakim Nishapuri's Ta˒rīkh Nīshāpūr, ed. Muhammad Rida Shafiᶜi Kadkani (Tehran, 1375), 202–207.Google Scholar Although Hakim claims that the soundest traditions corroborate Nishapur's peaceful submission (206-207), the actual narratives of the conquest which he provides prove otherwise. See Parvaneh Pourshariati, “Iranian Tradition in Ṭūs and the Arab Presence in Khurāsān,” Chapter 1, and idem, “Local Histories,” 76.

74. Such as the Tārīkh-i Qum, Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān, Fārsnāmah, and the Tārīkh-i Bukhārā.

75. P. Pourshariati, “Antiquarian themes in Persian local histories,” a talk presented at the Second Biennial International Conference of the Society for Iranian Studies, May 1998, in Bethesda, Maryland.

76. “Bāb dar dhikr-i havāy-i Bayhaq,” 26-28, “Faṣl dar dhikr-i muḍāf o mansūb bih har shahrī),” 28-29; “Faṣl dar dhikr-i āfāt va amrāḍ-i vilāyāt,” 29-32; “Dhikr-i ummahāt-i vilāyāt,” 32; “Faṣl dar bayṣn-i iᶜtibār bih havāy-i shahr-hā dūn-i dīgar ᶜanāṣir,” 32-33.

77. “On the extraordinary things that come from Bayhaq that make it unique (dar gharā˒ib-i chīz-hā kih az Bayhaq khīzad kih bidān munfarid ast),” 276-281, especially pages 277, 278, and 280.

yakī anjuman sākht bikhradhān / hashīvār o kār āzmūdah radhān

He assembled with the sages, the quick-witted and skillful learned ones

79. For further information on the Banu Sasan see, C. E. Bosworth, “Banū Sāsān,” in EIr. 2: 721-22; idem, The Medieval Islamic Underworld: The Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1976).Google Scholar

80. See the introduction.

81. ẕāt-i ū ṣaḥīfah-i siyāsat va fihris-i sakhāvat būd (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 39).

82. Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, see editor's note, 297.

gawhar-i aṣl rāh nanmāyad / gawhar-i tan haml bi-kār āyad

kih az ān mard surkh rūy shavad / nāmburdār o nāmjūy shavad

har kujā jā-yi garm o sard buvad / pisar-i nīk pusht-i mard buvad

The matter of pedigree will not lay open the path/It is the essence of the person that will prove expedient.

Through it man acquires honor, fame, and repute

In all climes be they warm or cold / A good son comes after his father

Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 40. I would like to thank Mr. Habib Borjian for confirming my reading of “pusht-i mard” in this context.

har chih āsān shavad bi-ḥāṣil-i kār / bāshad āghāz-hā-yi vay dushvār

That which becomes facile at its conclusion, has generally an arduous inception.

agar chih ma-rā qadr az īn bar-tar ast/ kih gardūn-i girdān ma-rā kihtar ast

hadīthī-st īn-rā dirāzā dirāz / dilam pūr zi dard ast o garm o niyāz

nah rāh ast paydā o nan rahnumāy / nishastand zāghān bi-jā-yi humāy

While my worth is greater than this, for the revolving wheel of fortune itself is lowlier than I

There is a long long tale to this, my heart is full of chagrin, want and anguish

Neither is the path clear, nor is there a guide, the ravens have sat in the place of Huma.

86. Ibn Funduq later informs us that some of the men of learning (dānishmandān) of these villages, who were on their way to pilgrimage of the Kaᶜba, had come to him and read tafsīrs for him and obtained ijāza for quoting traditions from him. (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 41.)

nigah kun tū ān shākh o ān bīkh-rā / nigah dār ān ᶜahd o tārīkh-rā

pidar guft Sāsān zi man dūr bāsh / hamīshah siyah rūy o ranjūr bāsh

digar gūnah shud rūz o bar gasht kār / siyah gasht bar vay hamah rūzgār

jahān yaksarah bar dilash sard shud / wa zīn ḥāl jānash pur az dard shud

kunūn man jahān-rā ᶜimārat kunam / bar īn gūsfandān imārat kunam

chinīn ast rasm-i sarā-yi farīb / kih dārad pas-i har farāzī nashīb

umīd-i man az mulk bar bād shud / kujā dushman az ḥāl-i man shād shud

agar marg būdī bar āsūdamī / az īn ranj-i bisyār bar sūdamī

Look at the branches and at the roots, preserve that age and its history

Father said: Sasan stay away from me, May you remain forever ashamed and aggrieved

Times altered and affairs changed, his fortunes became bleak

His world became dreary, his heart woeful from this state

I will begin rendering this world habitable, he said, I will command this sheep?

Such is the way of this abode of deceit, that a dip follows each ascent

I've lost all hope of a kingdom, the foe rejoices at my condition

If death were to come, I could have rested, I would have unwound from this dire affliction (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 42).

sizad ar gum shavad dar ātash o khāk / ān pisar kaz pidar nadārad bāk

It is befitting if he were to be lost in fire and earth, the son who does not dread his sire (Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 42).

89. Ibn Balkhi, Fārsnāmah, 388-89.

90. Here Ibn Funduq mentions that according to Thaᶜalibi in Thimār al-Qulūb it was King Gushtasb who ordered the planting of the trees. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 281.

91. See Bahmanyar's note on this dating. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 324.

92. Ta˒rīkh Nīshāpūr, 209-10.

93. “ẕīkr-i vaqāyiᶜ-i ᶜuẓẓām kih dar īn nāḥiyat uftādah ast,” Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 266-67.

94. Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 170.

95. The editor of Tārīkh-i Bayhaq notes that the factuality of Muhammad b. ᶜAli b. Musa al-Rida's travel to Khurasan might be suspect for this information is found in no other source. See Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 298-99.

96. For the significance of mosque narratives in Persian local histories see P. Pourshariati, “Local Histories of Khurasan.” See also below, the ḥadīth on women.

97. See Bosworth, C. E., The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran: 994-1040, 2nd edition, (Beirut, 1973), 194–99.Google Scholar

98. Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine” 326.Google Scholar

99. According to Tārīkh-i Sīstān when Yaᶜqub Layth was contending for power against the last Tahirid, Muhammad b. Tahir, around 875, a group of ṣaᶜlūks of the region joined him. One of them was Ahmad b. ᶜAbdallah Khujistani. Later, however, Khujistani rebelled in Khurasan. While the extent of his rebellion is not clear from Tārīkh-i Sīstān, it was not until 882 that Khujistani died and a stop was put to his insurgency. See Tārīkh-i Sīstān, 224-39; Arudi, Nizami, Chahār Maqāla, (Leiden), 36.Google Scholar

100. Funduq, Ibn, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 68.Google Scholar

101. Other families of Bayhaq include the Fuladvand's 93-101, Abi Naᶜim Mukhtar 113-16, Dariyan 116-17, Mikaliyan 117, Mustawfiyan 118, ᶜAziziyan 119, ᶜAnbariyan 119-22, Hatamiyan 122-24, Salariyan 124, ᶜImariyan 124-25, Shaddadiyan 125, Inmatiyan 125-126, Muhimmiyan? 126, Awlad al-Turk? 126, Zakki 126-27, Qadiyan 127-28, Bazzazan 128, Dalqandiyan 128-29, Ziyadiyan 129-32, Awlad-i Kama 132-33, Badiliyan 135-36 and finally ᶜAmidiyan 136-37.

102. Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine,” 325.

103. Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine”; Bosworth, The Ghaznavids; and Julie Meisami, Persian Historiography, 209-29.

104. Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur, (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).

105. On “the elite who have risen from Bayhaq,” 264-266; the “mention of the great events that have transpired in this region,” 266-270; “the events that have transpired in ancient times,” 270-276; “the wondrous things that have emanated from Bayhaq for which it is unique,” 276-284.

106. I would like to thank Richard Bulliet for highlighting this aspect of the text to me in a personal conversation.

107. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 284-85 (editor's note).

108. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 28. The history of ᶜayyārs and ᶜayyāri is yet to be fully investigated. There seems little doubt, however, that infused within the ᶜayyār-ī tradition of the medieval Islamic world was a strong current of pre-Islamic Iranian tradition. As Claude Cahen maintains, there “can be little doubt as to its pre-Islamic Iranian origin not only because in later times they were said to have certain distinctly Iranian costumes, but above all because in the Islamic period up to the Mongol invasion they were only to be found in territories which had once belonged to the Sasanian empire.” Claude Cahen, “ᶜAyyār,” EIr 3:159-61. Here, likewise, there seems to be a correlation between the preponderance of ᶜayyārs and their activity, and the areas in which Iranian cultural traditions seem to have been particularly strong, in this case, the region of Tus. For the continuity of Iranian tradition in Tus see, P. Pourshariati, “Iranian Tradition in Ṭūs and the Arab Presence in Khurāsān.”

109. Bulliet, “Nishapur in the Eleventh Century,” 88-89.

110. Bulliet, “Nishapur” 88.Google Scholar

111. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, 194-200; Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine” 327.Google Scholar

112. Bulliet, “Nishapur” 74.Google Scholar

113. Bulliet, “Nishapur” 88.Google Scholar

114. From the old Persian kawfa = mountain. See “Ḳufṣ,” by C. E. Bosworth, in EI2 5: 352-53. For an excellent detailed article on the Qufṣ see Bosworth, C. E., “The Ḳūfichīs or Qufṣ in Persian history,” in Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 14 (1976): 9–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

115. Bosworth, , “Ḳufṣ” EI2 4: 353.Google Scholar

116. Meisami, Persian Historiography, 227-228.

117. The social constituency of the Karramiya in Khurasan, for example, came from the ranks of the peasantry, weavers, and what Bosworth calls the “depressed classes.” See Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, 185-89.

118. al-ᶜajamā˒ the feminine form of aᶜjam, a woman who speaks incorrectly.

119. “jurḥ al-ᶜajamā˒ jabbār-wa ghawghā qatalat al-ᶜanbiyā˒ va maᶜādin al-fitan bāshand, idhā ijtamaᶜū aghlabū wa idhā taffaraqū lam yuᶜrafū.” Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 234.Google Scholar This is one of the numerous instances where Ibn Funduq combines, as Bahmanyar observes, Arabic expressions within a Persian syntax. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, dal.

120. ᶜalājī nāṣavāb, bī maᶜrifat-i uṣūl dar mudāvāt-i chashm bijāy āvard … chinānkih chashm-i ū tabāh shud. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 106.

121. Ibn Funduq reminds us that he has already mentioned this ḥadīth from Muhallab b. Abi Sufra at the beginning of the book. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 50.

122. “ghāyat-i ṣalāḥ-i zanān nishistan ast va hīch kār nabuvad kih muᶜayyan buvad bar nishistan iliā ghazal.” Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 50.Google Scholar

123. “ān sharaf ghalabah gīrad bar farzand.” Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 194.Google Scholar

124. al-Hamawi, Yaqut, Mu'jam al-Buldān, ed. Wüstenfeld, F., (Leipzig, 1866), 1: 772.Google Scholar Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 330 (editor's note).

125. Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine” 325.Google Scholar

126. Aubin, “L'aristocratie urbaine” 325.Google Scholar

127. See especially the author's remarks to this effect when discussing his own family (107) or the families of Zakki (126), Bazzazan (128), Awlad-i Kama (132), etc.