Al-Xwārazmī on the Peoples of Central Asia

Extract

The passage treated here occurs in the seventh faṣl, “Concerning words which are frequently used in reference to conquests, expeditions and historical accounts of the Arabs during Islam,” of the sixth bāb of the first maqāla of al-Xwārazmī's Mafātīḥ al-'ulūm (pp. 119–20 of the edition of Van Vloten, Leiden 1895 = p. 73 of the edition of Cairo 1342/1923–4). The whole faṣl was published in the original and translated by J. M. Unvala in his article, “The translation of an extract from Mafātīḥ al-'Ulūm of al-Khwārazmī” in the Journal of the K.R. Cama Institute, XI, Bombay 1928, 76–110. However, Unvala was primarily an Iranian scholar and his commentary on the faṣl is oriented primarily in that direction. He was on weaker ground when dealing with Central Asiatic and especially Turkish topics: and this fact, together with the lapse of nearly 40 years since Unvala prepared his article, warrants a reconsideration of the brief section on Central Asia in the light of more recent researches.