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The sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā, the “Tale of the Three Schoolfellows” and the wasaya of the Niẓām al-Mulk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Harold Bowen
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Extract

The original version of the Assassin biography of al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, called sar-gudhasht-i sayyidnā, is not extant. All we possess are two recensions of it, if such a term is apposite, in the notes taken on the work by the two seventh/thirteenth century historians, ‘Aṭā-Malik al-Juwaynī (work completed 658/1260) and the Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍdl Allāh (work completed 710/1310–11). For unless we may suppose that al-Juwaynī, who discovered the book in the library of the Assassin headquarters at Alamūt, afterwards condensed the notes that he first took, and that the Rashīd later incorporated these first longer notes in his history, we can only conclude that the Rashīd consulted the original work afresh, since his version is in fact very much fuller than al-Juwaynī's. Which the Rashīd did it is impossible to say. There is one fact, however, that points to the first course as the likelier, namely that in introducing their, extracts both use almost the same words (which cannot have appeared in the original work). Moreover, the copy used by al-Juwaynī was burnt after perusal with the other pernicious writings of the heretics. So the second course would involve the (improbable) existence of another copy.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , October 1931 , pp. 771 - 782
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1931

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References

page 771 note 1 See Browne, , Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion, p. 65Google Scholar.

page 771 note 2 Ibid., p. 72.

page 771 note 3 See the ta'rīkh-i jahān-gushā (B.M. codex Or. 155—hereinafter referred to as Juw.—f. 255a).

page 771 note 4 Cf. the conclusion come to by MrLevy, R. in hia note of correction, JRAS. 1931, p. 151Google Scholar.

page 772 note 1 See Juw., loc. cit., and the jāmi' al-tawārīkh (B.M. codex Add. 7628— hereinafter referred to as Bash.—f. 290a).

page 772 note 2 Rash., f. 290b.

page 772 note 2 See Ibn al-Athīr (ed. Cairo, 1290/1873—hereinafter referred to as Ath.—x, 38–9, 41).

page 773 note 1 Ath. ix, 167; x, 118.

page 773 note 2 Rash., fi. 290b–291a; Juw. (shorter version), f. 256a.

page 774 note 1 See SirRoss's, E. Denison biographical introduction to the Rubāi'iyyāt (ed. , Methuen, 1900, 62 sq.)Google Scholar, and Browne, , Literary History of Persia, ii, 190–3Google Scholar.

page 774 note 2 So Khallikān, Ibn (trans, de Slane, , i, 414)Google Scholar.

page 774 note 3 This date is given by our earliest authority, the sixth/twelfth century ta'rīkh bayhaq (B.M. codex, Or. 3587, f. 43a).

page 774 note 4 Juw., f. 262b; Rash., f. 296b.

page 774 note 5 See Ross, op. cit., 72.

page 774 note 6 Our doubt that these personages should have been centenarians is strengthened by an observation of their younger contemporary, the historian al-Silafī (apud Khallikān, Ibn, i, 88Google Scholar): “I may add that I have not heard of any person within the last three hundred years who lived for a century, much less of one who lived for more, the kadi Abû't-Tayib at-Tabari excepted.” Al-Silafī himself lived to be over a hundred, dying in 576 (1180–1). See al-Subkl, , ṭabaqāt al-shāfi'iyyat al-kubrä (ed. , Cairo, iv, 1324/1906, iv, 46)Google Scholar.

page 775 note 1 Rash., f. 292b.

page 775 note 2 Ibid., f. 290b.

page 775 note 3 Juw., ff. 259b–260a; Rash., ff. 292b–293a.

page 775 note 4 ta'rīkh-i guzīdeh (Trust, Gibb ed., 439 sq., 517)Google Scholar.

page 776 note 1 Juw., f. 255b; Rash., f. 290a–b.

page 776 note 2 There are two B.M. codices of this work: Or. 256—hereinafter referred to as w. (A)—and Add. 26, 267—hereinafter referred to as w. (B).

page 776 note 3 See Browne, , Literary History of Persia, ii, 212Google Scholar.

page 776 note 4 w. (A), f. 5b; (B), f. 4a. Cf. Ethé, , in Grundriss der Iranischen Philologie, ii, 348Google Scholar.

page 777 note 1 B.M. codex Or. 2676, f. 157b. See, too, the “Introduction” to this work by MrNazim, Muhammad (Gibb Trust, New Series, viii, 206)Google Scholar. Another possible source for the waṣāyā is a book still in existence in the seventh-twelfth century, compiled by one of the Niẓām's chief officials, dealing with the “excellences of his conduct”. It was consulted by the author of the Arabic history, zubdat al-tawārīkh, who quotes from it. See B.M. codex Stowe 7, f. 40a sq.

page 777 note 1 w. (A), f. 7a–b; (B), f. 5a. (A) has Fundarūjī, and (B) Qundizī(?)— but the proper reading is evidently that of al-Bākharzī and al-Sam'ānī— see below. Fundūraj was a village in the Nīshāpūr district. See Yāqūt, , mu'jam al-buldān (ed. , Wustenfeld, iii, 119)Google Scholar.

page 777 note 3 See the unpublished edition of Mr. S. J. Hussein (London University Library, Imperial Institute, D.Litt. Thesis, 1926), 840, 851, 935, 960.

page 777 note 4 See the kharīdat al-qaṣr of the 'Imād al-Dīn of Iṣfahān (B.M. codex Add. 18,524, f. 134a), also al-Bundārī (ed. Houtsma, p. 64, 1. 12 and note (d)). The reading al-ghundūru ḥayya (for al-fundūrajiyyu) is evidently wrong in this place, as is also the editor's conjecture that the person referred to is the qāḍī Abū Bakr (as a Hanafite a most unlikely preceptor for that light of Shafeism, the Niẓām).

page 777 note 5 See the kitāḇ al-ansāb (Gibb Trust facsimile, f. 432), where a man evidently his grandson, 'Alī b. Muḥammad b. 'Abd al-Ṣamad of Isfarāyin, is mentioned as “munshi, in the dīwān of the sultan and the vizier”. As he was born in 489 (1096), the sultan was probably Sanjar, and the vizier very likely the Shihāb al-Islām (the Niẓām's nephew, in office 511–15/1117–21) or Ṭahir, son of the Fakir al-Mulk (and so the Niẓam's grandson, in office 528–48/1134–54).

It is a curious coincidence that the name of the vizier al-Ṭughrā'ī, author of the famous “lāmíyyat al-'ajam”—born about 450 (1059), killed 513 (1119–20)—should have been (Abū Isma'īl) Muḥammad b. 'Alī b. Muḥammad b. 'Abd al-Ṣamad. See Ibn Khallikān, i, 462 sq.

page 778 note 1 See the photographic facsimile of the Berlin MS. of his ta'rīkh ḥukamā' al-islām, in the Library of the School of Oriental Studies, f. 72.

page 778 note 2 w. (A), f. 36a; (B), f. 29a.

page 778 note 3 His kunyah was Abū Muḥammad, his name Hibat Allah b. Muḥammad. As well as al-Muwaffaq he had received the laqab jamāl al-islām.

page 779 note 1 Al-Dhahabī, ta'rīkh al-islām, supplies a short notice of al-Muwaffaq (B.M. codex Or. 49, f. 189b) and a longer notice of his son Abū Sahl (B.M. codex Or. 50, f. 61b sq.), the latter copied in part by al-Subkī, , ṭabaqāt al-shāfi'iyyat al-kubrä, iii, 85Google Scholar. References to al-Muwaffaq occur also in al-Bayhaqī's ta'rīkh-i āl-i subuk-tikīn, the safar-nāmeh of Nāṣir-i Khusraw, the dumyat al-qaṣr, and the nuṣrat al-fatrah of the 'Imād al-Dīn of Iṣfahān. His family history is further elucidated by a notice of his father in al-Sam'ānī (op. cit., f. 81b) and of his maternal grandfather in al-Qazwīnī's āthār al-bilād (ed. Wüstenfeld, 318–19).

page 779 note 2 Ath., x, 118.

page 779 note 3 Cf. the tale, dating from the third/ninth century, in the jawāmi' al-ḥikāyāt (MS. cited, f. 168a); also Dozy, , Moslems in Spain, p. 357 sqGoogle Scholar. The likeness in the latter, however, is less close.

page 780 note 1 See lithograph edition of the rawḍat al-ṣafā, Teheran, 1853–4 (unpaginated), jild iv.

The excerpt said to be from the waṣāyā, published by Schefer, in his Supplément to the siyāset-nāmeh, p. 48Google Scholar, is evidently taken in fact from some history in which the work is quoted. It is not Mīr-khwānd's, though the account (except for its ending) differs only verbally from his.

page 780 note 2 See lithograph ed., Teheran, 1855, ii, 166 sq.

page 780 note 3 See B.M. codex, Add. 16,681, f. 475b sq.

page 780 note 4 See Shea and Troyer's trans., ii, 423 sq. According to this account—for which the waṣāyā is not quoted as source—the Niẓām failed to keep his pact, not only with Ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, but with ‘Umar as well.

page 781 note 1 Recueil de Textes Relatifs à l'Histoire des Seldjoucides, ii, xiv sq.

page 781 note 2 Ibid., 66 sq.

page 781 note 3 See Browne, , Literary History of Persia, ii, 192Google Scholar.

page 781 note 4 p. 138.

page 781 note 5 See the dumyat al-qaṣr, 640 sq. This passage has been published in Sohefer's Supplēment, 115 sq., the editor there stating—in error (?)—that he had taken it from, the kharīdat al-qaṣr of the 'Imād al-Dīn (introduction v). It is also quoted in Yāqūt, , irshād al-arīb (, Gibb Trust ed., v, 124)Google Scholar.

page 781 note 6 See al-Bundārī (Recueil, ii), 30 and Ath., x, 12.

page 782 note 1 See al-Dhahabī, ta'rīkh al-islām (B.M. codex Or. 50, f. 61a), quoting the kitāb al-umzaraof Abū'1-Ḥasan al-Hamadhānī.

page 782 note 2 AI-Kundurī was dismissed from the vizierate of Alp Arslān in ṣafar 456 (Jan.–Feb. 1064), and was executed rather less than a year later as a result of the Niẓām's machinations. Our fullest account of these events is that of the contemporary Muḥammad b. Hilāl al-Ṣābi', apud the sibṭ of Ibn al-Jawzī, mir'āt al-zamān (Paris codex, Arabe 1506, f. 104a sq.).