Now available in Open Access thanks to support of the University of Helsinki. Al-Maqrīzī's (d. 845/1442) last work,
al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar, was completed a year before his death. This volume, edited by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, covers the history of pre-Islamic Iran from the Creation to the Parthians. Al-Maqrīzī's work shows how Arab historians integrated Iran into world history and how they harmonized various currents of historiography (Middle Persian historiography, Islamic sacred history, Greek and Latin historiography).
Among
al-Ḫabar's sources is
Kitāb Hurūšiyūš, the Arabic translation of Paulus Orosius'
Historiarum adversum paganos libri vii. This source has only been preserved in one defective copy, and al-Maqrīzī's text helps to fill in some of its lacunae.
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, PhD 1994, is the Iraq Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His publications include
Maqama (2002),
The Last Pagans of Iraq (2006) and several articles on pre-Islamic Iran in Arabic sources.
"With his masterful edition and translation, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila has set very high standards for future publications in the Bibliotheca Maqriziana series and beyond. On a broader scale, the volume constitutes a powerful demonstration of what philological research can and should look like in the twenty-first century. By showing what is possible, it underlines the urgent need for critical editions in a field that far too often settles for non-scholarly and faulty, albeit easily available "editions" of its primary sources." - Christian Mauder,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in:
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 82/1 (2019)
List of Plates Abbreviations Foreword Preface
Introduction 1
al-Maqrīzī and the Ḫabar 2
The Pre-Islamic History of Iran in Arabic and Persian Sources 3
al-Maqrīzī’s Sources 4
al-Maqrīzī and Orosius 5
al-Maqrīzī’s Use of Sources 6
Description of the Manuscripts 7
Notes on the Translation 8
Names
Plates
Abbreviations and Symbols
Critical Edition and Translation of al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar, vol. V, section 4: Persia and Its Kings, Part I
Persia and the Four Classes of Its Kings The First Class, the Pīšdādians Mention of the Second Class of Persians, the Kayanids The Third Class of Persian (kings), the Ašġānians
Bibliography List of Quoted Manuscripts Index of Qurʾānic Verses Index of Prophetic Traditions Index of Verses Index of Names (People and Places) Index of Quoted Titles in al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar Index of Sources in al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar Index of Glosses Index of Technical Terms
Facsimile of MS Fatih 4340 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fols. 76b–127b, 47*a–b, 128a–131a
All interested in Mamluk historiography or pre-Islamic history of Iran.