Al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand /
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In the Arabic literary tradition, biographies form a class of their own and have always been widely used. Whether about a single person or about some group, their shared objective was to provide an authoritative account of someone's lineage, social or literary career, academic or religious background or affiliation, or connection to some historic event. As examples one could mention Ibn Hishām's (d. 218/834) Sīrat Muḥammad rasūli ʼllāh , Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's (d. 668/1270) Kitāb ʿuyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ , or Nūr al-Dīn al-Ṭūkhī's (d. ca 900/1494) Quḍāt Miṣr . The author of the present work, Najm al-Dīn al-Nasafī (d. 537/1142-43), was a long-time resident of Samarqand and widely known and respected as jurist. He wrote more than 30 works, in Persian and in Arabic. The present volume contains an inventory of ḥadīth scholars bearing some connection to Samarqand. Its importance lies mainly in the many names of people, places, and books which are otherwise entirely unknown.
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1 online resource. :
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9789646781122
Majlis dar qiṣṣa-yi rasūl (ṣalawāt Allāh ʿalayhi) /
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In Persian literature, so-called ' majālis ' works typically evoke the atmosphere of a religious gathering. In such a gathering, a chronicler relates parts of the history of Islam and the lives and times of its prominent representatives, often referring to trustworthy sources. Besides, questions may be asked, while teachings or sermons may also be given. Examples are Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī's (d. 672/1273) Majālis-i sabʿa and Saʿdī's (d. 691/1292) Majālis-i panj-gānah . Judging by its title, the present work by an unknown author from the 5th/12th century-it is not known if it was originally written in Persian or translated from Arabic-would seem to belong to this same type of writings. Only, on closer inspection this is not the case. Being mostly inspired by Ibn Isḥāq's (d. 150/767) al-Sīra al-nabawiyya and Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī's (d. 322/933-4) Aʿlām al-nubuwwa , only its last five chapters are called majlis , but then lack the characteristics of a typical majālis work.
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1 online resource. :
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9786002030122
Al-Ifāda fī tarīkh al-aʾimma al-sāda /
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As is well known, the main difference between the Imāmiyya and Zaydiyya branches in Shīʿī Islam is to do with the fact that the Zaydiyya-named so after their first leader Zayd b.ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 122/740)-did not unconditionally condemn the first three caliphs before ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, while to the Imāmiyya branch, all Sunnīs were infidels. But even though the Zaydīs did not consider Sunnīs generally as infidels, they regarded rebellion against Sunnī rule -unlawful to them-as a religious duty for all. The Imāmīs on the other hand, while radical in doctrine, did not have a militant attitude comparable to that of the Zaydīs. Geographically, the Zaydīs divided into a Yemeni and an Iranian branch, concentrated along the shores of the Caspian sea. The present work contains the biographies of 15 Zaydī imams, some from the Caspian, the author-Abū Ṭālib Hārūnī (d. 424/1033)-being a Zaydī scholar from that region.
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1 online resource. :
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9789648700572
Al-Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. The author of a large number of works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology; the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy; the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt ; his influential commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic; and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. Another famous work is his Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-hayʾa published here. As stated by the editor, this is one of the most important and influential astronomical works written in the pre-modern Islamic world. It belongs to the second phase of Ṭūsī's academic career and constitutes a synthesis between two earlier works by him, written when he was still working for the Nizārī Ismailis. Arabic text and apparatus, Persian introduction translated from the English edition.
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1 online resource. :
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9786002030917
Al-Mukhtaṣar min Kitāb al-siyāq li-tārīkh-i Nīsābūr /
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In the Islamic middle ages, urban histories were for the most part not the kind of chronicle that one might think, covering the political, economic, or cultural history of a particular city over a certain time. Instead, they were a kind of 'who's who' directory of names of a city's prominent inhabitants, mostly from as far back as information would be available until the lifetime of the author. In the case of the city of Nishapur, which saw its greatest blossoming between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, there is al-Ḥākim al-Nīshāpūrī's (d. 405/1014) foundational Taʾrīkh Nīsābūr , an Arabic work-now lost-on which many later biographers relied. Al-Ḥākim's work was continued by ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī (d. 529/1134) in his al-Siyāq li-Taʾrīkh Nīsābūr . The text published here is described as a partial summary of al-Fārisī's work, although Frye in his The Histories of Nishapur (p. 10) still regarded it as a fragment of the Siyāq itself.
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1 online resource. :
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9789648700022