Mirʾāt al-adwār wa-mirqāt al-akhbār. Volume 1 /
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Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Lārī (d. 979/1572) was a Persian scholar in the traditional and foreign sciences. Born in Luristan in south-western Iran, he received his academic education in Shiraz, attending the lectures of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Dashtakī ((d. 949/1542) and Kamāl al-Dīn Lārī (d. 979/1572), prominent representatives of the Shiraz School in philosophy. Under the Safavids, many intellectuals left Persia for India or Asia Minor. Lārī went to India, living at the court of the Mughal emperor Humāyūn (d. 963/1556). After the latter's death he went to Mecca and then on to Istanbul, where he lived for a number of years, a respected scholar among his peers. His final years Lārī spent as the head of a school in Amīd, today's Diyarbakır. Lārī compiled the universal history published here in Istanbul, dedicating it to Sultan Selim II (d. 982/1574). Worthy of note are his lack of partisanship, his transparence on sources, and his interest in scholars and artists. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406414
9786002030733
Risāla-yi jild sāzī : Ṭayyāri-yi jild /
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Before the printing press made its appearance in the Islamic world, books were reproduced in manuscript, as was the case in Europe before Gutenberg (d. 1468) introduced printing in movable type. In that connection, the art of bookbinding was very important. This may be inferred from a special chapter devoted to this subject in Ibn Bādīs' (d. 453/1061) ʿ Umdat al-kuttāb wa-ʿuddat dhawi ʼl-albāb , or from Ibn Abī Ḥamīda's (9th/15th century) didactic poem for bookbinders, called Tadbīr al-safīr fī ṣināʿat al-tasfīr . The present work is a new and improved edition of a didactic poem on bookbinding in Persian, composed in India by a certain Sayyid Yūsuf Ḥusayn, somewhere before 1228/1813. About the author not much is known other than that his knowledge of Persian shows some shortcomings and that he must have had mystical leanings. This new edition follows the discovery of another copy of this text in Iran, besides the one kept in Madras (Chennai)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405837
9786002030221
Az nuskhahā-yi Istānbūl : Dastnivīshā-ī dar falsafah, kalām, ʿirfān /
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For those working with Islamic manuscripts the libraries of Istanbul have always been a treasure-trove. New discoveries are frequently reported and of many texts, the oldest or only copy is kept in some library in Istanbul. Since the publication of the defters of the Istanbul libraries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many more catalogues and handlists have been produced in an effort to render the immense amount of material more accessible. Even if the bulk of this work is done by Turkish specialists, foreign scholars, too, do their part. The present collection of research notes is a case in point. They describe a number of important Arabic and Persian manuscripts in philosophy, theology and mysticism selected for publication by the Written Heritage Research Centre in Tehran. Some of these manuscripts are in the hand of, or contain marginalia by, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), Najm al-Dīn Kātibī (d. 675/1276), and others.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406018
9786002030399
Minhāj al-ʿulā : Risalaʾī dar bāb-i ḥukūmat-i qānūn /
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In the beginning, Qajar rulership (1210-1344/1796-1925) pretty much reflected the traditional, top-down leadership common among the Turkic tribes from which this dynasty had come forth. It was only under Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh Qājār (r. 1264-1313/1848-96) that serious attempts at reforms were made, initially under Chancellor Mīrzā Taqī Khān, in office between 1264/1848 and 1268/1851. However, Amīr Kabīr's energetic initiatives met with internal resistence, leading to his downfall and subsequent murder in a bathhouse in Fin Garden, Kashan, in 1268/1852. In the years following, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh introduced various administrative initiatives, but ineffectiveness and internal resistence remained important impediments to genuine reforms. Well-structured and lucid, the present work by Abū Ṭālib Bihbihānī is one of several memoranda on reform that were sent to the shah in the course of his reign. Focussing on the separation of powers as codified in European constitutional law, many of its suggestions were implemented in Iran's first constitution of 1906-07.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405592
9789648700909
The sea of chronicles (muḥīṭ al-tavārīkh) /
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"The Sea of Chronicles is an English translation of the ninth and tenth chapters of the historiographical work entitled Muḥīṭ al-tavārīkh by Muḥammad Amīn b. Mīrzā Muḥammad Zamān Bukhārī. The work is a valuable source in particular for the study of the late seventeenth-century Central Asian political, cultural and religious history. The ninth chapter offers accounts of the Timurid, Abulkhayrid/Shaybanid and the first four Ashatrkhanid khans. The tenth chapter which is the most original and important chapter of the work presents a detailed account of the life and time of the last great Ashatkhanid ruler, Subḥān QulīKhān (r. 1682-1702), revealing historical information essential for the study of the period and region".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004415287
ʿArafāt al-ʿāshiqīn wa-ʿaraṣāt al-ʿārifīn. Volume 3, Dal-Sīn /
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In Persian literature, tadhkira ('note', 'memorandum') works are for the most part collections of biographies of poets, combined with selections from their writings. The earliest such work is Dawlatshāh Samarqandī's Tadhkirat al-shuʿarāʾ (completed in 892/1487), which set a standard for posterity. The tadhkira genre was especially popular in the 10th/16th century and following. The present work by Taqī al-Dīn Awḥadī (alive in 1042/1632-33) is a good example of this. Born in Isfahan in 973/1565, as a young man his poetical talent was commended by, among others, the poet ʿUrfī Shīrāzī (d. 999/1591). After some time in the entourage of Shāh ʿAbbās I and a six-year stay in Iraq, he left Persia to try his luck at one of the courts in India. The present work, completed in 1024/1615, was written for a high official at the court of Jahāngīr. It contains about 3500 entries on Persian poets from the earliest times until his own day.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405233
9789648700831
Majmūʿa-yi rasāʾil : ʿAjāʾib aḥkām Amīr al-Muʾminīn, Dhikr al-khalāʾif wa-ʿunwān al-maʿārif, Faḍl al-ʿilm, Dhakhāʾir al-ḥikma, Mukhtaṣar-i Jāvidān khirad /...
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Today most oriental manuscript collections are kept in institutional and other (semi-) public libraries. Yet many of these collections were jumpstarted with the acquisition or donation of some private collection. Even now, private collections may still yield unexpected finds. A case in point is MS Tehran, National Library, Arabic 16574. This manuscript belonged earlier and until 1423/2002 to Sayyid Muḥsin Amīn ʿĀmilī, author of the famous biographical dictionary Aʿyān al-Shīʿa , and then to his son Sayyid Ḥasan Amīn, after whose death it devolved to the National Library of Iran. Compiled in 420/1029, this manuscript contains six medium-sized classical texts in Arabic from before ca. 390/1000. From among these, special mention must be made of an abbreviated version ( mukhtaṣar ) of Ibn Miskawayh's (d. 421/1030) gnomological work in Arabic, the Jāvidān khirad . Copied while Ibn Miskawayh was still alive, this abbreviation represents the oldest sample of the original text and certainly merits consideration in any future edition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407312
9786002031990
Al-Arbaʿīniyyāt li-Kashf anwār al-qudsiyyāt /
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In the history of Islamic literature, there is a genre called arbaʿūna ḥadīthan , in which 40 Prophetic traditions are jointly published, mostly with some kind of commentary. The genre finds its origin in the tradition saying that whoever commits forty traditions to memory will be reckoned among the jurists on Resurrection Day. Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī (d. after 1107/1696) is a Shīʿite philosopher, jurist, physician and mystic of the Safavid period. Having been trained by some of the foremost scholars of his time, he spent most of his active life in Qum, where he divided his time between his judgeship and teaching. In imitation of the forty-traditions genre, Qāḍī Saʿīd wanted to publish a collection of fourty essays, mostly on philosophy and mysticism, as the fruit of his many years of study. In fact, he got no further than ten. Still, this does not detract from their quality, as may be judged from the present edition.
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A collection of treatises on various subjects compiled by the author. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402812
9789646781658
Rawḍa-yi taslīm (taṣavvurāt) /
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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. Author of a large number of scholarly 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. Ṭūsī spent at least half of his academic and political life among the Nizārī branch of the Ismailis, first in Quhistan in eastern Iran, and then in Alamut in the north and other Ismaili strongholds. The Persian work published here originated as a lecture series on Nizārī Ismaili doctrine, given by Ṭūsī in Alamut. The edition is a much improved version of the one by Ivanov, based on better manuscripts, unavailable to him.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406353
9786002030832
Tārīkh-i Rashīdī /
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In the history of Islam, royal courts and other centers of wordly power played a major role in the survival and development of the sciences and the arts. And many rulers and high ranking officials themselves, too, often engaged in one or several of these. By way of example one may, for the Persianate world, mention Sultan Bayqārā (d. 911/1506), the Timurid ruler of Herat, and Ẓahīr al-Dīn Bābur (d. 937/1530), founder of the Mughal empire in India. Another example is the author of the present work, Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥaydar Dūghlāt (d. 957/1551). Coming from a family of Chagatai generals and high administrators, he served a whole series of rulers in various parts of east Asia, mostly as a general and lastly as the ruler of Kashmir. Though wider in scope, the Tārīkh-i Rashīdī is above all a unique source of information on Chagatai history, full of personal reflexions on religion, culture, and the arts.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404083
9789646781870
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Sāmāniyān u Buwayhiyān u Ghaznawiyān /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here describes the history of the Samanids, the Buyids and the Ghaznavids.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404199
9789648700398
Bih guzīn-i ʿAlī-nāma : Kuhantarīn manẓūma-yi Shīʿi-yi Fārsī /
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Until the discovery of the Persian ʿAlī-nāma , Ibn Ḥusām's Khawarān-nāma (830/1427) was believed to be the oldest Persian epic poem involving the often wondrous exploits of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the beginnings of Shīʿism. The Khawarān-nāma takes its inspiration from Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma , but then adapted to fit the Shīʿī theme, with ʿAlī and his companions often taking the place of Rustam and other heroes. The ʿAlī-nāma , extant in one manuscript in Konya, is a much older poem on the same subject. Composed by someone using the alias of Rabīʿ, it was completed in 482/1089 in Khurāsān, just seventy years after the completion of Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma . The text is important because long before others, it acknowledges the heroes of the Shāh-nāma , some of whom were actually written into the script. Different from the edition by Omidsalar (2010), this edition only reproduces verses deemed worthy of Rabīʿ, rejecting two-thirds as the work of some unknown 'poetaster'.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405943
9786002030337
The genesis of the Bábí-Baháʼí faiths in Shíráz and Fárs /
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The Bábí and Baháʾí Faiths represent two of the most important religious movements of modern times. This book relates the story of the evolution of the Bábí-Baháʾí community, beginning with the birth of its founder, Siyyid ʾAlí-Muhammad, known as the Báb, in 1819 and then traced over the next century and a half in the city of his birth, Shíráz. Its author, Mírzá Habíbuʾlláh Afnán, was himself born in the house of the Báb, reared by the widow of the Báb, who shared with him many stories of the Báb's life, then spent nearly a year with Baháʾuʾlláh in the ʾAkka-Haifa area, and some ten years in close proximity to Baháʾuʾlláh's son ʾAbduʾl-Bahá. He served for the next half century as the hereditary custodian of the house of the Báb, and as such was uniquely qualified to tell the story of the Bábí-Baháʾí Faiths in the city of Shíráz in remarkable and moving detail.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-384) and indexes. :
9789047442349 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mirʾāt al-adwār wa-mirqāt al-akhbār. Volume 2 /
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Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Lārī (d. 979/1572) was a Persian scholar in the traditional and foreign sciences. Born in Luristan in south-western Iran, he received his academic education in Shiraz, attending the lectures of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Dashtakī ((d. 949/1542) and Kamāl al-Dīn Lārī (d. 979/1572), prominent representatives of the Shiraz School in philosophy. Under the Safavids, many intellectuals left Persia for India or Asia Minor. Lārī went to India, living at the court of the Mughal emperor Humāyūn (d. 963/1556). After the latter's death he went to Mecca and then on to Istanbul, where he lived for a number of years, a respected scholar among his peers. His final years Lārī spent as the head of a school in Amīd, today's Diyarbakır. Lārī compiled the universal history published here in Istanbul, dedicating it to Sultan Selim II (d. 982/1574). Worthy of note are his lack of partisanship, his transparence on sources, and his interest in scholars and artists. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406438
9786002030740
Mirʾāt al-waqāyiʿ-i Muẓaffarī. Volume 2 /
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ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Khān Lisān al-Salṭanah Sipihr (1869-1933), also known by his honorific title of Malik al-Muwarrikhīn, was an historian, a court official, a chronicler, a politician, a writer of many books in various disciplines, and an Iranian newspaperman of the first hour. Entering the secretarial ranks of the court at the age of eighteen, he held various positions of trust under Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (d. 1313/1896) and Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shāh (d. 1907). After Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shāh's death he worked in several official capacities, lastly as head of the religious endowments of Kashan. Unable to make a living as a publisher, he spent the last part of his life in education. He died after a short illness in Tehran, aged 64. This volume contains his thusfar unpublished chronicle of the reign of Muẓaffar al-Dīn Shāh. His reports on Iran's internal affairs are especially interesting since he was a close witness of most of these events. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404854
9789648700275
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i mubārak-i Ghāzānī. Volume 1 /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The four volumes published here contain the history of the Mongols up until Ghāzān. Section: Mongols; 4 vols; volume. 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404373
9786002031082
Ḥall mushkilāt Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt : Mashhūr bih Sharḥ-i Ishārāt /
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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. Author of a large number of scholarly works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology, the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy, and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. The present volume contains a facsimile edition of an ancient copy of another famous work by him, the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt , which is his influential commentary on Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) groundbreaking Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt . The Ishārāt is commonly regarded as Avicenna's final statement on all there is to know in logic and philosophy. Directed at a restricted readership of trusted specialists, it was deliberately written in a terse, impenetrable style. From the many commentaries that were written on it, the one by Ṭūsī would be decisive for the later Avicennan tradition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405721
9789648700893
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. :
9789004404656
9789648700022
Miʿyār al-ashʿār wa-Mizān al-afkār fī sharḥ Miʿyār al-ashʿār /
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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. Author of a large number of scholarly 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. The present work contains an edition of a compendium on Persian and Arabic metrics which Ṭūsī says he wrote at the request of some friends, probably at the time of his association with the Ismailis, before the Mongol invasion and the collapse of the Niẓārī state in 654/1256. It is followed by the edition of a detailed commentary on it by the Indian scholar Muḥammad Saʿdallāh Murādābādī (d. 1294/1877). Persian, interspersed with Arabic.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405714
9786002030115
Al-Risāla al-muḥīṭa : Nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi shumāra-yi 5389 Kitābkhāna-yi Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍawī /
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Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī is one of the most outstanding mathematicians and astronomers in the history of the Persianate world. The son of a physician, he was born around 790/1388 in Kashan, where he lived most of his life. Many of his writings were composed in that city, including his famous Zīj-i Khāqānī . In 824/1421 he left for Samarqand, where he played an important role in the construction of the observatory commissioned by the Timurid ruler and astronomer, Ulugh Beg (853/1449), becoming its first director. In 832/1429 he was found dead near this observatory, outside the walls of Samarqand. A violent death is suspected, probably on the order of Ulugh Beg. The present work, completed in 827/1424 in Samarqand, is about the determination of the number Pi. An innovative work of great merit, its exactness was only superseded with the publication of Ludolph van Ceulen's Van den circel in Delft, Holland, in 1596.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406179
9786002030559