The Zoroastrian myth of migration from Iran and settlement in the Indian diaspora : text, translation and analysis of the 16th century Qeṣṣe-ye Sanjān 'The story of Sanjan' /
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The Qesse-ye Sanjān is the sole surviving account of the emigration of Zoroastrians from Iran to India to form the Parsi ('Persian') community. Written in Persian couplets in India in 1599 by a Zoroastrian priest, it is a work many know of, but few have actually read, let alone studied in depth. This book provides a romanised transcription from the oldest manuscripts, an elegant metrical translation, detailed commentary and, most importantly, a radical new theory of how such a text should be "read", id est not as a historical chronical but as a charter of Zoroastrian identity, foundation myth and justification of the Parsi presence in India. The book fills a lacuna that has been acutely felt for a long time.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-242) and indexes. :
9789047430421 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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
Al-Mashīkhah (Kanz al-sālikīn) : Ganjīna-yi khuṭūṭ va yādgār nāma-yi mashāhīr-i ʿilmi-yi Īrān az sāl-i 845 tā 1022 HQ /
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In the history of Islam and the Islamic world, the authentication of knowledge has always been important. Thus, the Prophetic traditions are typically introduced by chains of transmission going back from the speaker, all the way to a direct witness of the Prophet's sayings or deeds. And in scholarship, too, the ijāza or licence attesting to someone's proficiency in some subject written by an established teacher was very important as well, comparable to a modern certificate or diploma. Against this background, the booklet published here is rather unique. This is because it contains study certificates and samples of the handwriting of various scholars and religious authorities, issued to five generations of scholars from one and the same family from Yazd, starting with Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (d. 885/1480) and ending with Sālik al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (duwwum) (d. after 1022/1613). Most of the texts are in Arabic, while the poetry is mostly in Persian.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407275
9786002031204
Irshād : Dar maʿrifat u waʿẓ u akhlāq /
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According to Majid Fakhry, ethical theories in Islam may be divided into four categories: 1. scriptural morality (moral precepts and judgments from the Qurʾān and the Traditions); 2. theological theories (rationalist interpretations of scriptural morality based on philosophical or theological methods and categories developed in the eighth and ninth centuries); 3. philosophical theories (ultimately relying on Greek sources, mainly Plato and Aristotle in neo-Platonic interpretations); 4. religious theories (based on the Qurʾānic view of man and his position in the universe, and differing from theological theories in that they were not dialectical, not polemical, and more concerned with moral theory than with questions of methodology). The present work comes under the last category, to which it adds an element of mysticism. Besides the more general sources and authorities, it also refers to scholars and mystics from Transoxania specifically, the work having been written there in the early 6th/12th century. Contains word material from that region.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404823
9789648700237
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. :
9789004405769
9786002030122
Risāla-yi Ḥātimiyya /
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Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī, a pre-Islamic poet from the late sixth century CE, is especially known for his chivalry and magnanimity. A member of the tribe of Ṭayy in Yemen, he is mainly associated with the court of the Lakhmids in Ḥīra in Mesopotamia under king Nuʿmān b. Mundhir (reg. ca. 580-602). His poetry centers around the qualities that earned him his fame, even if part of the poems ascribed to him may be later inventions. Legend has it that his grandfather, who was his guardian, abandoned him when he saw that his grandson's generosity was incurable. Four mourning girls, hewn in stone, lined his grave, together with the cooking pots from which he had served his guests. A popular character in medieval Arabic literature, no separate work was ever dedicated to him, unlike the Persian tradition. The present text on his life and deeds by Wāʿiẓ Kāshifī (d. 910/1504-5) is the oldest to exist in Persian.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407299
9786002031297
Dū risālah az ʿIzz al-Dīn-i Zanjānī : ʿUmdat al-ḥisāb wa-Qisṭās al-muʿādala fī ʿilm al-jabr wal-muqābala /
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Not much is known about ʿIzz al-Dīn Zanjānī's (d. 660/1262) personal life other than that at different times in his career he was in Mosul, Baghdad, Bukhara and Tabriz, where Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsi (d. 672/1274) wrote his Tadhkira fi ʼl-hayʾa at his request. To posterity Zanjānī is maybe best known for his work on Arabic morphology, the Mabāḍiʾ al-taṣrīf , also known as Taṣrīf al-Zanjānī and al-ʿIzzī , on which many commentaries and supercommentaries were written. Zanjānī has four more works on linguistics, besides one work on astronomy and six treatises on mathematics, two of which are published in facsimile here. The first of these is his ʿUmdat al-ḥisāb on arithmetic and the second the Qisṭās al-muʿādala on equations. Following Zanjānī's own statements at the beginning of these treatises they were written for practical reasons, people in general standing in need of a good text on arithmetic, while the text on equations was especially relevant for jurists.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407268
9786002031211
Dīwān-i Khāzin /
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About fifty years ago, during renovation works in the complex of Imam Reza in Mashhad, a hoard of manuscripts was discovered in a secret niche. These manuscripts had probably been stashed away in a time of unrest to prevent them from getting looted or destroyed. Among them, there was one quite remarkable codex, copied in 481/1088 and published here, containing the divan of ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad al-Khāzin, a poet who belonged to entourage of the Buyid vizier Ṣāḥib b. al-ʿAbbād (d. 385/995). Al-Khāzin was his librarian for a time, until he was banished from the court. Since most of the poems are dedicated to Fakhr al-Dawla (d. 387/997) and Ibn al-ʿAbbād, they must have been written after Fakhr al-Dawla was brought to power by Ibn al-ʿAbbād in 373/983. Even with sections missing, this manuscript contains no less than 1.922 verses by al-Khāzin, much more than the 241 verses quoted in al-Thaʿālibī's (d. 429/1038) Yatīmat al-dahr.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406506
9786002030955
Takmila-yi Nafaḥāt al-uns /
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Regarded by many as the last great mystical poet of medieval Persia, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492) spent the greater part of his life in Herat. As a student he excelled in every subject he engaged in and appeared destined for an academic career. But then, in his early thirties, he went through a spiritual crisis that ended in his joining the Herat branch of the mystical Naqshbandiyya order, led by the charismatic Saʿd al-Dīn Kāshgharī (d. 860/1456). A protégé of three successive Timurid rulers in Herat, Jāmī's wide network of friendships and relations extended from spiritual and literary circles through the political to the academic. With 39.000 lines of verse and over 30 prose works to his name, Jāmī's literary production is impressive. In his biographical handbook on Sufi masters, the Nafaḥāt al-uns , Jāmī did not mention himself. This is why his student ʿAbd al-Ghafūr Lārī (d. 912/1506) wrote this biographical supplement to it.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408098
9786002031334
Ustādh-i bashar : Pizhūhishhāʾī dar zindagī, rūzgār, falsafah wa ʿilm-i Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn-i Ṭūsī (Wīzha nāmah Khājah Naṣīr al-Dīn-i Ṭūsī) /
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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 known for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology; his Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy; his commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic; his Āghāz wa anjām on Ismaili eschatology; his Awṣaf-al-ashrāf on mysticism; and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. In Iran Ṭūsī stands in high regard and studies on him abound. The present collection of articles was compiled with the aim of bringing a number of major publications by foreign and Iranian scholars within easy reach of the Persian reader. All the branches of Ṭūsī studies are represented: his life, times, and works, as well as his views and achievements in philosophy, theology, mysticism, and science.
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"The Institute of Ismaili Studies"--Page 4 of cover. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406025
9786002030313
Thawāqib al-manāqib-i awliyāʾ Allāh /
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Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Mawlānā) is the most famous and widely quoted mystical poet of the Persiate world. Ever since he passed away in 672/1273, people have studied, commented and recited his works, both in the Muslim world and, in modern times, also in the West. After Firīdūn Aḥmad Sipahsālār's (d. before 712/1312) Risāla-yi Sipahsālār dar manāqib-i khudāwandigār , the second most detailed source on Rūmī in Persian is Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī ʿĀrifī's (d. 761/1360) Manāqib al-ʿārifīn . A follower of Rūmī's grandson Jalāl al-Dīn Firīdūn (d. 719/1320), Aflākī could include a lot of first-hand information in his work. Aflākī's work saw at least two revised editions: the Khulāṣat al-Manāqib by Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd (early 9th/15th century), and the work published here by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Jalāl al-Dīn Hamadānī (d. 954/1547). Composed in Egypt where he had sought refuge from Safavid anti-Sunnī policies, he abridged the original text, removing mistakes and redundant, inappropriate, and un-Persian, 'alien' material.
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1 online resource. :
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9786002030245
Risāla-yi asṭurlāb-i Kūshyār Gīlānī /
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Kushyār (Pers. Kushyār) b. Labbān Gīlānī was a Persian astronomer and mathematician who flourished around 390/1000. All we know about his personal life is that he originated from the region of Gilan in northern Iran, bordering on the Caspian Sea. Given that he is cited in Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī's (d. after 442/1050) Kitāb fī ifrād al-maqāl fī amr al-aẓlāl , Kushyār must have become an authority by the time al-Bīrūnī came to write this work. From his works in mathematics, Kushyār's Kitāb fī uṣūl ḥisāb al-Hind on Indian arithmatic is the most important, and in astronomy his Zīj-i jāmiʿ . His Arabic work on the astrolabe is published here for the very first time, accompanied by a Japanese translation, both by Taro Mimura of Japan. In addition, this volume also contains a facsimile edition of the anonymous medieval Persian translation of this work, followed by a critical edition, both by Mohammad Bagheri of Iran.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406278
9786002030764
Tarjuma-yi Kitāb al-milal wal-niḥal /
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Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm Shahrastānī was born in 479/1086-7 in Shahristān in today's Turkmenistan. After his basic education he went to Nishapur, then a major centre of learning. Afterwards, he taught for some years at the Niẓāmiyya academy in Baghdad. Returning to Khurāsān around 514/1120, he became a staff member at the chancellery of the Saljuq ruler, Sanjar (d. 552/1157), entertaining close relations with him. At some point Shahrastānī returned to his hometown, although it is not known why or when, dying there in 548/1153. His influential history of religions and sects, which also includes an account of Greek and Islamic philosophy, is one of his best known works. Until recently only two Persian translations of it were known: one by Afḍal al-Dīn Turka-yi Iṣfahānī dated 843/1449-50, and an improved edition of it by Muṣṭafā b. Khāliqdād, dated 1021/1612. The anonymous translation published here is much older and may even date from Shahrastānī's own lifetime.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406711
9786002031198
Khulāṣat al-ashʿār wa-zubdat al-afkār. Volume 6.1 : Bakhsh-i Kāshān /
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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 work by Mīr Taqī al-Dīn Kāshānī (alive in 1016/1607) published here is an important example of this. It consists of an introduction, four divisions, and an epilogue ( khātima ), six volumes in all. From among these volumes, the epilogue listing some 394 poets from specific cities and regions in the Persianate world, many of whom were contemporaries of the author, is of special interest. Having met with many of them on his literary travels, their biographies contain a lot of information on the social and cultural climate of the time, besides new poets and poems. This volume: 6.1, Kashan.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404670
9789646781979
Munāẓara-yi Baḥr al-ʿulūm Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī Burūjirdī Ṭabāṭabāʾī (1212 HQ) bā Yahūdiyān-i Dhu ʼl-Kifl : Guzārishhā-yi ʿArabī u Fārsī /
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In the history of Islam, Muslim-Jewish polemics have been documented from the earliest times and studies on this subject abound. The present work is a case in point. In the spring of the year 1211/1796, the famous Shīʿī scholar Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī al-Ḥusaynī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1212/1797) was on his way from Mashhad to visit the holy shrine of Imam Ḥusayn in Karbala, accompanied by a flock of his senior students. When they reached the town of al-Kifl, less than 20 km north of Najaf and home to a community of over 3.000 Jews, a delegation of the latter came to see Ṭabāṭabāʾī in the caravanserai where was staying, wishing to engage in a debate with him. The text presented here is an account of Ṭabāṭabāʾī's detailed listing of the contradictions and errors in Judaism as seen by him, a listing that remained largely unanswered. Arabic text, with a Persian translation from before 1238/1822-3.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405912
9786002030276
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. :
9789004402614
9789646781122
Tuḥfat al-fatā fī tafsīr sūrat Hal atā /
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One of the challenges that the Qurʾān poses to its readers is the apparent contradictions that it contains. In order for these contradictions to be removed, Muslim scholars developed a doctrine according to which one verse could be abrogated by another. Abrogation being linked to temporality, the question whether a verse was revealed in Mecca or Medina became a major point of discussion. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Dashtakī (d. 949/1542) was one of the major representatives of the School of Shiraz in philosophy and a specialist in Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy, as well as mysticism. The present volume contains a new edition of his commentary on Sūrat al-Insān (no. 76), which is one of the suras on whose time of revelation much had already been written. In this seminal and innovative work, emphasis is given to a mystico-philosophical reading of the text, an appoach that would reach its zenith in the work of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640)
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1 online resource. :
9789004403017
9789646781740
Kalimāt-i qiṣār-i Imām ʿAlī : Du majmūʿa: 1. Miʾat kalima - Nathr al-laʾālī, 2. Tarjuma-yi manẓūm-i Nathr al-laʾālī /
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Being the first imam of the Shīʿa, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib's (d. 40/661) statements-in any form-have always been important. In the centuries following his death, there appeared several collections of aphorisms, speeches, sermons, rulings and letters, all ascribed to him. The significance of these works was not just informative or even literary; they also had a didactic side insofar as ʿAlī was regarded as a channel for God's grace to man, it being through him that man could learn how to fulfil God's wish of obeying Him. Among these works, there are the Miʾat kalima by Baḥr b. ʿAmr al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-69) and the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ , probably by Faḍl b. Ḥasan Ṭabarsī (d. 548/1153). The present volume contains the facsimile editions of a well-executed 19th-century copy of both of these Arabic texts, followed by a Persian translation into poetry of part of the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ by Yār ʿAlī ʿAlānawī Tabrīzī (early 16th century)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405691
9786002030092
Maḥbūb al-qulūb. Volume 2 : Al-Maqāla al-thāniya fi aḥwāl ḥukamāʾ al-Islām wal-ʿulamāʾ al-aʿlām wal-udabāʾ al-kirām mimman lahum al-iʿtināʾ bi-shaʾnihim wal-iʿtibār bi-kalāmihim /...
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In the Islamic world, the writing of biographical reference works has a very long tradition. In the field of philosophy and other rational sciences such as medicine, one could, for example, mention Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn's (d. 298/910) Taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ wal-ḥukamāʾ or Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's (d. ca 668/1270) ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ . The present two-volume biographical dictionary of philosophers and physicians of all times thus continues a centuries-old tradition. Its author, Quṭb al-Dīn Ishkawarī Lāhijī (d. ca. 1088-95/1677-78), was a student of the great Safavi thinker and founder of the School of Isfahan in philosophy, Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631). This is also obvious from his spiritually-orientated, inclusive understanding of the various actors and episodes in the history of philosophy. Written in classical Arabic, at times sprinkled with his native Persian, it distinguishes itself from earlier dictionaries in that it also contains many of the author's own philosophical opinions. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402287
9789646781757
Tuḥfat al-azhār wa-zulāl al-anhār. Volume 3 : Fī nasab abnāʾ al-aʾimma al-aṭhār ʿalayhim ṣalawāt al-malik al-ghaffār /
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In traditional societies, ancestry is an important organising principle, often determining the lives of individuals or groups from the moment that they are born. In the Arab world, nasab (pl. ansāb ) or lineage was and to some extent still is, a major factor in the distribution of wordly and religious power, while administrative positions, trades, crafts and certain offices in the world of scholarship, too, often devolved along hereditary lines. Among the Shīʿa, where blood ties with the family of the Prophet through ʿAlī and his descendants are highly regarded and a source of authority and social standing, we find a number of ansāb works that focus exclusively on the genealogy of the twelve imams. Born into a Shīʿite family of ansāb scholars in 11th/17th-century Medina, the author of the present work travelled extensively in the Shīʿa world in his search for information. The result is a voluminous work, rich in material, genealogical and historic. 3 vols. & supplement al-Rawḍ al-miʿṭār fī tashjīr Tuḥfat al-azhār ; volume 3.
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Vol. numbering from spine. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402577
9789646781207