Jahān-i dānish /
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Sharaf al-Din Mas'ūdi (6th/12th cent.) was a philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and logician. A native of Marw, he spent a large part of his life in Bukhara and Samarqand, Transoxiana. In Bukhara he had a number of debates with the philosopher and theologian Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210), described in the latter's Munāẓarāt jarat fī bilād Mā warāʾ al-nahr . From among his philosophical works, his critical notes to Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt deserve special mention. In the sciences, he wrote a work on astronomy and geography called al-Kifāya fī ʿilm al-hayʾa . In the introduction to this work he explains that he composed it at the request of a friend and that it is based on the works of others, among then Ibn al-Haytham (d. ca. 432/1040-41) and Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.). Afterwards, he translated it into Persian-this time without mentioning his sources-calling it Jahāni- dānish , published in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
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Sharḥ al-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām : maʿa ʼl-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām, nuskha muṣawwara min majmūʿat ʿĀṭif Efendī raqm 1338/1 /
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The Imāmī scholar Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī (d. 459-60/1066-7) was born in Ṭūs in Khurāsān. Having completed his basic education there, he left for Baghdad, which at the time was ruled by the Shīʿī Buwayhid dynasty. In Baghdad he attended the classes of various prominent scholars, notably the leading Imāmī rationalist of his time, al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022) and his successor al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). After the death of al-Murtaḍā, Ṭūsī, who had already made a name for himself as a thinker and a writer, became the undisputed leader of the Imāmī community. About ten years later Baghdad was invaded by the Saljuqs and Ṭūsī's house and libraries were laid to waste. Tūsī fled to Najaf where he remained until his death. Al-Muqaddima fi ʼl-kalām on concepts in theology figures among Ṭūsī's most important works. The commentary by Najīb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī (d. 582/1186) printed in facsimile here are lecture notes, made by one of his students.
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1 online resource. :
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Kitāb al-tafṣīl li-jumal al-Taḥṣīl : Sharḥ Kitāb al-taḥṣīl li-muʾallifihi Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ /
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From the time of its foundation in 284/897, the Zaydī Imamate of Yemen was home to Muʿtazilī ideas. During the first centuries and starting with Imam al-Hādī ila ʼl-Ḥaqq (d. 298/911), Zaydī ideology included elements very much akin to the opinions of the Baghdad School of the Muʿtazila as founded by Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 210/825). However, in the 6-7th/11-12th centuries, we see a rise in popularity of Bahshamiyya ideas, a sub-group of the Basran School of the Muʿtazila around Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). These ideas were systematized and elaborated upon by the Zaydī theologian al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188), notably in his short theological summa the Kitāb al-taḥṣīl fi ʼl-tawḥīd wal-taʿdīl . This work soon gained popularity and within 30 years after his death, as three commentaries on it were written. The one whose surviving part is published here is an early witness of Yemeni Zaydī acquaintance with Ibn al-Malāḥimī's (d. 536/1141) works and anti-Bahshamī teachings.
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1 online resource. :
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Rawḍat al-munajjimīn /
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In the first centuries of Islam, Arabic gradually replaced Middle Persian to become the language of the new religion and the administration of Iran. Works in Middle Persian were translated into Arabic and Persian authors also started writing directly in Arabic. From the fifth/eleventh century onward, there arose a need for works in New Persian, either translated from Arabic or composed in New Persian straightaway. The work published in this volume is a product of that period. Not much is known about the life of its author, Shahmardān b. Abi ʼl-Khayr. A resident of Gurgān and Astarābād, he was a scholar who also worked as a secretary and financial officer. In astronomy, he was a student of Abu ʼl-Ḥasan Nasawī (fl. 2nd quart. 5th/11th cent.). Shahmardān's work is an accessible, popularized compilation of the works of others, among them Abū Maʿshar (d. 272/886), Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.), and Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048)
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1 online resource. :
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Rāshīkāt al-Hind : Tanāsub nazd-i Hindiyān /
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Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. after 442/1050) is one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islam. A native of Kāth, capital of Khwārazm, he wrote on subjects ranging from mathematics, geography, astronomy and natural science to history, linguistics and ethnography. He was a student of, among others, the astronomer-mathematicians Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. 390/1000) and Abū Maḥmūd al-Khujandī (d. 390/1000). He also met and corresponded with Avicenna (d. 428/1037). As was common for a scholar of his rank in those days, he spent his life in the entourage of powerful rulers, in Khwārazm, Khurāsān, and Sidjistān. It was at the court of Maḥmūd b. Sebüktigin (d. 421/1030) and his sucessors in Ghazna that he accompanied Maḥmūd on his campaigns to north-west India. It is there that he got acquainted with Indian methods in the arithmetic of proportions and ratios, the subject of this book. Arabic text with a Persian translation by the editor.
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1 online resource. :
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Sharḥ al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf /
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The Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf by Abū Bakr b. Isḥāq al-Kalābādhī (d. 380-85/990-995) is one of the most famous early manuals on Sufism. Written in Bukhara under the strongly orthodox Samanids, it consists of four parts: an explanation of the term ṣūfī and a listing of famous Sufis with a typology of their writings, an exposition of the Sufī creed and its conformity with orthodox Islam, an explanation of the spiritual path of the Sufi with accompanying terminology, and a description of Sufi conduct and of their special relation with God. The work saw four commentaries, the present one by Ismāʿīl Mustamlī Būkhārī (d. 434/1043) being one of them. Starting each time with a brief quotation from the original Arabic, the commentary in Persian. This is a facsimile edition of a manuscript from the Bhīravī collection in the National Archives of Pakistan, dated 473/1081. The manuscript is incomplete, with about half of the commentary missing.
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"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 207.1959. M. N. Mūzih-i Millī-i Pākistān (Karāchī), kitābat-i 473 H." :
1 online resource. :
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Seh risāla az Thābit b. Qurra : Sāʿathā-yi āftābī, Ḥarakat-i khurshīd u māh, Chahārdah wajhī muḥāṭ dar kurah /
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Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901) was a gifted mathematician, scientist and translator of many Greek scientific works, who knew Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He might have spent his entire life in his native Ḥarrān as a money-changer were it not for his chance encounter with Muḥammad b. Mūsā (259/873) of the famous Banū Mūsā brothers, specialists in mathematics and astronomy and among the most important intellectuals of Baghdad at the time. Appreciating his intelligence and his mastery of languages, Muḥammad took Thābit back with him to Baghdad, where he was trained in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. Thābit then set out on a brilliant career as a translator and author in his own right, writing on all the applied sciences of his time. This facsimile edition of three texts on sundials, solar and lunar motions, and a fourteen-sided solid inside a sphere reproduces the well-known MS Istanbul, Köprülü 948, dated 370/981, copied by Thābit's grandson Ibrāhīm.
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"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 948 Kitābkhānah-i Kūprūlū (Istānbūl) kitābat 370 hijrī".
"A facsimile edition of the manuscript (MS 948, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, Turkey) copied in 370 A.H (981 A.D)"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406360
9786002030511
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
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
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
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. :
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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. :
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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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Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i mubārak-i Ghāzānī, Nuskha badalhā, taʿlīqāt u ḥawāshī. Volume 3 /
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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. 3.
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1 online resource. :
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Tadhkira-yi Muqīm-i khānī : Sayr-i tārīkhī, farhangī u ijtimāʿi-yi Mā warāʾ al-nahr dar ʿahd-i Shībāniyān u Ashtarkhāniyān /
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Throughout history, the lands of Central Asia have seen empires come and go. A case in point is Transoxania, a region roughly situated between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers. After the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, Transoxania became part of the Chagatai khanate, following which it was first ruled by the Timurids and then by the Shibanids and the Janids (Ashtarkhanids) as the khanate of Bukhara. At the beginning of the 18th century, Janid power over the khanate of Bukhara had declined to the point that a local leader called Muḥammad Muqīm Bahādur Khān (d. 1119/1707) declared himself independent in Balkh in 1114/1702. His reign was short-lived and he was summarily executed in 1119/1707. The present volume describes the history of the Shibanids, the Janids and the coming-to-power of Muqīm Bahādur Khān until the year 1116/1704. Its author, Bahādur's secretary Muḥammad Munshī, intended to write a sequel, which has, however, never been found.
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1 online resource. :
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Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Banī Isrāʾīl /
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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 Jews.
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1 online resource. :
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Majmūʿa-yi Rashīdiyya : Shāmil-i Kitābhā-yi Tawḍīḥāt-i Rashīdī, Miftāḥ al-tafāsīr, Sulṭāniyya, Laṭāʾif al-ḥaqāʾiq /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī (d. 718/1319) came from a Jewish family in Hamadan. His grandfather had been a courtier of Hūlāgū Khān (r. 1256-65) while his father was a court pharmacist. Rashīd al-Dīn converted to Islam when he was about 30 years old. Trained as a physician, he started his career under the Il-khanid Abāqā Khān (r. 1265-82), rising to the rank of vizier under Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304), Öljeitü (r. 1304-16) and Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān (r. 1316-35), who had him executed in 718/1319. Rashīd al-Dīn was also an historian and as such he is best known for his monumental Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh , the earliest attempt at writing a world history and a major source of information on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire. The four treatises published here show another side of Rashīd al-Dīn's talents as a scholar and are mostly about Qurʾān interpretation, prophethood, revelation, miracles, kingship, and notions around virtue and salvation.
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"Nuskhahʹbargardān-i nuskhah-ʾi khaṭṭī-i shumārah-i 2235, Kitābkhānah-ʾi Kakh-i Gulistān, Kitābat 706 H."
" Facsimile copy of the manuscript no. 2235, Gulistan Palace Library, copied in 706 A.H"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
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Majmūʿa-yi āthār-i Imāmiyah : Muntakhabātī az ʿUyūn-i akhbār-i Riḍā, Amāli-yi Shaykh-i Ṣaddūq, Ṣaḥīfat al-Riḍā /
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At first glance, the collection of traditions, notes and drafts published here is just like so many other personal documents from the library of the average medieval Muslim scholar. But on closer inspection, this codex dated 580/1185 is quite interesting. The manuscript is in two different hands, one part being by a certain Abū Naʿīm al-Naʿīmi al-Bayhaqī, and the other part by the equally unknown Abu ʼl-Ḥasan al-Bayāḍī. As is evident from two study certificates ( ijāza ) contained in this manuscript, Abu ʼl-Ḥasan was a student of Abū Naʿīm. Abū Naʿīm was a native of Bayhaq and Abu ʼl-Ḥasan of Rayy. The manuscript contains mainly excerpts from Ibn Bābawayh's (d. 381/991) Amālī and ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā and traditions which Abū Naʿīm himself had collected in Khurāsān. As such it contains the oldest known fragments from the Amālī , besides being a rare witness of the early Imami teaching tradition in Khurāsān, more specifically in Bayhaq and Nishapur.
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1 online resource. :
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Chīn-nāma /
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Born in Macerata, Italy, in 1552, Matteo Ricci was a Catholic priest who was sent to the Jesuit representation to Macau in 1582. His assignment was to travel on to mainland China and seek to establish the first permanent Jesuit mission there. Ricci arrived in China in 1583, never to leave it again. He died there in 1610. Fluent in Chinese, he was very succesful, on good terms with people that mattered, much appreciated as a carthographer and astronomer, and given free access to the Forbidden City, which was quite exceptional. Ricci's account of his mission to China, called De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas , was published posthumously in 1615. The present work is a Persian translation of the book's first fascicle made in India by a Persian convert to Christianity from the seventeenth century. The translation is significant in that it was made at the suggestion of a Jesuit priest, most likely from missionary ambitions.
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1 online resource. :
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