The Ornament of Histories: A History of the Eastern Islamic Lands AD 650-1041: The Persian Text of Abu Sa‘id ‘Abd al-Hayy Gardizi (Bips Persian Studies)

Abu Sa'id 'Abd al-Hayy Gardizi was a Persian author and historian living in the mid-eleventh century at the height of the Turkish Ghazvanid dynasty. His only known work, The Ornament of Histories ('Zayn al-akhbar'), is a hugely ambitious history of the Eastern Islamic lands 650-1041 AD, spanning what is now Eastern Iran, Afghanistan and parts of the Central Asian Republics and Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Gardizi's text is an extremely rare source of primary information about the rise of Islamic faith, culture and military dominance in these regions, and represents a significant contribution to our understanding of the early Islamic world. Covering the four centuries from the first Arab conquests to his own time, Gardizi's work is a prime source, for some episodes the sole one, for the history of these lands at this time. Thus it is the sole source for events at the end of Sultan Mas'ud's reign, when the Sultan was killed in an army coup, having just lost the whole of the empire's Persian provinces to the incoming Seljuq Turks, and it was the Seljuqs who were now to dominate the central and eastern Islamic lands for a century and a half, almost till the invasion of the Mongols. Writing on the far-eastern fringes of what was then the Eastern Islamic world, in what is now Afghanistan, Gardizi also included important ethnological information on the Turkish tribes of Inner Eurasia and on the religions and philosophies of the Indians. But his prime interest was clearly the Islamic history of his own lands, the eastern Iranian world and its Central Asian and Indian fringes, and here he provides a detailed narrative. This book provides the first translation into a Western language of this history of the formative period of the Eastern Islamic world and gives an explanatory commentary, detailing the historical, geographical and cultural context, and well as the events and colourful characters mentioned in it. "The Mongol invasions in the first half of the thirteenth century led to profound and shattering changes to the historical trajectory of Islamic West Asia. As this new volume in The Idea of Iran series suggests, sudden conquest from the east was preceded by events closer to home which laid the groundwork for the later Mongol success. In the mid-twelfth century the Seljuq empire rapidly unravelled, its vast provinces fragmenting into a patchwork of mostly short-lived principalities and kingdoms. In time, new powers emerged, such as the pagan Qara-Khitai in Central Asia; the Khwarazmshahs in Khwarazm, Khorosan and much of central Iran; and the Ghurids to the southeast. Yet all were blown away by the Mongols, who faced no resistance from a sufficiently muscular imperial competitor and whose influx was viewed by contemporaries as cataclysmic. Distinguished scholars including David O Morgan and the late C E Bosworth here discuss the dynasties that preceded the invasion - and aspects of their literature, poetry and science - as well as the conquerors themselves and their rule in Iran from 1219 to 1256." "Abu Sa'id 'Abd al-Hayy Gardizi was an author and historian living in the mid-eleventh century at the height of the Turkish Ghazvanid dynasty. His only known work, "The Ornament of Histories" ("Zayn al-akhbir"), is a hugely ambitious history of the Eastern Islamic lands AD 650-1041, spanning what is now Eastern Iran, Afghanistan and parts of the Central Asian Republics and Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Gardizi's text is an extremely rare source of primary information about the rise of Islamic faith, culture and military dominance in these regions, and represents a significant contribution to our understanding of the early Islamic world. This is the first English translation of the original Persian text, and is accompanied by an introduction and commentary which details the historical, geographical and cultural context."--Bloomsbury Publishing. C. Edmund Bosworth is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was until retirement Professor of Arabic Studies at Manchester University and is now a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Exeter University. He was the British Editor of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and is the author of numerous books and articles on the history, culture and literature of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish lands of the Middle East and Central Asia in the premodern period. He was the recipient of the biennial Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award at the University of California, Los Angeles, in May 2010. --Book Jacket C. Edmund Bosworth is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was until retirement Professor of Arabic Studies at Manchester University and is now a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Exeter University. He was the British Editor of the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and is the author of numerous books and articles on the history, culture and literature of the Arabic, Persian and Turkish lands of the Middle East and Central Asia in the premodern period. He was the recipient of the biennial Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award at the University of California, Los Angeles, in May 2010. --Back cover Abu Sa'id 'Abd al-Hayy Gardizi was a Persian author and historian living in the mid-eleventh century at the height of the Turkish Ghazvanid dynasty. His only known work, The Ornament of Histories ('Zayn al-akhbar'), is a hugely ambitious history of the Eastern Islamic lands AD 650-1041, spanning what is now Eastern Iran, Afghanistan and parts of the Central Asian Republics and Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Gardizi's text is an extremely rare source of primary information about the rise of Islamic faith, culture and military dominance in these regions, and represents a significant contribution to our understanding of the early Islamic world. --Back cover This book provides the first translation into a Western language of this history of the formative period of the Eastern Islamic world and gives an explanatory commentary, detailing the historical, geographical and cultural context, as well as the events and colourful characters mentioned in it Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction Translation of the Text The Arab Governers The Tahirids and Saffarids The Samanids The Early Ghaznavids Notes Bibliography Indices : 1. Persons, People, Tribes ; 2. Places ; 3. Technical Terms ; 4. Book Titles.