n| 282 ll t1,1ltl ll itttl,tn's'llt

.Ibn al-.Ibr1,,,1-1ta I:n.t..|,t,ltlllttt,tlitt t1l l,slttttt, tl(,|l,

(,(lili()ll } (l97l ), ti()'l ')

J.B. Segal,
An encyclopaedia article, l2
N.I. Serikov,
,o |utiakh
proniknoveniia vizantiiskoi dukhovrrtli ktt1,1tttt ",
Ibn-al-'Ibri (l}irr l"lltt r t
musul,manskii iostok: Grigorii loann Abu-l-Faradzh
'

traditsiia,, VV 45 (l984), 230 4l

vizantiiskaia istoriograflcheikaia
historiography can be olsel.vctl l|:, it, lI
sources in Arabic
In BE,s Ta,rTkh connections with Byzantine
as a tendency to assimilate the christian
vision of history to that of Muslinr l,c; t l, I l

.Simeon of
Qal,a Rumaita, Patriarch Philoxenus Nemrod .tlltl ll rr
Hidemi Takahashi,
'Ebroyo', Hugoye: Journal d Syriac Studtes
4,1 (January 2001), CAROLE HILLENBRAND
http://syrcom.cua.edu/hugoye 1 .
who was an imporl l
BarYeshu lt tl
BE,s contac* *i,r, the prie,st_physician Simon
,
l l l
,

ureattheIlkhanidcourtinthe1260sandtowhomBEdedicatedtwoofhisw.'rl 'ln the last thirty years prosopographical studies have significantly enlargccl thc
Syriac and Arabic
seculetr g|11,,lr
Herman G.B. reuie,lTh. "..,.udes in Barhebraeus, ,lt,rrl, trnderstanding of Islamic medieval societies.' (Manuela Marin)1
Davids, and Hermatr
icles: a differeniapproach,, in Krijnie Ciggaar,Adelbert
eds., East ord wiri in the Crusader States_
Context, contacts, confrontatiotts, ,l, t
\ l l llt< A BRIEF INTRoDUCTIoN, this overview will focus on three major arcźls:
Lovitllit,rr,,
of the Congress held at Hernen Castle in May ]9g3, Orientalia r,lisc:ussion of medieval Arabic (and, to a lesser extent, Persian) narrativc
,

Analęcta 75 (Louvain, 1996), 3949 ł llllcCS which deal with the period 1025*1204,
a survey of medięval Islallric
(MR's Chr,) and lill ll"
BE used different sources for his secular Syriac Chronicle 1,1łlst)po faphical material, including biographical and autobiographicirl
by Ibn al_Athir),
Ta,rlkhfor the period of the crusades (Kamil fi'l_ta,rlkh Ill(,lilture, and an analysis of the current state of research on Islamic
fasc, (1997), 13-15 pl,()s()-
al-'Ebri', Encyclopaedia Iranica 8, 1
article, 1,,,1'l'l1phy.This overview will also mention certain ancillary sources, such lts
An encyclopaedia
-'Ebn ,rl,t'l'iptions, which arę a useful prosopographical tool. The bibliogrlrpll.y
Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 3 (2003),
2143 ,lllch follows this essay provides comments, sometimes detailed, on ccl,tititr
-,GregoryBarhebraeusandhistime:theSyrianRenaissance',Jolłrnaltlltll'
portrait of BE, partly in connection with his lli:,t, ,

,r,,lividual authors and works which will be of special value to tlrc

Presęnts u g"n"iuiinteilectual
other than Syriac (tlr,
riographical output; BE,s knowledge of languages |'rrlsllpgglaphy of the Byzantine World project. These comments will ntrl lrc
includedPersian),ChristianandMuslimSourcesandtheiruse. , ( i|llitulated here. Instead, an attempt will
.Die syrische und die arabische Weltgeschichte dcs
ll," be made to give a backgroulltl
Susanne Regina tóat,
60-80 ,rr;rlysis of the historiography of the period under investigation.
Hebraeus: ein Vergleich', Der Islam 65 (1988),
Arabic historiograPhical works l''
Shows differences between BE,s Syriac and
events that have a meaning only for Christian readers, tr",
omits in the Ta,rTkh
physicians in ęach,
different dating systems and mentions different INTRODUCTION
de l'historiograPhie sYriaque: Łl|)t'lr,r
Witold Witakowsf,i.,',L,horizon góographique Romains d,oricttt l"
Sórandńr, eo., Des Sumćriens aux
preliminaire,, in Arnaud proche_orient lhc Geographical and Historical Background
au uIl1,1l lt
perception gćographique du monde: espaces et terrttoires
Actes cle la table ronde du 16 novembre 1996 organisće par r(lRA 1062 i,ttt,l,

sćmitiques, Antiquitós sómitiques 11 (Paris, I99]), 199-209 lrr tlle eleventh century, the Muslim world lay on the eastern and soutllc1,1l
of the world between the Stllt:' ' 't
BE,s secula, óiń"irtr. its maierial on the division lLlltks of the Byzantine empire. The'House of Islam'controlled the sincws tll'
Noah(Diamerismos),anditsarrangementineleven.dynastic'periods:Pp.2(X1.1 ltrzltntine trade and its fleets dominated the Mediterranean. The Mtlslirll
of the Cutttt,lt""
_.The Ecclesiastical Chronicle of d..gory Bar'Ebroyo', Journal i,ll'lcl was effectively boundlęss, immeasurably richer than Byzittltitllll,
Society for Syriac Studies 6 (2006), 61-81 \lrlt-cover, since the sevęnth century and for almost the whole of the elcvcttlll.
AgeneralaccountoftheecclesiasticalpartofBE'schronicle,dealingwitll,t ilrrslims held sway in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
structure, contents, sources and vision of history,
,Iwas Zakka, ,Ibn ui_,Ib.i (12ż6_Iż86),, Journal of the Iraqi Academy, ,\,1,1l",
|'he days of a Muslim world, ruled by a single theocratic statc, wcrc: ltlIlp,
Corporation 5 (1979-80), 5-43 rrrt'c p&St. From the ninth century onwards smaller political entitics gtlvcl,tlt.tl
Not seen.
Joseph Zolinski, Zur Chronographie rJes Gregorius Abulpharagius, Inaug,tlr,rl
\l Marin, 'Biography and prosopography in Arabic-Islamic medicval cltlttlrc. lttttrltlrrt,trlry
Dissęrtation, Heidelberg (Breslau, 1894) ,,lIlilI'kS', in M. Marin, ed., Medievul Prosopography. History uncl collactil,c bitlgnt1lltl, ,śllt,t.ittl
BE,s Bible commentary. llt,
ChronologiJ 1'rr.euiin) tables derived from ,tt,,, ,1rab-Islamic Madictttl cttllurc 23 (2002). l2.
Storehouse of Mysteries,

',,, l't'tlitt.Ę,l tlf lltc l]riti,ylt ,lt,tltlt,ttl1, 1 t^l 'li ł ł,l() Lt l l'llc l}1,1tisll Aclr<lcIrly ](X)'/
284 ('ttnllc ll illcttllrtttttl
the vast areas of the 'House of Islam', stretching from Spain to northęrlt
India. Since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, major religiotls
splits had appeared amongst Muslims who disagreed about who should gov-
ern thę Muslim world. The majority came to bęlięvę that legitimate rule hacl
lain initially with the line of four so-called Rightly Guided caliphs (khallfą :
'successor') who had been appointed after 632. This majority group eventu-
ally received the title of Sunnis. A minority, itself gradually divided into
several groups, held that legitimate rule in Islam should be vested in thc
Prophet's family and descendants through his daughter Fatima and her
husband 'A1l, Muhammad's cousin. This minority within the Muslim
community came to be known as Shi'ites (the name was derived from the
phrase sh|'at'Al7,'the party of 'Alr').
By the eleventh century, the Sunni caliphate, since 750 established within
the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad, held no temporal power. However, the
caliph still acted as a legal and religious figurehead, although even this role
of his was challenged by the existence of a second caliph, the IsmaTlt2 Shi'ite
ruler of the Fatimid empire in Egypt. Despite political and religious frag-
mentation, however, thę Muslim world, with its lingua franca, Arabic,
remained united by common cultural norms and aims, and scholars could
travel freely within it in search of knowledge in the great centres of learning
in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem and elsewhere.
The Fątimid Empire (909-117l )
The Shi'ite IsmaTlr Fatimid caliphs (named Fatimids after the Prophet's
daughter) had ruled Egypt since 969.In its time, their empire had includecl
North Africa (conquered in 909) and southern Syria, and for a whilę in thc
1050s it even threatened Baghdad itself. The Fatimids had also taken Sicily.
Despite their religious persuasion and their overall missionary aim to topplo
the Sunni Abbasid caliph at Baghdad and to convert the whole Muslim worltl
to their beliefs, the tratimid caliphs-with the notorious exception of thc
Caliph al-Ęakim (ruled 996-102l)-had been generally tolerant to their own
Sunni Muslim subjects and to Christians and Jews within their territories.
Most of the elevęnth century saw the long reign of al-Mustangir
(103G94). By his death the Fatimid caliphate had passed its peak and begun
to fall prey to internal instability and weak rule. The twelfth century saw thc
further decline of the Fatimid state, as it became the object of the predatory
eyes of both the Franks and the Muslim commanders, N[r al-Drn antl
2 A group of Shi'ites, also known as'Seveners', who bęlieved that legitimate successitln willltrl
Islamic government was vested in a line of seven imąms (charismatic rulers whtr wcrc inlirllilll,
in matters of doctrine).
l
,,t )l l.:( l :, lN -]s r
^l{Altl('
Sirladin. The latter fintrlly put ttn cnd to the dynasty in 1171' and returned thc
lilrmer Fatimid territorics to sunni Islam.
lltt, Buyids oJ' Iran and lraq (945-1055)
ltl the east, in Iraq and Iran, a group of mercenaries fiorn thc l,ctlltltc
1lltlvino of Daylam near the Caspian Sea had conquered Baghdad in 94.5,
rlrlw;g|ęd Iraq and western Iran and were in control of the wcitkcllctl
\llllirsid caliphate. In Baghdad the Buyids espoused Twelver Shi'isn1,1 lltt(
tlrey kept thę Sunni Abbasid caliph in situ and presided over a floul,islrirlg
\ l lrbo-Persian culture.
l ltc New Power in the East: the Seljuk Empire ( 1030-1l94)
lllllike the Fatimids, the seljuk sultans were newcomers. They led thcir lćlltlw-
lrrrkish nomads from Central Asia into the Islamic world, took Baghtlłrtl irl
l{)55, gusling the Buyids, and by the 1050s had created an empire strctchiIrg
l rtlrll Syria and Palęstine to Central Asia. Like other medieval military wlr l,-
1,1ltls who had seized power in the eastęrn Islamic world, the Scljuks ttst:tl
|'t,t,stl-Islamic government structures and they formed an alliancc witll tllc
, risting Persian bureaucratic ćlite. After 1092 the unity of the Scljtlk clll1,1ilc
rr;rs fiagmented into smaller family polities but the dynasty ctlntitrtrccl ill
rr t,ltkened form for another century.
llt,, Seljuk Successor-states of the Twelfth Century
lrl tlre breakup of the Seljuk empire into smaller principalities trlicr l()9].
princelings and their military commanders who had becrr apptlilltctl lrs
l,,,,ljLrk
1,rtlvincial governors in the cities of Syria and Palestine took power lilt,thc:rlr-
,,,lvcs. The same process occurred in Anatolia with the emergencc crl- łt tlttlll1-1tlt,
,,l 1lett} Seljuk successor states, such as the Danishmęndids and thc AI,trrkitls.
rrlrtl modelled their government structures, such as they were, on thc Scljrlli
|,;tttcrn from further east. Central Anatolia, however, was to see tlrc a111lclrl
,,llcc of an altogether more formidable political entity, the statc ntl1,1ltltlly
1.1ltlwll as the Seljuks of R[m, which was to have close ties with its Byzlrtllitlt,
llt,ighbour. In time, the RDm Seljuks extęnded their contrcll tlvct, llltlst tll'
\llittolia, as evidenced by their networks of caravanserais, sotl,Ic tll'wlticll
,t,l,viced the trade that funnelled slaves from southern Russia ttl l,lgypt irlltl
t llc l-evant.
I A branch of Shi'ites, also known as Imdmis, who held that legitimate succession within Islamic
grlvernment was vestcd in a linc of twclve imdms.
2tt6 ('ttt,tllc Il illcttllrtttttl
Thę rivalries betwęęn the various Seljuk successor-stittcs, such lts llrt,
Danishmendids and the Artukids, helped to delay the development ol'a ttllt
fied Muslim power in Anatolia whose obvious goal would be the capturc tll
Constantinople and the extirpation of Byzantium. But this process did rltlt.
of course, begin, until the fourteenth century.
The Scope of this Enquiry
Given the daunting vastness of the medieval Muslim world, stretching from
Spain to India, this survey, and its accompanying bibliography, cannot hope to
be comprehensive. What is given here can be called only the tip of an enormous
iceberg. Even within the geographical limitations which have necessarily been
imposed on the available medieval Islamic historiographical material, the task
of selecting what to omit proved difficult. However, the sources chosen and the
discussion of them will, it is hoped, show the richness and diversity of Muslim
source material in the period 1025-1204.
A deliberate decision has been taken to restrict the discussion to the areas
traditionally regarded as the heartlands of medieval Islam, the areas long
Islamicised-namely Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and lran. Anatolia, newly
conquered in part by the Seljuk Turks in this period, will be given brief men-
tion but, as a newly conquered, frontier territory, it had still to make an impor-
tant contribution to Muslim culture. The historiographical contributions of
Spain and India will not be covered, nor will the historiographical traditions
of North Africa under the Berber Almoravid and Almohad dynasties. These
areas, often regarded by scholars of the Islamic world as 'peripheral' , should
rightly be the subject of a separate study, as recent scholarship testifies,
notably the meticulous book on Arabic administration in Sicily by Johns,a
who has contributed the next chapter in this volume. On the other hand, this
overview will give brief mention of some of the works of Christian historians
who lived in Egypt, Syria and Iraq under Muslim rule and wrote in Arabic.
Whitst it remains true that the major patterns of Islamic historiography
were set in the high Abbasid period and that Arabic remained the major vehi-
cle for such writings until Ottoman times, the picture was already becoming
more nuanced and Persian historical works cannot be ignored.s By the
eleventh century, with the divisive impact of the Turkish invasions and the
sponsorship of Persian culturę by Seljuk sultans, New Persian began to rival
4 J, Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily. The royal dTwan (Cambridge,2002).
5 See J. Meisami, Persian Historiograpły (Edinburgh, 1999). New Persian became the medium
of choicę for both poetry and prose in Seljuk lands, causing the formation of a linguistic division
in the field of adab (belles-lettres) between the Pęrsian-speaking world of Iran, northern Indiir
and Central Asia, and the areas further to the west where Arabic still held sway.
:,{ )l l.:( l). lN ,\liAlll(
\l;rllic ilS il c()lll'l lltll1,1l;lJ,(,irl1.1 lllt,t,ltl,,y vchiclc ilr tlrc cltstct,lt lsllrlllit.wtlt,ltl
llt'l)CC solllc :tt lcllsl tll tllc l)l()st iIll;ltlrtłtnt histtlriclrl wtlI,ks ill l)cl,siltlr will
,rl:.tl bc cliscussccl hcl'c wllcll źlppropriate; these clearly ptlint ttl thc clllcl-gLlIlcc
,ll lt sccond historiographical tradition. Thesę two traclitions wcrc lltll. htlw_
( \('t. hermetically sęaled. Whilst it it true that Arabic writers l't,tlIrr tlrc lrcl,tilc
t lesccnt rarely knew Persian, ethnically Persian scholars, both thosc livilrg ill
lr;lll and those, such as Saladin's adviseą'Imad al-Din al-IsfirhirIri. whtl
ltttlvcd from Iran to Syria and Egypt, were at home in both lrtnguitgcs lrlltl
,.ltl|tl draw on earlier sources written in both.
'fhe sęlection of primary sources
for inclusion in thę bibliography wils :l
,llllicult task. The first choice was made on the basis of geography ancl s()tll,ccs
llrltll coulltries neighbouring Byzantium were prioritised. Others werc sclcctctl
|,ll tlręir prosopographical interest. Even with the virtual ęxclusion ol- stltlt,ccs
lltlllr Spain, North Africa and Central Asia, thę richness and clivcrsity tll'
l sllt nric historiogr aphy are daunting.
[Jnsurprisingly, medieval Islamic sources, like thęir węstern Clrristilrll
( ()tlnterparts, deal with rulers and ólites rather than ordinary peoplc. citics
r;rllrer than the countryside, with men rather than women and chilclrcn. witll
1'.llitical and military events rather than with social and economic trclltls.
l lkc their counterparts in Europe or Byzantium, medieval Muslim writcrs tll'
lllstclry aimed not only at narrattng events; they wished to point it Ilrtlt,ltl.
l llcy saw in the overarching sweep of history the inexorable ancl incluclłtł-llt:
rr ill of God whose purpose was the eventual victory of Islam.
MEDIEVAL ARABIC AND PERSIAN NARRATIVE SOURCES
( Jeneral characteristics
l IIllbrtunately, raw material comprising documents in archives, clritrtcrs ltlltl
lllc like, which forms such an important resource for western mcdicv:rl llis-
lłlt'y, is almost entirely lacking in the Islamic world.6 Our knowlcclgc tll'lllc
llrcclieval Islamic world thęreforę comes mainly from chronicles. tts wcll lts
le ligious and legal works.
is no doubt that the written narrative historical tcxts tll'tllis
There
l'c|iod-as distinct from the numerous other types of sources ilrc thc llltlsl
i:rlrrable resource for the Prosopography of the Byzantirrc Wtlrlcl (l)l}W)
1lrrl.iect within the period 1025*1204, although it should be strcssctl llrirl tlris
tilltcscale fits thę rhythms of Byzantine, and not Islanric, lristory. lIl tlrc
" Sicily is exceptional in its documentary record: see Ch, 13.
2tJtJ ('ttt,łllc l I i l ltttllnttttl
Middle East the period 1055-1250 would offer a more useful lramewoI,k
During this time, some Muslim historians continued to write overarchillg.
works embracing the whole ummą God's worldwide community of Muslims.
Others became more focused and wrote about their own locality or a partic-
ular dynasty ruling in one specific part of the Islamic world. With this
increased regionalisation came pride in one's own area and the desire ttt
vaunt it over other Muslim regions. Preoccupation with onę's own city or ter-
ritory also brought introversion; indeed, Muslim historians in Spain antl
North Africa showed little interest in the historiography of the eastern
Islamic world and the same tendency happened in reverse. The Persian-
speaking region, especially, as already mentioned, with the gradual dęmise ol'
Arabic as the major vehicle for the writing of history in eastern Iran ancl
Central Asia in the twelfth century, was, not surprisingly, largely interested in
itself.7 That solipsistic emphasis helps to explain why the language of choicc
for these historical accounts was increasingly Persian. It is interesting to notc
that only one chronicle in Arabic, the Akhbar al-dawla al-Saljuqiyya (Thc
Accounts of the Seljuk State) of al-Husayni, is known from the early
thirteenth century in this area. By then, the split between the Arabic ancl
Persian-speaking parts of the Islamic world was becoming more pronounced.
Even religious and legal works were often written in Persian.
The works of medieval Islamic history and literature were written by
religious scholars and high-ranking government officials, the latter being often
of a pronounced 'secular'bent. Although there are many unasked and unan-
swered questions in this material about prosopographical issues, these sources
speak, often in great detail, about the individuals who have shaped medięval
Muslim society, and there is a strong anecdotal aspect to their accounts.
By the eleventh century historical writing was a well-established part o1'
Islamic scholarship. However, the earlier practice of presenting the readęr
with a selected number of different accounts of the samę event, without adju-
dicating between them, and with each account given authenticity by a chain
of transmitters, had largely disappeared. Instead, the chronicler chose what
he wanted from avartety of sources and presented his own synthesis of them.
It was uncommon for him to stray from the annalistic mode, let alone to seek
to discern a pattern in events or to meditate on broad historical processes.
But for him, as already noted, the sequence of events, however random they
might seem, unfolded according to the sovereign will of God.
It was still the practice in the period under discussion to copy excerpts,
often lengthy, from earlier sources, with or without attribution. This practice
enablęd" writers to build on the work of their predecessors, before they
7 C. Cahen, 'Róflexions sur la connaissance du monde musulman par les historięns', in Lcs
peuples m.usulmans dans l' his to ire mćdićvale (Damascus, 19'7 7 \,
:.( )l l.:( l :, lN .\l<Alll(' ,)li.)
,lrlll;ll,kctl tlIl lltt:il ,)\Ą,Il ll(,\\, :l(,(,()tlllt tll' thc histtll-ic 1,1l,csctlt ilr wlliclt tlrey
tlr,,tltsclvcs livccl. ('ttllyil)1] ()1, 1ttlltlltirlg thc work ol'citrlicr itttthtlI,s l1,1L)lllll llllrt
lrl,.ltlt,ics now lost worc prcscrvccl, irr extracts at least, in thc writings tll'litlcl,
, A notable example of the value of such a process is thc ttll-tltltllc:tl
lltllltl,s.
,lrlrltlicle of the thirteenth-century Shi'ite historian of Aleppo, Iblr Ąbl
l,rvyi'. This lost work, a valuable corrective, for example, to tlrę littlclitttll,y
,|( (,()tlnts of Saladin found in other works, can be pieced togetheą att lcitst irl
1,.rtl. Irom the extensive quotations of it found in later authors suclr its Ąbtr
',ll;ttlla, al-'Ayni and others. It is precisely for this reason that much litlcl,
,rltll,ccs, which might otherwise be ruled out of court because thcy wcrc
,,riltcn so long after the evęnts that they describe, can sometimcs bc tll'
, rtrciitl value.
Ąs well as the genealogies and family histories of caliphs, sultans ancl gtlv-
, Muslim narrative souces frequently give lists of administrettclrs itlltl
ltItll-s,
,( )\,c|,nment
ministers who have held office, which offices they held, oltcn witlr
|,r..,eise dates.
power networks can thus be constructed. such inforrnirtitlll is
rr,tlltll} given at the end of a rulęr's period in poweą either through dcłtth tll
r,,lllt)V&l from office.
l listoriographical Genres: City Chronicles, Universal Histories and Dynastic
l listories
\ll important genre of Muslim historical writing in the period is thc city
, The history of important cities, such as Aleppo and DamascLls. wlls
llItlIricl .
rr,t,ttrdod by chroniclers who would draw for their material on previtltls ltlcitI
Irlsttlries, oral accounts and administrative documents. Ibn al-QalirnisT. lill,
,,r;tlllple, composed the local history of Damascus which covers muclr tll'lllc
trrcllth century. A city chronicler, such as he, often provides dętailed inlil1,1ll;r-
lltl11 ngf found elsewhere. However, the focus of such a work is narrow, lixirlctl
., ; it is on local preoccupations and ignoring the wider significance of strlllt: tll'
tlle events it records.
A more panoramic perspective is given by the genre of historical wl,itill1l
1,1ltlwtl as the (Jniversal History. Embracing the history of the woI,lcl (tll-
r. l llcr the world of Islam) from the Creation until the author's own tilrlc. l Il is
r
,,t,l)l,e can deal with territories as far-flung as Spain to the west ancl ('cIlt1,1tl
\silr in the east. However, the Muslim heartlands Egypt, Palestinc. Syrilr
rrrtl lraq-usually receive more extended coverage. The most valułrblc s()1,1l,cc
lll this genre for the PBW is the (Jniversąl History of Ibn al-Athir (tl. l2.].l).
Ąnother kind of Muslim historical work was the dynastic history. lbrl lrl
\llllr wrote a second work in this genre, a highly lttudttttlry łtcc:tltllll tll'lllc
,/cllgitl dynasty liltlllclt:tl ill M<lstll by the conqucror trl'l]clcssit. Zclrgi. ()tllel,
4,5.
 ll{( l S lN ,.)
:i( )l l
]9()
('ttt llll, l Itll<,ttllntlttl ^l(^lll('
llt, l'r,ctltlcItl tltltt,,,,lll;tIl:,:tltt ltl ł ll Slrr'rte llisttll,itlgrlr1llly ill gctlct'ltl wtlt lis tltl
Wtrsil ancl tll-'Ascllrlirlli. 1-1cI,|ilI,tllctl thc sitlllc scl'viccs lilI lllt
l
chroniclers, lbn clltlicc lltrl
Asiir. tlr'' 1,1;rlltic histtll,y tll,tlttlrl1,1tl t:; llt,le. tlllltlrtr,ttlittcly, illt1-1tlsctl ll<lt lly
Ayyubids, the family dynasty of Saladin, ancl in clistarrt C'crrtritl
Accounts oJ'the Seljuk Stutc) ol'al-FIt-ls:ryrrr |,l lltc lack ol'cxIltIll tltlttcIiltl. stl thc corrrplete pictrrrc citltlttlt bc givcIl lilr
Akhbar al_clawla al-SaĘuqiyya(The
rIr,. 1lcpiocl l025 l2()4 alld irrclccd, it is true to say that irr thc biblitlgrlr1llry tll'
is a very useful source in thę samę genre,
l)lll)lilI,y sources that fbllows this essay the medieva| writers Irrctttitlllctl itt'c
',ttltlli, unless there is an explicit statement to thę contrary.
The Limitations of Medieval Islamic Historical Narrative Sources

l;rtilnid sources
Byzantium occupied a time_honoured place in the medieval Muslim
con_

,.io.rrrr.rs. It had always been there, since the very beginning of Islam. It was
,other,, a long_standing neighbour. References to it float in antl \\łlrk on the Fatimids has proliferated in recent years but the results dcl tttlt
the familiar
,rltt,:tys receivę the attention they deserve. This is particularly significant in thc
out of the Muslim chronicles but they occasion little comment and
aPPar-
rival antl trltly of Fatimid-Byzantine relations and Fatimid involvement in the history
ently required no explanation. It had always been the Christian
, ,l thc Franks in the first half of thę twelfth century. But the Fatimid caliplrirtc
enemy on doorstep. In thę elevęnth century Byzantium attractetl
tt. Muslim
in syritr trrllccl 909-1 l]D, it must be remembered, was a major Mediterranęan powcl'.
atteniion when it came into contact or conflict with Muslims, notably
with the Buyids, the Fatimids and thc rrltl it did attempt to oust its Sunni rival institution in Baghdad, so it is rltlt
and Anatolia, and in its relations
rlrllrising that it generated a new historiography of its own. Unfortuntrtcly.
Franks.
!ll;l1,1y of the achievements of Fatimid historiography have been lost to tts-8
As for the new and alięn Christian presence, that of the Franks from thc
right in the heart of' l{owever, some fragments and extensive quotations from Fatimid sourccs
end of the eleventh century onwards, a presencę, moreover,
palestine, they are mentioned in Islamic writings ll,ryc been preserved in the works of the Mamluk era (l250-15t7). The octlvl'c
Muslim territory, in syria and
, ,l lrl-Maqrlzl (d. I44ż), the great Muslim historian of Egypt, is a particulirl'ly
with much greater frequency than the Byzantines, but in a rather blinkered
waY,
fullY understancl ,,rlttable resource in this respect. His evidence constitutes the main sourcc lill'
at least in the twelfth century. The Muslims did not, it seems,
religious context from which the Franks camc rlrc history of Egypt for the period of the project. For the much-rrcglcctctl
the wider social, political and
Moreover, the ideological dividę, as will be l ;rtimid history of the twelfth century, for example, al-MaqrTzr draws tln tltc
and within which they operated.
1,,s( lristofy of Ibn al-Ma'mun (d. I19ż). Despite the long gap betwcctl his
shown below, allows the Franks to be given only rare
prosopographical
,,rt,ll time and that of the early Fatimids, al-MaqrlzI quotes such citl'ly
treatment in the Muslim sources.
I lrtimid sources as al-Musabbihi (d. 1030) and he adopts a comprehctlsivc
Within the Muslim world itsell it is also important to note the ideological
,rlttl systematic approach to them. Mamluk historians arę all tlrc lll()l'c
differences which undeĄ the corpus of medieval Islamic historiograPhical
rlrt1lortant, since works written about the Fatimids in the Ayyubid pcl'itltl
material in this period. The great Syrian and Iraqi chroniclers of
the thir_
l l14-1250) have also been lost. In the work of the Egyptian scholar I bll ir l-
teenth century, such as Ibn al_Athrr and Sibt b. al_Jawz1, for example,
on t

period 1025_1204, were Sunni Muslims. l rrI,at (d. 1405), we also find many extracts from lost sources. Neverthclcss. it
whom one must rely for much of the
who drew ,, lrlrpossible to discęrn how much these later Sunni writers, by their sclcctitltls
working within the orbit of the Abbasid caliphate and for masters
Their testimony, when they choose to .rlrtl omissions of quotations from lost Fatimid sources, may have 'dtlcttll'ctl'
their authority from that caliphatę.
of both thę rival IsmaTli tllctlr for their own purposes.
speak of the IsmaTlrs at all, on the activities
śnrit.Fatimid caliphate in Egypt and its offshoot, the Assassins of lran'
that
and later Syria, is flawed and patently hostile. It must also be admitted ('hristian Arabic Sources
even in modern scholarship in both the west and the Middle
East greater
is given to the Sunni historiographical tradition and little attention
is
weight \ good number of texts written in Arabic by Christians-Mclkitcs irlltl
paid to the IsmóTlis or other Shi'ite evidence, t tllrts-have survived. There had long been a robust and extensivc ('hl'istilrrl
This leads to the more general question of what exactlY is 'Islamic his-
horizons,
toriography,. what this grandiose term, with its potentially vast |,tlt.a comprehensive overview of tratimid sources, see P.R. Walkcr, E.rploritt.ti tttt 1,1'lttlltit'

actually means in the period under discussion is 'Sunni Arab historiograPhY'. l t t ra ; Fat im icl hi.:; l r l, ttt tl i l,s,ll,u r(a,s (London, żOOż)
t l i t l t -
1
 tl
292 ('ttt,tllt, l l illcltllruttl
historiographical tradition written in Arabic; in addition to tlrosc Mitltllc
Eastern Christians who wrotę in Armenian, Greek or Syriac, some clrtrsc ltl
write in Arabic. Although the Jacobites continued writing in Syriac until tlrc
thirtęenth century, some of their numbeq notably Bar Hebraeus (callctl itr
Arabic Ibn al-'Ibrr), also composed works in Arabic,g
The Christian Arab viewpoint is a valuable supplement and even corrcc,
tive to the approaches followed in the Muslim chronicles. The I'{aVm al-jav'lutt'
(String of Jewels), the chronicle of Sa,id b. Batrrq, known also as Eutychitls
ia. lłÓ1, the Melkite patriarch of Alexandria from 93340,
was continuecl ilt
a Dhayl (Appendix) by another Melkite historian,Ya\ya al_Antaki
(John ttl
Antioch; d. 1066). Christian Arab sources, such as the Dhayl, help to fill tlte
gap in early Fatimid historiography. It is a useful resource for Arab-BYzantirle
relations. on thę other hand, Christian Arab historians who opted to write irr
Arabic exposed themselves to being understood in their writings by thcil
Muslim overlords; one may assume therefore that they had come to terms ttl
some extent with their Muslim governors and that they exercised caution irr
their accounts of non_ecclestiastical matters inside the'House of Islam'. lt
should also be stressed that the boundaries between christian and Muslilrl
historical writings werę permeable and that both sides unashamedlY coPictl
material from each other.
The better_known Coptic writeą Jirjis al_Makrn Ibn al_,Amid (d. 1273),
is less useful for the period 1025-1204. His chronicle on the Ayyubids begins
in 1205 and thus is outside our period; it should, however, be consulted Iilr
its valuable information on the thirteenth century in Egypt and elsewhere. ttl
Makrn also composed a work entitlęd al-Majmu' al-mubarak (The Blessc'l
Collection), a Untversal History from the Creation until the Year 1260. This
short work received much, perhaps unwarranted, attention, given its highlY
derivative nature, in western Europe becausę of its ear|Y translation inttl
Lattn.
Eleventh-century Sources
It is worth mentioning that at the very beginning of the period I0ż5_Iż04 wt
f,nd the work of Miskawayh (d. 1030), a very important Muslim historiirll
who in his work entitled Tajarib al-umam (The Experiences of l{ation,y)
adopted an ethical and philosophical approach to history.lo He used his owll
judgement in assessing the information in front of lrim and he used the fil'st
9 see the contribution by witold witakowski in this volume,
l0 See the discussion in C. Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003), l00,
ili( l
'.( )l :-, l N ,,\liAltl( ,)() }
1lt,ls()ll ilr llis llll1,1;tltvt, S()lll(, ll;tve sccll iIl his witlcl'visitllt tll'llisttlriclrl
l)l()ccsscs żl pl,cctll,s()l,(ll lllc wtl1,1i tll'thc l1lorc litrntrus lblr KllirlclLrIl (tl. l4()6).
l}uyid histtlI,itlgrir1lIry wtts also dominated by ll 1-1l,tllllillcltt Sir[liirll
l,rrrlilyl l-doctors, men of letters and administrators and in particulirr [-ly
Illllrl al-Sabi', who converted to Islam, and his son Ghars al-Ni'tlrtr.'|-ltc
lrrsttlrical works of both these men are now lost but fortunately tlrcy wcrc
(|tl()tcd by later writers from the Baghdad historiographical'school', suclr its
lltll al-Jawzl(d. 1200) and especially his maternal grandson, Sibt b. al-Jłrwzi
rtl l256), who uses the work of Ghars al-Ni'ma in detail for his accoulrt tll'
tlrc years |055-76.|2
Mention should also be made of the little-known Kurdish Muslim clynas-
trt,s who ruled on the eastern borders of Byzantium, in Armenia ancl
lt;ttrscaucasia, the Shaddadids of Ganja (951-1075) and the Shaddadids ol'
\lli (1064-1198). The pioneeering work on these dynasties is that tll'
\,l irlorsky entitled Studies in Caucasian History. In it, Minorsky draws on ll1,1
,lll()Ilymous Arabic source from the area, probably written around t075.1]
l'welfth- and Thirteenth-century Sources
l llc twelfth century yields disappointingly little in the way of extant narrativc
,rltll,o s. However, the situation improves dramatically in the thirteentlr ccn-
trlry where thęre is a vast wealth of such material, from Iraq, Syria and Egypt.
1,rtlvidin$ extremely rich documentation. As already mentioned, thę prircticc
,,l c,opying predecessors' works, helped to preserve the lost contributions ol'
, lt,rlofith- and twelfth-century chroniclers.
Pride of place amongst the medieval Muslim historians writing about thc
1,,,ritld 1025-1204 must go to Ibn al-Athir (d. 1ż33). This chronicler shtrws
tlre true instincts of the historian in his al-Kamilfi'l ta'rtkh (The Complctc itt
tlt:lory'), with his breadth of vision and masterly synthesis of sources. Tltc
lr,lt,k of Sibt b. al-Jawzl (d. 1256), the Mtr'ąt al-zamąn (The Mirror of' tltc
l ttltc) is a rich resource for the history of the twelfth and thirteenth ccntttl,ics
,r, Syria.
l llc Sabians (Sabi'un) are mentioned in the Quran as possessing a religion rcvcalccl by ( irlrl,
|,llt tlrcir identity is controversial. The name has been attached to at least three ctrtrltllullitics: llre
rl.rlriclraeans, the Elchasaites of southern Iraq (an ancient Jewish ChristiaIr scct) lttttl lllc
, rlltlt1,1s ol Harran whofollowed an ancient Semitic polytheistic religion, witlr lr stlrlIlgly
l1,1leltised upper class. For a detailed discussion of this issuc, scc I,-. dc Bltlis, s.v. Slrlli', irl
j tt,l,t,ltlrucdia oJ'Islam (Znd edn,), vol. B, 6^12-5.
Sce C. Cahen,'Tlre historiography of the Seljuqid period', in B. Lcwis atld l'.M. lltllt. ctls,
ll t\ll)riull,s tl/' tha Mińllr litt,tt (l,tlIldrltl, l9(l2), 61.
1l 'lrrllbridgc, l95]), ] 5
t 294 ('ttt,tllc ll illcttllt,tttttl
ISLAMIC PROSOPOGRAPHICAL WORKS
There is a wealth of extant medieval Muslim prosopographical litcI,itlrll,
relating to the period 1025*1204. After a discussion of general characterislrt
of this kind of material, the genres-biographical dictionaries, biograpIlit,,
and autobiographies-will be analysed. The possible value and interest ll,
Byzantlne prosopographical studies will then be highlighted.
The Format and Content of Medieval lslamic Prosopographical Sources
Generally speaking, an independent biographical work devoted to one ilttlr
vidual person is called a s|ra; a biographical entry inserted into a collectitllr
of biographies is called a tarjama. Thęre is, however, some overlap betwct,lr
these two terms.l4 The major sources of biographical material in tlrt
medieval Islamic world were the tabaqat (generation) books; these wt,l,,
biographical works classified according to death dates. Other biographit,;rl
books were ordered alphabetically. A typical notice in a biographical tlit
tionary reads rather like an entry in a medieval 'Who's Who?'It includes tlr,
dates of birth and death, if known, of the subject, the person's names, titlt,:,
genealogy, education, the scholars with whom the person studied, the offict,,,
he held, the titles of the book he wrote, and in some cases, anecdotal matel,i;rl
about the person. Some entries are short but others cover several pag,c:,
Although they often contain nuggets of unexpected and valuable informatitllr
they are formulaic in their structure and phrasing and they can be somewll;rt
discouraging to use.
Biographical dictionaries that step outside the narrow remit
tabaqat literature appeared at a Iatęr date. In their works, al-KhatTb :rl
Baghdadi (d. 1071), focusing on Baghdad, and Ibn al-'Asakir (d. 1176), wr
ting about Damascus, aimed at quantity and comprehensiveness, wanting t,,
give a complete record of ćlites living in or connected with a specific plitt,,,
Such works were also written by Shi'ites and other 'sectarian' groups, \i,r
other biographical works were compiled on a regional basis, covering Splrrl,
to Central Asia. The genre of biographical dictionary reached its apogee witll
a flood of such works in the Mamluk period (1250-|500). Amongst thcs,
are the great biographical works of the writers who lived in the thirteelltlr
and fourtęenth centuries, such as Ibn Khallikón, Ibn al-'Adim, al-Maq1,1zr
al-Safadi and others.
framework for inquiry (Princeton, 1991), l90 l; l) l
14 R.S. Humphreys, Islamic History. A
Reynolds, ed.,Interpreting the SeĘ Autobiography in the Arabic literary tradiliołt (Berkelcy, l,,,,
Angeles and London,200l), 42-3.
',( )| ]|i( l :, lN \l(l\ltl(' \
,)()
WIltl clcscl,vctl lll(,Illl(,tt tll l)l(rJ,lil1llliclrl tlictitlIlitl,ics'/ Al lil-st. lllt: gcllte
1", 11rg1|tlIt tlbitttltI'ics rll lt,Ill,,l()tls lltwycl,s whcl bcltlIlgctl ttl tlItc tll'rllc ltlrrl
Il1,1lll SUl]l]t ltudltltulx (tlttttlltltrllt litcrirlly means'wźty'bLrt it is ustrłrlly tI-itlts-
, |,rlr'tl its'legal school').l5 As is somętimes forgotten in the wcst, lslitllr llittl tltl
,t.llllished 'church' and it was these men who shaped religiorrs tlrtIltltltl.ry.
Ilrl1,!1j!g1 by the period undęr discussion here the genre of biogrirphicirl tlic_
ll{)lIi||'ics had broadened to include administrators, Sufis (Muslim nrystics).
,lrl1 |1lt'sn
Poets and other specific groups. Nevertheless, the 'uluma'(tlrc rcli-
,|l)l|:j scholars of Islam,
for want of a more precise definition),l(,irI,c tltc
,l()tIl] which figure most prominently
in medieval Muslim biographicirl tlic-
Il,)||i|l-ies. It is they too who compiled these works. The major critcritlIl lilr.
,,,, ltlsion was scholarship or religious piety, although this is not explicitly
t,llt'tl. For a writer such as Ibn Khallikan, however, his selęction (arrcl lris
lr, litlnAry contains 855 entries) was dictated by the yardstick of latne itscll'
,rr,l ltis is the first general biographical dictionary.As he himself wrtltc: ,|
l ,rt t' llot restricted myself to any given group, like the 'Lłlama', kings, princcs.
'1,1l('l'S or
Poets. On the contrary, I have mentioned everybody who wirs
i.rllltltlS.'17 Some of the Muslim leaders against the Franks are given an clltry
,,, ;tl least one biographical dictionary. Delving in the hundreds of pirgcs tll'
,l, ll Works the reader is even rewarded occasionally by thę discovery of'a shtl1-l
l,r, llltitPhy of famous Franks, such as Baldwin
I or Reynald of ChAtilloIr.
|'Ilese works provide rich prosopographical information. They slrctl ligllt
,lr lllc dealings of religious notables with each other and also
on htlw thc,y
lllt'l'ltCtgd with the rest of society. They show typical career patlrs fill,sclltll-
rr ,:lllCl they shed light on the nature of religious institutions, suclr tts tllc
"l,ttll'tlSa (a religious college devoted to the study of the jurispruclct,tcc tll'lt
of lll,,
1,,rr licular legal 'school'),18 and on urban social ólites and structures. Ill ircltli-
ll( )lI tO information on religious scholars, these biographical
collectitlns ;,ll-tl-
łt minę of information on urban ólites, governors, aclministI,itttll,s.
l
1,1t'
I l,,lcllAfltS and women.19 Such sources have enabled scholars to begin ttl writc
other'legal schools'in early Islam but by the eleventh century tho Ilttlrlllct. lllttl
l lle rc had been
l llllC lixed as four among the Sunnis. All four madhhabs had their own books t>l'
r l
litllt (.irrI.isllrrl-
l, rlt t'). based on the four sources of the Sharl'a (Islamic
revealed law) thc Quritrl, Illc lttttlt tlt
,ll,, t lt|l(lnical sayings of the Prophet), ijma'(consensus) and qiyas (analr>ty). "t'hcsc lcgitl sclltltlIs
t,l rltll cliffer on matters of fundamęntal belief but on their interpretations tll'prllxis, 'l'llt,st,
l ll(,l(,|lccs could often be on mattęrs of minutę detail.
llll Problems of defining this group in medieval Islamic society, cl. FlutllpltI,cys, l,tltttttil.
ll,,|,,t]', l87.
ll,rr Kharllikan, Wafayat al-a'ycln, ed. I. Abbas (Beirut, 1968 12), vol. l,2().
l ,'l';rlscholarsbelongingttl it pltrtict-tlar murlhhub woulcj lcarll itbtltll ils vct-sitlIl tll'lsllrtlrit. llrw
ll .l lllll(lr(1,1u, sitting irt tlrc lcct tll'it Iltltslcl,wlltlsc wtlrcls thcy wtltrltl wt,ilc tltlwll itlltl lltctltrlIist.,
' i,,t, lltlbillst,lll, I sltt tl ti t, l l i,l, ! l l t- it t,l, t,t t l l t
l r, J l .
 ]9(l ('ttt,łllc illtltllntlttl
I l :,{ )l Ilł( l s lN ,,\l(^ltl(' ,)() l
social and cultural history and to address thęmes, such as thc tritnslllissitltl ' tl's tlcsil'c Itl t'cctlrtl lllt, ;l,.,lllt,tt,lllcllts tll' its rcligitltts, ,|,llc
sclttllltI,1y clitcs.
and circulation of knowledge, the movement of books and scholars. illr,l tll'(il'cccc itlltl l{tllrrc do rrot secm to lrltvc cxcrtctl ltIly
l.rssic:ttl nroclcls
onomastic and genealogical issues.2o lrllltlcllce lrom outsiclc, nor is thęre any obvious parallel to thc pcllctl-irtillg
Biographical dictionaries have, however, clear limitations. They ill,(. ,,l,scI,vations about Byzantine rulers from the pen of
Michael Psellos.
aimed at depicting the religious and scholarly achievements of medicvlrl '|'Ire
avowed aim of the PBW of identifying individuals from Byzitntiullt
Muslim society but their value as documents that record other aspects tll rrrt'lltioned in non-Greek sources will be extremely hard to achieve on thc
that society is sporadic. For political and social history, they can only cvcr l',rsis of using Arabic and Persian prosopographical works in
this periocl ol-
be a supplementary source to be used alongside chronicles and other writings
Except for occasional entries about saints and mystics, nobody anony 'llY tlther. Mention of Byzantine persons in medieval Islamic sources is
r l rcInelY rare and difficult to find. Literally
hundreds of pages of medievtrl
mous could be included in the biographical dictionaries. Moreoveą the exźl(,l l'IrlgI'?Phical works will yield only a few, or no, such references.
The situa-
registering of an individual's names was of paramount importance. Thcst. t lr llt is slightly better in
the case of the Franks, whose leaders are mentionecl
names are composite. In addition to the person's forename (tsm) receivecl ;rl \ ('IY OccasionallY. When
such references do occur, it is difficult to decide why
birth and selected from a rather small repertoire, other names were givcll ,rl..'ll a nugget has been included-is it there
by chance because the Muslim
including thę nisba (to denote place of birth or residence), the kunya (lhl. had access to a
"IllPiler source which mentionęd a specific Byzantine or
Personal name which indicates someone as the 'father'or 'mother'of so alttl ll;rrlkish individual or has the short biographical notice been chosen for a
so-for example, AbD Muhammad' : 'father of Mul]ammad') and tll,, l
,rlt
llose?
laqabs (honorific titles). Some dictionaries are organised according to i,sltt.
others prefer to use a person's kunya, whilst yet others identify their subjecls
bY their nisba. Clearly, then, one must be in possession of quite a range tll RECENT SCHOLARLY APPROACHES TO
information, if one wishes to track down a given individual. The complete. tll ISLAMIC PROSOPOGRAPHY
even a partial, set of names ręveals much about a person's life, travels etlttl
caręer. ! hc western contribution
In general, Islamic prosopographical studies suffer from many problerlts
the daunting amount of works to be tackled and the relative lack ttl llle French scholar, cahen, was not certain of the value of what he rather
researchers working as a team on this material. These works are still a largclv e cPinglY dęscribed as 'all these bulky
'r dictionaries', remarking that they
unexploited source for modern scholars. This is perhaps not surprising, sint.t, r,'lc full of PeoPle'of little significanlę'.2I Fortunately, this rather harsh
onlY one of them, the work of Ibn Khallikan, has been fully translated into lrrtlgotrleflt, whilst true up to a point in the case of certain works in this genre.
a European language. The rest of this corpus of material remains difficult tll
access to scholars who cannot read Arabic, for it is translated piecemeal ttr1,1
' t'crtainlY not now the view of scholars who are keen to tap the biographi-
,rl tlictionaries for all kinds of data. Much of this information
is incidentirl
only in small fragments or, much more frequently, untranslated. A good ntrIll lr,r111 {fuę standpoint of the compiler. But
when such snippets are used with
ber of the editions of these works still lack an index, a deficiency which, givr.:ll ,,rrlrgination and care, they have already produced interesting results.
their great length, makes them very difficult for anyone to use. A mir.jt,l l}Yzantinists will be interested to learn of recent approaches and achievc-
desideratum is a computerised corpus of all persons mentioned in each of tllt. rrrt'lltS in the burgeoning field of research on Islamic prosopography. Perhaps
important biographical dictionaries.
'r'lrticatll}, the two main areas where there has been significant interest in this
It is important to stress within the context of this Byzantine and crusittlcr lr,'ltl itre spain and eastern Iran, far removed from the central Islamic
lłrncls
Prosopographical project that the very material on the Islamic side-thcst, lltch border Byzantium. For some time noq Spanish scholars, uncler thc
'
biographical dictionaries-which ought to be of great help, is hard to usc iti
'rlllttcnce and insPiration of Manuela Marin, have been cloing pionccl-ing
an inter-disciplinary tool. The genre of biographical writing in the medicv;rl 1rrt lst)Po faPhical research focused on Muslim Spain, In adclition ttl lrcr tlwIl
Islamic world developed as an indigenous entity, the natural result of a stlt.l
"'ttsitlerable output in this atęa, Marin recently edited a spccial issttc tll'lllc

20 See, for example, the works | ('. Cahen, 'Editing

of Pouzet and Morray mentionęd in the bibliography tll' scctltttt:tlr
SourceS.
Arabic chronicles: a few suggestions', in Les peuples musulmans dans
(Damascus. l977't,34.
l hisloire mćdićvale
 29t{ ('ttnllc illcttllrutttl
, lN ,,\li^l}l(
Il
journal Medieval Prosopogrąpłly devoted to Arab-Islamic medieval culturc,
The emphasis in this volume (seven out of eleven articles) is heavily on matcr-
ial from Spain, where the study of medieval Muslim prosopography has becrl
flourishing for some time and is clearly well ahead of comparable work in thc
central and eastern Islamic lands.
For the area of eastern lran, the work of Bulliet has been notably adven-
turous in the field of medieval Islamic prosopographical studies. In his book
The Patricians of Nishapurzz he collected data from a single city to draw a pic-
ture of how power was concentrated in the hands of a few families over il
period of generations. For this research he leant on three summarised versions
of two Persian biographical dictionaries which deal with the notables of this
city betweeęn the middle of the tenth century and the middle of the twelfth.
Basing himself on this material, he has assembled useful data on the role ot'
thę'ulama' in an important centre of religious learning in eastern lran. In it
later work, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Perioć an essąy in quantitativł
history,23 Bulliet suggested a controversial but thought-provoking method for
gauging the rate of conversion to Islam in different parts of the Muslint
world. Here again he used material from biographical dictionaries and in
particular he interpreted the evidence of naming patterns for a person who is
converted and takes a Muslim name. Most recently, he has turned his attention
to the role and education of women in the pre-Mongol period, again using
data from biographical dictionaries, in both Persian and Arabic.za
But this field is only in its infancy in the case of the central Islamic lands.
Humphreys argues with reference to Mamluk studies, which lie outside thc
remit of this present essay, that only the barest beginnings of a prosopo.
graphical approach to Mamluk administration can be found in recent scholar-
ship.25 Models of good practice atętaręand Humphreys singles out for praisc
the work of Petry on Mamluk bureaucrats which is based on data derived front
two fifteenth-century biographical dictionarięs. Thę contributions of Pouzol.
Ephrat, Cohen, and Morray should also be singled out for praise.26
The Contribution of Modern Scholarship in the Middle East
tror this book, bearing in mind a probable readership of Byzantinists antl
western medievalists and the aims and nature of the PBW project, an editol-
22
(Cambridge, Mass., |972).
23 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).
24 R.W Bulliet, 'Elite women in
the pre-Mongol period', in G. Nashat and L. Bęck, eds., Wtllll,,tt
in Iranfrom the Rise of Islam to ]800 (Urbana and Chicago,2003), 68 '79.
25 Humphreys,
Islamic History, l83.
26 For details, see the bibliography of secondary
sourcęs.
,,( )l li( l
). _)()()
l.rltlccisitllr lt:ts llccll l;ll\(,ll ltl lllls clllrlltct,ttl lilcrts, ill tlrc scctllltlltt,y litcr:rttl;t.
llrletl irr the biblitlgrlr1llly. tltl wtll,k cltlne in EuropcttIt littlguźlgcs,'|'llis ll;rs
rllt'llllt the ęxclusiorl ol'a nlassivę corpus of scholarly books aIltl irt,ticlcs
rr l ittcn in Arabic, Persian and Turkish on the period IO25 -12()4.
ThcI,c is ltlstl
r,'lcvant research done in Hebrew. These works, almost always untrittlslittccl.
l('Illilin out of the reach of all but a few western scholars. There is ntl r()()l1,1
llt,t,c vefl to mention the thousands of such books and articles.
It is important, howeveą to emphasise that every year, in the major pub-
llsllirrg houses of Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Riyadh, Tehran, Istanbul irIltl
, lsc:where, scholarly monographs regularly appear, as
do serious jourll:rIs
rrrtlr articles relevant to the subjects discussed in this overview. These works
ll;t\lC included topics such as the relationship bętween the Arabs tttltt
ltvztrntium, social and cultural studies of the eleventh to the thirtccntIr
, ('l)tLlries, and biographies of major figures like
Saladin. These books, mżllly
"l which are based on doctoral theses, are, as in the west, of varying quality.
'fhe contribution of scholars from
the Middle East to the pressing task ol'
, tlitin$ and publishing primary sources is quite
simply indispensable. It is ntlt
,,rllY that they have produced new and improved editions of key texts, suclr its
lllllse of Ibn Khallikan and Ibn al-Athir, which were first published in thc
lrrllcteenth century by orientalist scholars. They have also edited-and tlris is
.r ctlntinuing process-many crucial works which have long bęen avirilablc
"lrly ir1 manuscript form. Such editions include the history of al-Nuwayrr itrtcl
llle Inulti-volume biographical dictionary of al-Safadi. In this essential wcll-k
"l ecliting core texts, the contribution of Ihsan Abbas has been outstarrcliIlg.
\l;r.jor remaining desiderata for publication include a proper and full eclititlrr
"| the histories of Sibt b. al-Jawzl and of al-'Aynt, whose works ctllrlitill
rllrllortant excerpts from lost sources, and the completion of the editing wtll-k
|,..,gun on Ibn al-Furat.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LITBRATURE
\s lrlready mentioned, the term slra was used to denotę a ful|-Iength bitl_
"r;r1llrY. APart from the central importance of the Biography rl tht, Prtlpltt,t.
rllrs kind of biographical work came relatively late in medieval Arabic llisttll,
l,;rl writing. Indeed, in the period I025-t204, such works errc still I,źll,L,.'/
\\'ltllin the Persian tradition there is a similar absence of writirlg in this
8clll.c.
lltlltlugh the Sufis did occasionally produce works fbcusing tln tllc llc::ttl
'' 'l'he chapter, entitled'Islamic
biographical literature', by H,A.R. Gibb in the work edited by
l,cwis and Holt (n. 12) is devoted entirely to a discussion of mędieval Arabic biographical
rllt,tionaries: Historians d the Mlddle East,54-.8.
](X) ('ttrtllc lcttllruttttl
l l il
(shaykh) of a particular religious order. An examplc ol-tlris killd tll'wt'itilll, r,,
a work devoted to a famous mystic, Abu Sa'Td b. Abi'l Khayr (d. lt)4S 'll
and his miraculous powers.z8
Those medieval Muslim biographical accounts that do exist are coucllt,,l
in stylised narrative form and are exemplary in character. Such materiitl c;rll
appear, therefore, as rather tedious and repetitive, full of cliched phrltst",
which are transferred from one famous person to another. Moretrv,,l
medieval Muslim biographies almost always speak of the virtues o1'lll,
famous person about whom they are writing, suppressing his faults since tllt,t
are not worthy of emulation. It is worth recalling that panegyric wźts .l
principal mode of medieval Islamic poetry.
Who was accorded the honour of a biography? Predictably, the
whose lives are recorded in medieval biographical accounts belonged to s1-1t,
cific groups and categories. Mostly they were religious scholars and mystit,,
and sometimes governors, military commanders and rulers. How could it l,,,
otherwise, since the lives of the rest of society were not considered & woI'llrt
model for the whole community? The modern reader looks in vain ilr ;r
medieval Muslim biography for a full account of thę life ol a famous pel,s()ll
There is no attempt to depict an entire life from the cradle to the grave, w:l l t,
and a11. There is little interest shown in physical appearance or even psyclt,,
logical motivation. Whęther they arę full-blown narratives or short obittlirl
ies, medieval Muslim biographical accounts are very stereotyped, opaqu źtltrl
hard to read. In their concern to demonstrate God's will for the world ancl llr,
inevitable triumph of Islam, these sources exploit rhetorical devices, poclr l
speeches and Quranic quotations to the full.
During the period under discussion the few important full biographit,
were not written for caliphs but rather for two usurping military warltrl,tl,,
NDr al-Drn and Saladin, Muslim heroes in the jihad against the Frttlll,,,
Indeed, Saladin's two biographers, Ibn Shaddżd and'Imżd al-Drn, use tllt,ll
works to justify his seizure of power and they focus on glorifying his reput;r
tion as a valiant warrior in the Holy War and as a pious Sunni ruler. Howcr,,,
the work of 'Imad al-Drn, The Syrian Lightning, crosses two genres, the lrl,,
graphy and the autobiography. Indeed, the book is both a biography .,l
Saladin and an autobiography of the author himsell proud to show his tltr r,
close relationship with his master.29 As for Nur al-Din, he is accorded a lli,,
graphy, together with Saladin, by AbD Shama (d. 1267), tn his panegyt,it;rl
28 For details, see A.K.S. Lambton,'Persian biographical literature', in Lewis ancl ll,,lt
Historians of the Middle East,148-9,
29 B. Lewis, 'First-person narrative in the Middle East', in M. Kramer, ed., Midllle Eu:;lertt Lty,,,
The practice of biography and self-narrattve (Syracuse, l99l), 25.
,,( )l li( l :-. lN .,\liA!tl(' ]() l
Ę
rtrrl,k. 'l'ht, lltltll, tll lltt, l'lt,ł, (ittrtlt,tt,:,. lrl tlris clrrcltllly ctlllsll'rtclCtl lltltlk. llle
,rrlllttlr clcvtltcs ltltetllitlIl ttl Ntlr lrl-Dirr but clcirrly brirlgs lris wtlt'k ltl lt
, ltlllłlx with his cvc11 l)l()ro gltlwirrg description of Sirlaclin.
Autobiographies
ll was once thought that autobiographies in mędieval Islamic litcrirturc
\\cl,c very few and far between. Recent scholarship, and especially the cxccl-
lr.rrt book edited by Reynolds,30 has somewhat modified this vięwpoint.
l lris volume, completed by a team of scholars, provides an annotated guitlc
t.l Arabic autobiographical writings from the ninth to the nineteenth ccll-
lllt,rr
trlrics; it covers non-extant works and short autobiographical ęxtritcts
1lrcs fvęd by later authors. Full autobiographies, however, for the pcritltl
l()25 !ż04, number only six. Of thęse, thę Kitab a\-I'tibąr (The Booli tll
ltl,s,lruction by Example) of Usama b. Munqidh (d. 1l88), his so-ctrllctl
|lctlloirs, has been known for a long time in the west. Attitudes to tlris
lrrltterial have been refined and sharpened over the years; recent scholarslri1l
lrlrs locused on the didactic naturę of the work. The other two autobiog-
r;rllhies from the central lands of the Islamic world in this period are writ-
lt.l) by religious scholars. The 'spiritual autobiography' of the famtltls
rllcologian and mystic, al-Ghazall (d. 1111), entit|ęd Deliverer Jrom Errtlr,
,, itlso well known in the west, whereas the unusual autobiography ol- thc
l ;rtimid missionary, al-Mu'ayyad fi'l Drn al-Shrrózl, The Biographv of' ul-
1ItIctyyadfi'l D|n al-ShtrazI the Chief Missionary,has remained neglcctccl
rlrrtil recently. This latter work contains the author's own speechcs tttrtl
,t,|,ll-lolls and gives lively accounts of court intrigues.
ln a sense, travel writings arę clearly autobiographical but their loctls is
,lt,liberately circumscribęd. Such accounts abound in the medieval lslirtlric
rrrlt,ld and they will not be discussed here.
ANCILLARY SOURCBS
l)rlcuments
\lchival documents from the Islamic Middlę Ages are much rarcr thlrll irr
l rrI,tlpe. They certainly existed, as testified by the mention of thclrr ill chtrltl-
lt ltls. ollc}clopaedias and administrative manuals. Somę archivcs lritvc stll-vivctl
") Reynolds,Interpretins the Self (n.l4\,
 ('ttt,tllc lcttllntlttl
_]()2 l I il
in mosques, shrines, synagogues or monastcries. Wirs tlris clcarth tll'itI,cIrir;rl
material caused by the lack of institutions known in thę węst or by l,cctt1,1rlr1,
invasions?
The Genizah archives have been described elsęwhere in this volume.]| s.,
they will not be discussed here. Other decrees and diplomas from lslttllll.
chancelleries have survived, such as those in the monastery of St CatheI,ill,
in Sinai. Lettęrs and diplomas dating from the Fatimid period are assclll
bled in a volume collected by Jamal al-Din El-Shayyal, entitled Maimi[,tt
al-watha'iq al-fatimiyya (Anthology of Fatimid Documents).3z In Irittl
Afshar and Tahir have recently edited a very important collection
administrative archival documents from the late Seljuk period, MukhtOt,tt
min al-rąsa'il (Selections from the Epistles), mostly in Persian but somc ilr
Arabic; they were found in the southęrn city of Yazd and hęnce escźtpt,rl
destruction in the Mongol invasions, These are a valuable resource for tlr,,
names and networks of administrative ólites in the second half of tlr.,
twelfth century in Iran.33 This corpus deserves to be studied in depllr
Palestine and Syria yield disappointingly few documents. The large collectit,ll
(a thousand or so documents) from the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalclrr
postdates the period of this volume.
Mirrors for Princes
This genre flourished in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and offers a useful
adjunct for the modern scholar seeking to shed light on the ethos of medievttt
Islamic govęrnment and courtly life. Such works, written in Arabic antl
Persian, and occasionally even Turkish, trace their origins to the ancienl
Near East (for example, the Khudaynama of Sasanian lran) and India (for
example, thę Panćatantra), but they were thoroughly assimilated into Islamie
society and have developed accordingly. This didactic genre uses the device ol'
historical anecdotes about famous people to point a moral, but these havc
been carefully chosen with that aim in mind. As historical evidence thcy
should be treated with caution. It is difficult to tell to what extent theory witrr
applied in reality.
31 See the discussions of Jeremy Johns (on Sicily) and Nicholas de Lange and.Ioshutr [,ltllrl (,,l,
Jewish sources).
32 Vol. 1 (Cairo, l95B).
33 (Tehran,2000).
',( )l li( l l-. lN ;\li,\lll(' }() ł
Ę
l,;ligraphv alltl ( 'rlilts
( it,ttt'l'd.l
lrlscl,iptions and coins present invaluable information about meclicvirl 1lctl1llt:
.rrrtltheir public face. In one sense, their evidence is hard to judge bccitr.rsc il
rltvtllves stereotyped titu^uture, and the rhythms of such artefacts itrc tltlt
llt.ccss?fily those of chronological history. However, the titles rulcrs gitvc
tlletnselves or which were bestowęd on them are often revealing. Changcs irl ti(-
rrl;tture often reflect political events. Above all, surviving coins and inscrilltitlIts.
rtl
,.sllccially when they are dated, are genuinely contemporary documents itlltl
ltrlt. as in much medieval historiography, the fruit of retrospective reflectitllls
,rrrtl interpretations of later generations of scholars.
l 1ligraphy
lrt contrast to its dearth of archival material, the Muslim world posscsscs
,rs(tlundingly rich extant epigraphic evidence-on buildings, tombstones itItcl
,rll kinds of artefacts. Such inscriptions chart the realities of political powcl.
lt.ctlrding the titulature and achievements of individual rulers. They cllicrl
,,rvc precise dates of death and assist in the construction of genealogics
tlrltnks to their formulae for the rendering of names-thus acting Łts ttll
.rtljLrnct to the evidence of written sources and often reinforcing thenr. Thcy
,rlstl shed light on the establishments of religious endowments (w,utl/s).
The Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum, confined to Egypt, the Levarrt ittltl
\rrlttolia, is organised country by country and it focuses on monuments.'I-|tc:
lłi,pcrtoire chronologique d'epigraphie arabe gives all inscriptions, botlr tlIl
l,rrildings and objects, according to the actual or approximate year. llirclr
lrlscription is given in Arabic transcription and French translation.
ł'tlills
t 'rlit,ts arethe most reliable source for establishing a dated sequence ol- rtllcl's
1 r l|'|gn governors as well as caliphs or sultans) across the entirę Islamic wtlI,|tl.
l ltcy are also a prosopographical ręsource of the first importance, thlrtlks ttl
rllc Islamic custom of always rendering a name by more than orrc clcltlcllt,
,lltl thereby avoiding ambiguity. There is virtually no figural reprcsctrtlttitltl.
llrc striking of coins was the prerogative of the ruler; they give his titlcs. llis
llillllos, the place of the mint, and the date of the striking of thc ctriI't. ()Il lllc
,,lltcl,side of the coin are Quranic quotations. These can oftęn bc l,cllrtctl ltt
,1.'..,cilic religious or political concerns.
 ]()-l ('ltt,tll<,

EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS

II ill<,ttllt,tttttl

Until relatively recently, the period under discussion in this volume wźls lt,,,,
? !t()tl!ł(,lłsIN ARABIC

l]ltlLlOGRAPHY
l()',

well served with editions of texts than those of thę high Abbasid peritltl rll
Arabic historical writing in the ninth and tenth centuries. Nowadays, lltlt,t
medieval Islamic historical-and in particular Mamluk studies
-are thrivill1,
and new, high-quality editions of relevant texts are appęaring regularly.
However, given the large number of publishing houses in the Middle Errst
it is not easy to keep abreast of all the new editions or the latest volumes rll
ongoing publications which appear each year (although the Internet is lrrr
increasing help in this matter).
Existing translations vary in quality. Building on the efforts of numertrrl,,
scholars, such as de Sacy, Quatremćre, de Slane and Blochet, the Frencll
corPorate enterprise, known as the Recueil des historiens des croisttth,l
(RHC), was published towards the end of the nineteenth century. Five out łl|
the sixteen volumes were devoted to Arabic sources, edited and translatctl
into French. A couple of generations later, the French scholar, Cahcll.
attacked the Recueil very vigorously,3a rightly criticising both thę choice ol
texts made and the quality of the translations, and discoursing on the ha1,1rl
caused by the Recueil. This material should therefore be used with soIll,.
care. But for all its faults, it has been of cardinal importance in presentill;,
the story of the crusades from the Muslim side and thus acting as a cotlll
terweight to the understandably though regrettably Eurocentric tendencie:,
of crusader studies in the west.
Fortunately, a good number of the texts in the Recueil have been re-editc,l
since that time and better translations of many of the texts have been pull
1ished.35 It is, however, important that as many relevant texts as possilll,.
should be translated. It is unfortunate that so many scholars, somewll:rt
cravenly, choose to retranslate texts that have already been translated, olit.tr
more than once, rather than boldly to embark on the more useful but mtlr,,
difficult task of bringing a new text to the attention of a wider audience tlllrt
does not know Arabic.
l l^NDBooKSo SURVEYS, PROSOPOGRAPHIBS
landbooks and Guides
l
t'. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Weimar, 1898-1902; 2nd cclrr..
Leiden, 1945-9); 3 supplementary vols. (Leiden, 193742)
Still a starting-point for information about manuscripts and editions ol' kcy
sources, although the work has been much criticised. Howeveą many new mźlIltl_
scripts and editions of texts have appeared since its publication.
t'. Cahen, Introduction d l'histoire du monde musulman mćdićval; VIII' Xv,' ,tiit,lt,
(Paris, 1983); a revision of J. Sauvaget and C. Cahen, Introduction d l'hi:łltlira tlt,
l'Orient musulman (Paris 1961); trans. as Introduction to the History of the Mu,slittt
East: a bibliographical guide (Berkeley, 1965)
Despite its date of publication, still a useful entróe into the subject.
lltt,yclopaedia lranica, ed. E.Yarshater (London and Boston, 1982-)
A very substantial ongoing enterprise with contributions from scholars fronl lt,ltIl
and the west.
l,)ltt'yclopaedia of Islam, 1st edn.,4 vols, and Supplement (Leiden, 1938); 2n<J cdrr,,
l1 vols. (Leiden, 1954-2002)
The most important reference work for Islamic history.
W. Hinz, Islamtsche Masse und Gewichte (Leiden, 1955)
The best work on Islamic weights and measures.
lł.S. Humphreys, Islamtc Htstory, A framework for inquiry (Princeton, I99l)
An invaluable bibliographical resource, which also discusses approachcs ttl
medieval Islamic history in a thought-provoking manner. Chapter 8, whiclr ctltt_
cerns the role of religious scholars in Islamic society, deals with medieval bitlgrlr-
phical dictionaries and prosopographical issues.
l,K. Poonawala, Bibliography of Ismaili Literature (Malibu, I9]])
A very informative work for research on the various groups (inclucling tllc
Fatimids and the Assassins) which comprise the world's IsmóTli Muslims. lt is
organised according to sub-groups and then according to authors.
l . Sezgin, Geschtchte des arabischen Schrifttums,9 vols. (Leiden, 1967_)
This massive, ongoing venture aims at replacing Brockelmann's classic work. Srl
far the volumes have only just recently reached the period of the project.
( '.A. Storey, Persian Literature,
a bio-bibliographtcal survey,3 vols. (London, 1927 81)
Volume L2 on history and biography is especially relevant.

('hronology and Genealogy

3a C. Cahen, 'Editing Arabic
chronicles', 30, n.
35 See the bibliography for details.
t li. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties (Edinburgh, 1996); an updatcd itrltl lirllt.r
cdition of his earlier work, The Islamic Dynastie,y; a. chrorulkry4iutI unrl .qt,ttlltltl.qit,ttl
ndbook (Edinburgh, 1967)
h u
1 A verY usef-ul rcscarch ttlol. The first edition has bcctr Irirllslittcd iItttl tłttssi;ttl ltlttl
pcrsian. Thcrc is ltlstl lr'hlrkish cdititln, based trll lhc lirsl cclititlll lrrtl
t:xl,xtlltlctl (,l
 .]()6 ('ttt,tllc ll i llcttllntlttl

include some lesser-known Turkish rJynasties fiom the elevcntlr century t)t-lw:ll.rl:,
Islóm devletlert tarthi, ed, E. Meręil and M. Ipsirli (Istanbul, l980).
I l,itItc hittl slrl1l1lcrl lll Ills
',( )l

1,1,\l(
lli( l S lN /\ltAllI('

l,tl witll thc lcttcr /trl/. '|'hr:

t() /

cIllrics itt,c llltsctl rltl

lcxts up ttl ltll |.5(X).
T.W Haig, Comparative Tables of Muhammadan and Christian Dates (London, l9 }.,; l Wchr, A Dit'titlttttr.y tlf l|,Itltlarlt. Writtan Arabic (Ithaca, l96l;revisccl ttncl cxl-xttttlr.:tl,
S. Lane-Poole, The Mohąmmedan Dynasties: chronologtcal and genealclgtcal table;; yt,itlt Wiesbaden, l9]9)
historical introductions (London, 1893; repr. Beirut,I966);revised T[rkish e<liti.lrl DesPite its title, this work is useful for the Arabic of the later medieval pcritlcl.
and translation, H, Edhem, Duval-t islamiyyah (Istanbul, 1927)
F. Wtistenfeld, Genealogische Tabellen der arabischen Stcimme und Famtlten,2 vtlls
(Góttingen, 1852-3) Sellect List of Cata|ogues
F. Wiistenfeld and E. Mahler, Vergleichungstabellen der muhammadenischefl lttttl
christlichen Zeitrechnung (Leipzig, 1854); 3rd edn., rev. J. Mayr and B. Spr_rlt.l
l
Ąfshar, Bibliographie des catalogues des manuscripts persans (Tehran, 1337tl958)
(Wiesbaden, 1961) W. Ahlwardt, Verzeichnis der arabischen Handschriften der kóniglichen Bibliothck :tł
Gives conversion tables for Hijri and Christian dates. Berltn,10 vols. (Berlin, 1887-99)
E. von Zambaur, Manuel de gćnćalogie et de chronologie pour l'histoire cJe l'Isltutt A remarkable early achievement in surveying Islamic manuscripts.
Ą..|. ArberrY, The Chester Beatty Library; a handlist of the Arabic manuscripls, 6 vols.
(Hanover, 1927; repr. Bad Pyrmont, 1955)
(Dublin 1955-64)
Ą-S. Atiya, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Stnai (Baltimore, 1955)
Maps t '. F'-. Baker and M.R.P. Polliack, Arabic and Judeo-Arabic Manuscripts in rhc
Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 200l)
G. Cornu, Atlas du monde arabo-islamique d l'ćpoque classique IX"-X' sićcles (Leidcrl. ( ', Cahen, 'Les chroniques
arabes concernant la Syrie, l'ńgypte, et la Mósopotamie dc
1985) la conquOte arabę Ż la conquóte ottomane dans les bibliothdques d'Istanbul', REI
H. Kennedy, An Historical Atlas of Islam (Leiden, 2002) l0 (1936), 333-62
Ttib tnger At las de s vorderen Or ient s (Wiesbade n, I97 7 *84) M. de Slane, Catalogue des manuscrits arabes (Paris, 1883)
l{ .|.W. Jefferson and E.C.D. Hunter. Published Materialfrom the Genizah Collectitln,y.
A bibliography I 980-1 997 (Cambridge, 2004)
Dictionaries and Other Linguistic Tools t l. Khan, Arąbic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Geniztth
G.L.M. Clauson, An Etymologtcal Dicttonary oJ Pre-Thirteenth Century Turlii.ylt
Collections (Cambridge, 1 993)
(Oxford, 1972) Ą. Munzavi, Fihrist-i nuskhaha-yi khatti-i farsl (Index of Manuscripts tn Persitm
Difficult to use, because the author organises his entries according to rectltl Script) ,6 vols. (Tehran, 1969-)
structed Turkish roots, but still the best resource for the earliest extint texts lll W. Pertsch, Verzeichnis der persischen Handschriften der kóniglichen Bibliothek :tt
Turkish. Berltn,10 vols. (Berlin, l888)
R.J. DozY, SupplĆment aux dictionnaires arabes (Leiden 1881; repr.lg27 and 196() Verzeichnis der ttirkischen Handschriften der kóniglichen Bibliothek zu Bcrlitt
also repr. Beirut, 1968) (Berlin, 1889)
The most useful Arabic dictionary for the period of the project, although it blts.,,, The two works by Pertsch were models in the same way as the work of Ahlwardt.
its findings primarily on evidence from spain and North Africa. t ' Rieu, SuPPlement to the Catalogue of the Arabtc Manuscripts
in the British Musaunt
J, Frick,'ArabtYa. Recherches sur l'histoire de la langue et du style arabe, French tr (London, l894)
C. Denizeau (Paris, 1955) l . Sezgin, Beitrdge zur Erschliessung der arabischen Handsc:hriften
in Istanbul uttl
G. Graf, Die SPrachgebrauch der ciltesten christlich-arabischen Litteratur. Ein Beitrtt,, Anatolien,4 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1986)
zur Geschichte des vulgcir-arabisch (Leipzig, 1905) A useful tool giving a description of some of the lamentably little-known richcs tll'
M.T. Houtsma, Ein ttirkisch-arabisches Glossar (Leiden, 1894) the Turkish libraries.
E.Vl Lane, An Arabic-Engltsh Lexicon,S vols. (London, 1863-93; repr. Beirut, l9|i()l l(irkiYe Cumhuriyeti Kultur ve Turizm Bakanligi, Kiittibhaneler Genel Mii<tt'irliigii,
A vast resoufce, based on data from medieval Arabic dictionaries. Ii was unfinishr.,l TtirkiYe Yazmalan toplu katalogu (The Collected Catalogue of Turkish Manu,scripls
).
so the last eight letters of the Arabic alphabet are presented only in fragmellt;rrl l 1 vols. (several publishers, 1979-)
fashion. t i. Vajda, RĆpertoire des catalogues et inventatres rle mąnuscripts arttba^r (Paris. l949)
A Comprehenstve Persian-English Dictionary (London, n.d)
F. Steingass,
The standard dictionary of classical Persian, It is often also helpful in eluciclirtirl1,
meanings of obscure Arabic words in the late medieval period.
M. Ullmann, ed., Wórterbuch der klassischen arabi,gchen Spruc.hc (Wicsbaclcn, l95,/ l
A verY ambitious and comprehensive but slow-moving clrtcrprisc. It bcgarl wltt.l,.
]()t{ ('ttrtllc Il illcltllrttłttl Ę :,( )l l(( l S lN l()()
^l{Altl('
Select List of Historical Surveys S Stcrtl. littilttitl I)t,t t,t,t,,r,(l ttlltlrlll. |()(r[)
l, Wi-istelllcltl. (il,,l,t,ltit,ltll tll,r lulitnidan-ClruIi/cn. Nutlt urtthi,srltctt ()ttł,llttt
General Histories of the Islamic World (Góttingcn, ltl8l)
E. Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Agl,,l
(London, l976) 1 iii) Iraq and lran
M.G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam,3 vols. (Chicago, 19]4) ('.E, Bosworth,'The political and dynastic history of the Iranian wtlrlcl (nll
H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: the Islamic Near East.f nltlt 1000-1211)', inJ.A. Boyle, ed.,The Cambridge History rf'Iran, vol. _5. '['hc,*tliut1
the sixth to the eleventh century (London and New York, 1986) und Mongol Periods (Cambridge, 1968), l-ż02
For the timeframe of the PBW project, this book is particularĘ helpful in its unustr ll.Busse, Chalf und Grosskdnig. Die Buyiden im lrar1 (945-1055] (Beirut. l9ó9)
ally detailed coverage of the eleventh century. ('. Cahen, 'The Turkish invasion: the Selchtikids', in K.M. Setton and M.W. I]alclwill,
eds., A History of the Crusades (Madison, Milwaukee and London, l969), l .]5 76
Studies of Particular Areas of the Isląmic World ll. Horst, Die Staatsverwaltung der Grossseljuqen und lłorazmshahs (tT3s l2_]l).
(i) Syria and Palesttne Eine Untersuchung nach Urkundenformularen der Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1964)
('.L. Klausne1 The SeĘuk Vezirate. A study of civil ądministration, t0_55 lt91
T. Bianquis, Damas et la Syrie sous la domination fatimide 359-468l969-107t,,
(Cambridge, Mass., I973i)
(Damascus, 1986)
(Paris, Lambton, 'The internal structure of the Saljuq empire', in J.A. Boyle, ed..'l'ltl
M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H'amdantdes de Jazira et de Syrie, vol, 1
^,K.S.
Cambridge History of lran, vol. 5, The SaĘuq and Mongol Periods (Cambritlgc,
1953)
l968), 203-82
A.-M. Eddó, La principautć ayyoubide d'Alep (57911183-65811260) (Stuttgart, 1999)
ll. Lewis, The Assassins. A radical sect tn Islam (London, 1967)
An exemplary study, based on a wide array of Arabic sources.
lt. Mottahadeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, l9tt())
M. Gil, A Htstory of Palestine, 634-]099 (Cambridge,1992)
M. Hodgson, The Order of Assassins (The Hague, 1955)
Contains a great quantity of useful information but is somewhat dense to read.
The classic work on this important topic.
R.S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols (Albany, NY 1977)
The classic work on the Ayyubid family dynasty. 1 iv ) Turkey
J.-M. Mouton, Damas et sa principautć sous les Saljoukides et les Bouridt,l ('. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, trans. J. Jones-Williams (London, 1968); ncw rcvisctl
468,549l1076-1 ] 54 (Cairo, 1994) French edn., La Turquie prć-ottomane (lstanbul and Paris, 1988); new 1r.. l).M.
A. Sevim, Silriye-Filistin Sel7uklu devleti tarihi (The History of the Syrian-Palestiltitttt
Holt, The Formation of Turkey (London, 2001)
SeĘuq State) (Ankara, 1989) Cahen updated the French revised edition which he providecl with lirllcr
M. Yared-Riachi, La polittque extćrieure de la principautć de Dunttt,,
annotation. He himself criticised the somewhat hurried 1968 edition.
468-549 AHl 1076-1 1 54 (Damascus, 1997) l. A History of the SeĘuks, ed. and tr. G. Leiser (Carbollclitlc itlltl
Kafesoglu,
S. Zakkar, The Emirate of Aleppo 1004-1094 (Beirut, I91|) Edwardsville, 1988)
(ii) Egypt A study by one of the best, if not the best, of the Turkish historians whtl wtlrkctl
on the pre-Ottoman period in Anatolia.
M. Barrucand, ed., L'Egyptefatimide, son art et son histoire. Actes du colloque de Purt,l
M.F. KÓPrilt, The SeĘuks of Anatolia. Their history and culture ut,t,ortling ltl lttl,ttl
( Mry
1998) (Paris, 1999)
Muslim sources) ed. and tr. by G. Leiser (Salt Lake City,1992)
The Cambridge History of Egypf, ęd. C.F. Petry, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1998)
Islam in Anatolia after the Turkish Invasion (Prolegomena), ed. and tr. (j. l.ciscr
A fine volume of corporate scholarship.
(Salt Lake City, 1993)
F. Daftary, The Isma'|lis: their history and doctrines (Cambridge, 1990)
Ą. Sevim, and E. Mergil, Selęuklu devletleri tarihi (The History q'the Sal.juq Sltttcs)
S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish communities of the Arab worll tt.,
(Ankara, 1995)
portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza,4 vols. (Berkeley, |967-93) ()- Turan, Dogu Anadolu Tilrk devletleri Tarihi (The History
H. Halm, Die Kalifen von Kairo. Die Fatimtden tn Agypten 973-1074 (Munich, 20()l1 ą/'Eu..ll(rn Attttttllitttt
Turkish States) (Istanbul, I973)
Y, Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden, 1991)
J. Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caltphs: a contribu.titltt Muslim viewpoints
i r ) Bvzantium:
to their political and communal history based chiefiy on Geniza material hilltcrl,, N M. El-Cheikh, 'Byzantium through the Islamic prism fiom thc twcll'tlt ttl tlle
unpublished, ęd, S.D. Goitein, 2 vols. (New York, 1970) thirteenth century', in A.E. Laiou and R. Mottahedeh, eds., 'fhc ('rtt,srttlt,l..fi,tlttt lltc
A. Raymond, Le Caire (Paris, 1993) Pcrspective o./' B.yzantium und the Muslinl Wtlrld (Washington. D(', 2(X)l), .5.1 7()
A.F. Sayyid, Les Fatimides en Egypte (Cairo, t992) 'Byzantium viowctl by 1hc Arltbs', r"lnpublished Ph.D. tlrcsis (llitI,virl,tl. l992)
S.J. Staffa, Conquest and Fusion" the social evolutitln oJ'Cairo, A.D. 642,1,15(/ (Lcitlcll. W llclix, B.v:tttt: tttttl tli,,i,1,1ttllti,l,t,ltc L|i,lt im.lrtihcn ll. .Iultrlttłlttlc1,1 (Viclllrll, l9lil)
19]])
 ('ttt,tllc illcltllrutttl
.] l() ll ,,( )llli( l S lN Alt^ltl( ]ll
M. Marin, 'Constantinopla en los geogralbs arabes', Erytheiu 9.1 (l9[lt3), 49 6() l.,lititllt:
'Rum in the works of three Spanish Muslim geographers', Grtlat:{l-Arullit,tt t
\ l. SirYYitl ltrltl 'l. lli;rlrt;lls. ttl. /.Itt,sltl>llil.tt. ul-ju:" ttl-urllt(ttłt lltitt ,,lltltllttr Ąlisr 1 l'ltl,
(1984), 109-17 lhrl
- l,ilrtielh ttf lltc ,,tt,ctttłtIt,s,tlf'Eg},pl),2 vols. (Cairo, l97ti)
(vt) The Crusades: Islamic aspects n dar y Lt t er ature :
,\' (, (, ( )

|'. l}ianquis, Damas et lrl Syrie sous la domination fattmtde (Damascus, l9ll9). vtll. f,
L. Atrache, Die Polttik der Ayyubiden (Mtinster,1996)
C. Cahen, La Syrie du nord d l'ćpoque des croisades et la principautć franque d'Antiot,lt,, 3L)34
(Paris, 1940) 'al-Musabbil]i', in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.) , vol.7, 650 2

C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999) l. Daftary, Ismaili Literature (London, 2004),23
P.M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades (London, 1986) Miskawayh, AbD'Ali (d. 1030), Tajarib ąl-umam (The Experience,l of'
M.A. Kóhler, Allianzen und Vertrrige zwtschenfrankischen und islamischen Herrschcrtt
lł utions )
im Vorderen Orient (Berlin and New York, 1991)
Ą very important writer, a rare combination of historian and philosopher as wcll lts
A. Nasrallah, The Enemy Perceived: Christian and Muslim views of each other duritt.ti
llttreaucrat and librarian. He often wrote in the first person and he coul<l criticisc llis
the crusades (New York, l980) ,.( )ttrceS.
E. Sivan, L'Islam et la croisade (Paris,1968)
His Universal History covers the period from the Flood to the year 980. It is tllcrl-
WB. Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East (Cambridge, 1907)
lltltled here, although it is outside the period of the PBW project, because cll'its
(vii) Christian Arabic sources rlllusual methodology and viewpoints.
J. Assfalg, 'Nichtislamische religióse Litteratur in arabischer Sprache; christliclre l\trtial Edition:
Litteratur', in H. Gżtje, ed., Grundriss der arabischen Phtlologie, vol.2 (Wiesbadclr. l.. Caetani (Leiden, I909-I7),2 vols.
1987),384-92. l|trtial Edition and Translation:
G. Gral Geschichte der christlichen arabtschen Litteratur (Yatican City, 1947) ll,F. Amedroz and D.S. Margoliouth, The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphata. tlrigittttl
J. Nasrallah, Histoire du mouvement littćraire dans l'Eglise melchite du W au XK silŻt,l,, chronicles of the fourth century (Oxford, I920-I)
(Louvain, l988)
,\' acondary Literature :
G. Tioupeau, Etudes sur le christianisme arabe au Moyen Age (London, 1995)
N4. Arkoun, Contribution d l'humantsme arabe au iv"lx' sićcle; Miskawu.yh, philt1,1,opltl
et historien (Paris, I910,1982)
l Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: the cultural revivalcluring lltc Bttl,itl
PRIMARY SOURCES age (Leiden, 1993)

Sources arę affanged in chronological order according to the death date of the author.
Histories: Select Muslim Primary Sources in Arabic
al-MusabbtĘl,'Izz al-Mulk (d. 1030), Akhbar Misr (Accounts of Egypt)
An Egyptian chronicler who served in the Fatimid administration. A prolific wrilt,r
but almost all his works are no longer extant (perhaps destroyed during the mtll,,
militant phase of the reign of al-Ęakim). Generally regarded as a Sunni who workctl
for the Isma'rlr Fatimids, it has recently been suggested by Daftary that al-Musabbilll
may have been an Isma'rlT himself.
Only the fortieth chapter of his vast history of Fatimid Egypt has survived, prt,
served in a single Escorial manuscript-this covers a few months of the yt:lrr
4l4ll0234 and most of the year 4l5ll024-5. al-MusabbilrT wrote on an annalisllt
basis but he sub-divided each year into months, At the end of each year he assenrblt,,l
obituaries of those who had died in that year. This short extant part of an enornl()tl\
and detailed work, reputed to have beęn written in forty volumes, demonstratcs llrr,
serious loss to Fatimid historiography of the rest of the chronicle.
ltln al-Qalanisi, AbD Ya'la (d. 11 60), Dhayl ta'rTkh Dimashq ( Supplcntt,ttl ltl
tltaHistory of Damascus)
|'his is an extremely important source. The early part of the work, which bcgills ill
\6319]3, contains extracts from the non*extant history of Baghdad by Hilzrl al-Slrbi'.
l'he work of Ibn al-Qalanisi himself gives an account of events from 1056 l l6(). 'I'llc
rvtlrk is particularly valuable for the l}thc. in Syria and its entries are of illcrcitsillg
lcrlgth from the year 497lII034 onwards. The chronicle gives a very lively acctlutlt tll'
1ltllitical and social events from the viewpoint of Damascus and extends its rcllltt ltl
lltclude narratives about central Syria, Palestine and, occasional|y, beyoncl, ttl ('ltilrt
;rrld Baghdad.It is the oldest extant Arabic source for the events of thc liirsl lttltl
Sccond Crusades and it contains an eye-witness account of the siege ot'Dttnritsctts itt
ll48. It is a rigidly annalistic chronicle and the author deals with epistlclcs wlliclr
()ccur over two years in two parts, one in each year.
The opening pages of the work are missing. The first part clf thc włrrk is llltsctl
,,Il carlier sources and especially Hilal al-Sabi'. In the second part tll'tlrc wtlt,li. tllc
;rtlthoą who lived until his nineties, draws on eye-witness accounts, lts wcll lts ltt,r.:ltiv:tl
lrlltlcrial to which he had access in his administrativc carccr (hc was twicc lltlt_ytll,rll'
l)lttllttscus, thc llrst 1rcritlcl bcing in 548/l l53), Thc wot,k t,cvcitls it stl,tltlg scttsc tll
rerritlIral 1lridc.
312 (itnllc l I illcltllrutttl l-,( )l]l(( l \ lN l\l{Ąltl( ]ll
Editions: ,r ttscl'ttl s()tlI'cc lilt t,vt,tlls llt lttltlllr,1-1l Syt,ilt ltlltl tltc.lltzit,it irr tlrc 1rct,itltl l l(X) 5();rlltl
The text has two good editions: rr.ts ttscd cxtcItsivcly lly llr(cI cllI,tltticlcl,s.
1. H.F. Amedroz (Leiden, 1908)
l',lititltt:;.,
2. S. Zakkar (Damascus, 1983)
l lt.A.L.'Awad, Ta'rIkh a.l-Fariqt (The History oJ'al-Fariqt) (Cairo, l959)
Translations: A good edition covering the years 3471958 to 502ll108*9,
There are two good partial translations of this work: ' Ą. Savran, A critical edition of the Artukid section in Ta'rTkh Mayytlliricllrl
1. H.A.R. Gibb, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades (London, 1932; 1961) wa-Amid', unpublished Ph.D, thesis (St Andrews, 1975)
This translation omits all passages to do with internal Damascene affairs. ('overs the period of the first three Artukid rulers-498/l104-5 to 572ll17(l 1,
2. R. Le Tourneau, Damas de 1075 d 1154 (Damascus, 1952)
l ,lition and Trąnslation:
This translation for the years 1075 to 1154 covers all the narratives withilr tlrl t llillenbrand, A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times (Leiden, l990)
period, including thosę omitted by Gibb.
lllis is an edition and translation of the events of the years 498lll04 5 to 54()lll54.
Secondary Literature: \ t, (, ( ) ndary Literature :
H.A.R. Gibb, The Damascus Chronicle, introduction, 7-14 ll l, Amedroz,'The Marwżnid dynasty at Mayyafbriqin in the tenth and elcvoIllIl
C. Cahen,'Note d'historiographie syrienne. La premićre partie de l'histoife cl'll,rr ccnturies A.D.', JRAS (1903), 123-54
al-Qal6nist', in G. Makdisi, ęd., Arabtc and Islamic Studies tn Honor of Hantilt,,,, t l Iillenbrand, 'Marwanids', in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol,7, 626 7
A.R. Gibb (Cambridge, Mass., 1965),156-68 A Muslim Principality, 5-14
F. Gabrieli, 'The Arabic historiography of the crusades', in Lewis and Holt, ctl,,
Historiąns of the Middle East,102-3 lllrt al-Jawzi,'Abd al-Ral.rman (d. 1200), al-Muntavamfi ta'r|kh al-mululi
,l,t'l-umąm (Systematic Arrangement in the History of Kings and Natitlns)
al-'Azimr, Muhammad b. 'AlT (born l090 and died after 1161), Ta'rTkh
\ l}lrghdad Ęanbalite scholar, preacher and prolific writer. The Muntavam is a clrrtlll-
( History ) l, lc which in many ways resembles a biographical dictionary; it provides obituarics,
A still rather neglected chronicler. Only one of his two known works is extant ,l
lr1,1stly of scholars, under each year. These often occupy much more space than tlrlr(
world history until 538/1t434. The work contains laconic but important acc<rtllll ,

!,lvcll to political events. The chronicle is a rich source for the history of the calipltirtc.
seen from the viewpoint of Aleppo, about events in the late 1lth c. and the first lr;Ill
, ()vcl,ing the years 9]I to lI79,but it is less wide-ranging in its focus than the histtll,y
of the |Zthc., and includes occasional references to Anatolia; it is interesting otl llr, ,r littcn by his grandson, Sibt b, al-Jawzl.
period immediately preceding the coming of the Franks.
l ,litions:
Editions: l l . Krenkow (Hyderabad, 1938,40)
1, C. Cahen,'La chronique abrógóe d'al-'AzTm1', Journal asiatique 230 (l9tlil
' M.A. Ata and others (Beirut, 1992 3)
335448 l lris is a better edition.
Cahen begins his edition with the entry of the nomadic Turks into Syriir. ll,
includes the years 45511063 to 538/11434. \ l, t, ( )
dary Literature :
n

2.I. Za'rut, Ta'rlkh Ęalab (The History of Aleppo) (Damascus, 1984) l l l .aoust, 'Ibn al-Djawzl' , in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. 3, 75l 2

Secondary Literature: lllrlid al-Din al-Isfahanl Mubammad (d. I20l) Kińb al-Fąth al-clus,sl .fi't
C. Cahen, La Syrie du nord d l'ćpoque des croisades (Paris, 1940),42-3 l,tt11 al-qudsl (The Book of Eloquent Rhetortc in the Conquest o.f'Jeru,sult,tlt )
Cahen's edition of the tęxt,354-6 l lris lamous Persian scholaą poet and historian worked for the Seljuks, before llltlvillg
1,1 yfią where he was in the service first of Nrrr al-Din and then Saladin, tbr whtltll
Ibn al-Azraq al-Fariqr, Al]mad b. Y[suf (d. after 57211176_7), Th'rtkh
llt, ;tcted as scribe and close adviser.
Mayyafariqt n wa-Amid (The History of Mayyafariqt n and Anid) 'l'his important work begins
with Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem irr l l[J7 lrlltl
The author was employed in the service of Temurtash, the second Artukid rulct ,,l
, rrtls with his death in 1193. It follows an annalistic arrangement.
Mayyafariqin, and he held various administrative offices in that city. He also visll,,l
1,1ilion,g:
Tiflis and worked for a while for the Georgian king, Dimitri. This town chroniclc c,,lr
tains valuable information for the 12th c. on the Turcoman Artukid dynasty wltt, l, l ('. Landberg (Leiden, 1888)
ruled Mayyafariqin and Mardin. Despite its local focus, it has a surprisingly wr,l, M.M. Subh (Cairo, c.I975)
coverage, with excurses on the Fatimids and the Almohads, and a few ref'crctlct,s l, , l tłttt,slul.ion:
Byzantium. Its structure is annalistic, but the text presents at times a distrt,tlt,l,,,l ll Mltssó, Conqu?tc dc lu S.vric et d.a la Palestine par Suladin (Paris, l972|
narrative, uneven and unco-ordinated, with very inaccurate dating. Neverthclcss, ll l
l
]l4 ('ttt,tllc l I il lcttllrulttl :,( )li|ł( l S lN łl\
^ltAlil('
'Imżd al-Din al-Isfahanl, I{usrat al-Jatra ( Help for Lassitude ) ;r1-1.ItlsltYllt. Slttlr lrl I)lll (tl ']l.].]()s). ,.ll;lthdr ttl<lttwltt ttl-,Stt1.1tttli.vrtt ('l'ltl,
The earliest extant history of the Seljuks completed in 1183 for Saladin. The wtlrk is .lt't'tlunl,Y of tltc ,\'t'llttl, ,\'lttlt,1.1tlstl ctrlled Zufulut tt1-1ttlrtirilih ('l'ltt,('t.t,ttllt
based on the lost Persian memoirs of the l}th-c. Seljuk vizier, AnDshirwan b. Kh;rlitl ,ll lIistories)
(died in the 1130s).
lllcre is scholarly debate over the authorship of this work or indcecl its rclrl tillc. lrl_
It is still only in unpublished manuscript form (Bibliothdque nationale, Paris, tlls,
1.1trsaYnT is still cited tentatively as its author in scholarly literature, in the absctlcc tlt,
arabe 2145). The work was summarised by al-Bundari (see below) who removed solllt,
lr Ily clear alternatives.
at least of the verbal conceits of the original text. The title is a pun on the wordJhtnt
This dYnastic history of the Seljuks from the extreme east of the Islanlic wtlrltl is
which means both lassitude and a period of time.
lr rather under-used work. It is full of valuable information gleane<l frolrr lt witlc
Secondary Literature: vlrrietY of sources. It covers the history of the Seljuks from their semi-legcrlclltry tlri-
D. Little, 'Historiography', tn The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambridge, 199tl). llirrs until the end of the dynasty in 1l93. The text continues thereafter unlll (l22ll225
vol. 1,416-17 llrlt this last section is likely to have been addęd by another author. This chrtlrliclc.
D.S. Richards, 'Imad al-Dln al-Igfahani: administrator, littórateur and historian', itl ,ll'awing on lost works, from the Baghdad historiographical 'school'of late Btryitl lrrltl
M. Shatzmilleą ed., Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-century Syria (Leidcll, t'lrrlY Seljuk times, and others, is especially useful for the history of the llth c.. stl
1993),13346 tlcpleted of surviving sources.
L. Richter-Bernburg, 'Observations on 'Imad al-Dln al-IsfahanT's al-Fatb al-Qussl l,.dition:
fi'l-fath al-QudsT', in W. al-Qadi, ed., Studia Arabica and Islamica. Festschrift./ilr
M. lqbal (Lahore, 1933; repr. Beirut, 1984)
Ihsan'Abbas (Beirut, 1981), 373-9
A poor edition with many dubious readings of this difficult text.
aus dem kalten Flint: 'Imad al-Dln al-Kadb al-IsfahanT (I-II)', Welt d<,,l

Orients 20-1 (1989-90), 12I-66; 22 (1991), 105-41 l ryublis

ll
hed Translątion:
-(Pgnken (). AYaz, An unexploited source for the history of the Saljuqs:
Der syrische Blitz. Saladins Sekretrźr zwtschen Selbstdarstellung utttl a translaticrIl ittltl
Ges chicht ss chretbung (Beirut, 998), 6-89 critical commentary', unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Edinburgh, 1985)
- 1 I1
,\' c t, ondar y Li t er a tur e :

Ibn Zafir aL-Azdl, Jamal al-Drn (d. 1216 or 1226), Kiffib ąl-Duwal t', Cahen, 'Historiography of the Seljuqid period', in Lewis and Holt, ęds., Hi,yltlritttt,l,
al-munqati'a (The Book of Discontinued Dynasties) rlf the Middle East, 69-J2
The most important section of this work concerns the Fatimids. The author, based ill
Egypt and a scribe in the chancery of the early Ayyubids, writes his chronicle ;rl-Bundari, Fatl] b. 'Ali (d. after 1226), Zubdat al-nusra wa nukhbąt
according to dynasty. Most of the work remains unpublished. ttl:usra (The Choicest Part of Help and the Pick of the Age)
Edition: l.ittle is known about this Arabic chronicler, who originated in lran but mtlvccl ltl
A. Ferró (Cairo, 1972) SYria. He Probably worked for an Ayyubid ruler of Syria, al-Mu'az4aLn'IsI, to whtllll
Fatimid section. llc cledicated this dynastic history of the Seljuks, begun in 1226. The work, which is
ltll accurate Summary of the Nusrat al-fatra, aims to prune down and simplily thc
Secondary Literature: ()rnate style of his predecessor, 'Imad al-Dln al-Isfahani.
C. Cahen, 'Quelques chroniques anciennęs relatives aux derniers Fatimides', BIFI()
l,,:(lition:
38 (1937 ). Zff.
M.T. Houtsma, Recueil de textes relatiJs d l'histoire des SeljclucirJes, vol.2 (Lcitlcll.
Ibn al-Tuwayt Abu Mullammad (d. 1220), Il{uzhąt al-muqlatayn./i akhbar l 889)
ąl-dawlątayn (The Entertatnment of the Eyes in the Accounts of the Two
lrl-Bundarl, Sana al-barq ąl-sham| (The Rądiance of the Syrian Lightning)
Dynasttes)
,Ąll abridgement of the work entitled al-Barq al-shamt of 'Imad al-Din a|-Islithi]ltr: st:c
This work by an Egyptian high official is an account of the Fatimid and Ayyubitl llclow under Autobiographies, p. 334.
dynasties in Saladin's time. A useful source for Ibn al-Furat, al-Maqrlzl, l1,1lI
Taghribirdi and other Mamluk historians and for general institutions. l,)litions:
l. R e;en (Beirut, I9]I)
Edition:
l. F] al-Nabarawi (Cairo, 1979)
A.F. Sayyid (Beirut and Stuttgart,I99ż).
Secondary Literature: lllll al-Athlr,'Izz al-Dln'Ali (d. t233), al-Kamilfi'l ta'rIlilt (Tlu, Ctlttt1llctc itt
C. Cahen,'Quelques chroniques anciennes relatives aux derniers tratimides', BIlłil() l Ii,rlory )
38 (1937), I0-I4,16, n.1 llrisis aUnivcrsu.l IIi,ylor.l, andthekeyArabicchroniclclilrthcpcritltl l()24 l2().ł. lill
lris tinrc, ils atllhrll'llits thc illslitlcls trl a 1ruc historiirll. Thc wtlrk c()vcl,s wtl1-1tl llistrlly
 ló ('ttnllc )lIl(( l S lN 1l/
.l l I il lcttllrutttl
Ę :,(
^l{^ltl(,
from the Creation until 628/l ż30 I. lts geographical soope is unusually wiclc, 0lllbt;tt, ,\'l,(,()ttd(lr.|' l ,ilt,t,tt tttt t,

ing the Muslim world from Spain to Central Asia, but information is fullcst tltl lltt, l).S. RicIrlrl,tls.'llllr;rl Allllt ;tlltl thc latcr parts ol'tlrc Kttmil'.7tJ 9. t,i.5

central lands of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, It is arranged annalistically but not too t-tlt:cll
anistically so and thę author gives excurses on various important topics. such as tllt,
rise of the Turks or the Assassins in a more overarching way. Hę is capable of inlcl
preting events as well as recording them. He makes a synthesis of the data from his
sources, although he rarely cites their names. Occasionally he devotes his attentitlll t.,
Byzantine matters; he includes, for example, a report on the events of 1204.
Edition:
1. C.J. Tornberg, 12 vols. (Leiden and Uppsala, 1851-76; corrected repr., 13 vtlls.,
Beirut, 1965-7)
The classic edition. Vol. 13 of the reprint contains only indices.
Edition and Translation:
RHC; historiens orientaux, vol. 1 (Paris, 1872), 189-714 (covers the activities of tlrt,
Franksduringtheyears 49lll098 to 585/1189-90); vol.2 (Paris, 1887),3-180(covcrs
the activities of the Franks during the years 585/1189-90 to 6ż811230-1)
The edition is unreliable, as usual with the Recueil. Mistakes of translation ttt.c
therefore inevitable; moreover, the translation sometimes reads like a paraphrasc.
Translation:
D.S. Richards, The Annals of the SeĘuq Turks (London, 2002)
Tianslates a crucial section of this work, which concerns the history of the Seljtr|-
Turks from 42011029 to 490l1096_7. This translation is reliable and scholarly arltl
should be used, wherever possible, in preference to the French translation of complr
rable passages in thę Recueil des historiens des croisades.
Secondary Literature:
D.S. Richards, Annals, 1-8
'Ibn al-Athir and the later parts of the Kąmil: a study of aims and methods', irl
D.O. Morgan, ed., Medieval Histortcal Wrtting in the Christian and Islamic Wlrlll
- (London, 1982),76-108
Ibn al-Athir (d. lż33), Ta'rTkh al-bahir fi'l-dawląt al-atabakiyya (The
Sibt b. al-Jawzl, YDsuf Qizoglu (d. 1256), Mi'rfu ul-:andn lT tirllih ul-t{l,tttt
1'l'he Mirror of the Time in the Htstory of Famou,s Men)
|'his Ayyubid historian was the grandson of the famous Baghdad Hanbalitc sclltllltt,
lbn al-Jawzl on his mother's side. At the beginning of the 13th c. he tnovcd ll,(ltll
lllrghdad to Damascus and worked for a number of Ayyubid rulers thcrc. !Iis
illlmense Universal History, modelled on the work of his grandfather. the Kitalt ul-
llluntazam, is a very important text. It begins with the Creation and stops in thc yclrr,
tll' the author's death. Important events are recorded for each yeaą and arc tltctl
Itlllowed by short obituary notices of notables who have died in that year. Urrtil tllc
llcginning of the 13th c., the work conforms to the model of a universal chrcrniclc witll
lr comprehensiveapproachtotheIslamicworld. Itscoverageof eventsinthc l3thc.
ls focused on Damascus and is an invaluable source, drawn on by many subscqttcllt
Syrian chroniclers.
This source is particularly valuable for the llth c. since it cites, at length llrrl
rlrlcritically, sources such as the lost history of the Baghdad historian, Hilńl al-Srrbi'.
lrrrd the work of his son Ghars al-Ni'ma. For example, the Mir'at contains a very l'trll
tlcscription of the battle of Mantzikert.
lłlitions:
l'he editions of this text are at best only mediocre.
l. A. Sevim (Ankara, 1968)
Partial edition. It selects events about the Seljuks and concerns thc ycltt,s
448l 1056-7 to 480l 1087*8.
] J.R. Jewett (Chicago, 190])
This facsimile edition covers the years 49511101 to 65411256. Jewett used a lirtrlty
manuscript and its pages are badly arranged.
]. Printed edition of the Jewett text, editor unidentified, 1 vol. in 2 parts (Hydcrlrblrtl,
Deccan, 1951. 2)
)l ition and Translation:
I

IłIłC:historiens ortentaux, vol. 3, 517-70

Brilliant History about the Atabeg State)
This is a full but highly partisan dynastic history of the Zengids. The author ręvcltls
on occasion a bias against Saladin and his family. The work was written as llll
exemplary history, a kind of Mirror for Princes, for al-Qahir b. N[r al-Din Arsllrrl
(d.6l5/l2l8).
Edition and Translation:
Extracts concerning the Franks from the year 490l1097 to 53żl1131- 8.
condary Literature
,\t, :
M, Ahmad and M. Hilmy, 'Some notes on Arabic historiography during thc Zcllgitl
and Ayyubid periods', in Lewis and Holt, eds., Histortans o/'thc Middlt, Iit,yl.()l )
('. Cahen, 'Editing Arabic chronicles: a few suggestions', in Lcs pauplc,s ntttsttlttttttl,s,
dans l' his totre lnćdićv ale (D amascus, I97 7), 1 -36 1

RH C: historiens orientaux, vol. 2, 5-31 5

Here erroneously called Ta'rlkh al-dawlat al-atabakiyya muluk al-Mawsil ('l'ln,
History of the Atabeg State, the Princes of Mosul), After a lengthy panegyric;rl
introduction, the work covers the yęars 411l|084-5 to 60811211-12.
Edttion:
A.A. Tulaymat, al-Ta'rlkh al-bahir fi'l dawlat al-atabakiyya (The Brtlliant IIisltltl
about the Atabeg State) (Cairo, 1963)
This reliable edition covers the years 52ll1I2] to 608ll2ll l2. The title givon lrct,e i,,
the one mentioned by the author himself in his Universul Histor.y, discussctl ltbtlve,
-'The historiography of the Seljuqid period', in Lewis and Holt, e,Js., Ili.tttlt,itttt,s
of the Middle East, 60-1
llrn al-'Adrm, Kamal al-Din (d. 1262), Zubdat al-halab JT tdrIklt I.Iulull
1'fhe Cream of the Milk in the History of Aleppo)
Ą concise local history of Aleppo written by a member of an clitc l)rnrily irt tlrc city
rvlttl servęd in various important positions there, including scribc,.juclgc. lttttl clrit,I
llriIlister to tw<r Ayyubicl rulers. The chronicle gives a clear exptlsititlrl tll'cvctlls llrllll
tllc viewptlint tll'Ąlc1,1ptl, tll'tcIl without citing the author's s()Lll-ccs.'I-hc wtlt,k is;r
l .]ltś ('ttnllc II illcttllrutttl :,( )l]l(( l \ lN ,Ąl{^ltI(' ł l()

chronicle of Aleppo from the early Islamic period untll 1243 and is organiscd acctll,tlitt1, ,\' (,.'( )łt(l(lr |, l,i l l, t't t t t t t't,
to dynasty and ruler or governor. lr.S. tlunlphl,cys, l,'t,tltlt ,\'ttltttlitt ltl llll llltllt,qtll,s; lhc A),.y,tthitl,s tlf'l)ttttltt,l,t,tt,y, ll9_] l)h()
Editions: (Albany, l9]7)
1. S. Dahan, 3 vols. (Damascus, 1951-68)
('. (]ahen, La Syrie du nord (Paris, 1940),70
ż, S. Zakkar (Damascus, 1997)
lbrr Wżsil, Jamal al-Din, Tą'rTkh ąl-SąlihT (The Satiht History)
Translations: Ąrl abridged general history of the Islamic world from the age of the Proplrot lrl rlle
I. RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 571-690 vcitr 637lI240. It is dedicated to the Ayyubid ruler, al-Malik al-Salih Nttjm ttI-t)lll.
The extracts translated cover the years 109'I-11146. Slill only in manuscript.
2. E. Blochet, ROL (1896-8)
Blochet translates extracts from the chronicle. The poor quality of his translatitltr Abu'l Fida', Isma'il (d. 133I), al-Mukhtasar fi akhbar ąl-bashar (Tltt,
has always been criticised. ,,lbridged Work on the Accounts of Mankind)
Secondary Literature: |'liis chronicle, written by an Ayyubid prince of Hama in Syria, a chroniclcl. gc()-
S. Dahan, in Lewis and Holt, ęds., Historians of the Middle East, |11-13 lll'aPher and man of letters, covers the history of the Islamic world from thc risc rll'
lslam until 1329. This compilation is heavily dependent on lbn al-Athir but is źl [lsc_
Ibn Muyassar, Taj al-Din (d. 1278), Akhbar Misr (The Accounts of Egypt ) l'tll summary of events. The work has been known in the west for a long time atltl wlts
The Egyptian continuator of al-Musabbihi (d. 1030). This is the most important worll lrltnslated into Latin as early as 1754. Because of this, it was always the first
;rtlt.l tll'
on the late Fatimids, containing much original information. elrll for historians to use, until the publication of the work of Ibn al-Athir.
Edtttons: l,,ditions:
1. H. Massó (Cairo, 1919) I J.J. Reiske and J.G.C. Adler, Annales moslemtci (Leipzig, I]54 and Copenhirgoll.
This covers the years I04]-I158, with a lacuna for the years 502/1108-9 ttl 1189-94)
sI4lII2Ul. Fortunately, the later chronicler, al-Nuwayri, borrows from the wol,k .]. The first complete text was edited in Istanbul,2 vols. (1869-70)
of Ibn Muyassar and fills these missing years. ]. 4 vols., editor unidentified (Cairo, l9I4)
2. A.F. Sayyid (Cairo, l981)
I )lition and Translation:
Here other lost sections have been partially reconstructed from later quotations. llHC: historiens ortentaux, vol. 1, 1-165
Translation: |'his translation covers the years 48511092 3 to ]02t1302-3.
RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 461-13
lrl-Nuwayri, Shihżb al-Drn (d. l333), Nihayat al-arab Ji funun al-utlub ('l'ltc
Secondary Literature:
C. Cahen, 'Quelques chroniques anciennes relatives aux derniers Fatimides', BIFA() ,1ltaining of the Goal in the Arts of'Culture)
38 (1937),I-2,I
Ąn Egyptian administrator and encyclopaedist, who wrote a vast and ambititrus wtll,k
tll'nine thousand pages in thirty-one volumes. The last of the five sections clf thc w<ll.k
Ibn Wasil, Jamal al-Din (d. 1298), Mufarrij al-kurub fi ąkhbar BanT Ayyub c()ncerns history; it is arranged chronologically, beginning with the Crettlitlll itlltl
(The Dispeller of Anxieties about the Accounts of the Ayyubid Family) lcaching the year 133l. It is very focused and well-structured ancl not sltrvishly
The key source for the Ayyubid period (I11I,I250). It is untranslated and still rellr rvcdded to the annalistic format. The Fatimid volume has been publishe<l and is ll vcl,y
tively unexploited. Despite the existence of four good manuscripts of this text, it wirs llttportant source, containing extracts from a number of lost sources.
unfortunately left out of the Recueil des historiens des croisades. The author wlts 1,1lition:
educated in Syria but was sometimes resident in Egypt where he had access to tllt, Vtllumes I-25 and 28 have been published, edited by various scholars (('lrirtl.
Ayyubid and Mamluk courts. The work, covering Egypt and Syria in Zengid arltl 1923-92), The Fatimid period is covered in vol. 28, ęd, M.M. Amin, M. |,lilllli irrltl
Ayyubid times, begins with Saladin's father, AyyDb, and his brother ShTrkuh, and thcrl M. Ahmad (Cairo, 1992).
it goes further back to give an account of the Zengids. However, the work is primarily ,\ccondary Literature :
an idealised dynastic history of the Ayyubids unt1l645l1247-8. For earlier periods it l). Little, 'Historiography' , in The Cambridge History o./' Egypt (Cambridgc. l 99li;.
leans on previous histories, such as the works of Abu Shama and Ibn al-Athir; for llis
vol. 1,430
own time his work is invaluable. M. ChaPoutot-Remadi, 'al-Nuwayrt', in Encyclopaetlta ą/ Lslun (2ncl ctlIl.), vtll. |i.
Edition: l 56-60
J. al-Shayyal, vols. 1-3 (Cairo, l953-60); S.A.F. Ashur and H. Rabie, vols. 4-5 (Clrilrl.
I9,/2)
Good clear editions.
l
.l2() ('ttllllc Il il lcttllnttttl ,,( )l l.:( l \ lN ,,\l(^ltl(' ].) l
Ę
Ibn al-Dawadafl, Sayf al-Din (d. after l335), Kanz ttl-durur wu.jultli' 'I'lris irlcltltles ltll t,tltllrltl llt l,rll .], rvlricll c()vcl's thc ycltrs.5]]/ll]|i ttl 5.11/l1.[,q ()

al-ghurar (The Treasure of Pearls and the Collection oJ' Shining Objet:t,s) lrnd givcs il sllllllll1lt,v ttl lll:t.itll,cvctlts.
A bureaucrat from a Mamluk family in Egypt, Ibn al-Dawadńri wrote an annalisll. \'., (,() n dary Li lc ru l u rc :
Universal History up to the year l335. The Kanz al-durar is an abridgement of an cvclr t l. M.C. Lyons, Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders(Cambridgc, |97l ). vtll.
lrnd 2. vii xi
longer chronicle. The section on the Fatimids has valuable information in it. <'. C--ahen,'Ibn al-Furat', in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. 3, 768 9
Editions:
Part 6, entitled al-Durra al-madiyafi akhbar al-dawla al-fafimiyya (The Past Peurl itt
;rl-Maqrizi, Taqr al-Drn (d. 1442), Itti'az al-hunffi' bi-akhbar ul-u'itltttttt
the Accounts of the Fatimtd State), ed. S. al-Munajjid, Die Chronik des llllt ttl-/atimiyy|n al-khulffi' (Warning of the Pious about the New,s of'thc
ad-Dawadari (Cairo, 1 96 1 ) lhtimid Imam Caliphs)
PartJ, entitled al-Durr al-matlubfi akhbar mulak Ban| Ayyub (The Desired Pearl,y itt |'crhaps the most important and versatile of the Mamluk polymaths, al-Mil(|t,lzl
the Accounts of the Princes of the Ayyubid Family) ed. S.A.F. Ashur (Cairo, l91?,l rvt,ote on a wide range of historical topics, focusing on Egypt. This chroniclc, wlricll

Secondary Literature: l)l,cserves material from such lost sources as al-MusabbiĘi, Ibn al-Ma'mtln allcl lbll
lrl-Tuwayr, is the only separate history of the Fatimids composed by a Sunni writcl,. ll
B. Lewis, 'Ibn al-Dawadar|, in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.) , vol. 3,744
D. Little, 'Historiography', in The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambridge, l99t1). l clnains untranslatęd.
vol. 1, 424-5 lllition:
l. lrl-Shayyal, vol. 1 (Cairo, 196])
Ibn Kathir, 'Imad al-Drn (d. |373), al-Btdaya wa'l nihayafi'l ta'rlkh (The M.H.M. Ahmad, vols. 2-3 (Cairo, 19'71-3)
Beginning and the End in History ) ,\' c condary Lit erature :
This is a universal 'salvation'history written from the Creation to his own time alltl, l). Little, 'Historiography of the Ayyubid and Mamluk epochs', tn The C'umhritl.q,,
unusually, beyond that, to include predictions about the end of the world. The work History of Egypt (Cambridge, 1998), 436 ]
is focused on Damascus and includes valuable information on that city.
Editions: :rl-Maqrtzl, Kińb al-Suluk lt-ma'rifat duwal ąl-muluk (The Book oJ' Accc,t,s
14 vols. (Cairo, 1932-9; repr. Beirut,1932-77) ltl the Knowledge of the Dynasttes of Kings)
l'his chronicle, which covers the history of the Ayyubids and the Mamluks. is lt ttsc-
Secondary Literature:
lrrl source for the project. It gives the history of Egypt from the accession of' Słrllrtlill
H. Laoust, 'Ibn KatTr historien', Arabica 2 (1955),42-88
rll ll69 until 1440-1.
Ibn al-Furźt, Nasir al-Din Mul]ammad (d. 1405), Ta'rtkh al-duwal wą'l 1,1litions:
muluk (The History of States and Kings) M.M. Ziyada and S.A.F. Ashur, 4 vols, (Cairo, 1934-]3)
An Egyptian chronicler who wrote this enormols Universal History in draft. He thclr l'Iris is a good edition.
revised and completed twenty volumes which deal with the twelfth, thirteenth itIltl l'runslations:
fourteenth centuries. The work begins in 501/l 107-8. This is an important sotlt,t,t. l, E. Quatremdre, Histotre des sultans mamlouks de l'Egypte (Paris, 1837 45)
because it draws on lost chronicles, such as the history of Aleppo by the Shi'irt,
Quatremdre's translation, which covers thę Mamluk period and is thcrclilrc rlrrt
historian, Ibn AbT Tayyi'(d. c.630l1232).The majority of the extant volumes concc1,1l side the remit of the project, is still worth studying because of its many vttltt:tblc
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. footnotes about earlier dynasties.
Manuscript: ]. E. Blochęt, Histoire d'Egypte de Makrizi (Paris, 1908)
The major manuscript of the text is in the Osterreichische Nationalbibliothr:k. As usual, a translation to be treated with caution.
Vienna, MS, A.F. 118 (Fliigel 814, II). l R.J.C. Broadhurst, History of the Ayyubid Sultans (Boston, l980)
Editions: A competent translation.
H. al-Shamma, vol. 4, pts. 1-2 (Basra, 1967-9) \ t, c ondary Lit erature :
For the period of the project, only this volume has been edited, covering the yeirl s l). Little, 'Historiography', in The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambritlgc, l9()li1.
56311167 to 615l1218. vol. 1,437
The Vienna manuscript has been the subject of several doctoral theses, which h:rvt,
ltl-'Aynt, Badr al-Drn (d. l45l),'Iqd al-jumanfi ta'r|kh ahl ul-runtdn ('l'ltc
involved critical editions of varying quality, but these remain unpublished. The best ls
Nct,klace of Pearls in the History of the People oJ'the Timc)
A critical edition of volume II of Ta'rTkh al-duwal wa'l-mu.luk lry
M.F. Elshayyal, l'his major chronicle, written by a high-ranking Egyptian ollicitrl, hirs still Ilrll yt,l
Mubammad b. 'Abd al-Rahim b. 'Al1 Ibn al-Furat', unpublished Ph.D. 1ltc:si:, llccn fully eclitctl iltltl cvalttirtocl. It is zt vast, encyclopacdic work with c;utltittitltls llrlltt
(Edinburgh, 1986)
 I
322 ('ttnllc ll i l lcttllrulttl ,,( )l li( l i-, lN })
l))

lost sources, such as lbn Abi Tayyi'and others. Thę parts of the text that dcirl willr
the period of the project have not yet been edited and the translated excerpts ill tllc
Recueil des histortens des croisades lie outside the chosen timeframę. The edition tll' itll
this manuscript is a major desideratum,
Secondary Literature:
M. Quatremdre, Histoire des sultans mamlouks de l'Egypte (Paris, 1837), 219-28
Ibn Taghribirdr, Abu'l Mahasin YDsuf (d. 1470), a|-I'{ujum al-zahirafi
muluk Migr wa'l-Qahira (The Brilliant Stars tn the Kings of Egypt and
Cairo)
A general history of Egypt from the Arab conquest to 1467.
Edition:
Editor unidentified, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1929-]2)
^ltAltl('
.) A.l l. Mtl1,1rltl. l'lt,, ,\',tlltt,lttlllltłl l)f ./.ttlttr u1-1)itt lVt,\,ltul)Ilrl (('lli111lcrlll:rlll, ](X),ł )
J'lris rcccIrl ctliliłlrl ls llltsctl tlIl lllc tttliqtte Initnuscript irl tIlc librlrl,y tll'lllc llrlyltl
Asiatic Socicty itl Ltltldtltl.'|'hc cdition is very good, with a ttlcticttltlus sclltllltI,1.y
apparatus. It is clear fiom this edition that the original version ol' thc tcxt wlts lttttcll
less full and flowery than the version of it produced by Qashzlni. A Intrrc llttllrlrts
contemporary of Qashant, Rashid al-Din (d, 1318), in the Seljuk scctitlIls tll' Ilis
Universal History (see p, 324 below) also draws on the history of NishłptrI,1.
l'runslation:
l'he recension of Nishżpurl made by Rashid al-Dtn was translated by K.A. l,tltllt:r
with an introduction by C.E. Bosworth as The History of the Se|iuq Tttrli,s,.f nltlt lltt,
lami' al-tawarlkh (an Ilkhanid adaptation of ZahTr al-Dtn NTshapan ) (Ltllldtlll,
2001).
,\t, condary Literature :

Edition and Translatton: l. Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the TwelJih Century (EdiIlbtrl,gll,
RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 481-509 1999),229-34
The translated extracts deal with the years 49IlI098 to 552lII5]. Ą.H, Morton, edition, 1-63
Secondary Literature: l{trwandt, Mul]ammad b, 'AlI (d. early l3th c.), Rahat ąl-sudur wa-uyttl
R.S. Humphreys, Islamic Historiography, I37 47 ttl-surur dąr ta'rlkh-tal-i SaĘuq (The Easefor Breasts andthe Marvcl of .ltl.v
A. Darrag, 'La y|e d'Abu'l-Mahósin Ibn TagrTbirdl et son oeuvre', AI II (1972\,
in the History of the SeĘuk Family)
l 63-8 1
l(ilwandi was a Persian scholar, calligrapher and gilder from Rawand near Kiishitll.
W Popper, Abu'l-Mal.rasin', in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. 1, l38
Ąlter the demise of the Seljuk dynasty in Iran at the end of the l2th c., he dcdicirtctl
al-'Asqalanr, AĘmad b. Ibrahim (d. 747l), ShiJa' al-qulub fi manaqib Bani llis work to the Seljuk sultan of Anatolia, Kay-Khusraw I. This work is a clyllaslic
llistory of the Seljuks, with strong Mirror for Princes overtones, written in rhcttlriclrl
Ayyub (The Cure of the Hearts in the Glorious Deeds of the Ąyubid Fąmi|.1,)
style. The narrative is interspersed with proverbs and quotations from Arabic lrlltl
This is a dynastic history of the Ayyubids, organised on biographical lines. This
l'crsian poetry and prose. The work's historical information is derived from the clrrtllliclc
scholar should not be confused with the more famous Ibn Hajar al-'AsqalanT. Thcrt,
tll'NishópDrT.
is controversy over the authorship of this work.
l,)ditton:
Manuscript:
M. Iqbal (London, I92l;repr. Tehran, 1985)
BM. Ms. Add. 7311
Ą reasonable edition.
Edition:
o n dar y Li e r atur e :
Editor unidentifięd (Baghdad, 1978)
,\' a t: t

ll.G. Browne, Account of arare, if not unique, manuscript history of the Scl.irrtls'.
JRAS (1902), 567 610,849-87
Histories: Select Muslim Primary Sources in Persian l. Meisami, Persian Historiograpły (Edinburgh, 1999),237 56
( '. Schefer, Nouveaux mćlanges orientaux (Paris, 1886), 347
NrshapDrl, hhff al-Drn (d. .. l186-7), SaĘuqnama (The Book of the
SeĘuks)
llln Brbr, al-Ęusayn b. Mul]ammad (d. after 1285), al-Awamir ul:Alu'iyl,tt
Little is known about NishópUri but he was probably employed as a tutor to a Scl.|rrk li'l umur ąl: Ala'iyya ('Ala'id Commands about 'Ala'id Matters )
prince or princes in the 1140s. His chronicle is the Urtext for most of the subsequclll l[lIr Bibr was an important official working for the Seljuks of Rum (Alrtrttlliir). '|'llc
histories of the Seljuks written in Persian. It is a dynastic history of the Seljtlk:, \v()rk was completed in 1281. It is a detailed memoir of the period l l90 to l2tl() ill Scllrrk

completed sometime before 1186. The text is simple and lively with intercslilr;, Ąllatolia, written in an ornate rhetorical style. The abstruse title may bc illtcI,1,tl,clctl lts
depictions of the Seljuk sultans. lilllows: the author was asked to write the work by'Ala'al-Din Juwaynl itIltl its srllljccl
rvlts to be the achievements of the sultan, 'Ala'al-Dln Kayqubttd I, wlrtlse t,cigtl wits
Editions:
tllc ttpogee of Seljuk rule in Anatolia.
1. I. Afshar (Tehran, 1954)
In this edition Afshar wrongly published as the original Saliuqnama ol Nishltllrll l
l,)tlil ion:

a recension of the history of the Seljuks by NishapDrr produced by a later I'ct,si:ttr M.'['. Hclutstrrit, //i,l/łlirc tlcs,Sclljoucidt,:ł tl'A,sit, Minclłra tl'ttpri,,,; Illtt lJtllt, t,t,t,ttcil tl,,
author, Qashani (early l4th c.). The eclition is po<lrly prclclucoci. lcrls ralttlif ,s i l'lti,lttltl,t, tlt,,s, ,\rltlltlttł,idt.t, vtll. 3 (l.citlcIl, lt)()2)
 ])4

Translation:
('ttnllc IIil lcttllt,tttttl
T ,\' t, t,tlnlur.y Li t crt t l rc
S()t ll{'('l15 l N
^ltAl]l('
]]\

H.W Duda, Die Seltschukengeschichte

t t ;

des Ibn Btbt (Copenhagen, l959) M. Canard, 'al-Antókl', Encyclopaedia of Islaln (2n<t ectn.), vol.
A good German translation. l. 5l6
< j, Gral Geschichte der
christlichenarabischen Lttteratur (yatic.an, l957), vtl1.2,49 .5l
Rashid al-Din, Fadl Allah (d. l318), Jami' al-tawar|kh (The Compentliutlt :rl-Makrn, Ibn al-'Amid Jirjis (d. I2]3), al-Majmu' al-mubarak (Tlrc
l}lt,,;,ycd
of Histories) ('łlllection)
This famous doctor, scholar and government minister was a convert to Islam llrlllr Ą CoPtic bureaucrat who was in the service of the Ayyubids in Egypt.
Judaism. He served the Mongol ruler ol Iran, Abaqa (ruled 1265-82),but he achicvcrl He wrote a s[lc_
einct untversal Htstory in Arabic from the creation until the-aócession
his highest office in the reign of Ghazan(after l2g8).His (Jniversal Historyextenrds fi-tlllr ol- sultarl
llitYbars in 1260. This work was known early in Europe
the Creation until his own time. Though known principally in its persian versions, it ltls., through its edition by
llrPenius in 1625.It was translated very early into European languages
existed early in an Arabic form. and influcncctl
tllc scholarshiP of earlY orientalist scholars as a result. it *u,
a largely derivativc wol.k
Edition: rrrltil the lifetime of the author. The Islamic section of
the worl until l238 sccIns,
A. Ates (Ankara, 1960; repr. Tehran, 1983) lrccording to Cahen, to be copied from the Ta'r.kh al-Salih
of Ibn Wósil or fitlln lt
This edition covers the Ghaznavid and Seljuk periods. e()lnmon source.
il i tion and Translation:
ĘIamd Allah, al-Mustawfi al-Qazwini (d. after 133910), Ta'r\kh-i guzlda
l

(The Choice History)

l , ErPenius,Historia saracentca (Leiden, 1625), with a Latin translation by J. Golirrs
This edition stopped at the year 5l2ll117*18,
Persian Shi'ite scholar and contemporary of the more famous Rashid al-Drn. Tllll,
,\' c c o ndar y Lit er a t ur e :
concise work, describing the history of the Islamic world until his own time, wlt:,
t '. Cahen, 'al-Makrn', in Encyclopaedia of
completed in73011330. Islam (2nd edn.), vol. 6, 1434
Edition: -'al-MakTn Ibn al-Amid et l'historiographie musulmane: un cas d'interpórrćtrlt-
tion confessionnelle', Orientalia hispantca, sive Studia F.M. pareja octgeltttriłl
E.G. Browne and R.A. Nicholson (Leiden and London, 1911-14)
dicata, vol. 1.1 (Leiden, I974),158-67
Translation:
C. DefrómerY, 'Histoire des Seldjoukides', Journal asiatique (April-May 184lil,
;rl-Makin, Akhbar al-AyyubiyyTn (Accounts of the Ayyubids)
417*62; (September 1848), 259-19; (October 1848), 334-70 Ą chronicle of events in the Ayyubid period, beginning in-I205
and en,ding with thc
A very useful translation of the seljuk sections of the text. llccession of the Mamluk sultan, Baybars, in 1260.
l,,|dition:
('- Cahen, 'La"chronique des
Histories: Select Christian Primary Sources in Arabic
Ayyoubides" d'al-Makin b, al-,AmTd,, BEo 15 (l95ll),
I27-77
al-Antóki, YaĘya b. Sa'rd (John of Antioch) (d. 1066), Tą'rTkh al-Antakl Contains a VerY useful summary of the events covered in the chronicle (p'l.
116*26).
(The History of al-AntakT )
A doctor at the Fatimid court, this Melkite chronicler was the continuator of the wtllh l'runslation"
entitled Nazm al-jawhar (String of Jewels) written by his relative, the patriarch rll Eddó and F, Micheau, Chronique des Ayyoubides (Paris, 1994)
^--M.
Alexandria, SaTd b. BatrTq (Eutychios) (d. 940). al-Antaki continued this work rrlltrl
l|lrr Hebraeus, Abu'l Faraj, known in Arabic as Ibn
1034, where the extant parts of the work stop, but it probably went even further. Fot.t.t,.l al-.IbrI (d. l286),
to leave Egypt at the time of the persecutions of the Fatimid caliph al-Ęakim, :rl liirlkh mukhtąsąr ąl-duwal (An Abbreviated History of the Dynasties )
scc witold witakowski in this volume under John Gregory
Antaki moved to Byzantine Antioch in 405lI0l4-15. His chronicle ls a vatuaule stltttt ,. BarEbroyo.
for Arab-BYzantine relations; in it he draws on his own experiences, non-A1-1tlll,
Christian writings, as well as a variety of Muslim sources, such as Thabit b. Sinzrlr. ;rl Sclect Biographical Dictionaries
MusabbihT and other chronicles, now lost. The chronicle is arranged chronologiclrllr
according to caliphs. l llc choice of biographical dictionaries made in this section is inten<le<l
ttr shtlw lllc
Editions: rlt'h diversitY of this genre in the medieval Islamic tradition, but it is by no Incźllls c()lll_
1. L. Cheikho, B. Carta de Vaux and H. Zayyat, CSCO Scriptores arabici 3.7 (plrll,, 1ll'chensive. ExamPles have been taken over a wide chronological franicwork itIltl ll.tltll
tllc different social grouPs covered by this important corpus
1909) ol'wtlrks. Illltt-ics ltl.c
2.U.A, Tadmuri (Tripoli, ,rlt,ltnged chronologically according to the death-<late
1990) of thc authtlr.
326 ('urullc Il illcltllrutttl

al-'Abbadi,, Abu'Asim Mul]ammad (d. 1066), Tabaqat al-Juqaha'

al-Shafi'iyya ( The Generations of Shafi'ite Jurisprudents )
! l,ttt,:; im ilL,,s:
S()t ll<('llS

l. A. al-Mu'allinri and others, 13 vols. (Hyderabad, 1952 82)

lN
^l<,Alil('
t )/

A legal scholar from Harat who wrote a biographical dictionary devoted ttl
predecessors in the Shafi'ite madhhab ('legal school').
Edition:
G. Vitestam (Leiden, 1964)
al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr (d. 107l), Ta'rlkh Baghdad (The History
of Baghdad)
An Iraqi religious scholar, preacher and historian of Baghdad. He is famous princi
pally for his massive, fourteen-volume biographical encyclopaedia known as tllt'
Ta'rTkh Baghdad, completed in 1070, It is the first biographical dictionary of a witlt,l
scope, though it still focuses especially on scholars of hadtth (the'sayings' of tll,,
prophet Mul]ammad). It contains 7,831 entries; these record the lives of famous nrcrl
(and thirty women) involved in the social and cultural life of Baghdad.
Edition:
Editor unidentified (Cairo, 1931; repr, Beirut, 1968)
llr:. ] al-Barudi (Beirut, 1998)
^.U.
lbn al-'Asakir, Thiqat al-Drn (d. 1l76), Ta'rtkh mądTnąt Dimuslte1 (T-hc
IIistory of the Cily of Damascus)
Ą famous historian of Damascus who belonged to an important family of Shłrli'itc
scholars from that city. This grandiose prosopographical work, arranged alphaboticłrlly,
Icoords all the important people who lived in or visited Damascus and a numbcr tll'
,lthęr cities in Syria. It has a valuable introduction, which gives the historical topography
tll'the city. The most recent publication of this ęnormous work is ongoing.
liditions:
l. A. Badran and A. Ubayd, 7 vols. (Damascus, 191I-32)
This edition is abridged.
.]. S. al-Munajjid, vol. 1,pt.ż (Damascus, 1954)
]. Complete edition, edited by several scholars (Damascus, 195l-)
('l. also A. Badran, Tahdhtb ta'rlkh Dimashq (The Pruned Version of the Hisl.or.|,
t1.1

Damascus) (Damascus, 1-32) 1 9 1

Edition and Translation: This is arearrangement of the Tar'Ikh mańnat Dimashq up to the letter'ayn. lł ls
G. Salomon, L'introduction topographtque d l'htstoire de Baghdad (Paris, 1904) an unsatisfactory effort.
A partial ędition and translation which deals with the introduction on the toptl11
l'ranslation:
raphy of Baghdad.
N. Elissóeff, La description de Damas d'Ibn'Asókir (Damascus, 1959)
Secondary Ltterature: |'his is a translation of the section edited by Munajjid.
R.W. Bulliet, 'Women and the urban religious ólite in the pre-Mongol period', irr
,\acondary Literature :
G. Nashat and L. Beck, eds., Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to ]łl()()
(Urbana and Chicago, 2003), 68-79 l{.S. Humphreys, Islamic History. A framework for inquiry (Princeton, I99I),238 9

R. Sellheim, 'al-Khatib al-BaghdadT', Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. ,l. YtlqDt al-RDmr al-}Iamawi, Shihab al-DTn (d. 1229), Mu'jam al-udaba' (l'lrc
l|I|Iż l)ictionary of Men of Letters)
Abu Isbaq al-Shirazl (d.1083), Tabaqat al-fuqaha' (The Generątions of Ą traveller and prolific writer. Born in Byzantine territory, he was taken as a s|avc ltl
l}lrghdad as a small boy. His master, a merchant, saw to it that he received a thortltlgh
Legtsts)
lslirmic education and he travelled widely on his master's business.
This work, written around 1060, records, regardless of their particular school of llrrr.
Not all this colossal work has survived, but its most recent editior, Ihsan Abblrs.
all the jurists, whose opinion could be sought in order for a consensus to be reachc.l
lcstored thirty-two entries that were not in the first ędition by Margoliouth. It is. irs
Later works of this kind would be confined to jurists of one particular 'school' olll},
lts title suggests, concerned with the writers-poets, lexicographers and othcr kiIltls
Edition: ,ll' scholars-whom the author met.
Editor unidentified (Baghdad, 1937)
I)litions:
al-Sam'ani,'Abd al-Karrm (d. 1 166), al-Ansab Genealogies) ( l. D. Margoliouth, 7 vols. (Cairo, 1901-27)
A religious scholar from Marw in the eastern province of Khurasan. This is a massir', .] A.F. Rifb'l, 20 vols. (Cairo, l93G8)
biographical dictionary of scholars of Ęadtth (the 'sayings' of the Prolrlrt,t A poor edition.
Mulrammad). Its 5,348 ęntries arę arranged alphabetically according to nisba (a 1lcr ł. I. Abbas, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1993)
son's name based on place of origin or residence). The work provides advice on ll,,tr ,\' t, c o ndar y Li t er a tur e :
to pronounce names and their derivations, as well as the names of teachers and lllt,ll ( '. Gilliot, 'Yakut al-R[mt', Encyclopaedta of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. l 1.264 6
pupils. A very flne and full treatment of this author's work with lull bibIiogrir1llliclrl
Edition: details.
D. Margoliouth (Leiden and London,1912)
l .l2ll ('ttnllc l I illcttllrutlttl

Ibn al-'Adim (d. 1262), Bughyat al-talabJi ta'rlkh Hulab (Thc Dc,yirad
T l tlition:
S()t ll{('llS lN
^l{Alll('
ł.]()

Object of Seeking in the History of Aleppo) M. al-Kawthari (Cairo,1947; Beirut, l984)

For details of this author, see the entry under Histories, p. 311.
In this monumental work (even though only a quarter of it has survived), Ibn lrl llln Abr Usaybi'a, Muwaffaq al-Din (d. 1270),'(Jyun al-anba'Jt tal-xttldt
'Adim vaunts his own city by a full biographical coverage of its great personalitics ttl-utibba' (Choice News about the Generątions of Doctors)
Anyone who lived there or visited the city or its surrounding area in any historic;rl Ą SYrian doctor who lived and practised in Damascus. His biographical work tlll
period may qualify for inclusion in his work. However, if the entry deals with lr cllrssical and Muslim physicians contains 380 entries, arranged according to area itIltl
traveller to Aleppo, his inclusion in the dictionary must be justified. 11crreration.
The dictionary is organised in alphabetical order. The typical biographical enlr,,l l,)ditions:
follows a generally predictable plan; it includes the name of the subject, a summary tll l A. Miilleą 2 vols. (Cairo, I8Sż4)
that person's links with Aleppo, an assessment of his qualities and the most imptll ,] N. Rida (Beirut, 1965)
tant parts of his career. After some illustrative anecdotes, the date and details of his ndary Lit er atur e :
,\' c t, o
death are provided. The author draws on an unusually wide range of sources, b<rllt EddÓ, 'Les módecins dans la sociótó syrienne du VII"/XIII" sidcle', AI29 (l995),
oral and written, extant and lost. ^-M.
91-109
Editions:
1. A. Sevim (Ankara, 1976) lbn Khallikan, Ahmad b. Mul]ammad (d. 1282), Kitab Wffiyat al-a'yan w,tt
Partial. ttnba' abna' al-zaman (The Book of the Deaths of the Famous and
2. F. Sezgin, 11 vols. (Frankfurt, l986-90) lttformatton about the Sons of the Time)
Facsimile Edition: lbn Khallikan had a very varied public life in different cities of the Near East, reaching
S, Zakkar, 1 1 vols. (Damascus, 1988) tlle rank of Chief Judge. His is the best known of the medieval Islamic biographicirl
,lictionaries outside the Middle East, because of its English translation by de Slano irr
Translations:
lllc nineteenth century. It is arranged in alphabetical ordeĘ according to the persolr's
I. RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 695-132
rrllt (personal name), and it contains only the biographies of those whose death datcs
These extracts cover the biographies of five Muslim rulers of Syria in the twell'tll
llc could find out for sure. It is a very useful sourcę indeed for the period of the pro-
century.
lr-lct, especially for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is often witty and is inten<lctl
2. B. Lewis, 'Three biographies from Kamal al-DTn', in O. Turan, ed., Fuad Kópriilit
ttl entertain, with frequent use of poems and lively anecdotes. It is much wider irt
Arma aru, (Istanbul, 1953), 32544
:;COPe than the other biographical dictionaries which precede it and it includęs
These three biographies throw light on the history of the Syrian Assassins: two tl| anyono
rvho had excelled in almost all spheres of public life, such as scholars, princes, com-
the entries chosen concern their alleged victims, JanaĘ al-Dawla, the ruler rll
ltlitnders, ministers, poets and women. It omits the lives of the Abbasid caliphs, on thc
Ęim , and Khalaf b, Mula'ib, the governor of Afimiya. The other biography is
that of the Assassin leader in Syria himself, Rashid al-Dln Sinan. 1'lrlunds that they are sufficiently well covered in other sources, but it does proviclr:
lliographies of thę 'heretical'Fatimid caliphs of Egypt.
Secondary Literature:
l)litions:
D. Morray, An Ayyubid Notable and his World. Ibn al-'Adim and Aleppo as portra1l,tl
in his Biographical Dictionary of people associated with the city (Leiden,1994)
l E. Wtistenfeld (Góttingen, l835+3)
-' Baron W.M. dę Slane (Paris, l838-42)
A remarkably thorough and learned study of this very important biographiclrl
Not a complete edition.
work.
l M. Muhyi al-Din, 2 vols. (Cairo, I2991I88I-2)
and Aleppo in Ibn al:AdTm's Bughyat al-talab fi ta'rtkh Halab', ln ll
Kennedy, ęd., The Htstoriography of Islamic Egypt (c.950-1800l (Leiden, 20()ll.
l l. Abbas, 8 vols. (Beirut 1968-12, repr. Beirut,1997)
-'Egypt The best edition.
I3-22
l'nmslations:
AbD Shama, 'Abd al-Ral]man (d. 1267), Tarajim rijal al-qarnayn al-sadis l. Baron WM. de Slane, Ibn Khalltkan's Biographical Dicttonary, 4 vols. (Pirris.
wą'l sabi' (Biographical Notices of the Men of the Sixth and Seventh |843-7l; repr. Beirut, |970)
Centuries) ;. RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 379430
A Syrian scholar from Damascus. The work gives, as its title suggests, biographic;rl The biographies of Ibn Shaddad, the biographer of Saladin, an<l of Salatlin hirrl-
notices of important local people in thę sixth and seventh centuries of the Muslinl cllr self are translated here.
(i.e. the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian calendar).
] ]() ('ttnllc II illcttllnttttl :--( )l ]l(( l s lN z\l{Alll( ,

l\l
Ę
al-Safadi, Khalil b. Aybak (d. l3ó3), Kifih ul-Wa/i' hi'l-w,afh.vul ('l'lu, ()llly 1llll ll,V t,rl;tlll lltll ;t lltrlsl i,;tltl;tlllc lttltl cxtcttsivc 1lltlstllltlg1,1t1lllicltl l,csrlttlcc. ll
Supplement to the lr{ecrologtes) rvlts tlrigiIlltlly 1lllrllrrt,tl llt elgllty vttlrttllcs but tlllly sixtcctl wcl,c c()llllllc(ctl lly lllc
This scholar came from a Turkish family in Safad and worked in the Mamluk adlllill ,rrtlhtrr. It inclutlcs lt witlc I,ilI)gc tll'biographies and is cspocially inlptlrtttltl lill,ils srltttt,
istration. This is the fullest of thę medieval biographical dictionaries. It purportctllr lrltlr hundred entrics on f'amous people connectecl to the fłrtimid st;ttc, iltclrrclillg lllc
once contained over 140,000 entries. It is now published in over thirty volumes witll rlrliphs. It also has the odd biographical notice of a prominerrt F'rank, such its l}itltlwirl
more than 5,000 entries. They are arran9ed alphabetically, except that the work give,, l tll'Jerusalem.
precedence to the name Mubammad, It aims to continue and build on the dictionlrl,r l,.lition:
of Ibn Khallikan. Its contents can be gleaned from Gabrieli's summary. It is a riclr M. al-Ya'lawi, 8 vols. (Beirut, 1991)
source on Fatimid Egypt.
I'rttnslation:
Edition: ll. Quatremdre, 'Mómoires historiques sur la dynastie des Khalifes Fatimites' , hlurttttl
Hellmut Ritter and others, eds., Das biographische Lexikon des Salahaddtn Ęaltl ilut asiatique (l 836), 91 -I42
Aibak aq-$afadT, Bibliotheca Islamica 6a zc,29 vols. (all published by varitrtls Partial French translation.
houses in Istanbul and Beirut on commission from a succession of publishers ilr
Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, and Wiesbaden, 193|-2004) lbn al-'Imad, 'Abd al-Iłayy (d. 1679), Shadharat al-dhahab fi akhbar mun
standard critical edition. lhahąb (Fragments of Gold in the Accounts of Those who have Passed tln)
Secondary Literature: Ą Syrian scholar of the Ęanbalite madhhab ('legal school'). His comprehensive bio-
G. Gabrieli, 'Indice alfabetico di tutte le biografie contenute nel Wafi bi'l wafayut', traphical dictionary was completed in 1670. Despite its late date of composition, it is
Rendiconti dell'Accademia nazionale dei Lincet, classe di scienze morali, storic:ht ,, vcry useful because of its encyclopaedic scope. It is arranged annalistically artd
c()vers the first Islamic millennium (the years 116ż2 to 1000/159I-2).
filologiche 22 (I9I3), 547-77, 581-629;23 (I9l4), 191-208, 211-65; ż4 (I9l5l,
55 1-61 5; 25 (1916), 341-98 l)litions:
|, (Cairo, 128411867-8)
al-Subkr, Taj al-Din (d. c.|369170),Tabaqat al-shajfiyya (The Generation,y ]. A, and M. al-Arna'ut, 11 vols. (Beirut, 1986)
of the Shafi'ites)
A Syrian preacher and religious scholar from Damascus. This is a collection of biog,
raphies of Shafi'ite jurists. It exists in three versions, the'largest', the'middle-sizctl' ltiographies in Arabic
and the 'smallest'. It gives a thorough intellectual history of the Shafi'ite madhhttl,
('legal school'). lbn Shaddad,Baha'al-Din (d. Iż39), ąl-Nawadir al-sultaniyya wa'lmalul,ritt
,tl-yusufiyya (The Sultanal Rarities and the Josephal Virtues)
Edition (of the'largest' (al-kubra) ) version: Ą contemporary of Saladin who travelled and worked with him from ll88 rrrttil
1. 6 vols. (Cairo, 1908) Slrladin's death in 1l93. The title of his biography of Saladin refers to the fact that lhc
A bad edition. llitme YDsuf (Joseph), a figure famed for his beauty in the Quran, was also onc tll'
2. M.M. al-Tanahi and M.A. al-Hilw, l0 vols. (Cairo, 1964-76) Slrladin's names. The work begins with a laudatory section extolling Saladin's virtttcs.
Secondary Literature: l'he middle part of the book is a narrative of Saladin's activities in the jihdd, drtrwll
H. Halm, Die Ausbrettung der śafi'itischen Rechtsschule von den Anfcingen bis :ttttt llrrgely from the work of another companion of Saladin, 'Imad al-Din a|-IsftrhirrrI.
8. l 1 4. Jahrhunderr (Wiesbaden, l97 4) |'he last section, howeveą recounts Ibn Shaddad's own personal views ol his Iltilstcl,
lrIld he writes movingly of Saladin's death.
Ibn Rajab, Zayn al-Drn (d. 1392), Kitab al-Dhayl'ala 1abaqat al-hanabila With this work, medieval Arabic biographical writing as a genre is prtlpcrly
(The Book of the Appendix to the Generattons of Hanbalites) l;runched.
A Hanbalite legist from Damascus. This is a biographical work restricted to tllt,
lllition:
Ęanbalite madhhab ('legal school'). l El-Shayyal (Cairo, 1964)
Edition:
I il i tion and Translątion:
H. Laoust and S. Dahhan, vol. 1 (Damascus, l951)
lłIIC: htstoriens orientaux, vol. 3, 3-370
This covers the years 46011067 to 540lll45.
l'runslations:
al-Maqrr z1, Taq1 al-D rn (d. I 442), Kińb ąl- Ta' rI kh al-kab7 r al-muqaffa I C.R. Conder and C.W. Wilson, The Life of Saladtn (Londorr, l897; rcpr. Ncw Vlrk,
li-misr (The Great Htstory Limited to Egypt) l97 l)
For details of this author, see the entry under Histories, p. 321. Richards rightly suggests that this translation is too depenclclrt tlIl tltc lil,ctlcll
translatiotl ill tltt: lłct,ttcil.
1_]2 ('utlllc ll illcltllruttl :,( )lll(( l S lN i11
Ę ^l{^ltl('
2. D.S. Richards, The Rare and Excellent History oJ Saladin (Aldershot, 200l ) l,K. I)tltltlltw;tllt, Ilt,ll,tllltlt,Ęttt1lltl.ttf l.sttttt'tlt l,ilcrulurc (Mirlihrr. l971). l().} 9
This recent reliable translation draws on a Berlin manuscript which was not tlst,rl
by El-Shayyal in his edition. ;rl-Ghazalr, Abu l lirlnicl, Mulratnmad (d. 1l l l), ul-Munqidh min ul-|lulttl
Secondary Literature: 1'l'lrc Deliverer Jrom Error)
;rl-Ghazóli was probably the most famous medieval Muslim scholar. This short wtlrk.
D.S, Richards, A consideration of two sources for the life of Saladin', -rSS 25 (19l{()),
rvritten towards the end of his life, is his 'autobiography'; in it he bares his soul ltIttl
46-65
cllarts his spiritual journey as a model for the whole community to follow. His scitrch
Introduction to his translation, 1-9
ltlr 'certain truth'leads him to the mystical path of the Sufis. Known early in thc wcst.
-Abu Shama, 'Abd al-Ral]man (d. |267), Kitab al-Rawdatayn fi akhbar tlrc work has enjoyed great popularity and has been often translated into Europcittl
al-dawlatayn (The Book of the Two Gardens in the Accounts of the Two l:rnguages.

States) l,,d ition and Translation:

See also his entry under Biographical Dictionaries, p. 328. l,. Jabre, al-Munqid min adalal (Erreur et dćliverance) (Beirut, 1959)
This work deals in a laudatory way with the'Two Gardens', the reigns of NDr lrl I'ranslations:
Din and Saladin. It is carefully structured. It draws on a number of lost soufces ilIlrl l. W.M. Watt, The Faith ąnd Practice of al-Ghazali (London, 1953)
makes ample use of poetry and official correspondence, including many ęxtracts frtltlr This sometimes reads more like a paraphrase than an exact translation.
the letters of Saladin's companion and adviser, the Qadi al-Fadil. ]. R.J. McCarthy, Freedom and Fulfilment: (ln annotated translation (Boston, l980)
Editions: A faithful, literal translation.
1. 2 vols. (Cairo, 1871-5) ,\ct,ondary Literature :
2. M.H.M. Ahmad and M.M. Ziyada,2 vols. (Cairo, 1956-62) ('. Hillenbrand"al-Ghazali', in M. Jolly, ed., Encyclopedia of Llfe Writing, vol. l

Editton and Trąnslation: (London and Chicago,2001), 374-5

RHC: htstoriens orientaux, vol.4, 3-522; vol. 5, 3-206
Translation:
E.P. Goergens in Arabische Quellenbeitrrige zur Geschtchte $alah-ad-DTns, vol. ]: Zttt
Geschichte Salahadins (Berlin, 1879; repr, Hildesheim, l975)
Partial translation, covering the second half of the book, which deals with the lili,
of Saladin, and then takes the narrative up to the early years of the thirteentlr
century.
Secondary Literature:
P.M, Holt, 'Saladin and his admirers; a biographical reassessment', BSOAS 46 (198ll,
235-9
Autobiographies
al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Drn al-Shirazl,Htbat Allah (d. 1078), Slrat al-Mu'ayyacl
W.M, Watt, Muslim Intellectual: a study of al-Ghazali (Edinburgh, 1963)
[Jsama, b. Murshid b. 'Al1, generally known as Usama b. Munqidh (d.
l l88) Kiffib a|-I'ttbar (The Book of Instruction (by Example))
Ąn Arab aristocrat, warrior and scholar, born in 1095, who came from Shayzar in
lltlrthern Syria and whose autobiographical memoirs record his experiences, it-l wltt,
;tIld peace, during his rich and long life. His aim in these memoirs is both to entcrtltitl
lrtld instruct, and the storięs are often exaggerated and stereotypical, with tt clcltI,
tlidactic aim. However, the work is a precious account of social relations bctwcctt
tlpper-class Muslims and Franks in the twelfth century.
lidttions:
l. P.K. Hitti (Princeton, 1930)
J. Q. al-Samarra'i (Riyadh, 1987)
\. H. Zayd (Beirut, 1988)
'l'ranslations:

fi'l-D|n da'I al-du'at (The Biography of al-Mu'ayyadfi'l D|n the Chief l. H. Derenbourg, Ousama Ibn Mounkidh, un emir syrien au premier ,yiłtlc dc,y
Misstonary) croisades (Paris, 1889)
An important Persian IsmaTli missionary and scholar, he moved to Cairo and becittll., ]. G.R. Potter, The Autobiography of Ousama (London, 1929)
deeply involved in the politics of his time, serving as envoy and negotiator for llrt, ]. P.K Hitti, Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian Gentlemałl (New York, 1929; repr. Bcirrll,
Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir in his attempts to take Baghdad in the l050s. Thcs,, 1964 and Princeton, I98])
events and other parts of his lile are recounted in his autobiography. ,1. A. Miquel, Des enseignements de la vie (Paris, 1983)
Edition:
5. H. Preisser, Die Erlebnisse des syrischen Ritters (Jsamaibn Muntlidh (Munich, l9t{.5)

M.K. Husayn (Cairo, 1949\ ,\ a t,ondary Lit erature :

('. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic per,spectiues (Edinburgh, l999),259 62
Secondary Literature:
V Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission. The Islamic scholar, statesman and poet al-Mu'u,|,.l,,t,l Ą. Miquel, Ou:sóma. Un princa,ł.vricn,fhct,ttu.r t,roisź,l (Paris, l986)
l).W. Morray. Thc Ganiu:; tlf'(lsłtnuh ihn Muntlitlh: u,s1l<,t,l:; o.f'thc Kitdb tt1-I'lilutr
fi'l-DTn al-Shlrąz7 (London, 2003)
( f)urhlrrn. l 9tl7)
334 ('urtllc II illt,nllrultd
Ę ]r( )lIl(( l S lN Al{^!il( ł ]\

'Imad al-Drn al-Isfahant, Muhammad (d. l20l), al-Barq al-shaml (The l}iographics ill l'crsillIl
Syrian Lightning) l[-lrr al-Munawwar, Mulrammad (d. ?early lżth c.?), Asrur u\-:uu,l.ttd.fT
This famous Persian scholar, poet and historian worked for the Seljuks, be|ilrr,
tltuqamat al-Shaykh Abu Sa'|d (The Secrets of Oneness in thc ( Mystit,ul)
moving to Syria where he was in the service first of Nur al-Din and then Saladin, lill
whom he acted as scribe and close adviser. ,lrages of the Shaykh Abu Sa'|d)
'l'his scholar, a descendant of AbU Sa'Td b. Abi'l Khayr (d. 1048 9), wrotc a hagitl-
This is a detailed autobiographical account of the author's service under NDr irl
Drn and Saladin, written in a very difficult, highly ornate rhymed prose. It covers tlrc graphical biography of this famous mystic between Il]9 and 1192. The cousin ol' IbIl
years 1166 to 1193 and draws on the author's own personal knowledge, as well lrs lrl-Munawwaą Jamal al-DTn Abrr Rawh b. AbT Sa'Td had also written a similar wtlI,k
official chancellery documents. Most of the seven volumes are lost; there are twtl tltl the same subject.
surviving parts which deal with Saladin's campaigns-part 3 (covering the yeaI,s lidition:
II77-9) and part 5 (covering the years l182-3). l, V. Zhukowski (St Petersburg, 1899)
Editions: ]. D. Safa (Tehran, 1953)
M. al-Hiyari (Amman, 1987) 'l'ranslation:

Partial Edition and Translation: M. Achena, Les ćtapes mystiques du Shaykh Abu Sa'Id (Paris, 1974)
L. Richter-Bernburg, Der syrische Blitz. Saladins Sekretrir zwischen Selbstdarstellutt1: ,Sc condary Literature :
und Geschicht s s chreibung (Beirut, 1 998) (i. Bówering, Abu Sa'id Abi'l Ęayr', Encyclopaedia lranica, vol. 1. fasc. 4,377 80
The edition and translation cover the year 573lII17-8. lI. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele (Leiden, 1955)

'Abd al-Latlf al-Baghdadi, Muwaffaq al-Din (d. I23I), Kitab al-ffida wa'l
i'tibar fi'l umur al-mushahada wa'l hawadith al-mu'ayana bi-ard Misr (The
Book of Benefit and Instruction ąbout Matters Whtch Have Been Witnessed
and Events Which Have Been Seen with the Eye in the Land of Egypt)
An Iraqi doctor who travelled widely and lived in Egypt for some years. As its title
suggests, this work records things seen and experienced personally by the author. It is
a short but valuable description of Egypt. The work seems to have been part ol'
larger history but only excerpts of it have survived.
Edition:
Editor unidentified (Cairo, date uncertain, 1869?)
Edition and Translation:
RHC: historiens orientaux, vol. 3, 435-9
Major Collections of Translated Texts
lłacueil des historiens des croisades: historiens orientaux, vols. 1-5 (Paris, l872 l9()(l)
This collection of Arabic texts and French translations contains long cxcc1,1lts
from major medieval Arabic chronicles from Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi histtlri-
ans of the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Information on Byzarltillc
lr
affairs occurs from time to time but its appearance is rathęr sparse alrcl utt1,1l,c-
dictablę. It is fuller when Byzantium involves itself in Syria against the M usliIlls tlt,
Franks, or in eastern Anatolia against the Seljuk Turks and other Turctllltltll
dynasties in that border area. The erratic quality of the Arabic editions iIr tllc
Recueil is also mirrored in some of the French translations.
|,. Gabrieli , Arab Historians of the Crusades (London, 1969)

A very short extract. This volume contains extracts from important primary Arabic texts which wclt,
translated by Gabrieli into Italian and thereafter translated from ltaliaIl ilrlrl
Translations:
English by Costello. Inevitably the passages sometimes read more likc ;,tltl,:r-
1. S. de Sacy, Relation de l'Egypte (Paris, 1910)
phrases than translations and seem distant from the original Arabic. Thcrc is lit-
2. K.H. Zand and J.A. and I. Videan, The Eastern Key (Cairo and London,1964)
tle on Byzantium in this selection of texts.
Secondary Literature: l}. Lewis, Islamfrom the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture oJ'Constantirulplc.2 vtlls.
C. Cahen, "AbdallatTf al-Baghdadr, portraitiste et historien de son temps', BEO ) \
(New York, 1974)
(1970), 101-28 Contains a few extracts from the period of the project.
G. Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges (Edinburgh, 1981), 84-8 Eddó, and F. Micheau, L'Orient au temps des croisades (Paris, żOOż)
This is a very useful discussion of the educational career of this scholaą with trirrls ^.-M.
This very useful book contains a good number of extracts liom hitht:r,tlt
lated excerpts. untranslated texts,
S.M. Stern, "Abd al-Latif al-Baghddd1', Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vol. l, 7,1 l).F. Reynolds, ed., Interpreting the Self. Autobiography in thc Arubic litcrur.l, lnttlilitttt
S. Toorawa, 'The educational background of 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi', Muslittt (Berkeley, 2000)
Educational Quarterly 13.3 (1996), 35-53 This is a useful and interesting volume. Part 2 contains transltttiotls llrllll tttc:clicvltl
Arabic ituttlbitlgrirplrics, irlcltrding the works ol- Mu'ayyad al-SIrirlizi ittltl'llllirtl ltl
DTn a1-Islirlllttlt. Scc csllcciltlly thc atrtrotlttccl gr-ridc ttl Arltbic ltrtltlbitlgt,lr1llly; tlrt,
1,1ttl,t rclcvlttlt lrl lllt, 1lt,tlrltl l().)5 l2()4 is pp. 2_59 66.
.].]ó

Select Bibliography on Material Culture

(itnllc ll illcttllrutttl

This corpus of material is very important indeed for any prosopographical or ()ll()
! S()( ll{(,l,S lN
^lłAlll(,
W.E. Spengler and W.S. Sayles, Turkoman Figural Bronze Coins and their lconography
(Lodi, 1996)
mastic study, since it contains vital, often dated, visual evidence on the names ancl tillt,:,
of rulers and prominent people.
SELECT STUDIES
Monumental Inscriptions
The following entries are intended as an entróe into the vast bibliography on this stlll Select ltems on the Historiography of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
ject. The work of Max van Berchem towers over the field; for full details o1' lris
remarkable scholarly output, see the introduction by A. Louca in M. van Berchcllr, M. Ahmad and M, Hilmy, 'Some notes on Arabic historiography during the Zcrlgitl
Opera minora, vol, 1 (Geneva, 1978), xviii*xxxvi, and Ayyubid periods (52I|II27 -64811250)', in Lewis and Holt, ęds,, Histtlriutt,s tlf
the Middle East,79-9J
E. Combe, J. Sauvaget and G. Wiet, eds., Rćpertoire chronologique d'ćpigraphie arul,,,
C. Cahen'Quelques chroniques anciennes relatives aux derniers Fatimidęs', BIFA() 3J
(Cairo, 1935-9)
(1937), I-27
Volumes 6-10 are relevant to the period 1025-1204. For each inscription tlrt,
'The historiography of the Seljuqid period', in Lewis and Holt, eds., Hi,sloriutlt
Arabic text is given (but not its Quranic quotations, if it contains any) togethcr
the Mtddle East,59-]8
- CReflexions
of
with a French translation.
sur la connaissance du monde par les historiens', Folia Orianluliu 12
M. Sharon, ed., Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum Palestiniae, vol. 1 (Leiden, l99])
N. ElissóefĘ 'Les monuments de Nur al-DTn', BEO 12 (I949-5I), 543 - (1910), 4I-9; repr. in C. Cahen, Les peuples musulmans dans l'histoire nl<,lićt,tllr
C|a (Damascus, 1977), I-I0
titulature de Ntrr al-Dln d'aprds ses inscriptions', BEO 14 (19524),155 .)t,
M. van Berchem, Matćriaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Premićre partil,.
An unjustly neglected article on the intellectual horizons of medieval lsllttlttt,
- historians.
Egypte (Paris, 1 89,t-1 903)
j|[ą\!riaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Deuxiżme partie, Syric tht 'some new editions of oriental sources about syria in the time of the crtlsittlt,s'.
nord (Cairo, 1909) - in Outremer Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom o.f' .lct,ttxtllttt
- (Jerusalem, 1982), 323-3I
],,{ą|!riaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Troisiżme partie, A,yt,,
E. Daniel, 'Historiography', in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 12, fasc. 4, 340 [l
Mineure (Cairo, I9l0, I9l7)
- Excellent coverage of Persian historiography.
fu[ą|lriaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Deuxiżme partie, Syric tltt
sud. Jćrusalem (III. Planches)(Cairo, 1920)
A.M. Eddó,'Sources arabes des XII" ęt XIII" sidcles d'aprćs le dictitllltlltitt,
- j|[ą\!riaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Deuxićme partie, Jćrusulcttt biographiquę d'Ibn al-'Adim (Bughyat al-talab fi ta'rTkh Ęalab)', lliltćtltil,t,.s,
d'Orient. Hommages d Claude Cahen, Res Orientales 6 (1994),293 308
I. Ville) (Cairo, 1922-3)
- (
F. Gabrieli, 'The Arabic historiography of the crusades', in Lewis and Holt. ctls.,
fuąSlriaux pour un Corpus tnscriptionum arabicarum. Deuxtżme partie. Jćru,yulcttt
Historians of the Middle East,98-107
II. Haram ) (Cairo, 1927)
- (
H.A.R. Gibb, 'al-Barq al-shamr, the history of Saladin by the Katib'Ima<l a|-I)lrr
],[ą|!riaux pour un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum. Deuxićme partie. Syria tltt
al-Isfahanl,, WZKM 52 (I9 53), 93-1 1 5
sud. Jćrusalem ( Index ) (Cairo, 1949)
- C. Hillenbrand, 'Some medieval Islamic approaches to source material', Orian,y żJ E
M. van Berchem and E. Fatio, Voyage en Syrie (Cairo, 1913-15)
(l98l), l97 225
Coins
{ ,96ę reflections on Seljuq historiography', in A. Eastmond, ed., liu,slt,l,tt

M. Bates, Islamic Coins (New York, 1982) - Approaches to Byzantium (Aldershot, 2001), 73-88
H. Kennedy, ed., The Historiography of Islamic Egypt, c. 950-1800 (Leiden, 2(XX))
N. Elissóeff, Nur al-Dln. Un grand prince musulman de Syrte au temps des croisutl,,,,
B, Lewis and P.M. Holt, eds., Historians of the Middle East (London,1962)
(Damascus,1967), vol. 3, 812-23
D.P. Little, History and Histortography of the Mamluks (London, 1986)
I. Ghalib, Catalogue des monnaies turcomanes (Constantinople, 1894)
'Historiography of the Ayyubid and Mamluk epochs', in C.F. Petry, ctl., 'I'ltt
G. Hennequin, Catalogue des monnaies musulmanes de la Bibliothćque nationale: A,yt,
prć-mongole: les SaĘuqs et leurs successeurs (Paris, 1985) - Cambridge History of Egypt: Islamic Egypt 640-1517 (Cambridge, l99t]), 4l2 44
M.C. Lyons and D.E.P, Jackson, Saladin: the politics of the Holy War (Canlbritlgc,
S, Lane-Poole, Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, 3. The Coins of' tlt,,
1982)
Turkman Houses of SaĘook, Urtń, Zenge, etc. (London,1877)
J.S. Meisami, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twe|łh Centur.y, (EtliIlbtlrgll,
N. Lowick,'The religious, the royal and the popular in the figural coinage ol'tlr,,
1999)
Jazira', in J. Raby, ed., The Art of Syria and the Jazira (Oxford, 1985), 159 74
F]. Micheau,'Croisades et croisćs vus par les historiens arabes chreticIls d'|'lgylltc',
H. Mitchell Brown, 'Some reflections on the figured coinage of the Artuqids ancl lll.,
Itinćrai.ra,s d'Oricn|. Hommugc,y d Cluutla Cahan, Rcs Oriantulc:ł 6 (l994), l69 ti5
Zengids' , in D. Koyuymjian, ęd., Studies in Honor of George Mile,s (Beirut, l97,|)
353-8
_1.1
) )()
ó ('ttnllc l I illcttllntlttl

D.S. Richards,'Ibn al-Athir and the later parts of the Kamil', in D.O. Morgan, ctl..
Medieval Historical Writings in the Christian and Islamic Worlds (London, l9tt2),
! s()l Jl{(,|,.S l N
^l{Alll(,
l

l,. ('ltctitlli ltrltl (i. (ilrllricli. ()ntlllttt.,ylit,rltt ttrttllictttlt, łl,s,:,itt t,<,1lcrltlritl ttllitllclił,tl tlt,i tttlttti
tli pcrstlłttt c tli ltttlgtl t,tlntanuti nellc principuli oparc,yltlricltt, (l{tltllc. l91.51
l()

76-108 A tentative beginning to the task of assembling and itrlalysiIlg Arlrbic 1llr,1l1.1
L. Richter-Bernburg, 'Funken aus dem alten Flint: 'Imad al-Din al-Katib al- nameS.
IsfahanT', Die Welt des Orients 20-I (1990), 121-66;22 (I99I), l54I ll.J. Cohen,'The economic background and the secular occupatitlns tll'Mtrslilll
Der syrische Blitz: Saladins Sekrettjr zwischen Selbstdarstellung untl jurisprudents and traditionists in the classical period of Islam', J ESIIO l3 ( l97()),
Geschichtsschretbung (Beirut, 1 998) 17-6l
-
C. F. Robin son, Is lamic H istor io graphy (Cambridg e, 2003) D. Ephrat, A Learned Society in a Period of Transition: the Sunni'ulanlu' o.f'clt,1,1,1tllt-
Part 1, chapter a (pp, 55-79) provides a very helpful discussion of biography, century Baghdad (Albany, 2000)
prosopography and chronography. H.E. Fżhndrich, 'The Wdayót al-a'yan of Ibn Khallikłn: a new approach', JAO,' 93
F. Rosenthal, A Htstory of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1968) (1973),43245
This book is not what it seems. It considers the role of historical writing within H.A.R. Gibb, 'Islamic biographical literature', in Lewis and Holt, eds., Hi,łl.tlriult,t tlf'
medieval Islamic culture. However, its bibliographical information is invaluable. the Middle East,54-8
A.F. Sayyid, 'Lumidres nouvelles sur quelques sources de l'histoire fatimide elr C. Gilliot, 'Prosopography in Islam: an essay of classification, Matli1,1ltl
Egypte', AI 13 (1977),I4I Prosopography 23 (2002), 19-54
in Encyclopaedia of Islam (Znd edn.), vol. 10, 7-10
-'fą|ąqat',
R.J.H. Gottheil, A distinguished family of Fatimid cadis', JAOS 21 (1906),2l7 96
Prosopography and Biography l. Hafsi,'Recherches sur le genre "1abaqat" dans la littórature arabe'. Arubiru 2,\
A. Abd al-Raziq, 'Lęvizirat et les vizirs d'ńgypte au temps des Mamllks', AI 76
(l91 6), 22] -65; 24 (l9]7), 14I, 150-86
(1980), 183-239 Explains how biographical dictionaries are organised and the kinds of' ttlpic
J. Ahola, 'The community of scholars: an analysis of the biographical data from thc covered.
Ta'rikh-Baghdad', unpubl, Ph.D. thesis (St Andrews, 2005) H. Halm, Die Ausbreitung der śafiitischen Rechtsschule von den Anfcingen bis zuln 81 1.1.

P. Auchterlonie, Arabic Biographical Dtctionaries: a summary guide and btbliograph.v Jahr hunderl (Wiesba den, l97 4)
(Durham, 1987) R.S. Humphreys, 'Banu Munqidh', in Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn.), vtll. 7.
.Historians and the Arabic 577-80
biographical dictionary: some new approaches', itl
A study of the family of the famous memoir-writer Usama b. Munqidh who livctl
- R.G. Hoyland and P.F, Kennedy, eds., Islamic Reflections, Arabic Musings. Studial, through much of the twelfth century.
in honour of Alan Jones (Oxford, 2004), l86-201
A helpful overview of recent scholarly approaches to Arabicbiographical dictionarics. F. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch (Hildesheim, 1963)
M.L. Avila. La sociedad hispanomusulmana al final del califato: aproximación a ułt
U.R. Kahhala, Mu'jam al-mu'allffin (The Compendium of Writers), 15 vtlls.
estudio demogrófico (Madrid, 1985) (Damascus, 1957-61)
M. Benaboud, 'The value of biographical dictionaries for studying al-Andalus during Concise entries in alphabetical order on all Arabic writers, both mcdicvltl lttltl
the period of the Taifa states', in C. Yazquez de Benito and M.A. Manzatrtl modern, together with their works. Knows Arabic biographical literattrl,c vcl,.y
Rodriguez, eds., Actas XVI Congreso UEAI (Salamanca,1995),57-7I well.
'f. Khalidi, 'Islamic biographical dictionaries: a preliminary assessment',
R. Bulliet, A quantitative approach to medieval Muslim biographical dictionaries'. Mtt,:,litlt
JES H o 13 (191 0), I95-2II World 63 (1973),53-65
The Patricians of Nishapur: a study in medieval Islamic social history (Cambridgt:, A.K.S. Lambton,'Persian biographical literature', in Lewis and Holt, eds., IIi,yltlritttt,l
Mass., 1912) of the Middle East,l4I-5I
- M. Marin, and others, eds., Estudios onomóstico-biogróficos de al-Andul,u,s, l2 vtlls.
A prosopographical survey of the religious scholars in Nishapur in eastern Iratl,
based on two biographical dictionaries. (Madrid, 1988-2003)
Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: an essay tn quantitative hiskt,v An impressively thorough, regional approach to Muslim prosopogrzrphy.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1979) and society: the occupational larlab of Andalusian'ulutttrl", itl
- -'Ąn1fi1oponymy
J. Ltidtke, ed., Romania Arabica. Festschrftfilr Reinhold Kontzi(TiibiItgr:n, l9()(l),
A pioneering study, using biographical dictionaries to chart the process of ctlIl.
version to Islam. 271-9
.Women
and the urban religious ólite in the pre-Mongol period', in G. Nashlrt 'Biographical dictionaries and social history of al-Andalr,rs: tt,tttlc lttltl
and L. Beck, eds., Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to ]800 (Urbana trIltl
- scholarship'. Scripta Mediterranea19-20 (1998 9),239 57
- l]. Martel-Thoumian, Les t:ivils et l'admini,ytration dun:; l'ćlut lltililttirc ttttttttlttl,.
Chicago, 2003),68-79
I X' XV'' siłt,la (Ditmitsc1,1s, l991)
.]4() (itnllL, II illcttllnttttl

J.A. Mojaddedi, The Biographical Traditton in Sufism: the tabaqat genrc .fnlttt
al-Sulaml to JamI (London, 200l) 13
D. Morray, An Ayyubid Notable and his World. Ibn al-'AdTm and Aleppo as portra_ytd
in hts Biographical Dictionary of people associated with the city (Leiden,1994)
'Egypt and Syria in Ibn al-,AdTm's Bughyat aI-1alab ft ta'rlkh Ęalab', in
Kennedy, ed., The Historiography of Islamic Egypt, |3-22
Arabic Sources for Sicily
-
C.F. Petry, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1981)
A model study from a later period of Islamic history. It analyses data aboul
Mamluk bureaucrats from two fifteenth-century biographical dictionaries. JEREMY JOHNS
L. Pouzet, Damas au VII"*XIIF siżcles: vie et structure reltgieuses d'une mĆtropola
islamique (Beirut, 1 998)
sur l'autobiographie dans le monde arabo-musulman au Moyen Tup polrowlNc BRIEF INTRoDucTIoN To THE HIsToRy oF SIcILy |025,,l2{l4
Ag.', in U. Vermeulen and D. de Smet, ęds., Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic
-'Pol1arques concentrates upon the less well-known and more complicated periods- thc
World (Louvain, 1998), 91-106
last years of Islamic Sicily, and the passage from Norman rule to the reign tll'
W al-Qadi, 'Biographical dictionaries: inner structure and cultural significance', in G.N.
Atiyeh, ed., The Book in the Islamic World: the written word and communication in the future Emperor Frederick Il-and passes swiftly over the politicłrlly
the Middle East (Albany, l995), 93-122 uncomplicated reign of the Norman kings, dwelling only upon the fate of thc
D.F. Reynolds, ed., Interpreting the SeĘ Autobiography in the Arabic ltterary tradition Muslims of Sicily under Christian rule and the unique corpus of Arrrbic
(Berkeley,2000) documentary sources from Norman Sicily.
Contains a very useful guide to autobiography in the Arab world. For works
written in the period of the project, see pp. 259-66.
R. Roded, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: from Ibn Sa'd to Who's Wful
THE KALBID DYNASTY (94&-105213)
(Boulder, 1994)
F. Rosenthal, 'Die arabische Autobiographie', Studia Arabica l (1931),I40
The Techntque and Approach of Muslim Scholarship (Rome, 1947) Byzantine Sicily was conquered by Arab and Berber forces sent by lhc
A. Schauer, Muslime und Franken. Ethnische, soziale und religtóse Gruppen im Kitall Aghlabid emirs of Ifriqiyya (central North Africa, from Tripolitania to ccIl-
-
a\-I'tibar des Usama ibn Munqid (Berlin, 2000) tral Algeria) during the ninth and early tenth centuries. After the Firtilrlitl
A. Schimmel, Islamic Names (Edinburgh, 1989) caliphs ousted the Aghlabid dynasty in 909, the island was ruled by govcrIrtll,s
J. Sublet, ed., Cahiers d'onomastique arabe (Paris, 1979,I98|, 1985, 1989, 1993-) appointed by the Fatimids until the latter migrated to Egypt in 969-73. '['hc
This pioneering venture, begun in the days when computers were not as advancetl
Fatimids entrusted Ifriqiyya to the Berber Zirid dynasty (972-| l48), irlltl
as noq is still ongoing.
Sicily to the Arab Kalbid dynasty (948-|052i3). Although the Kalbid g()vcl,-
Le voile du nom: essai sur le nom propre arabe (Paris, 1991)
D. Urvoy, Le monde des ulemas andalous du vlxi au viilxiit sićcle: ćtude sociologiqua nor theoretically owed allegiance directly to the Fatimid caliph, thc l,iri,.l
- (Geneva, 1978) emir often acted as if he were the ruler of the island.
A study of the Muslim religious ólites in medieval Spain. The Kalbids continued to prosecute the Holy War (jihad) in Calabrirt :tIltl.
J. Vallve Bermejo, 'La |iterature biogróflca 6rabe y la toponimia de al-Andalus', itl when attacked, in eastern Sicily. Nonetheless, under their rule, the islancl wlrs
C. Vazquez de Benito and M.A. Manzano Rodriguez, eds., Actas XVI Congre,vl transformed from a frontier province organised for war into a relirtivcly
U E AI (Salamanc a, l99 5), 53 1-8 peaceful centre of Islamic civilisation. The arts of peace were cultivlrtccl lrl
M.J.L. Young, Arabic biographical writing', in M.J.L. Young, J.D. Latham, R.B.
and around the Kalbid court in Palermo, where Quranic and gramtllitticlrl
Serjeant, ęds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: religion, learning arul
science in the Abbasid period (Cambridge, 1990), l68-87
studies and poetry were especially favoured. Beyond Palermo ancl its ltilllcl,-
land, only the west and centre of Sicily, where the greatest nttlrrbcI, tll'
Ifriqiyyans had settled, was profoundly arabicised and islamisetl, tlrc lttl1,1lr
ttnd east of the island largely retained its Gręęk cultural orientatiorr. cs1-lcciir lly
the cities, towns and strongholds of the Ionian coast.
During thę first half of thc clcvcnth century, lslamic Sicily wits rivclr by tlt:c1l
sclcial divisions withirr thc Mtlslilll ctlllltlrunity betwccn thc tlcsc:clltl:tttts tll'

l't,tlt,l,ctlitt,q,t tlf tltt llt,iti,llt ,,lttttlt,tltl l|ż 1.1l l(|{) 1( ] l'lrt, lirilisll Ai,lrtlcllly.)(X)/