The ''Kitab al-'uyun wa'l-hada'iq fi akhbar al-haqa'iq'' ( ar, كتاب العيون والحدائق في أخبار الحقائق) is an Arabic

chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

covering

Muslim history Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

up to the year 961 AD. The author of the work is anonymous, but the text was likely written in the late eleventh century. The contents of the ''Kitab al-'Uyun'' are organized by the reigns of successive caliphs and are loosely subdivided in an

annal Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between anna ...

istic fashion. Much of the work consists of selections from the histories of

al-Tabari ( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...

al-Mas'udi Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...

Miskawayh Ibn Miskawayh ( fa, مُسْکُـوْيَه Muskūyah, 932–1030), full name Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Miskawayh was a Persian chancery official of the Buyid era, and philosopher and historian from Parandak, Iran. As ...

and

al-Farghani Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī ( ar, أبو العبّاس أحمد بن محمد بن كثير الفرغاني 798/800/805–870), also known as Alfraganus in the West, was an astronomer in the Abbasid court ...

, but it also includes otherwise lost material from a number of other sources, especially

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

ian and

North African North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

authors. Only the third and fourth volumes of the work survive. The third volume, covering the period from the beginning of the reign of the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

caliph al-Walid (r. 705–715) to the death of the

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

caliph

al-Mu'tasim Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd ( ar, أبو إسحاق محمد بن هارون الرشيد; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, ), was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling f ...

(died 842), was published by

Michael Jan de Goeje Michael Jan de Goeje (August 13, 1836 – May 17, 1909) was a Dutch orientalist focusing on Arabia and Islam. Early life Michael Jan de Goeje was born in Dronrijp, Friesland. He devoted himself at an early age to the study of oriental lang ...

and

Pieter de Jong Pieter de Jong (c.1610 – after 1639), was a Dutch Golden Age member of the Haarlem schutterij. Biography He is only known from his portrait painted by Frans Hals in his schutterstuk called '' The Officers of the St George Militia Company i ...

in 1869. The fourth volume, published by Omar Saïdi in 1972, only survives from page 47 on and therefore begins in 870 during the reign of

al-Muhtadi Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn al-Wāthiq ( ar, أبو إسحاق محمد بن هارون الواثق‎; – 21 June 870), better known by his regnal name Al-Muhtadī bi-'llāh (Arabic: , "Guided by God"), was the Caliph of the Abbasid Calipha ...

(r. 869–870), and continues until 961.

References

* * * * {{cite journal , last=Saïdi , first=Amor , date= June 1970, title=Préface à une édition du ''Kitāb al-ʿUyūn wa-l-ḥadāʾiq fī aḫbār al-ḥaqāʾiq'', Volume IV , jstor=4055517 , journal= Arabica, volume=17 , issue=2 , pages= 161–176, doi= 10.1163/157005870x00034 Anonymous works 11th-century history books 11th-century Arabic books