''Nihāyat al-arab fī akhbār al-Furs wa ʾl-ʿArab'' ("The Ultimate Aim, about the History of the Persians and the Arabs") is an anonymous 9th-century
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
history of the
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and
South Arabia
South Arabia () is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'Asi ...
. Its author is sometimes known as Pseudo-Aṣmaʿī. It is preserved in four manuscripts:
*Cambridge University Library, Qq. 225, part of the collection of
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and Orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the alias ''Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah'' during his travels in Arabia ...
*Gotha Research Library, A. 1741, a copy known to
Theodor Nöldeke
Theodor Nöldeke (; born 2 March 1836 – 25 December 1930) was a German orientalist and scholar. His research interests ranged over Old Testament studies, Semitic languages and Arabic, Persian and Syriac literature. Nöldeke translated several ...
*British Library, Add. 23298, a copy dated
AH 1043 entitled ''Kitāb al-Nihāyat'' and ''Siyar al-Mulūk''
*British Library, Add. 18505, an incomplete copy of a distinct recension entitled ''Taʾrīkh al-Aṣmaʿī''
The
first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...
of the ''Nihāyat'' by
Mohammad Taqi Danesh Pajouh
Mohammad Taqi Danesh Pajouh or Mohammad Taghi Daneshpajouh ( fa, محمدتقی دانشپژوه; born 1911 in Amol and died 1996) was a writer, musician, translator, orientalist and Iranian scholar, a member of the Academy of Persian Languag ...
was published in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
in 1997.
[, gives the date of publication as AHSh 1374. gives the date as AH 1375 and AD 1997.] Michael Bonner plans to produce an English translation.
The preface of the ''Nihāyat'', which is full of anachronisms, claims it to be an older work than it is. It claims to be the work of
al-Aṣmaʿī (d. 828) commissioned by the Caliph
Hārūn al-Rashīd
Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar
, أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...
(d. 809) and assisted by
Abū al-Bakhtarī (d. 815/6), who wrote an introduction to the ''Siyar al-Mulūk'' ("Chronicles of the Kings") based on the ''
Kitāb al-Mubtadaʾ'' ("Book of Origins") to bring its history back to
Creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
* Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
* Creationism, the belief tha ...
. The composition of the ''Siyar'' is attributed to
ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī (d. 724) and
Ibn al-Qirriyya (d. 689) assisted by
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 757) and commissioned by the Caliph
ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (d. 705). The ''Siyar'' is introduced thus:
These are legends of bygone kings and former nations and past ages; of the Tyrants, the Kings of Yaman and the Monarchs of Persia, with accounts of their circumstances, their histories, their burial-places, and their lives, and of what hath been recorded by the Arabs and the Persians concerning their wars, their raids, their poems, their wise sayings, their customs, their harangues, their letters, and their decisions, from the time of Shem the son of Noah until God sent Muhammad.
This second preface gives the impression that the ''Siyar'' was the Arabic translation of the
Middle Persian
Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
''
Khwadāynāmag'' made by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, now
lost
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
. It is impossible that most of the Persian material in the ''Nihāyat'' come from the ''Khwadāynāmag'', but some of the shorter and drier royal biographies may ultimately be derived from it.
The ''Nihāyat'' generally agrees with the history of
al-Dīnawarī
Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī ( fa, ابوحنيفه دينوری; died 895) was a Persian Islamic Golden Age polymath, astronomer, agriculturist, botanist, metallurgist, geographer, mathematician, and historian.
Life
Dinawar ...
(d. 895), although it often provides more detail, as in the story of
Bahrām Chōbīn. In some cases, this additional detail is corroborated by later quotations from the lost work of
al-Kisrawī (c. 870). The author frequently quotes Persian or uses Persian terms, while always providing an accurate Arabic translation, which implies that the author was fluent in Persian.
Edward G. Browne
Edward Granville Browne FBA (7 February 1862 – 5 January 1926) was a British Iranologist. He published numerous articles and books, mainly in the areas of history and literature.
Life
Browne was born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, En ...
divides the text into four distinct parts: history down to
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
; the life of Alexander based on the ''
Alexander Romance''; the period of the
Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conque ...
and the legend of
Budasaf; and the
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
and the
Caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
. In the Cambridge manuscript, the first part, including introduction and preface, takes up around 42
folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
s; the second, 22 folios; the third, 10 folios; and the last, 148 folios.
Notes
Bibliography
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9th-century Arabic books
9th-century history books
Iranian literature
Abbasid literature
History books about Iran