Ibn Isfandiyar
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Baha al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Isfandiyar ( fa, بهاءالدین محمد بن حسن بن اسفندیار), commonly known as Ibn Isfandiyar (), was a 13th-century
Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...
historian from
Tabaristan Tabaristan or Tabarestan ( fa, طبرستان, Ṭabarestān, or mzn, تبرستون, Tabarestun, ultimately from Middle Persian: , ''Tapur(i)stān''), was the name applied to a mountainous region located on the Caspian coast of northern Iran. ...
, who wrote a history of his native province, the ''Tarikh-i Tabaristan''. What little is known of his life comes from the introduction of this work.


Biography

Ibn Isfandiyar belonged to a prominent bureaucratic family from
Sari A sari (sometimes also saree or shari)The name of the garment in various regional languages include: * as, শাৰী, xārī, translit-std=ISO * bn, শাড়ি, śāṛi, translit-std=ISO * gu, સાડી, sāḍī, translit-std ...
, the capital of Tabaristan. His father Ḥasan, was a high-ranking court official of the
Bavandids The Bavand dynasty () (also spelled Bavend), or simply the Bavandids, was an Iranian dynasty that ruled in parts of Tabaristan (present-day Mazandaran province) in what is now northern Iran from 651 until 1349, alternating between outright inde ...
, the ruling dynasty of Tabaristan. In his early career, Ibn Isfandiyar was a member of the court of the Bavandids, and enjoyed the patronage of Ardashir I (died 1206). He began compiling material for his history in 1206, which up to then mainly consisted of the "Bavand-nameh", a now-lost work presumably in Persian which our author viewed as a Bavandid romance only. In 1209 he travelled briefly to
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
. On his return he stayed for two months in
Rayy Shahr-e Ray ( fa, شهر ری, ) or simply Ray (Shar e Ray; ) is the capital of Ray County in Tehran Province, Iran. Formerly a distinct city, it has now been absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran as the 20th district of municip ...
, where he came across in Rustam b. Shahriyar's library the ''Uqidu sihr wa-qala'idu durar'' of Abu 'l-Hasan Muhammad al-Yazdadi - an Arabic history of Tabaristan subsequently lost.Browne, 3. Ibn Isfandiyar excoriates this book as "a work wherein the author sought rather to display his mastery over the Arabic language than to impart information to the reader". Yazdadi includes anecdota up to the time of "Qabus Shamsu'l-Ma'ali (A. D. 976—1012)": Browne p. 36. Ibn Isfandiyar translated this work into Persian, and this, coupled with genealogical and historical information on the Bavandids, formed the core of his history. He added more material over the years, especially during his five-year stay in
Khwarazm Khwarazm (; Old Persian: ''Hwârazmiya''; fa, خوارزم, ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the ea ...
. His fate is unknown; he may have returned to his native Tabaristan and died there, or he may have perished in the
Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
sack of Khwarazm in 1220. His history, which was not completed before 1217/17, ends with the first fall of the Bavandid dynasty in 1210. An anonymous later author continued it up to 1349, when the dynasty’s second period ended, based chiefly on Awliya Allah Amuli's ''Tarikh-i Ruyan''. Ibn Isfandiyar's work includes much unique historical, biographical and geographical information, including verses in
Tabari language Mazandarani (), or Tabari (), is an Iranian language of the Northwestern branch spoken by the Mazandarani people. , there were over 5,320,000 native speakers. As a member of the Northwestern branch (the northern branch of Western Iranian), etymo ...
and a Persian translation of the ''
Letter of Tansar The Letter of Tansar ( fa, نامه تنسر) was a 6th-century Sassanid propaganda instrument that portrayed the preceding Arsacid period as morally corrupt and heretical (to Zoroastrianism), and presented the first Sassanid dynast Ardashir I as h ...
'', an important piece of Pahlavi literature, sent by the
Sasanian 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 last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
ruler Ardashir I's chief priest to Gushnasp, prince of Tabaristan.


References


Sources

* * * * * {{authority control 12th-century births 13th-century deaths 13th-century Iranian historians Tabaristan Mazandarani people People from Sari, Iran