Tarikh () is an
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
word meaning "date, chronology, era", whence by extension "annals, history, historiography". It is also used in
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
,
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
and the
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
. It is found in the title of many historical works. Prior to the 19th century, the word referred strictly to writing of or knowledge about history, but in modern Arabic it is, like the English word "
history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
", equivocal and may refer either to past events themselves or their representations.
The word ''taʾrīkh'' is not of Arabic origin and this was recognized by Arabic philologists already in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. The derivation they proposed—that the participle ''muʾarrakh'', "dated", comes from the Persian ''māh-rōz'', "month-day"—is incorrect. Modern lexicographers have proposed an unattested
Old South Arabian
Ancient South Arabian (ASA; also known as Old South Arabian, Epigraphic South Arabian, Ṣayhadic, or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages ( Sabaean/Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramitic, Minaic) spoken in the far southern ...
etymon for the plural ''tawārīkh'', "datings", from the
Semitic root for "moon, month". The
Ge'ez term ''tārīk'', "era, history, chronicle", has occasionally been proposed as the root of the Arabic term, but in fact is derived from it.
[
The word first appears in the titles of certain 8th-century works and by the 9th century it was the standard word of the genre of these works. The word ''akhbār'', "reports, narratives", is a synonym and was also used in the titles of works. It may even be an older word than ''taʾrīkh''. The word ''taʾrīkh'' was never universal in the titles of works of history, which were just as often identified by subject matter (i.e., biography, conquests, etc.) as by genre. As its etymology implies, ''taʾrīkh'' originally described only a strictly chronological account, but it soon came to refer to any kind of history (e.g. historical dictionaries).][
]
List of works
The following are the names of prominent books with ''taʾrīkh'' in the title, in Arabic, Persian or Turkish. (The list is alphabetized, ignoring particles "-i", "al-", etc.)
*'' Tarikh Abul Fida''
*'' Tarikh Ahlul Hadith''
*''Tārīkh-i amniyya'', a history of the Dungan Revolt, the magnum opus of Musa Sayrami Mulla Musa Sayrami (; ; 1836–1917) was a historian from Xinjiang, known for his account of the events in that region in the 19th century, in particular the Dungan Rebellion of 1864–1877. While the ethnonym Uyghurs, with its modern meaning, ...
*''Tarikh ibn al-Athir
''The Complete History'' (, ''al-Kāmil fit-Tārīkh)'', is a classic Islamic history book written by Ali ibn al-Athir. Composed in ca. 1231AD/628AH, it is one of the most important Islamic historical works. Ibn al-Athir was a contemporary and me ...
''
*'' Tarikh Baghdad''
*''Tarikh al-fattash
The ''Tarikh al-fattash'' is a West African chronicle that provides an account of the Songhai Empire from the reign of Sunni Ali (ruled 1464-1492) up to 1599 with a few references to events in the following century. The chronicle also mentions t ...
''
*''Tarikh-i Hind Wa Sind
''Chach Nama'' (; ; "Story of the Chach"), also known as the ''Fateh nama Sindh'' (; "Story of the Conquest of Sindh"), and as ''Tareekh al-Hind wa a's-Sind'' (; "History of Hind and Sind"), is a historical source for the history of Sindh.
The ...
''
*'' Tarikh al-Islam al-kabir''
*''Tarikh ibn Kathir
Abu al-Fida Isma'il ibn Umar ibn Kathir al-Dimashqi (; ), known simply as Ibn Kathir, was an Arab Islamic exegete, historian and scholar. An expert on (Quranic exegesis), (history) and (Islamic jurisprudence), he is considered a leading autho ...
''
*'' Tarikh al-Khulafa''
*''Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk
The ''History of the Prophets and Kings'' ( ''Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk''), more commonly known as ''Tarikh al-Tabari'' () or ''Tarikh-i Tabari'' or ''The History of al-Tabari '' () is an Arabic-language historical chronicle completed by the ...
''
*''al-Taʾrīkh al-sharqī
The ''Chronicon orientale'' (or ''al-Taʾrīkh al-Sharqī'', both meaning "eastern chronicle") is an anonymous universal history written in Arabic by an Egyptian Christian between 1257 and 1260. It was mistakenly attributed to Abū Shākir ibn B ...
''
*''Tarikh-i Sistan
The ''Tarikh-i Sistan'' (''History of Sistan'') is an anonymous Persian-language history of the region of Sistan, in modern south-eastern Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country i ...
''
*''Tarikh al-Sudan
The ''Tarikh al-Sudan'' ( ''Tārīkh as-Sūdān''; also ''Tarikh es-Sudan'', "History of the Sudan") is a West African chronicle written in Arabic in around 1655 by the chronicler of Timbuktu, al-Sa'di. It provides the single most important primary ...
''
*''Tarikh al-Tabari
The ''History of the Prophets and Kings'' ( ''Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk''), more commonly known as ''Tarikh al-Tabari'' () or ''Tarikh-i Tabari'' or ''The History of al-Tabari '' () is an Arabic-language historical chronicle completed by the ...
''
*''Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh
''The Complete History'' (, ''al-Kāmil fit-Tārīkh)'', is a classic Islamic history book written by Ali ibn al-Athir. Composed in ca. 1231AD/628AH, it is one of the most important Islamic historical works. Ibn al-Athir was a contemporary and m ...
''
*'' Tarikh-e Jevdet''
See also
*
* List of Muslim historians
The following is a list of Muslim historians writing in the Islamic historiographical tradition, which developed from hadith literature in the time of the first caliphs.
Chronological list
Historians of the Formative Period
The First Century ...
References
{{Historiography
Islamic terminology
Historiography
Literary genres
Bengali words and phrases
Arabic words and phrases
Persian words and phrases