The Literary Contribution of Some Important Historians Contemporary to Shams Al-Din Al-Dhahabi
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THE LITERARY CONTRIBUTION OF SOME IMPORTANT HISTORIANS CONTEMPORARY TO SHAMS AL-DIN AL-DHAHABI DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY^ ALIGARH, U.P. (INDIA) FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF iWaiter of ^|)iIo«op^p IN ARABIC Under the Supervision of By Dr, Abdul Bari Mrs, Sultana Razia Khanam M.A. (Arabic & Urdu;, B.A. (Hons) (Dae), B.L., Ph.D. (Patna) M.A. (Alig.) DEPARTMENT OF ARABIC, ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY, ALIGARH. 1986 J)s ^--1 ^g DS996 r"- ^«- •- Tele : 234 DEPARTMENT Of ARABIC ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH Dated..?*.**^..f.*^^.?^.».?.^ This is to certify that Mr«, ^Itena 'Isiasiw '^b^namhus ^one h#r M.Phil w®tlc uniar By suservlsion an4 h«s eoruDleted h«i» work succ«ssf!illy. This Is aa orlsrlnwl contrlbuties and «ntlr#ly h#r own* ( Pr* AHiuI Bari ) Sttparvlsor The tltl« ©f th» K^Phll m«sert«tloa is "Thf* T,lt«r?ry Contribution ©f 5-ORJ« lwf>ort'»T5t *!l?torl»»n!» Contvanwemrj to ^liras al-Dln CONTENTS Page Acknowledgement ... ... ... i Introduction Ibn al-Tiqtaqa ... ... ... 26 Abu al-Fida ... ... ... 62 Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi ... ... 7 9 Al-SafadI ... ... ... 86 Bibliography ... ... ... 99 I avail myself of this opportunity to express my high sense of gratitude to my learned supervisor and benign guide Dr. ''Abdul Barl, Reader in the Department of Arabic, Aligarh Muslim University, whose affectionate patronage and constant guidance have been an incessant source of information for me in completing this M.Phil. Dissertation entitled, "The Literary Contribution of Some important Historians Contemporary to Shams al-Din al-DhahabI" and whose valuable advice made this work possible to see the light of the day. I have selected for this topic four outstanding historians namely Ibn al-Tiqtaqa, Abu al FidS, Ibn S^jakir al-Kutubl and al-SafadI as they have contributed a lot in the field of Arabic literature in the 8th/14th century. I further express my heartfelt thanks to Professor Mukhtar ud-Dln Ahmad, Department of Arabic, Aligarh Muslim Universi ty, and Dr. Muhammad Rasljiid, Chairman of the same department for their encouragement, sympathy and interest which they have shown to me in solving my research problems, I am very much thankful to the Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh and that of India for extending financial assistance to me under the Cultural Exchange Programme. Allah alone is besought for help and on Him alone we depend. December, 1986. (MRS. SULTANA RAZIA KHANAM) INTRODUCTION We find, while studying Xrabic literature, that in the descrip tion of history there is hardly any separation between works on History mainly related to the political events; Biography - taken as one of the branches of histoiry. This is due to the two sources from which historical tridltions are derived : The Sirat Literature (al-?Vaghazl wa al-Siyar) dealing with the life of the prophet Muhammad (Peace be on him) and the Semi legendary traditions related to the tribal warfare of the Jahiliyya period known as Ayyjin al-Arab and .-msab al-.nrab . These two factors were actually responsible for the gradual built up of Arabic historigraphy. On the one hand, parallel to the oirat literature, there developed the Tabagat litera ture containing biographies Cllmal-Rij al) first on the companions ©f Muhammad, then on all sorts of illustrious men arranged into classes (Tabaqat) according to the year of their death. The kitab al-Tgbaqat al-Kubra of Ibn Sad al-Z,uhrX (d.230/B15) was the first standard work of this kind of literature, v;hich flourished specially in the post- classical period of Arabic literature in the increasing quantity of 2 Tabaqat works on rulers, theologians, jurisconsults and poets . But parallel to this biographical literature there develooed a historical literature Stricto Sensu treating of the struggles of Islam and the history of the caliphate. Originated in the v/orks on the Ay yam al-'Arab, it dealt with the first wars of Islam : The HaghazI and the rapid conquests on the new faith. The 1 A good survey of the Ayyam al-Arab is given by Ibn al-Athlr in his Karnil, vol. i, pp. 367-517 and by al-NuwayrI in his N^ al-\rab fl Funun al-Adab, Fann v. Qlsm iv, Kitab v. 2 Cf. Joseph de Somogyi, "The TSrlkh al-Islam of al-^hahabl". The Journal .of Roy^l /-^iatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1932), p. 815. -2- prototype of this literature on political- hictory is the kitnb nl-LInr^nzi of al-V/nqicli (a. 207/823), but its renl stnndnrd work w\s created by al-Tnbari (d. 310/923), v/hosc "^arlkh nl-Rusul v/a al-IJuliilc has ever since been considered by all the later histori- ans as a pattern and a reliable source as v/ell . But even in the post-classical period of Arabic historiography there had been no strict separation betv/een political history and historical biograp'ij^. The biographical element has pervaded the political history through all the stages of its development. This is clearly seen not only from the exterior arrangement of these woris, which were divided into chapters relative to the rulers, whilst also retaining the annalistic form, but also from their subject matter, which is hardly anything else but the history of rulers. This is conspicuous in works both on the history of cities or provinces and on dynastic or general history. Such works as the Tarlkh Bng^hdad of al-KJintlb al-Ba^dadl (d. 403/1071) or the Tnrikji Ll^idlna Dimashg of Ibn'Asakir (d. 571/1176) or the Kitab Bughygt al-Tglib fi Tarlkj] Halab of Ibn al-Adim ( d. 660/1262) are in the strict sense of the word rather biographical collections tiinn iiistorical works. And one can hardly decide whether the Bayan al-IIgglijib of Ibn al-Adhari (lived in the fourth century A.H.) and many other works on Spanish and Ilaghribian history would not be better ranked among the biograpiiical works than among those on political hisotpry . Again, in the works dealing with the 1 Ibid. -3- history of dynasties or single rulers written in a pnnegyric style the predominance of the biographical element is manifest, as i n the al-Kitab al^ynmlnl of aliUtbi (d. 427/1036) or in the kitab al-Rnwdatayn fi Akhbar al-Dav/latayn of Abu S]iama( d.665/ 1268)\ From the beginning of the 5th century A.II,onwards, a compilnto- ry activity can be perceived in all branches of lluslim science. A ^^ellnigh endless variety of compendiums and concise text books and lexica are written on philology, history, and religious and natural science as well. This activity manifests itself both in history political/and in biography. In political history the necessity of both the continuation and the abbreviation of al-Tnbari's work called into e:d.stence a host of voluminous compilations, as the al-Knmil f 1 al-TnrlkJi of Ibn al-A-tliir (d. 630/1253), the Kitab Ilulditasar al-Duwal of Bnrhebraeus ( d. 688/1289), the IJukjitasar Tarikh al-Basjiar of Abu al-Pida ( d. 732/1331), and the Kitab al-FnlUiri fl al-Adab al-Sultaniyya y/a al-Duv/nl al-Islamiyya of Ibn al-Tiqtaqa ( d. about 701/1301), which is one of the best 2 compendiums of Lluslim history written in Arabic . The same activity is to be seen in biographical literature also. The former local or professional biograpliies had grown into the great collections of general biograpliy, from which the companions of the prophet and the first four caliphs were excluded as being well-known from 1 Ibid,P.816 2 See the remark of H.A.lIicholson in his, A Literary History of the Arabs (London, 1907),p.454- ' ~~~~ -— -4- tJae Tnbaqnt works. The most famous work of this kind the Kitnb Wnfnygt al~AVnn of Ibn Khallikan (d. 681/1282), with its conti nuation: the Fawat al-Wafayat of al-Kutubi (d. 764/1365), the Tnrikh al-HuIcama'of al-Qifti (d. 646/1248), and the Kjtab^Uyun al-Anba^ fl Tabngat al-Atibba of Ibn Abi Usaybiyya (d. 668/1270), 1 serve as reliable guides in this vast biographical literature . But, at the same time, the necessi.ty arose of further com pilations comprising both political history and biographies of the illustrious in the same wirk. As a matter of course, this style of historiography was chiefly cultivated by the encyclopaedists, whose number rapidly increased from the 6th century A.H., and wlio embraced the whole range of human loiov/ledge of their time. The first scholar who compiled a S3rmposium of both general history and historical biography in one work was the celebrated Baghdad polyhistor Ibn al-Jawzl (d. 597/1200). V/ith his Kitab al-IJimtazam he initiated a new school of historiography in Arabic literature, because his work contains both general history in short onnalis- tic form and also the obituary notices of all the parsons of some 2 consequence who died in the several years . The Kjtab al-IIuntazam was considered as a standard work on general history by many illustrious later historians. Specially the Ilirat al-Zaman of Sibt b. al-JawzH ( grand son of the former, died in 654/1256) 1. Joseph de Soraogyi, "The Torikh al-Islam of al-Dhahabi", JRAS (l952),pp.81C-7. ~~~ 2 Cf. Joseph de Somogyi, "The Kitab al-Uuntazam of Ibn al-JawzI',' The Journal of Royal Asiatic Society;(CTrea-f: Britain, 1932),pp.49- -5- should be mentioned in this connection, because Sibt b. nl- Jnwzi exactly follo^ved the method of his faraoas ancestor,whose Kitnb al-nuntaznm he continued upto his own time and enlarged with additional matters often disregarded by Ibn al-JawzI, as the local history of Syria, specially of Damascus.