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Qāshānī, the First World Historian: Research on His Uninvestigated Persian General History, Zubdat Al-Tawārīkh

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Qāshānī, the First World Historian: Research on His Uninvestigated Persian General History, Zubdat Al-Tawārīkh OSAMU OTSUKA THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO QĀSHĀNĪ, THE FIRST WORLD HISTORIAN: RESEARCH ON HIS UNINVESTIGATED PERSIAN GENERAL HISTORY, ZUBDAT AL-TAWĀRĪKH SUMMARY It is well-known that Abū al-Qāsim Qāshānī, a historian at the court of the Ilkhanid rulers Ghazan and Öljeitü, claimed to be the true author of Rashīd al-Dīn’s famous Persian general history, the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh. While his claim has been addressed in many previous studies, it has not been comprehensively examined via philological study. This article is the first attempt to make a philological study of all the surviving manuscripts of Qāshānī’s so far uninvestigated Persian general history, the Zubdat al-Tawārīkh. A close analysis of these manuscripts reveals that the compilation of the Zubdat al-Tawārīkh was ordered by Ghazan in 700/1300-1, and that the second volume of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, written in 706/1307, draws almost entirely from this book. As the Zubdat al-Tawārīkh covers a larger geographical area than the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, it has great potential not just for reconsidering the compilation process of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, but also for reconstructing the history of the Ilkhanids. Keywords: Abū al-Qāsim Qāshānī; Rashīd al-Dīn; Zubdat al-Tawārīkh; Jāmi‘ al-Tawā- rīkh; Persian historiography; Ilkhanids. RÉSUMÉ Il est bien connu qu’Abū al-Qāsim Qāshānī, l’historien de cour des souverains ilkhanides Ghazan et Öljeitü, affirmait être le véritable auteur de la célèbre histoire générale en persan de Rashīd al-Dīn, le Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh. Si cette prétention a déjà été souvent discutée dans de précédents travaux, le Zubdat al-tawārīkh de Qāshānī n’a pas encore été méthodiquement examiné du point de vue de la philologie. Cet article se veut la première tentative d’une étude philologique de tous les manuscrits existants de cette histoire générale en persan. Une analyse attentive révèle que le livre fut entrepris sur ordre de Ghazan en 700/1300-1 et aussi que le second volume du Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh fut composé en 706/1307 presque entièrement sur la base du Zubdat al-tawārīkh. Comme les événe- ments rapportés dans le Zubdat al-tawārīkh couvrent une zone géographique plus large, le livre présente un grand potentiel non seulement pour mieux comprendre la façon dont fut élaboré le Jāmi‘ al-tawārīkh, mais aussi pour faire l’histoire des Ilkhanides. Mots clés : Abū al-Qāsim Qāshānī ; Rashīd al-Dīn ; Zubdat al-tawārīkh ; Jāmi‘ al- tawārīkh ; historiographie persane ; Ilkhanides. 119 STUDIA IRANICA 47, 2018, pp. 119-149 120 O. O T S U K A StIr 47, 2018 INTRODUCTION * The Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, written by the Ilkhanid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 1318) in 1307,1 is a Persian general history that is divided into three volumes: 1- History of the Mongols; 2- History of the World; 3- Geo- graphy of the World.2 Not only has this work been highly admired as an important primary source on the history of the Mongols, but it is also considered to be the ‘first world history’, which includes not just descrip- tions of Iran, but also of China, India, and Europe. This is described in John A. Boyle’s “Rashīd al-Dīn: The First World Historian,” as follows: Beginning with Adam and the Patriarchs the volume recounts the history of the pre-Islamic kings of Persia; of Muḥammad and the Caliphate down to its extinction by the Mongols in 1258; of the post- Muḥammadan dynasties of Persia; of Oghuz and his descendants, the Turks; of the Chinese; of the Jews; of the Franks and their Emperors and Popes; and of the Indians, with a detailed account of Buddha and Buddhism. Volume II is in fact the first universal history.3 * An earlier version of this article was published in Japanese as “Shijōhatsu no Sekaishika Kāshānī: Shūshi Hensan ni Kansuru Shinkenkai (Qāshānī, the First World Historian: A New Perspective on the Compilation Process of the Jāmi‘ al- Tawārīkh),” Seinan Ajia Kenkyū (Bulletin of the Society for Western and Southern Asiatic Studies) 80 (2014), pp. 25-48. The research for this article was supported by JSPS: KAKENHI Grant Number 12J10596, The Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation: Research Grant, and Heiwa Nakajima Foundation: Scholarship for Japanese to Study Abroad. I thank Dr David Durand-Guédy for revising French abstract of this article. 1 According to the Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū, the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh was dedicated to the eighth Ilkhanid ruler Öljeitü (r. 1304-1316) in 10 Shawwāl 706/14 April 1307 (TUA, f. 160a; TUH, p. 54). Two manuscripts of the Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū have been preserved. One is the Istanbul manuscript (Süleymaniye Library, Ms. Ayasofya 3019/3: TUA), copied in 1351. The other is the Paris manuscript (Bibliothèque nationale, Ms. Suppl. persan 1419: TUP), copied in the nineteenth century. As it is believed that the Paris manuscript was copied directly from the Istanbul manuscript (Murtaḍawī 1385sh., p. 495), the Istanbul manuscript is important for this work. Although an edition of the Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū (TUH) was made based on the Istanbul manuscript, plenty of problems have been identified in its text. Therefore, I use not only this edition, but also the best manuscript in this article. 2 The contents of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh are mentioned in the introduction to volume one (JTM, I, pp. 15-20). However, prior to about 1310, the contents may have appeared in four volumes rather than three. It is written in the introduction to the Jāmi‘ al-Taṣānīf-i Rashīdī, composed in about 1310, that the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh was divided into four volumes: 1-History of the Mongols; 2-History of the World; 3- Genealogy of the Peoples of the World; 4-Geography of the World (MTR, pp. clix- clx). 3 Boyle 1971, p. 21. Q Ā S H Ā N Ī, T H E F I R S T W O R L D H I S T O R I A N 121 This opinion, that the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh should be considered as the first world history, is held by most scholars,4 and this work has long been regarded as an extremely valuable source of information.5 However, one claim has the potential to discredit this widespread opinion. It is well-known that Abū al-Qāsim Qāshānī (d. after 1323-4), a historian contemporary of Rashīd al-Dīn, claimed to be the true author of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh. While his claim has been addressed by many pre- vious studies,6 it has not been comprehensively examined via philological study. This article presents the first attempt to clarify the true meaning of his claim, via consultation of all the surviving manuscripts of Qāshānī’s Persian general history, the Zubdat al-Tawārīkh. Although a great deal of research has been conducted on the manu- scripts of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, most has focused on the first rather than the second volume.7 As is evident from the fact that Muḥammad Rawshan edited the first chapter of the second volume and titled it ‘History of Iran and Islam’ (Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh Hamadānī, Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh: Tārīkh-i Īrān wa Islām, ed. M. Rawshan, 3 vols., Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1392sh./2013), based wrongly on Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū (d. 1430)’s revised edition of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh, a lack of basic understanding prevails about the contents of the second volume.8 By consulting the uninvestigated manuscripts of Qāshānī’s Zubdat al-Tawārīkh, it is possible to gain a clear understanding of the true compilation process of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh. I. QĀSHĀNĪ AND THE JĀMI‘ AL-TAWĀRĪKH I.1. Qāshānī’s claim Qāshānī repeatedly criticized Rashīd al-Dīn in his own work, the Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū, and claimed to be the true author of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawā- rīkh. He described Rashīd al-Dīn’s dedication of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh to Öljeitü as one of the most important events of the year 706/1306-7, as follows: On Friday of 10 [Shawwāl 706/14 April 1307], the minister of Iran, Khwāja Rashīd al-Dīn dedicated my compilation and literary compo- sition, titled the Kitāb-i Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh to the king [Öljeitü], by 4 Although they are too numerous to mention here, see for example Jahn 1965, p. x; Jahn 1967, p. 81; and Pfeiffer 2013, p. 62. 5 For example, Edward G. Browne stated: “It is doubtful whether any Persian prose work can be compared to it in value, at any rate in the domain of history” (Browne 1951, III, p. 75). 6 For example, see Melville 2008, pp. 462a-462b; Kamola 2013, pp. 244-248. 7 For details, see Uno 2011. 8 Otsuka 2016. 122 O. O T S U K A StIr 47, 2018 the hands of rejected Jews. As a reward, he received fifty tumān from lands, village, and fields. Twenty tumān of the income from these places will reach him in total every year. However, regardless of the fact that he promised to give me half (bā wujūd-i wa‘da-yi tanṣīf),9 he did not give me any money. I made a great deal of effort and composed for several years.10 Qāshānī’s claim can be summarized as follows: (1) Qāshānī is the author of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh; (2) Rashīd al-Dīn stole Qāshānī’s work; (3) Rashīd al-Dīn dedicated Qāshānī’s work to Öljeitü and received all the rewards; and (4) Qāshānī did not receive any recognition. Qāshānī repeated the same claim in the last chapter of his Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū.11 I.2. Comments on Qāshānī’s claim The claim made by Qāshānī in the Tārīkh-i Ūljāytū was first noted by Charles Schefer, the former owner of the Paris manuscript.12 The claim came to be accepted by Edgard Blochet, who doubted Rashīd al-Dīn’s overall authorship of the Jāmi‘ al-Tawārīkh.
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