The present translation is based on our critical edition of the MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh, which was published by Brill in 2014.1
The author of the work, Muḥammad AmÄ«n b. MÄ«rzÄ Muḥammad ZamÄn BukhÄrÄ« (ṢūfÄ«yÄnÄ«), was probably born in the ṢūfÄ«yÄn district of BukhÄrÄ sometime during the second half of the 1040s/1630s. Based on the information in the work, he was still alive in 1110/1698. In one surviving manuscript,2 this date is given as the date of completion of the work. Judging by the work, it is almost certain that the author was closely related to high-ranking officials at the court of SubḥÄn QulÄ« KhÄn (1681â1702) of the Ashtarkhanids and that he participated in the assemblies and feasts of the khan and aristocracy. On a number of occasions, he cites, in astonishing detail, letters that the khan sent to various people. This suggests that he had access to the royal correspondence. Furthermore, the authorâs extensive knowledge of the royal library and atelier, which he puts to good use in chapter (bÄb) 10, where he presents the royal painters and calligraphers, suggests that he held an important official post; he was most likely also in charge of the khan and his familyâs private treasury.3
The Sea of Chronicles (MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh) is a voluminous work containing an introduction and ten chapters.4 The author begins his work with Godâs creation of the Muḥammadan light and then Adam and ends with the events of 5 JumÄdÄ« l-s̱ÄnÄ« 1111 (28 November 1699).5 This date or probably a few months later can be considered the date of the completion of the work.6 It was composed at the behest of IbrÄhÄ«m QÅ«sh-baygÄ« (d. áºi l-ḥijja 1112/May or June 1701),7 a high-ranking official at the court of the Ashtarkhanid khan SubḥÄn QulÄ«.8
If we try to categorize The Sea of Chronicles (MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh), we can put it partly in the category of the so called âuniversalâ9 or âgeneralâ10 historiography. However, as we approach the end of the work, it changes character and increasingly resembles the so-called âdynasticâ11 or even âlocalâ historiography,12 in which the main concern of the author is to report the events of one dynasty (one limited geographical region) leading up to the authorâs contemporary ruler, in our case SubḥÄn QulÄ« KhÄn.
As the author himself states in the introduction of the work,13 with the exception of the tenth chapter,14 the whole work is cited or taken from earlier well-known works, of which he lists thirty-seven.
Structurally, the ninth chapter has a clear pattern throughout. The author first concisely presents a sultan/khan/king, this is followed by a sub-chapter in which he presents a brief report on the shaykhs, ulama, and in a few cases, the great men (akÄbir) (poets, learned people, etc.) who were contemporaries of the sultan/khan he is reporting on.15 In some parts of the ninth chapter, the text recounts events without any details. The author explains this in the following way: âIt cannot be concealed that there is not enough space in this abridgement [book] to describe all of the achievements of the late [khan].â16
Judging by the work, Muḥammad AmÄ«n was a highly-educated person with a good knowledge of a variety of subjects, among them painting, music, and literature. An interesting feature of the work is the existence of a music treatise in approximately the middle of chapter nine. Although some of the authors of historiographical works devote a short chapter or part of their work to the biographies of musicians of the periods they describe (e.g., the TÄrÄ«kh-i Ê¿Älam-ÄrÄ-yi Ê¿AbbÄsÄ«17 and the IqbÄl-nÄma-yi JahÄngÄ«rÄ«18), to the best of our knowledge, the MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh is the second historiographical work, in addition to the third daftar (volume/book) of the Akbar-nÄma known as Äʾīn-i AkbarÄ« by AbÅ« l-Fażl Ê¿AllÄmÄ«, that contains a comprehensive chapter on music theory with extensive biographical information on musicians and poet-musicians of the region. The inclusion of this treatise probably shows the authorâs special interest in music19 and art.
Another feature of the work is a sub-chapter about âthe science of historyâ at the end of the book where the word/term (lafáº) history (tÄrÄ«kh) and its meanings (maÊ¿ÄnÄ«) are explained. This sub-chapter is based on the Rawżat al-á¹£afÄ, and a considerable part of it is taken from that workâs introduction (muqaddama) about the science of history (Ê¿ilm-i tÄrÄ«kh) and its benefits (fÄʾida). As for why the author inserted this part of the text at the end of the work, while the original text in the Rawżat al-á¹£afÄ is at the beginning of it, we suspect that either this part was transposed from the beginning of the work to the end or that it was added by scribes. It is also plausible that the author included that âsub-chapterâ as a kind of conclusion for his work.
At any rate, the major importance of the Sea of Chronicles (MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh) for the study of the history of the second half of eleventh-/seventeenth-century Central Asia and for the development of historiographical writings during that time lies in its detailed description of the events of the âlast great Ashtarkhanid rulerâ, SubḥÄn QulÄ« Khan. Although there is another work, in the form of verses, entitled SubḥÄn QulÄ«-nÄma by Muḥammad SalÄḥ SÄ«yÄhgirdÄ« BalkhÄ«,20 Muḥammad AmÄ«nâs Sea of Chronicles is indeed the only prose historiographical work written in BukhÄrÄ during the reign of SubḥÄn QulÄ« KhÄn in the second half of the eleventh/seventeenth century. Thus, the historical information contained in its tenth chapter is essential for all scholars interested in undertaking a deep study of late eleventh-/seventeenth-century Central Asian history, historiography, and language.
At the stylistic level, the language of the MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh differs greatly from Modern Persian. It is written in a rhymed prose style based on highly figurative language with long complex sentences. The author has embellished the text with many classical Persian poems of different genres, a practice that was current in most Persian historiographical works. Indeed, Persian historiographical works often stand in the gray zone between the genre of historiography and literature in its highest presentation. For this reason, the present translation is highly âtext-orientedâ.21 As philologists, it is our ambition to remain loyal to the style and the highly figurative language of the work in our translation. While some may question the usefulness of such an approach in the translation of a historiographical work for readers interested in history, we believe that a reader-oriented approach to the translation of such a highly figurative work would result in a simplified and abridged version that would not give a fair picture of the text. Thus, all the poetry in the text has also been translated into English, regardless of its length. We have tried to apply some kind of rhyme to the English translation of the verses, but it has not always been possible to do so, particularly in longer verses.
As mentioned, the introduction and the ninth chapter are taken from earlier celebrated historiographical and literary works, in particular the Rawżat al-á¹£afÄ by MÄ«r Muḥammad b. Sayyid BurhÄn al-DÄ«n KhÄvandshÄh known as MÄ«rkhvÄnd and the ḤabÄ«b al-siyar by GhÄ«yÄs̱ al-DÄ«n b. HumÄm al-DÄ«n al-ḤusaynÄ« known as KhvÄndamÄ«r. Thus, we have consulted the English translations of these works by Rehatsek22 (ed. Arbuthnot) and Thackston23 respectively.
For Koranic verses, we have used Abdallah Yusuf Aliâs translation of the Koran.24
Personal and geographical names have been Persianised and transliterated according to their Persian pronunciations.
In the present translation, the pagination of the critically edited Persian text is noted in the margin, in order to facilitate reference to the original text. However, due to the different structures and writing systems of the two languages, the page references are approximate.
A question mark within hard brackets preceding some personal and geographical names indicates that the translators are unsure of the correct pronunciation or the existence of these persons or places. Hard brackets are used to indicate additional information by the translators.
The names that appear in this text are usually made up of more than one distinct element: the personal or given name, including the affiliative name (son of, daughter of so-and-so), an associative name like an official title (Ä«shÄ«k-ÄqÄsÄ«/Ä«shÄ«k-ÄqÄbÄshÄ«, dÄ«vÄn-baygÄ«, naqÄ«b, parvÄn(a)chÄ«, atÄlÄ«q, bakÄvul, etc.), a religious and ethnic affiliation, and a courtesy title related to status (khÄn, mÄ«rzÄ, bÄ«, and bayg). Some scholars italicize the official titles that follow the given name and the courtesy title to distinguish them as titles of office. However, in the present text, all of the titles that follow personal names are written in roman and capitalized as a part of the personal names, as applied by Burton in her work The Bukharans. For instance, â®ØºØ§Ûب Ùظر Ø¨Û Ø§ØªØ§ÙÛÙâ¬â has been written as GhÄyib Nażar BÄ« AtÄlÄ«q not as GhÄyib Nażar bÄ« atÄlÄ«q.
The transliteration system in this book follows the system applied in the introduction of the critical edition. It is based on the system employed by IJMES. The ha-marbuta (â®Ùâ¬â silent /h/) at the end of words, with the exception of words in chronograms, is omitted. The names of known provinces, cities, and dynasties, as well as religious terms, have been anglicised.
The Hijrī calender has been converted to the Gregorian calendar based on the following site:
The following abbreviations are used.
| EI2 |
Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edition) |
| EIr |
Encyclopædia Iranica |
| LD |
Lughat-nÄma-yi DihkhudÄ |
Muḥammad AmÄ«n b. MÄ«rzÄ Muḥammad ZamÄn BukhÄrÄ« (ṢūfÄ«yÄnÄ«), MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh (The Sea of Chronicles), ed. Mehrdad Fallahzadeh and Forogh Hashabeiky (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
Russia (St. Petersburg), Institut Vostochnykh RukopiseÇ RAN (ÐÐÐ Ð ÐÐ), no. D 89 (574agg).
AkimuÅ¡kin and Ivanov, âUne école artistique méconnue: Boxara au XVIIe siècleâ in C. Adle (ed.), Art et société (Paris, 1982), 127.
The critical edition of the work and the present English translation only include the introduction, the ninth, and the tenth chapters of the work.
This is the last date mentioned in the work, it is confirmed by all three manuscripts used for the critical edition. However, the year 1114/1702â1703 is mentioned in what is presumably a postscript passage on the demise of QÄżī Luá¹fallÄh; this appears exclusively in the manuscript in France (Paris), Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), supplément persan 1548 (fol. 168v).
Although the colophon of the manuscript in St. Petersburg states the date of the completion of the work as 3 RamażÄn 1110 (5 March 1699).
Based on a postscript paragraph in the margin of the manuscript in St. Petersburg, 183â187.
BukhÄrÄ« (ṢūfÄ«yÄnÄ«), MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh, 328.
Ch. Melville, âMongol and Timurid Periods, 1250â1500â, in Ch. Melville (ed.), Persian Historiography (New York, 2012), 155.
C.A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey (London, 1970), i. 61; Yu. E. Bregel, Persidskaya literatura: Bio-bibliograficheskiÄ obzor (Moscow, 1972), i. 279.
Melville, âMongol and Timurid Periodsâ, 155.
For further discussion on local historiography, see Ch. Melville, âPersian Local Histories: Views from the Wingsâ, Iranian Studies 33/1â2 (2000), 7â14.
BukhÄrÄ« (ṢūfÄ«yÄnÄ«), MuḥīṠal-tavÄrÄ«kh, 10â13, in the Persian edited text.
And apparently also the two last sub-chapters of the ninth chapter.
The sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters also have the same structure. This structural feature reminds us of KhvÄndamÄ«râs work, particularly the ḤabÄ«b al-siyar.
See, for instance, pp. 145, 150, 151.
Iskandar Bayg MunshÄ«, TÄrÄ«kh-i Ê¿Älam-ÄrÄ-yi Ê¿AbbÄsÄ«, ed. M.I. RiżvÄnÄ« (Tehran, 1377/1998), i. 293â295.
MuÊ¿tamid KhÄn, IqbÄl-nÄma-yi JahÄngÄ«rÄ«, ed. M. Abd al-Ḥaii and A. Ali (Calcutta, 1865), 308.
And probably also that of his patron.
Storey, Persian Literature, i. 378; Bregel, Persidskaya literatura, ii. 1143.
A number of studies and books have been published on this approach, and also the so-called âreader-orientedâ translation, among them Th. Hermans, Translation in Systems (New York, 1999).
MÄ«r KhvÄnd, Muḥammad ibn KhÄvandshÄh, The Rauzat-us-safa, or, Garden of purity, trans. E. Rehatsek, ed. F. Arbuthnot (London 1891â1894).
KhvÄndamir, Habibuâs-siyar, ed. and trans. W.M. Thackston, iii and iv (Cambridge, MA, 1994).
The Glorious Kurʾan, translation and commentary by Abdallah Yusuf Ali (Libya, 1973).