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Ibn Isfandiyar

13th century Iranian historian

Summary

13th century Iranian historian

Field	Value
name	Ibn Isfandiyar
birth_date	13th century
birth_place	Tabaristan, Iran
death_date
occupation	Historian, Author
notable_works	Tarikh-i Tabaristan
era	Bavandid period
main_interests	History, Genealogy

Baha al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Isfandiyar (), commonly known as Ibn Isfandiyar (ابن اسفندیار), was a 13th-century Iranian historian from Tabaristan 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 Amol, the capital of Tabaristan. His father Hasan was a high-ranking court official of the Bavandids, 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, presumably Persian work which Ibn Isfandiyar viewed as a Bavandid romance only. In 1209 he travelled briefly to Baghdad. On his return, he stayed for two months in Rayy, where he came across in Rustam ibn Shahriyar's library the Uqidu sihr wa-qala'idu durar of Abu 'l-Hasan Muhammad al-Yazdadi – an Arabic history of Tabaristan subsequently lost. 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. His fate is unknown; he may have returned to his native Tabaristan and died there, or he may have perished in the Mongol sack of Khwarazm in 1220.

From 1216-1217, Ibn Isfandiyar transposed the entire account of the Čahār maqāla covering Mahmud of Ghazni and Ferdowsi into his Tarikh-i Tabarestan. His history 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 and a Persian translation of the Letter of Tansar, an important piece of Pahlavi literature, sent by the Sasanian ruler Ardashir I's chief priest to Gushnasp, prince of Tabaristan.

References

Sources

References

Edward G. Browne. (1905). "An Abridged Translation of the History of Tabaristan". Brill.
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.

Wikipedia Source

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