metadata [IO Islamic 1026] ترجمۀ المسالك و الممالك

Tarjuma-i-almasâlik wa-almamâlik .

This manuscript is now IO Islamic 707 in the India Office collections.

[metadata: Hermann Ethé, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office, 2 vols. (Oxford: India Office, 1903): volume 1, number 1026 here with notations and hyperlinks].

IX. GEOGRAPHY, COSMOGRAPHY, AND

TOPOGRAPHY.

707

Tarjuma-i-almasâlik wa-almamâlik ( ترجمۀ المسالك و الممالك ) .

The same Persian adaptation of the famous geographical work by Abû Isḥâḳ Ibrâhîm bin Muḥammad al-Fârisî, better known as al-Iṣṭakhrî, called مسالك الممالك, and probably completed A.H. 340 (A.D. 951, 952), as a revised and enlarged edition of Abû Zaid Aḥmad bin Sahl al-Balkhîs (died A.H. 322=A.D. 934) صور الاقاليم or اشكال البلاد, which is described in G. Flügel ii.424 and 425, and begins :الحمد لله مبدئ ( مبتدئ ) النعم و ولى الحمد و صلّى الله على سيّد المرسلين وآله اجمعين امّا بعد چنين گويد خداوند سخن كه مراد ما از تصنيف اين كتاب الخ .

It is besides identical with the one noticed in Ḥ. Khalfa, v. p. 509, No. 11869. On the very intricate question of the relationship between Abû Zaid Balkhî’s and Iṣṭakhrî’s respective works and the frequent mixture of both, as well as on the different Persian paraphrases extant, comp. especially De Goeje’s splendid article on the ‘Istakhrî-Balkhî Frage’ in the Zeitschrift der D. M. G. vol. xxv , pp. 42-58, and Rieu i. p. 416; other versions are noticed in Ḥ. Khalfa iv. p. 112; W. Pertsch, p. 61; B. Dorn, Das Asiatische Museum, p. 666; Rieu, loc. cit., etc. An abridged Persian translation is contained in Sir W. Ouseley’s ‘Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal,’ London, 1800; a fuller version in the صور البلدان by Muḥammad bin As’ad bin ‘Abd-allâh, see Bodleian Cat., No. 396. The title given to the work on fol. 1b, l. 11 in the present copy, is just as in Flügel’s: مسالك و ممالك . Unfortunately our MS. is very defective; there is a large lacuna of, at least, fourteen leaves after fol. 1b, comprising the greater part of the preface and the beginning of the geography itself, and at the end the copy is incomplete also. On ff. 2a-3a a part of the ذكر درياى پارس is found ; on fol. 3b the ذكر ديار مغرب begins. The copy breaks off on fol. 95b, in the middle of a chapter, styled: مسافات شهرهاى سغد و سمرقند .

No. 1026, ff. 95, ll. 17 ; good old Naskhî; many maps; some leaves injured; size, 101/8 in. by 63/4 in.