Mirkhond

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Mirkhond or Muhammad Bin Khavendshah Bin Mahmud or Muhammad ibn Khawand Shah ibn Mahmud (1433-1498), commonly called Mirkhwond or Mirkhwand, but more familiar to Europeans under the name of Mirkhond, was born in 1433 in Bokhara, present-day Uzbekistan, the son of a very pious and learned man, Sayyid Barhanu ibn Khawand Shah. Mirkhond, although belonging to an old Bokhara family of Sayyids, or direct descendants of the Prophet, grew up and died in Balkh. From his early youth he applied himself to historical studies and literature in general.^[1]

In Herat, Afghanistan, where Mirkhond spent the greater part of his life, he gained the favor of that famous patron of letters, Mir Ali-Shir Nava'i (1440-1501), who served his old schoolfellow, the reigning sultan Husayn Bayqarah (who as the last of the Timurids in Persia ascended the throne of Herat in 1469), first as keeper of the seal, afterwards as governor of Jurjan. At the request of Mir Ali-Shir, himself a distinguished statesman and writer, Mirkhond began about 1474, in the quiet convent of Khilashyah, which his patron had founded in Herat as a house of retreat for literary men of merit, his great work on universal history, Rauzât-us-safâ or Garden of Purity. He made little attempt at a critical examination of historical traditions, and wrote in a flowery and often bombastic style, but in spite of this drawback, Mirkhond's Rauzât remains one of the most marvelous achievements in literature.^[1] It comprises seven large volumes and a geographical appendix; but the seventh volume, the history of the sultan Husayn (1438-1506), together with a short account of some later events down to 1523, cannot have been written by Mirkhond himself, who died in 1498. He may have compiled the preface, but the main portion of this volume is probably the work of his grandson, the historian Khwandamir (1475-1534), to whom also a part of the appendix must be ascribed.

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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.