Jawāmi ul-Hikāyāt wa Lawāmi' ul-Riwāyāt (also transcribed Djami al-Hikayat and Jami al-Hikayat) (جوامع الحکایات و لوامع الروایات) is a famous collection of Persian anecdotes written in the early 13th century. It is written by Zahiriddin Nasr Muhammad Aufi, who lived during the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (Altamash) (r. 1211–1236) was the third Muslim Turkic sultan of the Sultanate of Delhi, and the book is dedicated to his minister, Nizam-ul-Mulk Muhammad, son of Abu Sa'id Junaidi.[1]
The book was an encyclopaedia of anecdotage containing mines of interesting information, namely on historical information often not found elsewhere, from mythical times until the end of the rule of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustansir.
The entire text of this 2,500 page book remains to be edited and printed as of yet. Currently, only abridged volumes have been published.
The oldest extant manuscript of this work exists in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, dated 1232.
Contents |
The Jawami ul-Hikayat contains 4 volumes consisting of chapters of unequal length. Zahiriddin Nasr Muhammad Aufi used his personal observations, information from Arab and Persian works, as well as information gathered from individual traders concerning the conditions and life in different countries throughout every chapter. This makes the Jawami ul-Hikayat unique among Persian works.[2]