Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ

Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ fī sīrat al-anbiyāʾ w-al-mulūk w-al-khulafāʾ (روضة الصفا في سیرة الانبياء والملوك والخلفاء, ‘The Gardens of purity in the biography of the prophets and kings and caliphs’) is a Persian history of the origins of Islam, early Islamic civilisation, and Persian history by Mīr-Khvānd, a Fifteenth-Century historian. The text was originally completed in seven volumes in 1497 (836 AH).[1] The work is very scholarly, Mīr-Khvānd used nineteen major Arabic histories and twenty-two major Persian ones as well as others which he occasionally quotes.[2] His work was the basis for many subsequent histories including the works of Hajjī Khalfah.[2]

The Rawżat aṣ-ṣafā̄ʾ ought not to be confused with the Rawżat al-b̄̄āb fī taʾrīkh al-akābir w-al-ansāb (‘The Garden of the learned in the history of great men and genealogies’) by Abū Sulaymān Daʾūd ibn Abū al-Fatal Muḥammad al-Banākatī, which was written earlier, in 1317 (717 AH).

In the West

Around 1596, Pedro Teixeira prepared a Spanish translation of the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafā̄ʾ. The book was partially translated into English in 1715[3], into Latin in 1782[4], and into French in 1793[5]. It was published fully in Persian in 1843 (Paris) and in 1852 (Mumbai). From 1891 to 1894, a translation of the first three volumes into English was prepared by the Orientalist Edward Rehatsek and edited by Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot for the Royal Asiatic Society.[6] A number of other translations exist.

Of particular interest to Christian scholars is that in Rawżat aṣ-ṣafā̄ʾ, Mīr-Khvānd tells the story of Jesus’s travels after a failed crucifixion.[7] The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community support some of their beliefs using the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafā̄ʾ.[8]

Work online

Notes

  1. ^ Sometimes the date is stated as 1417 owing to a transcription error; however, Mīr-Khvānd wasn't born until 1433; see Henry Miers Elliot, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, ed. John Dowson (London: Trübner and Co., 1872), 127-129; OCLC 3425271, available in full text from Google Books.
  2. ^ a b Elliot, History, 129]
  3. ^ Mīr-Khvānd, History of Persia ...: to which is added an abridgment of the lives of kings of Harmuz, or Ormuz, transl. from Spanish text of Pedro Teixeira by John Stevens (London: J. Brown, 1715); OCLC 82155967.
  4. ^ Mīr-Khvānd, Historia priorum regum Persarum: Post firmatum un regno Islamismum, transl. Freiherr von Bernhard Jenisch (Vienna: Typis Josephi Nobilis de Kurzbeck, 1782); OCLC 46759841.
  5. ^ Mīr-Khvānd, Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse, et sur les médailles des rois de la dynastie des Sassanides; suivis de l'Histoire de cette dynastie, traduite du Persan de Mirkhond, transl. Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (Paris, 1793); OCLC 150200240, available in full text via Google Books.
  6. ^ Mīr-Khvānd, The Rauzat-us-safa, or, Garden of purity: containing the histories of prophets, kings, and khalifs by Muhammad bin Khâvendshâh bin Mahmûd, commonly called Mirkhond, transl. Edward Rehatsek, ed. Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1892); OCLC 1549524.
  7. ^ Abubakr Ben Ishmael Salahuddin, ‘Evidence of Jesus in India’, Review of Religions 97.4 (April 2002), 48–68; [1]; Khwaja Nazir Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth (Lahore: Working Muslim Mission & Literary Trust, 1952); OCLC 18112423
  8. ^ Almadiyya Muslim Community, Review of Religions