The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat al-qulūb - Softcover

Mustaufī, Ḥamd-Allāh; Le Strange, Guy; Melville, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909724882 ISBN 13: 9781909724884

Publisher: Gibb Memorial Trust, 2017

Synopsis

Guy Le Strange (1854-1933) pioneered the study of the historical geography of the Middle East, and especially Persia, notably in his Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905) and the present work which contains an English translation of Mustaufī’s Nuzhat al-qulūb Ḥamd-Allāh Mustaufī was a fourteenth-century historian and geographer. His Nuzhat al-qulūb (Hearts’ delight) sets out to give a description of Iran in the form of a gazetteer. Despite some repetition of previous accounts, there are many snippets of up to date information embedded in his descriptions of the various provinces and cities and villages of Iran, including altered circumstances and productivity, and changes in their names and prosperity, and his work gives a graphic account of the area in the latter days of the Īl-Khāns. Mustaufī’s Nuzhat al-qulūb captures a moment in time caught between an old world and a new – the familiar but moribund universal Islamic Caliphate, fatally destroyed by the Mongol invasions, and the new dispensation of the Mongol Empire, within which Iran once more found independence and cultural self-determination. But this world too was in transition, as the Ilkhanate was in the process of collapsing and new insecurities threatened. This accessible new edition will make this important work, extensively used but little studied and long out of print available to a new generation of scholars.

About this title

About the Author

Ḥamd-Allāh Mustaufī was a fourteenth-century historian and geographer.

Guy Le Strange (1854-1933) studied in Paris under Jules Mohl and visited Persia in 1877-80. Le Strange alternated between Florence and Cambridge, where he finally settled and worked with Edward Granville Browne on the Gibb Memorial Trust. In 1913 he was awarded an honorary MA at Cambridge in recognition of his scholarly achievements. At the same time he partially lost his sight, which hampered his academic work. Le Strange authored several important translations of geographical and historical sources, notably Ibn al-Balkhī’s Fārs-nāma (with R.A. Nicholson, 1921) as well as Nuzhat al-qulūb.

Charles Melville is Professor of Persian History, University of Cambridge, and Vice-President of the British Institute of Persian Studies. His main research interests are in the history and historiography of medieval Iran, with a concentration on the Mongol–Safavid periods (13th-17th centuries), and text-image studies of Persian manuscripts, particularly the Shahnama of Firdausi and historical texts (chronicles). His most recent publication is The Mongols' Middle East: Continuity and transformation in Ilkhanid Iran (co-edited), Leiden 2016.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gibb Memorial Trust
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1909724882
• ISBN 13: 9781909724884
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 340