A Literary History of the Arabs

by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

[661] Selection from the Annals of Tabarí, ed. by M. J. de Goeje (Leyden, 1902), p. xi.

[662] De Goeje's Introduction to Ṭabarí, p. xxvii.

[663] Al-Bal‘amí, the Vizier of Manṣúr I, the Sámánid, made in 963 a.d. a Persian epitome of which a French translation by Dubeux and Zotenberg was published in 1867-1874.

[664] Murúju ’l-Dhahab, ed. by Barbier de Meynard, vol. i, p. 5 seq.

[665] The Akhbáru ’l-Zamán in thirty volumes (one volume is extant at Vienna) and the Kitáb al-Awsaṭ.

[666] Murúju ’l-Dhahab, p. 9 seq.

[667] It may be noted as a coincidence that Ibn Khaldún calls Mas‘údí imám^an lil-mu’arrikhín, "an Imám for all the historians," which resembles, though it does not exactly correspond to, "the Father of History."

[668] Mas‘údí gives a summary of the contents of his historical and religious works in the Preface to the Tanbíh wa-’l-Ishráf, ed. by De Goeje, p. 2 sqq. A translation of this passage by De Sacy will be found in Barbier de Meynard's edition of the Murúju ’l-Dhahab, vol. ix, p. 302 sqq.

[669] See Murúj, vol. i, p. 201, and vol. iii, p. 268.

[670] Ibid., vol. ii, p. 372 sqq.