A letter to Major-General John Briggs, Honorary Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, on the discovery of part of the second volume of the Jámi al Tawáríkh of Rashíd al Dín / by William Morley.

  • William Hook Morley
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Major-General John Briggs, Honorary Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, on the discovery of part of the second volume of the Jámi al Tawáríkh of Rashíd al Dín / by William Morley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    00 CD •o OJ o K> o o^ o DD H o 3 K) K) U) o fj\ ' 1. —! n» a o < n a Q ^ * CfQ — C/3 a> c o c/3 3 na “O o 3 c bo D3 OQ o TJ O v; o o E. O 3 (Ji n O o m a CTQ w 3 nrk. Si— p. :irci\ ^Cg/im jami AL tawarikh. 21 Haidar Rdzi says that Rashid al Dm composed this History of India in the 703d year of the Flightj our MS. was therefore written only eleven years subsequent to the composition of the original work. The fourth portion of our MS. contains a fragment of the History of the Bani Israil; it comprises nineteen folia, and is illustrated by nine paintings. I have only examined this part of the work cur- sorily, as it does not seem to contain any new matter, but merely gives the history of the Israelites according to the Muhammadan traditions, as we find it in Tabari. After the preface, Rashid al Din commences with an account of the creation of the world, and the history of Adam and his descend- ants to the time of Nuh} he then gives an account of the deluge, and proceeds successively with the histories of Ibrahim, Ishak, Yakub, Yusuf, Musa, Yoshua, Shamwail, Taldt, Daud, and Sulai- man. Our author after this treats of the kings of the Bani Israil, who reigned after Sulaiman, gives the histories of the prophets Khidhr Alisa and Ydnas, of King Bokht Nasr and Danyal, and the story of Hamdm and Mordakhdi. This history of the Bani Isrdil is imperfect at the end. Such are the contents of this interesting volume. When I first examined it a difficulty occurred to me in consequence of its being written in the Arabic language] whereas all the authors whom I had consulted on the subject, expressly state that this history was com- posed in Persian. At this period M. Quatrembre’s work came under my notice, and at once set all my doubts at rest with regard to the authenticity of the work. In the notice of Rashid al Din’s works, already alluded to as quoted by M. Quatrembre in his preface, we find a description of the precautions taken by our author in order to prevent his works from being lost. After having stated that he had formed the design of collecting his works together, and forming them into one large volume, he proceeds to say that, in order that they might be of equal utility to those who spoke Persian or Arabic he translated into the latter tongue all those works that he had written in Persian, and had one copy transcribed expressly to form part of the large volume, besides many others which were destined some to be bcund together and others to be kept separate] he in like manner caused all his Arabic works to be translated into Per- sian, and entitled the whole collection Majrnu bijdmi altnsdnif al RasMdi\ i. e. The Complete Collection of all the Works of Rashid al Din.