The History of al-Tabari VOL 5,1

The

History of al-Tabari

The Sasanids, the Byzantines,

the Lakhmids, and Yemen

Volume V

Translated by C. E. Bosworth

This volume of al-Tabari's History has a particularly wide sweep

and interest. It provides the most complete and detailed historical

source for the Persian empire of the Sasanids, whose four centuries

of rule were one of the most glorious periods in Persia’s long history.

It also gives information on the history of pre-Islamic Arabs of

the Mesopotamian desert fringes and eastern Arabia (in al-ljOra and

the Ghassanid kingdom), and on the quite separate civilization of

South Arabia, the Yemen, otherwise known mainly by inscriptions.

It furnishes details of the centuries’-long warfare of the two great

empires of Western Asia, the Sasanids and the Byzantine Greeks, a

titanic struggle which paved the way for the subsequent rise of the

new faith of Islam. The volume is thus of great value for scholars,

from Byzantinists to Semitists and Iranists. It provides the first English

 translation of this key section of al-lkbarTs work, one for

which non-Arabists have hitherto relied on a partial German translation, meritorious for its time but now 120 years old. This new

translation is enriched by a detailed commentary which takes into

account up-to-date scholarship.

SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies

Said Amir Aijoraand, Editor

The State University of New York Press

ISBN 0-7914-4356-6

THE HISTORY OF AL-TABARI

AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION

VOLUME V

The Sasanids, the Byzantines,

the Lakhmids, and Yemen

The History of al-Tabari

Editorial Board

Ihsan Abbas, University of Jordan, Amman

C. E. Bosworth, The University of Manchester

Franz Rosenthal, Yale University

Everett K. Rowson, The University of Pennsylvania

Ehsan Yar-Shater, Columbia University ( General Editor)

Center for Iranian Studies

Columbia University

SUNY

SERIES IN NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

Said Amir Arjomand, Editor

9

The preparation of this volume was made possible in part by

a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities,

an independent federal agency.

Bibliotheca Persica

Edited by Ehsan Yar-Shater

The History of al-Tabari

(Ta'iikh al-msul wa’l-muluk)

Volume v

The Sasanids, the Byzantines,

the Lakhmids, and Yemen

translated and annotated

by

C. E. Bosworth

University of Manchester

State University of New York Press

Published by

State University of New York Press, Albany

© 1999 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No part of this

book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form

or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written

permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press,

State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tabari, 838 *-923 .

[Tarikh al-rusul wa-al-muluk. English. Selections]

The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen / translated

and annotated by C. E. Bosworth.

p. cm. — (SUNY series in Near Eastern studies) (The history

of al-Tabari = Ta’rikh al-rusul wa' 1 -muluk , 5 ) (Bibliotheca

Persica)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7914-4355-8 (he : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-7914-4356-6 (pb :

alk. paper)

1. Iran — History — To 640. 2. Iran — History— 640-1256.

I. Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. II. Title. HI. Series. IV. Series:

Tabari, 838?-923. Tarikh al-rusul wa-al-muluk. English ,- v. 5.

V. Series: Bibliotheca Persica (Albany, N.Y.)

DS38.2.T313 1985 vol. 5

[DS286]

909'. 1 s — dC2I

[ 955 '. 02 ]

10 987654321

99-38279

CIP

Preface

9

The History of Prophets and Kings (Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-

muluk) by Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari (839-923), here

rendered as The History of al-Tabari, is by common consent the

most important universal history produced in the world of Islam.

It has been translated here in its entirety for the first time for the

benefit of non- Arabists, with historical and philological notes for

those interested in the particulars of the text.

In his monumental work al-Tabari explores the history of the

ancient nations, with special emphasis on biblical peoples and

prophets, the legendary and factual history of ancient Iran, and, in

great detail, the rise of Islam, the life of the Prophet Muhammad,

and the history of the Islamic world down to the year 915. The

first volume of this translation contains a biography of al-Tabari

and a discussion of the method, scope, and value of his work. It

also provides information on some of the technical considerations

that have guided the work of the translators. The thirty-ninth

volume is a compendium of biographies of early members of the

Muslim community, compiled by al-Tabari; although not strictly

a part of his History, it complements it.

The History has been divided here into thirty-nine volumes,

each of which covers about two hundred pages of the original

Arabic text in the Leiden edition. An attempt has been made to

draw the dividing lines between the individual volumes in such a

way that each is to some degree independent and can be read as

such. The page numbers of the Leiden edition appear in the margins

of the translated volumes.

vi

Preface

Al-Tabari very often quotes his sources verbatim and traces the

chain of transmission ( isnad ) to an original source. The chains of

transmitters are, for the sake of brevity, rendered by only a dash

( — ) between the individual links in the chain. Thus, "According

to Ibn Humayd — Salamah— Ibn Ishaq" means that al-Tabari received

the report from Ibn Humayd, who said that he was told by

Salamah, who said that he was told by Ibn Ishaq, and so on. The

numerous subtle and important differences in the original Arabic

wording have been disregarded.

The table of contents at the beginning of each volume gives a

brief survey of the topics dealt with in that particular volume. It

also includes the headings and subheadings as they appear in al-

Tabari's text, as well as those occasionally introduced by the

translator.

Well-known place names, such as, for instance, Mecca, Baghdad,

Jerusalem, Damascus, and the Yemen, are given in their English

spelling s. Less common place names, which are the vast

majority, are transliterated. Biblical figures appear in the accepted

English spelling. Iranian names are usually transcribed according

to their Arabic forms, and the presumed Iranian forms are often

discussed in the footnotes.

Technical terms have been translated wherever possible, but

some, such as dirham, and imam, have been retained in Arabic

forms. Others that cannot be translated with sufficient precision

have been retained and italicized, as well as footnoted.

The annotation is aimed chiefly at clarifying difficult passages,

identifying individuals and place names, and discussing textual

difficulties. Much leeway has been left to the translators to include

in the footnotes whatever they consider necessary and helpful.

The bibliographies list all the sources mentioned in the annotation.

The index in each volume contains all the names of persons and

places referred to in the text, as well as those mentioned in the

notes as far as they refer to the medieval period. It does not include

the names of modem scholars. A general index, it is hoped, will

appear after all the volumes have been published.

For further details concerning the series and acknowledgments,

see the preface to Volume I.

Ehsan Yar-Shater

Contents

$

Preface / v

Abbreviations / xiii

Translator's Foreword / xv

Tables i. The Sasanid Emperors / xxv

a. The Roman and Byzantine Emperors, from

Constantine the Great to Heraclius / xxvii

3. The Lakhmid Rulers / xxviii

4. The Chiefs of Kindah / xxix

5. Rulers in South Arabia during the Sixth and Early

Seventh Centuries / xxx

Maps 1. The Sasanid Empire / xxxi

2 . The Roman-Byzantine and Persian

Frontierlands / xxxii

3. The Northeastern Frontier of the Sasanids / xxxiii

4. The Arabian Peninsula: the lands of the Lakhmids,

Kindah, etc. / xxxiv

5. Southwestern Arabia / xxxv

viii

Contents

[The Kings of the Persians] / i

[Ardashlrl] / 2

[The History of al-HIrah] / 20

Mention of the Holders of Power in the Kingdom of

Persia after Ardashlr b. Babak / 23

[Sabur I, called Sabur al-Junud] / 23

[Hurmuz I] / 40

[Bahram Ij / 43

[The History of al-HIrah] / 44

[Bahram 11} / 46

[Bahram m] / 47

[NarsI] / 48

[Hurmuz n] / 49

[Sabur II Dhu al-Aktaf ] / 50

[The History of al-HIrah] / 67

[Ardashlr n] / 67

[Sabur m] / 68

[Bahram IV] / 69

[Yazdajirdl] / 70

[The History of al-HIrah] / 74

Contents

ix

[Bahrain V Jur] / 82

[Yazdajird n] / 106

[FayrnzI] / 109

Mention of Events in the Reigns of Yazdajird (II), Son of Bahram

(V), and Fayruz, and the Relations of Their Respective

Governors with the Arabs and the People of Yemen / 12 1

[Balash] / 126

[Qubadh I] / 128

Mention of What Has Been Recorded Concerning the Events

Taking Place Among the Arabs in Qubadh's Reign in His

Kingdom and Involving His Governors / 139

[Kisra I Anusharwan] / 146

(The History of al-yirah] / 162

[The History of Yemen]

Mention of the Rest of the Story of Tubba' in the Days of

Qubadh and the Time of Anusharwan and the Persians'

Dispatch of an Army to Yemen in Order to Combat the

Abyssinians, and the Reason for This Last / 164

[Resumption of the History of Kisra Anusharwan] / 252

Mention of the Birth of the Messenger of God / 268

[The Remainder of Kisra Anusharwan’ s Reign and

the Last Sasanid Kings] / 28$

[Hurmuz] / 295

[Kisra II Abarwiz] / 305

X

Contents

Mention of Those Who Say That (i.e., those who say that the

words of Surat al-Rum refer to Abarwlz's defeat of

Hiraql) / 324

Mention of the Account Concerning the Events That Happened

when God Wished to Take Away from the people of Persia

Rule over Persia, and the Arabs' Overrunnning It by Means of

God's Favoring Them with His Prophet Muhammad,

Involving the Prophethood, the Caliphate, the Royal Power,

and the Dominion, in the Days of Kisra Abarwiz / 331

[The Encounter at Dhu Qar] / 338

Mention of Those Vassal Rulers Set over the Desert Frontier of

the Arabs at al-HIrah as Appointees of the Monarchs of

Persia, after 'Amr b. Hind / 370

The Story Returns to the Mention of al-Maruzan, Who

Governed Yemen on Behalf of Hurmuz and His Son Abarwiz,

and His Successors / 373

[Qubadh II Shiruyah] / 381

[Ardashir III] / 400

[Shahrbaraz] / 402

Buran / 403

[Jushnas Dih] / 405

[Azarmldukht] / 406

[Kisra HI] / 407

[Khurrazadh Khusraw] / 407

[Fayruz II] / 408

Contents

xi

[Farrukhzadh Khusraw] / 408

[Yazdajird Illj / 409

[The Chronology of the World] / 412

Mention of Those Who Say That (i.e., that there elapsed ten

centuries from Adam to Noah, a further ten from Noah to

Abraham, and a further ten from Abraham to Moses) / 413

Bibliography of Cited Works / 419

Index / 443

Abbreviations

♦

AAE: Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy

AJSLL: American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures

AKAW Berlin: Abhandlungen der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissen-

schaften zu Berlin

AKGW Gottingen: Abhandlungen der K&niglichen Gesellschaft der

Wissenschaften zu Gottingen

AM: Asia Major

AO: Acta Orientalia

AO Hung.: Acta Orientaha Hungaiica

BAR: British Archaeological Reports

BEO: Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales

BGA: Bibhotheca Geographorum Arabicorum

BIFAO: Bulletin de l’lnstitut Frangaise d’Archdologie Orientale

BSOAS: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

BZ: Byzantinische Zeitschrift

CAJ: Central Asiatic Journal

CHI III: The Cambridge History of Iran. III. The Seleucid, Parthian and

Sasanian Periods, ed. E. Yarshater, a parts. Cambridge, 1983.

CHI IV: The Cambridge History of Iran. IV. The Period from the Arab

Invasion to the Saljuqs, ed. R. N. Frye. Cambridge, 1975.

CRAIBL: Comptes Rendus de 1 ’Acaddmie des Inscriptions et Belles-

Lettres

DOP: Dumbarton Oaks Papers

El 1 : Encyclopaedia of Islam, first edition

El 2 : Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition

Elr: Encyclopaedia Iranica

GAS: Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 9 vols.

Leiden, 1975- .

XIV

Abbreviations

GMS: Gibb Memorial Series

HdO: Handbuch der Orientalistik

1A: Iranica Antiqua

IC: Islamic Culture

Iran fBIPS: Iran, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

IIJ: Indo-Iranian Journal

IJMES: International Journal of Middle East Studies

IS: Iranian Studies

Isl.: Der Islam

JA: Journal Asiatique

JAOS: Journal of the American Oriental Society

JESHO: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

JIS: Journal of Islamic Studies

JRAS: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

JSAI: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam

JSS: Journal of Semitic Studies

MO: Le Monde Oriental

MUSJ: Melanges de l’UniversitA Saint-Joseph

NC: The Numismatic Chronicle

OC: Oriens Christianus

OS: Orientalia Suecana

PSAS: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies

PW: Paulys Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft,

ed. G. Wissowa et alii, 34 vols. + 15 vols. Supplement. Stuttgart,

1893-Munich, 1972. Der Kleine Pauly, 5 vols. Stuttgart, 1964-

Munich, 1975.

RHR: Revue de l'Histoire des Religions

RMMM: Revue du Monde Musulman et la Mdditerranie

RSO: Rivista degli Studi Orientali

SbWAW: Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften

SI: Studia Islamica

Stir: Studia Iranica

TAVO: Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients

WbKAS: Worterbuch des klassischen arabischen Sprache

WO: Die Welt des Orients

WZKM: Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes

ZA: Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie

ZDMG: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft

In citations from the Qur’an, where two different numbers are

given for a verse, the first is that of Fliigel's text and the second one

that of the official Egyptian edition.

Translator's Foreword

9

I

The section of al-Tabari's History on the four centuries preceding

the rise of the Prophet Muhammad continues the nonannalistic

treatment of the pre-Islamic period as a whole, but it departs from

the previous retailing of stories about the Children of Israel, the

earlier prophets and the ancient peoples of the Near East and Arabia,

which formed the first tier of Islamic salvation history, that of

a pristine monotheism which had become clouded over by idolatry

and a time of ignorance before God had sent His Prophet to

mankind. Instead, although we do not get the year-by-year treatment

of events used for post -Islamic times, we emerge instead

into something that is recognizable as real history: the origins

of the successors to the Parthian Arsacids of Persia, the Sasanids,

and the subsequent four centuries' history of the dynasty; the

Sasanids' sporadic episodes of warfare with the Romans/Byzantines,

and, on the eastern frontiers of the Sasanid empire, occasional

wars with the peoples of Inner Asia, the Turan of Firdawsi's

version of the Persian national epic, the Shah-namah; the Sasanids'

attempts to maintain a buffer-state on the desert fringes of

Mesopotamia in the shape of the Arab Lakhmid princes who, it

was hoped, would protect Mesopotamia from depredations by the

Bedouins of inner Arabia,- the Sasanids' installing of military bases

on the western shores of the Persian Gulf in order to turn the gulf

into a Persian lake, safe for their commerce; from the fifth century

onwards, an interventionist policy across central Arabia, culminating

XVI

Translator's Foreword

in the Persian occupation of Yemen in 570 for some sixty

years; but then, at the end, the sudden disintegration of the empire

at the hands of first the Byzantines and then the Muslim Arabs.

This section of al-Tabari's work is thus by no means exclusively

concerned with the affairs of the Persian imperial heartland

proper, the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia, where the capital

Seleucia-Ctesiphon lay, but is to a considerable extent concerned

with its western and southwestern fringes; that is, the Roman/

Byzantine provinces of eastern Anatolia and the Semitic Near

East, including such ruling Arab families as the Lakhmids of al-

Hlrah and the chiefs of Kindah of the family of Hujr Akil al-Murar

in central Arabia. Much of the material in al-Tabari on the Sasanids'

external relations can be corroborated or amplified from outside

contemporary or near-contemporary sources. For the warfare

with the Romans/Byzantines, there is a rich array of Byzantine

chroniclers, some of them, like Procopius, closely connected with

the military commanders concerned or, like Agathias, with a special

 channel of communication for knowledge of Persian affairs.

For the Arabian peninsula, there is a fair amount of Arabic information, admittedly post-Islamic in the form we know it, about the

Lakhmid kings and the chiefs of Kindah, arising out of the Arabs'

passion for genealogical information and its historical background

and out of the need to elucidate the background of poetic activity

at the court of al-HIrah or in the person of a poet-chief like Imru’

al-Qays. In his translation, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur

Zeit der Sasaniden (see on this, below), Noldeke omitted some

sections of al-Tabari's material on pre-Islamic Yemen, since he

considered it as "zu fabelhafte" (88o 17 -88a 4 , but with 88i 19 -88a 4

inserted out of order in his translation at 147-48; 890 4 -892 14 ;

901 1 -9 17 17 ). He also omitted as irrelevant to his general topic

966 15 -98 i 2 , on the miraculous birth and early upbringing of the

Prophet Muhammad, and the closing section in this Prima series,

vol. 2, io69 17 -io 72 20 , on the chronology of the world from Adam

to the Prophet's birth. With regard to the South Arabian material,

during the 1870s, with little more secondary material available

on the history of the pre-Islamic Arabs than A. P. Caussin de

Perceval's attempt at making historical bricks without straw,

his Essai sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme, pendant

l’epoque de Mahomet et jusqu’a la reduction de toutes les tribus

Translator's Foreword

xvii

sous la loi musulmane (Paris 1847-48), this must have seemed

substantially the case. Only from the early 1870s, through the

pioneer efforts of scholarly travelers like Halevy in copying inscriptions

 on the spot, with his subsequent decipherment of the

script and then further elucidation of the material by D. H. Muller

and others, did knowledge begin to emerge of the rich but patchy

heritage of South Arabian inscriptions (and also, around this time,

of inscriptions in other languages of the peninsula like Thamudic,

Lihyanitic, Safaitic, etc.). Noldeke was of course aware of the pioneer

discoveries and publications here, but the material was still

meager in quantity and philologically difficult to evaluate. During

the course of the present century, the study of Epigraphic South

Arabian has emerged as a fully grown branch of Semitic studies,

and we now have confirmation — if at times in an allusive rather

than direct manner — of several apparently "fabelhafte" events in

al-Tabari's presentation of South Arabian history. Nor should one

forget the significant quantity of material in Syriac and other languages

 of the Christian Orient that has now come to light and has

illuminated the formation of an indigenous Christian church in

Southwestern Arabia and such episodes as the struggle for political

power and influence there involving such outside powers as

Abyssinia, Byzantium, and Persia. Even the history of the lands

beyond Persia's northeastern frontier has had a certain amount of

fresh illumination thrown upon it by recent work on the Western

Turk empire and on the Kushans, Kidarites, and Hephthalites,

utilizing the results of such disciplines as archaeology, numismatics,

and epigraphy,- and the emergence in the last decade of material

 from a family archive in what is now northern Afghanistan

will almost certainly increase our knowledge of the history and

language of Bactria, the later Islamic Tukharistan, in its prIslamic phase.

We have been talking about the peripheries of Persia, but there

remains central to this section of al-Tabari's History the Persian

and Mesopotamian core of the Sasanid empire. The populations

and resources of these territories, the firm social structure, the

cohesive power within society of the Zoroastrian state church and

its ethos, the richness of the irrigated lands of the Sawad of Iraq and

the oases of the Iranian plateau, all these provided the motive

power for Sasanid expansionism and military success. For nearly

xviii

Translator's Foreword

four centuries there was a perceptible trend of Sasanid military

success over the Romans/Byzantines: in the great battleground of

Upper Mesopotamia, the Persian captured Nisibis in 363 and held

it continuously thereafter as a bastion of Persian power threatening

the Greeks, with the supreme success of final breakthrough in

614. Recently, fames Howard-Johnston has perceptively weighed

up the comparative positions and roles of the two great empires of

the Near and Middle East, concluding that it was above all the

Persians' possession of Mesopotamia, with its populousness, its

advanced, irrigated agriculture and its position at the head of the

Persian Gulf with trade routes stretching thither from the East —

all these advantages complementing the results of a similar exploitation

of the oasis economies of the Iranian plateau — which gradu-

ally gave the Sasanids the edge over Byzantium, enabling inter alia

the emperors to use the threat of renewed military action to impose

humiliating, tribute-paying conditions on the Greeks. 1

Unfortunately, our knowledge of whole stretches of Sasanid

internal history and of the mechanisms driving the empire remains

very imperfect. Such basic topics as the nature of the social

structure and the rdles of the aristocracy, gentry, priesthood, and

merchants, and the nature of the landholding and financial system

on which the state apparatus rested, continue to excite discussion

and controversy among scholars. Sources of information like that

from the rich corpus of Sasanid royal and priestly inscriptions and

reliefs, the testimony of coins and sealings, the material concerning

subordinate faiths of the empire such as that from the conciliar

acts of the Nestorian Church and from the Babylonian Talmud,

have all been carefully sifted, but cannot compensate for the

almost total absence of contemporary records and literature in

Middle Persian; and the exact dating and provenance of such exiguous

material as we do have, like the Letter of Tansar (see on

this p. 17 n. 66, below) continue to be debated. Hence the continued,

central importance of al-Tabari's historical information

on Sasanid history, supplemented by equally valuable if scantier

information in writers like Ibn Qutaybah, al-Ya'qubi, al-Dinawari,

al-Mas'udl, and Hamzah al-Isfahanl.

1. Howard-Johnston, "The Two Great Powers in Late Antiquity: A Com-

parison," 180-97.

Translator's Foreword

xix

It is undeniably true, as Howard-Johnston has again observed,

that the version of Sasanid history that reached al-Jabari from one

or other versions of the Khwaday-namag or Book of Kings, probably

from that translated into Arabic by the late Umayyad writer

Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, almost certainly involved much distortion, suppression,

and invention. 2 The penchant for entertaining anecdotes,

memorable sayings, curiosa, moralizing tales, and the like,

which seem to go back to the Book of Kings ' s Pahlavi original, was

characteristic also of early Arabic udaba ’ or litterateurs. In his

endeavor to produce a plausible, straightforward historical narrative,

al-Tabari must have tried valiantly to cut his way through a

mass of entertaining but historically irrelevant information presented

to him in these royal annals, but he could not entirely

break free of the adab tradition (cf. his inclusion of the totally

unhistorical story of Shabur H's wandering disguised in the Roman

camp and capture, p. 60 below, and the tale of Kawad I's

escape from imprisonment at the end of the interregnum of Jamasp's

rule, p. 135 below). Al-Tabari's efforts at pruning less relevant

material can be seen in the shortened Persian translation

produced by Abu *Ali Bal'ami (see on this, below), in which the

Samanid vizier put back in his narrative certain items from the

Sasanid historical tradition where he thought al-Tabari had pruned it overzealously. The fact that anecdotal material of the examples

given above remained in al-Tabari's History detracts only a

little from confidence in his search for sober history.

There is nevertheless a certain unevenness of treatment, perhaps

 inevitable considering the material within al-Tabari's hands.

Sometimes confirmation or amplification of incidents in al-

Tabari's narrative can be found in, for example, the Greek, Syriac,

or Armenian sources, but when the internal history of the Sasanid

empire did not impinge upon or affect the Christians of Persia,

there was little reason for Eastern Christian sources to notice

events there. Hence we are left with many blank or little-known

periods in Sasanid history, such as the reigns of Bahram n in the

later third century (covering seventeen years), of Bahram IV at the

end of the fourth century (eleven years) and of Yazdagird n in the

2. Ibid., 170-72.

XX

Translator's Foreword

mid fifth century (almost two decades), skated over by al-Tabari

(see pp. 4 6, 69, 106-109 below). For a crucial subject like Khusraw

Anusharwan's financial, tenurial, and military reforms, vital for

our understanding of the internal dynamics of the later Sasanid

empire, we are still largely dependent on al-Tabari's account; it is

detailed and informative, but capable of varying interpretation,

and hence has not surprisingly attracted a substantial body of

comment and interpretation (see p. 2,58 n. 624, below). The same

applies to the slightly earlier episode of Mazdak and his religiosocial

 movement in the reign of Kawad I and the earlier part of

Anusharwan's reign, which has given rise to widely varying inter-

pretations, often not unconnected with the political and social

views of the scholars concerned (see p. 132 n. 342, below).

We must be grateful to al-Tabari for preserving as much as he

did of hard historical material, among the less valuable episodes of

his History that were meant more for entertainment than instruction.

Writing a history of the Sasanids without the Arabic chronicles,

 even though these last date from two or three centuries after

the empire's demise, would be a daunting task.

II

The achievement of Theodor Noldeke (1836-1930) in producing

in 1878 his Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der

Sasaniden and its stupendous commentary, was uniformly

praised on its publication (save for one petulant French reviewer,

although one recalls that this was only seven years after the

French loss of Alsace-Lorraine to the German empire and that

Noldeke was at that moment sitting in Alsace in a professorial

chair at Strassburg/Strasbourg University). In his extended review

article of the work, Alfred von Gutschmid stated that Noldeke's

utilization of al-Tabari had made it possible for the first time to

write a real history of the Sasanids. 3 Succeeding generations of

scholars — and not only orientalists but those from other

disciplines like Byzantine studies — have continued to use

Noldeke's work and will doubtless continue to do so, when so

3. See F.-C. Muth, Die Annalen von af-Jabari im Spiegel der enropaischen

Bearbeitungen, 57 and nn. 323-37.

Translator's Foreword

xxi

much of the material he brought to bear on the elucidation and

amplification of the Arabic text, that from the Greek, Latin, Syriac,

Hebrew, Georgian, and Armenian sources (the latter via his

Berlin colleague von Gutschmid), remains still valid. Noldeke

himself regarded his translation as perhaps his chef d' oeuvre*

Nevertheless, a plethora of new information has emerged in the

intervening 120 years, and this needs to be integrated with any

new translation of the Arabic text. Today we live in an age of

many specialists but not of polymaths like Noldeke. How can any

single person nowadays — not least the present 'abd liaqir —

attempt to gather up and integrate all this new information? Thus

as noted above, since Noldeke's time, a whole new field within

Semitic studies, that of Epigraphic South Arabian and South Arabian

history, has emerged and matured. The obvious answer to the

problem would be a team of experts collaborating on the project of

a translation plus a commentary that would almost certainly exceed

by many times the length of the translation itself. Such proj-

ects are easy to conceive but hard to finance and even harder to

realize. The final volume of the History of al-Tabari project cannot

wait a further twenty years or so, which is what such a team of

experts in different fields might well require (though Noldeke

finished his translation in one year!); and their finished product

would almost inevitably be outdated in many respects before the

end of the period of time involved. Hence the present work is

offered now for readers' consideration as one which had to be

completed within a period of two years only. The present translator

 and commentator is conscious of whole areas of new scholarship

which should, in ideal conditions, be brought into consideration

 for the commentary; for instance, much exciting and

relevant work is coming out of the Workshops on Late Antiquity

and Early Islam, and this has been only partially tapped. But a halt

must be called at some point, and I have reluctantly arrived at this;

whether the achievement is worthwhile, the reader must judge for

himself.

4. His view hete was expressed in a letter to Goldziher, cited by F. Rosenthal,

The History of al-Tabari, an Annotated Translation. I. General Introduction and

From the Creation to the Flood, 144 n. 469.

xxii

Translator's Foreword

The generations of Arabists who have used Noldeke's Geschichte

cannot have failed to be impressed by the degree of accuracy

which he achieved in his translation. 5 Where, as with so

much of pre-Islamic poetry, replete as it is with recondite allusions,

 often totally unrecoverable today, doubt and uncertainty

remained, he noted this. Since he actually published the translation

 a year before the appearance of the edited text (volume i of

the Prima Series) on which it was based, a more complete understanding

of the text led him on occasion to revise his translation

(see, e.g., p. 65 n. 177 below). But such occasions were few and far

between. What has happened since Noldeke's time is that several

Arabic texts that he had to use in manuscript, such as Ibn Qutaybah's '

Uyun al-akhbar, al-Ya'qubi's Ta’rlkh, al-Dinawarf's al-

Akhbar al-tiwal, and various poetical dlwans, have now been critically

edited, and wherever possible, I have taken advantage of

improved readings in these editions.

When the project for an edition of the History was first mooted

in the early 1870s under the stimulus of the Leiden Arabist M. J.

de Goeje, 6 * * Noldeke undertook to edit the section on the Sasanids

( Prima series , 813-1067) and, after the unexpected death of Otto

Loth, the ensuing section 1067-1572; that is, up to almost the end

of the events of a.h. 6 . Basically, Noldeke had at his disposal for

the section on the Sasanids the three manuscripts (1) L «* Leiden

497, covering the whole period except for a lacuna at 878 12 - 899 17 ;

(2) C = Constantinople/Istanbul, Kopriilu 1040; and (3) T and t =

Tubingen Ma. VI, 2 (Wetzstein Collection), with two parts, the

second copied later than the first. Other manuscripts in part supplemented

 these, including P = Paris, Bibliothfcque Nationale, an-

cien fonds 627 (a manuscript cognate with L), from 899 12 (i.e.,

soon after the beginning of the reign of Khusraw I Anusharwan);

and BM = British Library, Add. 23,263, from 91 5 9 (i.e., in the section

on the Tubba' king of Yemen As'ad Abu Karib). Noldeke also

mentioned that he had found useful Ibn Hisham's version of Ibn

5. Cf. Irfan Shahid, "Theodor Noldeke's 'Geschichte der Perser und Araber,' an

Evaluation," 1 19-21.

6. See on the project and its genesis, Introductio, pp. xxn-xxxv; J. W. Fuck, Die

arabischen Studien in Euiopa bis in den Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, 212-14;

Muth, DieAnnalen von at-Tabari, 8-13; Rosenthal, The History of al-Tabari, an

Annotated Translation, I, 141-42.

Translator's Foreword

xxiii

Ishaq's Shat al-nabi (available in the printed edition of 1858-60

by F. Wustenfeld); the anonymous history contained in the manuscript

Sprenger 30 (in the collection acquired in 1858 from

Sprenger by the Prussian State Library in Berlin, and still unpublished;

it corresponds to one of the two main versions used by

al-Tabari for the history of the Sasanids; see on the work the

dissertation of J. G. Rothstein, De chronographo aiabo anonymo,

qui codice Berolinensi Sprengriano tricesimo continetur)-, and the

Gotha manuscript 24-25 of BaT ami's abbreviated, and in places

slightly amplified, Persian translation of al-Tabari's History (H.

Zotenberg's French translation was not published until 1867-

74). 7 The Cairo 1960-69 text of al-Tabari's History by the veteran

Egyptian editor Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim, which incorporates

some readings from Istanbul Topkapi Saray manuscripts and

certain other ones, has been compared by the present translator

with the Leiden text; the additional information gleaned has,

however, proved negligible.

The rendering of Arabic names and terms follows the usual

system of The History of al-Tabari. In regard to Epigraphic South

Arabian, I have endeavored to follow the generally acknowledged

system as exemplified in A. F. L. Beeston's Sabaic Grammar. It is

the rendering of pre-Islamic Iranian names and terms that causes

difficulties, and no watertight system seems possible here. At the

suggestion of Mr F. C. de Blois, for the spelling of Middle Persian

words and names I have endeavored to follow the principles laid

down by D. N. MacKenzie in his A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary

(cf. his exposition of the ambiguities and difficulties involved in

handling the Pahlavi script, Introduction, pp. x-xv) and now generally

accepted by specialists; namely, a strict distinction between

transliteration of the consonantal script and transcription of the

reconstructed Sasanid pronunciation. For example, the name of

the first Sasanid ruler is transliterated ’rth$tr but transcribed as

ArdaxSir. His father's name is transliterated p'pky but transcribed

as Pabag. ArdaxSIr's son's name is spelled etymologically as Shpwhly

 (for §ah + puhr), and the contemporary Sasanid pronuncia-

tion was Sabuhr, as we know from the Manichaean Middle

7 . See Intioductio, pp. l-uj, and for Bal'ami's translation specifically, Muth, Die

Annalen von af-Tabari, 20-27.

XXIV

Translator's Foreword

Persian spelling S’bwhi; although in the commentary to al-Tabari's

History I have used the later Middle Persian (and early New Persian)

form for this last name of Shabur, as being closer to the

Arabic version of the name. A further slight anomaly is that I have

used the later form Ardashir rather than the strictly correct, earlier

form Ardakhshlr, as again reflecting early New Persian usage

and as being also the familiar Arabic equivalent.

Such institutions as the John Rylands University Library, Manchester,-

the Widener Library, Harvard University; and the Oriental

Institute Library, Oxford, have aided completion of the work.

Several colleagues have been helpful in making books available to

me, providing xeroxes of articles difficult of access to me, sending

offprints of their own articles, and giving information and guid-

ance on various obscure or contested points. Thus I am grateful to

Mr. Mohsen Ashtiany (Columbia University); Dr. S. P. Brock (Oxford University); Dr. Paul M. Cobb (Wake Forest University,

N.C.); the Rev. Professor J. A. Emerton (Cambridge University);

Dr. G. Greatrex (University of Wales, Cardiff); Dr. R. G. Hoyland

(Oxford University); Dr. Ph. Huyse (Paris); Mr. M. C. A Macdonald

(Oxford); Prof. D. N. MacKenzie (Anglesey); Dr. M. I. Mochiri

(Paris); Professor Chr. Robin (CNRS, Aix-en-Provence); Professor

N. Sims-Williams (SOAS, London); Professor G. Rex Smith (Manchester University); and Professor Edward Ullendorff (Oxford). My

colleague in Manchester, Professor W. C. Brice, has drawn the

maps in an expert fashion. In particular, Mr. F. C. de Blois (Royal

Asiatic Society, London), with his special expertise in such fields

as Iranian, South Arabian, and Syriac studies, has been kind

enough to read through a draft of the commentary and to make a

considerable number of corrections and valuable suggestions for

improvement; some of these are explicitly acknowledged in the

commentary, but there are many other, unacknowledged places

where he has saved me from error or has enriched the documentation.

Hence I am deeply grateful to him. But at the end, the usual

confession must be made: responsibility for the final product remains

my own.

C. Edmund Bosworth

Table i. The Sasanid Emperors

{ the dates of some of the early rulers are tentative)

Ardashlr I, son of Pabag

(224 or 226-242)

Shabur I, Sabur al-Junud

(coruler 240, sole rule 242-70)

, l

I I l

Hormizd Ardashlr Bahram I Narseh

(270-71) (a 7 i- 74 ) (191-301)

I I

Bahram II Hormizd n

(174-91) (301-309)

I

Bahram in

(191)

Ardashlr n Shabur II,

(379-83) Dhu al-Aktaf

( 309 - 79 )

Shabur in

( 383 - 88 )

Bahram IV

(388-99)

I

Yazdagird I

(399-410)

I

Bahram V Gur

(420-38)

Yazdagird n

( 438 - 57 )

Hormizd III Peroz I Walash

(457-59) (459-84) (484-88)

Kawad I Jamasp

488-96, 498 or 499-531) (496-498 or 499)

Khusraw I Anusharwan

(531-79!

Hormizd IV

(579-90)

Khusraw II Abarwez

(591-628)

Shahriyar Kawad II Sheroy Buran(dukht) Azarmigdukht

(628) (630-31) (631-32)

I

Ardashir III Khusraw EH Khurrah-zadh

(628-29) (between 630 and 632)

Hormizd V

(between 630 and 632)

Yazdagird III

(632-51)

Bahram VI Choben,

son of Bahram Gushnasp

(590-91)

Peroz (II)

(died in China after 661)

Table 2. The Roman and Byzantine Emperors, from

Constantine the Great to Heraclius

Constantine I , , , , ,

_ . _ 3 3 4 37

Constantius II 337-61

Julian 35i _ 63

Jovian 363 _ 64

Valens 364-78

Theodosius I 379-95

Arcadius 395-408

Theodosius II 408-50

AA&rcidu 450 ?7

Leo I 4S7 _ 74

Leon

_ t- 474

Zeno, first reign 474-75

Basiliscus 475-76

Zeno, second reign 476-91

Anastasius I 491-518

Justin I 518-27

Justinian I 527-65

Justin H 565-78

Tiberius n Constantine 578-82

Maurice 582-602

Phocas 602-10

Heraclius 610-41

Table 3. The Lakhmid Rulers

[many dates are tentative )

Imru’ al-Qays I al-Bad’, "King of all the Arabs"

(d. 328)

'Amr I

Imru’ al-Qays II

(ruled for 25 years, died in the early fifth century)

al-Nu'man I

(ca. 400-ca. 418)

al-Mundhir I

(ca. 418-ca. 462)

al-Mundhir II

(482-89)

al-Nu’man n

( 499 - 503 )

al-Mundhir HI m

'Amr II (b. Hind)

( 554 - 69 )

al-Nu'man ID

(580-602)

. Hind, daughter of al-Harith (Arethas) of Ghassan

(ca. 504-54)

T ]

Qabus al-Mundhir IV

(569 or 570-573 or 574) (ca. 575-80)

al-Aswad

(ca. 462-ca. 482)

al-Mundhir, al-Gharur

(d. 633 or thereafter)

Table 5. Rulers in South Arabia during the Sixth and Early Seventh Centuries

{many dates are tentative )

Marthad-ilan Yanuf, to end of 5 18 or beginning of 5 19

Ma'di Karib Ya'fur, last Tubba' king, began ruling end of 518 or beginning of 519

Yusuf (or Yanuf ?) As’ar Yath’ar, called Dhu Nuwas, 521 or 522, died 525

Abraham, king under Abyssinian suzerainty, killed after 525

Sumu-yafa' A§wa' (Esimiphaios), king under Abyssinian suzerainty 530 or 531

Abrahah, former slave, ruler ca. 533 till after 552 or 553, nominally on behalf of

the king of Abyssinia

Yaksum, son of Abrahah

Masruq, son of Abrahah

Sayf b. Dhi Yazan, local Yemeni noble, rebel against Abyssinian domination

570, placed on the throne by the Persian commander Wahriz

Wahriz, governor on behalf of the king of Persia till ca. 575

Marzuban, his son

Binajan (?), Marzuban's son

Khurrah Khusrah, Binajan's son

Badhan, till ca. 630

Shahr, his son, killed in 632 by the Yemeni local rebel and religious leader al-

Aswad or Dhu al-Khimar

al-Muhajir b. Abi Umayyah al-Makhzumi, first Muslim governor 632

MAKRAN

Seboatem/ . Theodosiepol is/

Sivas Erzerum

Map 2 . The Roman-Byzantine and Persian Frontierlands

ARAL

SEA

Map 3. The Northeastern Frontier of the Sasanids

Selcucia-CfesipHc

Map 4. The Arabian Peninsula: The Lands of the Lakhmids, Kindah, etc.

uoj/pn 1

Map 5. Southwestern Arabia

[The Kings of the Persians]

9

The kings of the Persians and the duration of their rule according [I, 8 1 3]

to the entire course of (their) history, since we have already mentioned

the major events that took place in the time of the Party

Kings ( Muluk al-Jawd’if) 1 among the Persians, the Children of

1. Al-Tabari intends by this term, as he has earlier explained (I, 706), the Parthians or Arsacids, considered as regional powers in comparison with such univer- sal monarchs as the Achaemenid emperors of Persia and Alexander the Great. The Sasanids themselves regarded the "Party Kings," comprising the Arsacids' pre- decessors the Seleucids (in fact, little known in Iranian historical tradition) and the Arsacids themselves, as an interruption in the development through the ages, from legendary times onward, of the legitimate, unified Persian monarchy, even though the Arsacids ruled for the very respectable span of 474 years. But historical mention of the Achaemenids in indigenous Persian sources seems to be exiguous, beyond some knowledge of the last kings, the Diras (Darius m being the only monarch mentioned, e.g., in Zoroastrian sources like the Denkard and the BundahiSn, and in Firdawsi's Shah-namah ) (M. A. Dandamayev and V. G. Lukonin, however, have suggested that, in the Sasanid national consciousness, these two Darius were in any case attached to the Kayanids; see their The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran, 372-73). The problem has exercised modem scholars, who have tended to draw the conclusion that the Sasanids had little or no knowledge of the Achaemenids, hence could not in any significant way have considered themselves as heirs of the Achaemenids. The arguments have been set forth and discussed, with a wealth of pertinent information, by Ehsan Yarshater in his "Were the Sasanians Heirs to the Achaemenids?" 517-39, and his "Iranian National History," 378,- and cf. A. Christensen, Les Kayanides, 35-43. Subsequent Iranian historical scholarship has overwhelmingly endorsed Yarshater's view; see, e.g., G. Gnoli, The Idea of Iran, 136-38; J. Wiesehbfer, Die ‘ dunklen Jahrhunderte’ des Persis, r 9; and idem, Ancient Persia from a so b.c. to 6 so a.d., 1 67-69. Only Touraj Daryaee has recently challenged this consensus, assembling references to the

2 [The Kings of the Persians]

Israel, the Romans ( al-Rum ), and the Arabs, up to the time of

Ardashlr. 2