Ebook: Al-Maqrīzī's "al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar". Vol. V, Section 4: Persia and Its Kings, Part I

The aim of Bibliotheca Maqriziana is to publish critical editions of al-Maqrīzī's works based on the author’s holographs, whenever these are preserved. The critical editions are accompanied by annotated translations and introductions. The series is divided into two categories: the first, 'Opera minora' (three volumes have been published thus far), includes al-Maqrīzī’s minor works; and the second, 'Opera maiora', is devoted to his major, often multivolume, works.

The present volume is the first of the 'Opera maiora'. It contains one section of one of al-Maqrīzī’s major works and, more importantly, one of the least known: 'al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar' ('The History of Mankind'). Al-Maqrīzī divided it into six volumes and several sections. This original division will be respected. Each section will be edited and translated by a specialist on the subject; the title page of each volume will indicate the volume and section number according to al-Maqrīzī’s divisions. For reasons of space, some sections have been divided into several parts, as in the present case: The history of the Persians corresponds to the fourth section of volume 5 of 'al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar' and will be published in two tomes, this one being the first.