Būstān al-jāmiʿ

Būstān al-jāmiʿ li-jamīʿ tawārīkh al-zamān, in English General Garden of all the Histories of the Ages,[1] is an anonymous Arabic chronicle from Ayyubid Syria.[2]

The Būstān was written, probably in Aleppo, in the years 1196–1197 (592–59З of the Islamic calendar). It may have been completed in Egypt. It survives in two manuscripts: one of the 14th-century, now Istanbul, Saray 2959, and the other Oxford, Huntington 172. In the Istanbul manuscript, the text is corrupted but the handwriting is neat. The scribe attributes it to a qāḍī named ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, but if this is not a mistake it must be a different person from ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, author of al-Barq al-Shāmī, whose information on the reign of Saladin is less extensive than that found in the Būstān and sometimes contradicts it. The scribe added a continuation to the Būstān, which, drawing on the works of Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Wāṣil, brings the account down to the time of Baybars.[2]

The Būstān is a "bare and summary history of Islam".[1] It focuses on Aleppo and Egypt, but contains information not found in any earlier source.[1] It is frequently an original source, especially as regards Egypt. It does share a lost source with Ibn Abī Ṭayyiʾ and cites al-ʿAẓīmī. The later works of Ibn Abī al-Dam and Ibn Wāṣil rely either on the Būstān or on one of its lost sources.[2] One of these may have been a Shia source.[1] Ibn Khallikān, Ibn Muyassar and al-Jazarī all make use of the Būstān as a source.[2] It is a valuable source for the early Crusades.[1]

References
  1. Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187 (Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 480–481 and passim.
  2. Claude Cahen, "Une chronique syrienne du VIe/VIIe siècle: Le Bustān al-Jāmiʿ", Bulletin d'études orientales 7/8 (1937/1938), 113–158. JSTOR 41603412
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