Mírkhwánd's voluminous general history, the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá , is perhaps the best-known work of this sort in Persia,

Mírkhwánd and has attracted a quite undue amount of attention. It has been published in litho­graphed editions at Bombay (1271/1854-5) and Ṭihrán (1270-4/1854-8), while a Turkish translation was printed at Constantinople in 1258/1842. A number of separate portions, dealing with particular dynasties, have been printed, with or without translations, in Europe; and of an English translation of the earlier portion by Mr Rehatsek three or four volumes were published under the auspices of the Royal Asiatic Society. These, it must be admitted with regret, are of no great value, for, apart from the fact that any student desirous of acquainting himself with the ideas of the Muslims as to the prophets, patriarchs and kings of olden time would prefer to seek his information from earlier and more trustworthy sources, the translation itself is both inaccurate and singularly uncouth, nor is it to be desired that English readers should form their ideas even of the verbose and florid style of Mírkhwánd from a rendering which is needlessly grotesque. The esteem in which this history is still held in Persia, however, is suffi­ciently shown by the fact that one of the greatest Persian Riḍá-qulí Khán's Supple­ment to the Rawḍatu'ṣ­Ṣafá writers of modern times, Riḍá-qulí Khán Lálá-báshí , poetically surnamed Hidáyat, thought it worth while to add a Supplement bringing the narrative down to his own time, a few years after the middle of the nineteenth century. This Supple­ment is a valuable source of information for the history of modern Persia, including the rise of the Bábí religion and the civil wars and persecutions connected therewith, but its consideration naturally belongs to a later period.

Of Mírkhwánd's life not much is recorded, even by his admiring grandson Khwándamír, the author of the Ḥabíbu's-

Biography of Mírkhwánd Siyar. His father Sayyid Burhánu'd-Dín, a native of Bukhárá, migrated to Balkh, where he died. Mírkhwánd spent most of his life at Herát under the protection and patronage of that Maecenas of the age Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í, and died there, after a long illness, on the 2nd of Dhu'l-Qa'da, 903 (June 22, 1498) at Contents of the Rawḍatu'ṣ­Ṣafá the age of sixty-six. * Of the seven books into which the historical part of the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá is divided, the first contains the history of the patriarchs, prophets, and pre-Muhammadan kings of Persia; the second, that of the Prophet Muḥammad and the Four Orthodox Caliphs; the third, that of the Twelve Imáms and the Umayyad and 'Abbásid Caliphs; the fourth, that of the post-Muhammadan dynasties of Persia down to the irruption of Tímúr; the fifth, that of the Mongols and Tartars down to Tímúr; the sixth, that of Tímúr and his successors to 873/1468-9; while the seventh, which has been continued by another hand (probably the author's grandson Khwándamír) to a period several years later than Mírkh-wánd's death, is wholly devoted to the life and reign of his patron Abu'l-Ghází Sulṭán Ḥusayn, who died in 912/1506-7. The two last books (vi and vii), which deal with the author's own time, are naturally of much greater worth and authority than the earlier portions, and it is a pity that the attention of students of this history has not been more concentrated on them. The style employed by Mírkhwánd is much more florid and bombastic than that of the preceding historians mentioned in this chapter, and in this respect is typical of much that was written about this time. This style, im­ported into India by Bábur, continued to flourish at the court of the “Great Moguls” and gave rise to the prevalent idea that this floridity and bombast are essentially Persian, which is far from the truth, for both in earlier and later times many notable works were written with a simplicity and sobriety which leave little to be desired. It was under Tartar, Turkish, Indian, and other non-Íránian patronage that this inflated rhetoric especially flourished, and the Ottoman Turks in particular developed it to a very high degree. Sir Charles Eliot in his Turkey in Europe (new edition, 1908, p. 106) has described it in words so admirable that I cannot refrain from quoting them here:

“The combination of dignity and fatuity which this style affords is unrivalled. There is something contagious in its ineffable compla- Sir Charles Eliot on the natural inclination of the Turks to the grand style cency, unruffled by the most palpable facts. Everything is sublime, everybody magnanimous and prosperous. We move among the cardinal virtues and their appro­priate rewards (may God increase them!), and, secure in the shadow of the ever-victorious Caliph, are only dimly conscious of the existence of tributary European powers and ungrateful Christian subjects. Can any Western poet transport his readers into a more enchanted land?”

(6) Khwándamír.

One is much tempted to include amongst the historians of this epoch Mírkhwánd's grandson Khwándamír, on the Khwándamír threefold ground that he also was one of the many writers and artists who owed his success in large measure to the enlightened patronage of Mír 'Alí Shír Nawá'í; that he belonged not merely to the same circle as Mírkhwánd, but was his disciple as well as his grandson; and lastly, that his first work, the Khuláṣatu'l-Akhbár , or “Quintessence of Histories,” was not only in essence an abridgement of the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, but was actually written in 905/1499-1500, two years before the end of the period with which this chapter deals. His greater work, however, the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar, so often cited in this and the preceding chapter, was not written until 929/1523, and he lived until 941/1534-5, so that he really belongs more properly to the next period, and may be more appropriately considered in connection with the founder of the Ṣafawí dynasty, Sháh Isma'íl, with a long account of whose reign the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar concludes.