AHARĪ

 

AHARĪ, ABŪ BAKR QOṬBĪ (8th/14th cent.), author of Tārīḵ-e Šāh Oways, dedicated to the Jalayerid ruler Oways (757-76/1356-74). As may be deduced from both his work and his nesba, Aharī was from the town of Ahar in Azerbaijan and spent a good part of his life in that region. His work begins with the creation, dividing events into those before and after the advent of Islam. The first section relates the history of the Pishdadids, Kayanids, Arsacids, and Sasanians; the second describes the first four caliphs, the Omayyads, the ʿAbbasids, and the Mongols. Much of the information about the last group up until 703/1304 is taken from Rašīd-al-dīn’s Tārīḵ-e mobārak-e Ḡāzānī; accounts of events up to 717/1317 come from Kāšānī’s Tārīḵ-e Olǰāytū. The chief value of Aharī’s work lies in its first and second hand accounts of events in Azerbaijan related to Shaikh Ḥasan and Shaikh Oways and in information about events in the Dašt-e Qıpčaq, to which other historians did not attribute much importance. Almost nothing is said about the contemporary Muzaffarid and Kart dynasties. 

Bibliography:

J. B. van Loon, ed. and tr., Ta’rikh-i Shaikh Uwais, an Important Source for the History of Adharbaijan in the Fourteenth Century, The Hague, 1954.

R. A. Dozy et al., Catalogus codicum orientalium Bibliothecae Lugduno-Batavae, Leiden, 1851-77, V, p. 228, no. 2634.

Storey, I, pp. 243, 1233.

Ḡ. Ḥ. Ṣadrī Afšār, Tārīḵdar Īrān, Tehran, 1345 Š./ 1966, p. 182.

A. Nabahī, Tārīḵ-eĀl-e Čūbān, Tehran, 1352 Š./1973, pp. 38-39.

(İ. Aka)

Originally Published: December 15, 1984

Last Updated: July 28, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 6, p. 634

Cite this entry:

İ. Aka, “AHARĪ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/6, p. 634; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ahari-abu-bakr-qotbi-8th-14th-cent (accessed on 16 March 2014).