HENDUŠĀH B. SANJAR

 

HENDUŠĀH B. SANJAR B. ʿABD-ALLAH SAḤEBI KIRANI, the little-known author of a Persian history called the Tajāreb al-salaf (fl. first half of the 8th/14th century). Virtually nothing is known of his life or when he was born and died. Browne (1924, p. 246 n. 1) thought that the nesba Ṣāḥebi meant that he was in the entourage of some leading political figure of the time and that Kirāni might be connected with a Qalʿa-ye Kirān located near Naḵčevān (q.v.) in eastern Transcaucasia; the paternal name Sanjar points to Turkish ancestry.

His fame stems from the Persian version which he made of the well-known Arabic history, the Ketāb al-faḵri, which Ebn Ṭeqṭaqā had written in 701/1302 for the Atabeg of Mosul, Faḵr-al-Din ʿIsā b. Ebrāhim (though Hendušāh claims that the original dedicatee was one Jalāl-al-Din Zangi b. Badr-al-Din Ḥasan of Dāmḡān, 3rd. ed. Eqbāl, p. 3). Hendušāh called his work the Tajāreb al-salaf (Experiences of Former Generations). He informs the reader (text, pp. 1-2) that he began the process of the translation and adaptation of Ebn Ṭeqṭaqā’s work in 723/1323 and presented it to the Hazaraspid Atabeg of Lorestān, Noṣrat-al-Din Aḥmad b. Yusof (r. 696-733/1296-1333; see ATĀBAKĀN-E LORESTĀN).

The Tajāreb al-salaf is by no means a straight translation. Hendušāh omitted the lengthy prefatory section of the Faḵri entitled “Concerning the affairs of ruling and monarchical government” (ed. Derenbourg, Paris, 1895, pp. 20-100; ed. Cairo 1317/1899, pp. 14-65; tr. Whitting, pp. 14-68). Whereas Ebn Ṭeqṭaqā began his dynasty-by-dynasty history with the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, Hendušāh inserted before this a brief account of the Prophet Moḥammad’s life based on Balʿami’s Persian translation of Ṭabari’s Taʾriḵ (text, pp. 4-10). When he got to the post-ʿAbbasid provincial dynasties, such as the Fatimids, Buyids, and Saljuqs, Hendušāh provided a more comprehensive treatment than Ebn Ṭeqṭaqā had done, such that the correspondence in subject-matter between the two works begins to widen from this point onwards. Hendušāh also mentions the supplementary sources which he had consulted, including the histories of Ebn Qotayba, Abu Esḥāq Ebrāhim Ṣābeʾ, Balʿami (tr. of Ṭabari), Yāqut, ʿAwfi, etc. (see Browne, op. cit., p. 251). He also inserts some additional Arabic verse. The correspondence of the Persian with the original Arabic is nevertheless close enough for the Persian to be of help at times in elucidating difficult passages in the original work. Finally, Browne noted (op. cit., p. 254) that the Persian version tends to soften the blunter expressions of the Arabic, such as with regard to Moʿāwiya’s adoption (estelḥāq) of his bastard half-brother Ziād b. Abihe (text, pp. 60-62).

 

Bibliography:

Hendušāh b. Sanjar, Tajāreb al-salaf dar tawāriḵ-e ḵolafāʾ wa wozarā-ye išān, ed. ʿAbbās Eqbāl, Tehran, 1934; repr. 1966, 1978 with indices by Tawfiq Sobḥāni.

E. G. Browne, “The Tajaribu’s-Salaf, a Persian version of the Arabic Kitabu’l-Fakhri composed by Hindushah ibn Sanjar as-Sahibi al-Kirani in 723/1323,” JRAS Centenary Supplement, Oct. 1924, pp. 245-54.

Ebn Ṭeqṭaqā, Ketāb al-faḵri, ed. H. Derenbourg, Paris, 1895; tr. C. E. J. Whitting, London, 1947.

Storey, I, pp. 80-81, 1233. Storey-Bregel, I, pp. 326-27.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Originally Published: December 15, 2003

Last Updated: March 22, 2012

This article is available in print.
Vol. XII, Fasc. 2, pp. 181-182