Ansab al-Ashraf

Overview

"Ansab al-Ashraf" (Genealogies of the Nobles) by Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri. ²

Hajji Khalifa describes it as a large and very useful book. Twenty volumes of it were written, and the author did not complete it. ²

Futuh al-Buldan

Al-Baladhuri's (d. c. 279 AH) book of the conquests, described by its author in its opening as a relaying and abridgement of the reports of the learned in hadith, siyar and the conquests of the lands, collated against one another; it opens with a condensed siyar from the halt at Quba' through the Ridda news, then pursues the conquests region by region — Syria, Egypt and the Maghreb to al-Andalus and the islands, the Sawad and the foundations of Kufa, Basra, Wasit and Baghdad, the Jibal and Hamadhan and Isfahan, the killing of Yazdajird, Ray, Qumis, Qazwin, Azerbaijan, Mosul, Shahrazur, Jurjan and Tabaristan, the Tigris districts, Ahwaz, Fars, Kirman, Sijistan, Kabul, Khurasan and Sind — closing with the rulings of kharaj and stipends; the editors note in their introduction that al-Baladhuri narrated several reports around a single event, showing the insight of a critical historian rather than a mere recorder (Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif ed., intro pp. 5–7 and book opening p. 8).

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Futuh al-Buldan