Iran in World History

CHAPTER 4
1. Abolqasem Ferdowsi, 
Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
, tr. Dick Davis 
(New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 833.
2. Ahmed b. Jarir Baladhuri, 
Futuh al-Buldan
, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 
1866), p. 417.
3. Sulayman al-Qunduzi, 
Yanabi al-mawaddah
(Ghom: Mehr Amir al-Mo’emin, 
1384 [2005]), p. 419.
4. Nizam al-Mulk, 
The Book of Government or Rules for Kings
, tr. Hubert Darke 
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 236.
5. Qur’an, 33:21.
6. Montgomery Watt, 
The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali
(London: George Allen 
and Unwin, 1953), p. 56.
7. Iftikhar Ahmed, 
The Wise Sayings of Hasan al-Basri
(Mumbai: Tawhid 
Movement, 2013), p. 45, no. 80.
8. From the anonymous 
Tarikh-e Sistan
, mentioned in C. E. Bosworth, “The Rise 
of the New Persian Language,” in R. N. Frye, ed., 
The Cambridge History of 
Iran,
Volume 4: 
From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs
(Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 1975), p. 595.
9. Quoted in Julie S. Meisami, “History as Literature,” in Ehsan Yarshater and 
Charles Melville, eds., 
Persian Historiography: A History of Persian Literature 
vol. X
, London: I. B. Tauris, 2012, p. 8.
10. Author’s translation.
11. Author’s translation.
CHAPTER 5
1. Abu Rayhan Biruni, 
Alberuni’s India
, ed. and tr. E. C. Sachau (London: Trubner, 
1888), p. 17.

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N o t e s t o pa g e s 61 – 9 2
129
2. An Lushan’s father died when he was young, and he was adopted by his mother’s 
second husband who was of Parthian origin. His original Chinese family name 
was presumably Kang, meaning “Sogdian.”
3. Nizam al-Mulk, 
The Book of Government,
p. 179.
4. Omar Khayyam, 
The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam
, tr. Peter Avery and Jonathan 
Heath-Stubbs (New York: Penguin Classics, 2004), p. 47.
5. Jalal al-din Rumi, 
The Masnavi: Book One
, tr. Jawed Mojaddedi 
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 4.
6. 
Golestan
, chapter 1, story no. 10. US President Barack Obama quoted the first 
two lines in his 
Noruz
address on March 21, 2009.
7. In Persian sources the Timurids are referred to as “Gurgani.”
8. Ibn Arabshah, 
Tamerlane or Timur the Great Amir
, tr. J. H. Saunders 
(London: Luzac, 1936), p. 234.
9. Author’s translation.
10. An Indian corruption of “Mongol”; though the Timurids were Turks, to Indian 
eyes any Central Asian invaders coming over the Hindu Kush mountains on 
horseback were considered “Mongols.”
11. Zahir al-din Muhammad Babur, 
Babur-nama
, tr. W. M. Thackston Jr. 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 623–4.
12. Jahangir, 
The Jahangirnama
, tr. Wheeler M. Thackston Jr. (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 1999), p. 77.
13. This breathtaking manuscript, which was acquired by American industrialist 
Arthur Houghton in 1959 and then dissected so as to sell off the individual 
folios, is referred to by some as the “Houghton Shah-nameh” and by others as the 
“Tahmasp Shah-nameh.”
14. Wheeler M. Thackston Jr., “The Poetry of Shah Isma‘il I,” 
Asian Art
(Fall 
1988), p. 57.