ABSTRACT
Of the writing of history in Persian there is no end. In a general survey of Persian literature it is not possible to attempt more than a glance at the most significant authors-significant, that is, from the literary standpoint-and many otherwise important names must be passed over in silence. Thus it is regrettably necessary to neglect such interesting works as the Fars-nama of Ibn al-Balkhi, the Rahat al-sudur of Ravandi, the Taj al-maathir of Hasan Nizam!, that valuable collection of official correspondence entitled al-Tawassid ila T-tarassul, the Nii&m al-tawarikh of the famous exegete and theologian alBaidawi, and many others duly listed in C. A. Storey’s admirable and exhaustive Persian Literature: a Bio-Bibliographical Survey. The thirteenth century, with its crowded years of falling and rising empires, produced a rich crop of historical writings, and some account will now be given of the most noteworthy of these.
