ABSTRACT
The textual history of the Saljiiq-nama is rather complicated. The version used here is the one which appears in the great compendium of histories, the Jami< al-tawarfkh, which was compiled by the vizier of the Ilkhanid rulers ofIran, Rashid alDin Fac;ll Allah, in the early fourteenth century. This version, in the edition, by Ahmed Ate§, is the one which I believe comes closest to the original, and I have based my translation on it for this reason. Ate§ showed in his Introduction that certain portions, aside from the obvious parts in the preface, were almost certainly added by Rashid aI-DIn or the compiler who worked under him.4 The material in the Saljiiq-nama first appeared as the more historical part of the compendium known as the RaJ:tat al-~udiir, put together and partly written by Mul}.ammad RawandI, the man who gives the information about Zahlr aI-DIn Nlshapuri It was published in an exhaustive edition by Mul;tammad Iqbal in 1921. Iqbal, Edward G. Browne and Mirza Mul;tammad Qazwini all recognized that the historical material in the RaJ:tat al-~udiir was to be found in many later works, such as the Jamie al-tawarfkh, the larfkh-i guzfda of Hamd Allah al-Mustawfi and the Rawrf,at al-$afa of Mlr Khwand. It was also contained in an appendix attached to the Paris MS, Supplement persan 1556, of the larfkh-i JahanGushay of Juwayni Qazwini and Iqbal took the view which was to predominate for some decades, that the RaJ:tat al-sudiir was the oldest version and the source for both the Jahan-Gushay appendix, the Risala-i Juwaynf, and the Saljuq portion of the Jamie al-tawarfkh.
