A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). For 1200 it is the main independent witness beside Ibn al-Athir for Damascus, Iraq and the pilgrimage to the Hijaz, and it was used by Abu Shama and Ibn Wasil. The Hyderabad printing of 1951 (vol. 8, parts 1 and 2) covers 1097 to 1256 and is uncritical.
About this source
- Title
- Mir'at al-zaman fi tarikh al-a'yan
- Author
- Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf)
- Author's dates
- 1186 to 1256
- Written
- about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus
- Language
- Arabic
- Covers
- creation to 1256
- Kind
- Chronicle
The Hyderabad and Jewett printings are not freely online in reliable copies; a 2013 Beirut edition in 23 volumes is in copyright. No translation covers the 1200 annal in full.
Where to read it
Editions
- Mir'at al-zaman fi tarikh al-a'yan, vol. 8 in 2 parts (Hyderabad, 1951 to 1952), Arabic, 1097 to 1256 (not freely online)
- J. R. Jewett (ed.), facsimile of the manuscript for 1101 to 1256 (Chicago, 1907) (not freely online)
Translations
About the source
Realms this source covers in 1200
- Al-Adil's lands: Damascus, Kerak and the south
- Ayyubid Egypt under the boy sultan al-Mansur
- Aleppo (al-Zahir Ghazi)
- The Abbasid caliphate: al-Nasir's Iraq and Khuzistan
- The emirate of Mecca under Mukthir ibn Isa
- The emirate of Medina under Salim ibn Qasim
- The Ayyubid Jazira (al-Adil's, under al-Kamil)
- Irbil (Gokbori)
- Mosul (Nur al-Din Arslan Shah)