Mīr-Khvānd

Mīr-Kh^vānd, Moḥammad ibn Kh^vāndshāh ibn Maḥmūd (written also as Mīr-Khv^wānd, Mirkhond, and other variants; 1433/1434–1498) was a noted Persian-language historian of the fifteenth century. Born in 1433 in Bukhārā, present-day Uzbekistan, the son of a pious man belonging to an old Bukhāran family of sayyids, or direct descendants of Muḥammad, Mīr-Khv^vānd grew up and died in Balkh. From his early youth he applied himself to historical studies and literature in general.^[1]

In Herāt, Afghanistan, where Mīr-Khv^vānd spent the greater part of his life, he gained the favor of that famous patron of letters, Mīr ʿAlī-Shīr Navāʾī (1440–1501), who served his old schoolfellow, the reigning sultan Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (r. 1469–1506), the last Tīmūrid ruler in Persia, first as keeper of the seal, afterwards as governor of Jurjan. At the request of Mīr ʿAlī-Shīr, himself a distinguished statesman and writer, Mīr-Khv^vānd began about 1474, in the quiet convent of Khilashyah, which his patron had founded in Herāt as a house of retreat for literary men of merit, his great work on universal history, the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ (روضة الصفا, ‘garden of purity’). He made little attempt at a critical examination of historical traditions, and wrote in a flowery and often bombastic style, but in spite of this drawback, Mīr-Khv^vānd's Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ remains one of the most marvelous achievements in literature.^[1] It comprises seven large volumes and a geographical appendix; but the seventh volume, the history of the sultan Ḥosayn, together with a short account of some later events down to 1523, cannot have been written by Mīr-Khv^vānd himself, who died in 1498. He may have compiled the preface, but it was his grandson, the historian Kh^vānd-Amīr (1475–1534), who continued the main portion of this volume and to whom also a part of the appendix must be ascribed.

Owing to its popularity, the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ has undergone several editions and translations, including a French translation by Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy in 1793, a Persian edition published in Paris in 1843 (as Histoire des Sassanides par Mirkhond), and an English translation by Edward Rehatsek in four volumes from 1891–1894 (available in full text from Google Books and Internet Archive).

Work online

• Elliot, H. M. (Henry Miers), Sir; John Dowson (1871). "23. Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ,of Mirkhond". The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period (Vol 4.). London : Trübner & Co.. http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924073036745#page/n167/mode/2up. 

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Henry Miers Elliot, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, ed. John Dowson (London: Trübner and Co., 1872), 127-129; OCLC 3425271, available in full text from Google Books.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Persondata
Name	Mir-Khvand
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Short description
Date of birth	1433
Place of birth
Date of death	1498
Place of death