Fars-Nama

This article is about the 12th-century work. For that of the 19th century, see Fars-Nama-ye Naseri.
Fars-Nama
Author"Ibn al-Balkhi"
Original titleفارسنامه
LanguagePersian
Subjecthistory and geography of Fars
Publication placeSeljuk Empire

Fārsnāma (Persian: فارسنامه, "The Book of Fars") is a local Persian-language history and geography of Fars province, Persia, written between 1105 and 1116 during the Seljuk period. It is attributed to the otherwise unknown Ibn al-Balkhi (ابن البلخی), a native of Fars who flourished in the 12th century. His ancestors were from Balkh in Khorasan, as his nisba suggests. The work was commissioned by Seljuk ruler Muhammad I Tapar (r. 1105–1118).[1][2]

Roughly speaking, the first two-thirds of the book consists of information about the pre-Islamic Iranian rulers of Fars, as well as the Arab conquest of the province. The final third of the work consists of information on the province's geography.[1]

The critical edition published by Reynold A. Nicholson and Guy Le Strange in 1921 is the standard edition of the Farsnama up to this day.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Hanaoka, Mimi (2023). "Ibn al-Balkhī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
  2. ^ Bosworth, C. Edmund (15 December 1997). "EBN AL-BALḴĪ". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 12 February 2012.