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NOTE III. GREAT STYLISTS , ,
note which he has been g*ood enough tx? send me, proves that'the name
Tamgh&j was applied by early Muhammadan writers to a defiryte and
,real city, identified by him on the strongest evidence witn Khan Baligh f
("Cambaluc") or Pekin, also called jJ&. ("the Middle Capital,")
and jjub ("the Great Capital").
See also F. W. K.
Millar's Uigurica I (Berlin, 1908), p. 13, n. i adcalc.
'
III. Writers adduced as models of style.
(Text, p. 13; Persian notes, pp. 95-101.)
'The Sahib Abu'l-Qasim Isma'il ibn 'Abbad at-Talaqani
died in 385/995-6. Yaqvit, who consecrates a long notice to him in his
Irs/iddu'l-AriJi, or " PictionaYy
.
of Learned Men 1
,'' says
that there are
two places called Talaqan, one in Khurasan, and the other, from which
the Sahib came, between Qaewin and Abhar. Mirza Muhammad,
however-, in a long manuscript note on this passage, proves conclusively
that he was a native of Isfahan.
' Shamsu'l-Ma'ali Qabus ibn Washmgir ibn Ziyar, Prince
of Tabaristan, was put to death by his son Miniichihr and nobles in
403/1012-3. Of him also Yaqiit gives a fairly lengthy notice 2 . He
corresponded with the Sahib above mentioned, and was very celebrated
for his skill in this form of composition. Many of his letters were
collected by Abu'l-Hasan 'Ah' ibn Muhammad al-Yazdadi, and extracts
are given by Muhammad ibn Isfandiyar in his History of Tabaristan as
well jas by Yaqut. I have recently acquired a MS. of Yazdadi's com-
pilation entitled Kamdlu'l-Baldgha (the " Perfection of Eloquence ").
Abu'l-Faraj Qudama ibn Ja'far ibn Qudama ibn Ziyad
al-Baghdadi was born and brought up a Christian, but was converted
to Islam by the Caliph al-Muktafi, and died in 337/948-9. A short
notice of him also occurs in Yaqiit's Irshdd?, where some dozen of 4iis
works are enumerated, of which three, the Kitdbrfl-Khardj, the Naqdu
'n-Nathr and the Kitdbrfsh-Sh?r are noticed by Brockelmann (vol. i,
p. 228). HarM mentions him in his Maqdmdt as a model of eloquence.
"The Maqamatji-Hamidf were composed in 551/1156-7 by the
Qadi Abii Bakr 'Utnar ibn Mahmiid, entitled Hamidu'd-Din al-Mahmudi
al-Balkhi, who died in 559/1163-4. This work has been lithographed
at Kanpiir (Cawnpore) in 1 and at Tihran in
268/18^1-2, 1290/1873-4.
There is sr very fine MS. of the i3th century of the Christian era in the
British Museum (Add. 7620).
The mention of thej Maqdmdt of Hami'di in this place is of great
importance in fixing the date of composition of the Chahdr Maqdla as
post^ntJr to 551/1156-7, for since Sultan Sanjar, who is repeatedly (e.g.
pp. 40 and 87 of the text) referred to as still
living, died in 552/1157-8,
it is evidenj; that this date lies between these two limits (A.H. 551-552;
A.D. 1156-1157).
1
,Vol. ii, pp. 273-343 of Prof. D. S. Margoliouth's edition in the " E. J. W. Gibb
Memorial" Series (vi, i, London, Luzac and Co., 1909).
2 3
Ibid., vol. vi, pp. 143-152.
Ibid., vol. vi, pp. 203-205.