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xii . PREFACE
Turkish bibliographer Hajji Khalifa supposes to be distinct from
the Chahdr'Maqdla, though, as Mirza Muhammad ha'S con
clusively proved, these are tmt two different names for the same
book.
*'
,
*. Not less remarkable than the style of the Chahdr Maqdla is
the interest of its consents, for it contains the only contemporary
account of 'Umar Khayyam, and the oldest known account of
Firdawsf, while many
*'
of the anecdotes are derived from the
1
author's own experience, or were orally communicated* to Kim
by persons who had direct knowledge of (
che facts. The book "is
therefore one o/ the most important original sources for our
knowledge ofthe literary and scientific conditions which prevailed
in Persia for the two or three centuries preceding its composition,
which may be placed with certainty between the years 547/1152
and 552/1 157, and with great probability in the year 55I/II56 1 .
Against this twofold excellence, however, must be set the extra-
ordinary historical inaccuracies of which in several places the
author has been guilty, even in respect to events in which' he
claims to have participated in person. Fifteen such blunders,
some of them of the grossest character, have been enumerated
by Mirza Muhammad in the Preface to
2
the text , and some of
these are fully discussed in Notes IV, V, VIII and XXI at the
end of this volume. Nor can all these blunders be charitably
ascribed to a careless or officious copyist, since ,the point of the
story is in several cases dependent on the erroV.
Here at all events is the translation of the book, of th/5 value
and interest of which the reader* aided if necessary by .the notes,
can form his own judgement.
April n,
1 See p. xvi of the English Preface to the text.
2
Pp. xx-xxiii of the English -Preface. .
,
EDWARD G. BR5.WNE.