Untitled

.,
NOTE XX. THE POET AZRAQI 125
Hajji Khalifa and many of the biographers ascribe to Azraqi the
Sindibdd-ndma and t/>e Alfiyya wa Shalfiyya". This is an 'error, for the
ibrmer of these two books was of Persian or Indian origin, and was
composed in pre-Islamic days, as clearly appears from the statements
of Mas'iidi in the Muruju'dh-DhabaP and of the 'Fihrisf. Of this
Sindibdd-ndma the Pahlain 'text was extant in the time of the Amir
Nilh II ibn Manstir the Samanid (A.H. 366-387; A.D. 976-997), by
whose command it was translated into Persian by Khwaja 'Amid Abu'l-
Fawaris-i-Qanawazi, whose translation, however, appears to be entirely
lost. This translation was, however, revised and re-edited in a more
ornate form about A.H. 600 (A.D. 1203-4) by Baha'u'd-Din Muhammad...
az-Zahiri of Samarqand, who was secretary to Sultan Tamghaj Khan of
the Khaniyya dynasty of Transoxiana. Of this recension one manuscript
exists in the British Museum, from the preface of which Mirza Muhammad
derived the information here givjn. It was apparently the older Persian
prose translation of Qanawazi which Azraqi versifier^ or intended to
versify; a task which he evidently found far from easy, for in a passage
of a qasida addressed to Tughanshah (quoted on p. >i77 of the Persian
rotes) he says:
" O Prince, whoever regards the counsels of Sindibdd
Knows well that to compose poetry thereon is difficult :
1 will render its ideas a help to learning
If thy fortune, O King, helps my mind."
This versified translation of Azraqi, if ever completed, seems to have
been entirely lost, though a later anonymous verse translation composed
in A.H. 776 (A.D. 1374-5) is preserved in the India Office Library 3 .
This, however, in Mirza Muhammad's opinion, is of very poor literary
quality.
The Alfiyya wa Shalfiyya is another ancient book which existed
long before Azraqi's time. The Fihrist mentions two recensions, a
greater and a lesser; and the Tdrikh-i-Bayhaqi* mentions a summ^rhouse
which Prince Mas'iid had built for himself secretly in the
Bagh-i-'Adnani on the walls of which were painted the pictures illustrative
of the Alfiyya. This book may have been versified or re-edited by
Azraqi, but was certainly not his original work.
Note XXI. Another instance of the Author's inaccuracy.
(Text, p. 45; Persian notes, pp. 182-4.)
It is an' extraordinary and inexplicable thing that Nizami of Samarqand,
in recounting what professes to be a personal reminiscence, should
commit several grave histprical and chronological errors. First, the real
name and genealogy of Qutulmush were Shihabu'd-Dawla [not -Din] ibn
Isra'il ibn Saljuq, and he was first cousin to Tughril, the first of the
Great Saljiiqs, and father of Sulayman, the first of the Saljiiqs of Rum.
In A.F, 456 (A.D. 1064) he rebelled against Tughril's nephew Alp Arslan
and was killed in battle near Ray. Sultan Muhammad, the grandson of
Alp Arslan, was born in A.H. 473 (A.D. 1080-1), seventeen years after
1 Ed. B. de Meynard, i, 162 and iv, 90.
3
See Dr H. Ethe's Catalogue, No. 1236.
2 Ed. Flugel, pp. 304-5.
* Tihran ed., p. 116.
)