Futuh al-Buldan
Futūh al-Buldān (Arabic: فتوح البلدان) is an Arabic book by Persian historian Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri.
The work by which he is best known is the Kitab Futuh al-Buldan ("Book of the Conquests of the Lands"), edited by M. J. de Goeje as Liber expugnationis regionum (Leiden, 1870; Cairo, 1901). This work is a digest of a larger one, which is now lost. It contains an account of the early conquests of Muhammad and the early caliphs. Al-Baladhuri is said to have spared no trouble in collecting traditions, and to have visited various parts of north Syria and Mesopotamia for this purpose.[1]
Columbia University published a translation into English in two volumes as "The Origins of the Islamic State. The first (1916) was by Philip Khuri Hitti.[2] The second (1924) was by Francis Clark Murgotten.[3]
The book has the form of a geographical description of the Caliphate empire in which the main information about each location is a political history of how it came to be included in the empire and some of the early political events.
He also made some translations from Persian into Arabic.[1]
References
- ^ a b Thatcher, Griffithes Wheeler (1911). "Balādhurī". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Full English text of The origins of the Islamic state: being a translation from the Arabic, accompanied with annotations, geographic and historic notes of the Kitâb fitûh al-buldân of al-Imâm abu-l Abbâs Ahmad ibn-Jâbir al-Balâdhuri
- ^ Full English text of The Origins Of The Islamic State Part II