The Sharafnâma - 1597

Schéref-Nâmeh I شرف نامه ، جلد اول [فارسی, St. Pétersbourg, 1860]

Schéref-Nâmeh II شرف نامه ، جلد دوم [فارسی, St. Pétersbourg, 1862]

Chèref-Nâmeh I, 1e p. [Français, St. Pétersbourg, 1868]

Chèref-Nâmeh I, 2e p. [Français, St. Pétersbourg, 1870]

Chèref-Nâmeh II, 1e p. [Français, St. Pétersbourg, 1873]

Chèref-Nâmeh II, 2e p. [Français, St. Pétersbourg, 1875]

The Sharafnâma - 1597 [English, California, ]

Şerefname Kürt tarihi [Türkçe, İstanbul, 1990]

Șerefname: Tarixa Kurdistanê ya kevn [Kurdî, Duhok, 2006]

Şerefname: Dîroka kurdistanê [Kurdî, İstanbul, 2014]

Acknowledgments

This project has been supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent Federal agency of the Government of the United States of America. I am deeply grateful for this generous financial support, without which this undertaking would not have been possible.

I also remain grateful for the generous and continuing financial support of an enlightened and generous contributor, who prefers to remain anonymous, towards the editorial work and the publishing expenses of this and other projects of mine. My gratitude also goes to Mr. Mohammed M. Ahmed, president of the Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies, Sharon, Massachusetts, for his generous contribution that addressed the remaining financial needs for the publication of this work.

I would like to likewise acknowledge my eternal gratitude, now as ever, to my charming wife and companion, Miss. Anahid Akasheh, for her forbearance and uncommon understanding of the perils of sharing life with an academic.

My special appreciation should also go to my longtime friend and colleague, Professor Lawrence G. Potter, Deputy Director of the Gulf/2000 Project, and lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University for his unceasing help whenever I need it, not just when it is convenient. In the same breath, I should extend similarly deep gratitude to colleagues, Professor Bradford McGuinn and Professor George Bournoutian, for their unqualified encouragement and friendship.

I am also grateful to all those who supported my grant requests for this project, including but not limited to, professors Jo-Ann Gross, Michael Gunter, Robert Olson, Wheeler Thackston and all others whose names remain unknown to me due to the privacy clause of the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am likewise grateful to Mr. Loghman Meho for his hard work in procuring copies of the manuscripts of the Sharafnama from as far afield as Pakistan. I also thank Dr. Abdullah Mardukh for his insightful initial comments.

Last, but by no means the least, is the acknowledgment of my gratitude to my editor, Ms. Andrea Modarres, for her hard work of editing a complicated text such as this with sound judgment and uncommon professional expertise.

M. R. Izady

CONTENTS

List of Maps / vi
List of Dynastic Stemmata / vii
Translator's Preface / ix
Acknowledgments / xi
Editorial Markings & Transliteration Table / xii
Glossary / xvi
An Introduction to the Sharafncima, including Notes on Translation, Commentaries, Bibliology,
and Format / xi-xxvii

The Text:
Foreword / 2
Author's Table of Contents / 18
Prologue / 28
The Marwänids / 54
The tlasanwayhids/Barzakänids / 60
The Ay yärids/S hadhanj anids / 68
The Fadilwayhids (Atabegs of Greater Lur) / 76
The Chinginids/Zanginas (Atabegs of Lesser Lur) / 106
The Ayyubids / 170
Maps / 248
Dynastic Stemmata / 255
Bibliography / 262
Index / 266

List of Maps :
Kingdom of the Marwdnids and the Neighboring Regions: AD 991-1096 / 248
Kingdom of the Hasanwayhids, ca. AD 1000 / 249
Kingdom of the `Ayydrids, ca. AD 1040 / 250
Kingdom of the Fadilwayhids, ca. AD 1330 / 251
Dominion of the Atabegs of Lesser Lur or the House of Chinginids/Zanginas / 252
Ayyubid Empire in the Reign of King Saladin, AD 1174-1193 / 253
Ayyubid and Crusader Levant / 254

List of Dynastic Stemmata :
The House of Marwanids / 255
The House of Hasanwayhids (or Barzikanids) / 256
The House of `Ayyaids / 257
The House of Fadilwayhids / 258
The Atabegs of Lesser Lur (the House of Chinginids/Zanginas) / 259
The House of Ayyubids / 260-61

Preface

This translation is strictly literal, with fidelity to the original text as the primary objective. As Fraus-Dolus once commented on his literal translation of Ibn Fadlan's medieval travelogue: "It is in the nature of languages that a pretty translation is not accurate, and an accurate translation finds its own beauty in precision." Much "prettiness" has been sacrificed in this translation in order to transmit to an English language reader all that Bitlisi writes, without any abridgment, extrapolation or interpolation. This is not  a paraphrase translation intended for the easy reading of a "coffee table" tome. In short, the aim here has been a translation, rather than the easier and less accurate task of paraphrase.

When double meaning is suspected in a passage or clearly meant by the author, if it could not be conveyed into English in a single translation, the most obvious meaning is given in the text, and others in a footnote. No alteration or abridgment has been allowed in this translation without clear marking and explanation of the cause. All that Bitlisi writes and intends in his monumental work has been transmitted into English with utmost precision and faithfulness to the original text.

The organization of this translation into successively-numbered books, chapters and paragraphs is based on the same logical method by which similarly long historical works of the classical Graeco-Romans, and even some Armenian historians, have been treated by modern translators and commentators.

Prince Sharaf al-Dîn Bitlîsî

The Sharafnâma
Or the History of the Kurdish Nation
- 1597 -
Book One

English Translation and Commentaries by
M. R. Izady
MAZDA PUBLISHERS, Inc. • Costa Mesa, California • 2005

Dedicated to the scholarly achievements and noble endeavors of
Ismet Cheriff Vanly

Mazda Publishers, Inc.
Academic Publishers since 1980
P.O. Box 2603, Costa Mesa, California 92628 U.S.A.
www.mazdapub.com

Copyright © 2005 by Mehrdad Izady
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any form or by any means without written permission
from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bidlisi, Sharaf Khan, B. 1543.
[Sharafnamah. English]
The Sharafnama, or, The History of the Kurdish Nation / Sharaf al-Dîn Bitlîsî; English
translation and commentaries by Mehrdad R. Izady = Haza al-kitab Sharafnamah / Sharaf al-Din ibn
Shams al-Din Ruzhiki al-Akasiri.
v. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 1-56859-074-1
(Hard cover, alk. paper)

1. Kurds—History—Early works to 1800. I. Title: Sharafnama. II. Title: History of the Kurdish Nation.
III. Title: Haza al-Kitab Sharafnamah. IV. Title: Sharafnamah. V. Izady, Mehrdad R. VI. Title.
DS59.K86B5313 2005
2005048974