Al-Iklil
| Author | Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani |
|---|---|
| Original title | Kitāb al-Iklīl min akhbār al-Yaman wa-ansāb Ḥimyar |
| Language | Arabic (translated into German in 1881) |
| Genre | History of Yemen |
| Publisher | Various (see below) |
| Publication place | Yemen |
Kitāb al-Iklīl (Arabic: كتاب الإكليل) fully known as the Kitāb al-Iklīl min akhbār al-Yaman wa-ansāb Ḥimyar (Crowns from the Accounts of the Yemen and the genealogies of Ḥimyar), is a book about the ancient history of Yemen and the Himyarite Kingdom written by the 10th-century grammarian, chemist and historian Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani. It was first written and published in the 10th century in ten volumes, only four of which exist to this day.
History
[edit]Of the ten volumes of Kitāb al-Iklīl published in the 10th century, only the first, second, eighth and tenth volumes survived intact to the present day.[1][2]
In 1881, parts of the work were translated into German by David Heinrich Müller.[3]
The historian Nabih Amin Faris compiled the four surviving volumes into an annotated work, al-Juz' al-Thamin, published in 1940 by Princeton University Press as part of the Princeton Oriental Texts collection.[2]
In 2020, a portion of the lost sixth volume was found in the archives of the Bavarian State Library in Munich and was published by a researcher in the Arabia Felix Academy.[1]
An abridged version of the texts has been made available under a Creative Commons license for reading in some online libraries.[4][5]
Content
[edit]The first two volumes record genealogies, especially that of the family of king Sheba son of Yashjoub.[1][2][5]
The second volume contains a poem, al-Risala al-Damighah.[6] This poem has sometimes been published separately with commentaries.[6]
The eighth volume describes archaeological finds in Yemen and discusses the poetry of Dhu Jadan and Abu Karib.[1][2]
The tenth volume concerns the history of the people of Hamdan, the hometown of the author.[7]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Finding a missing part of the sixth volume of the book al-Iklil; A good news that restored faith". Al Masdar Online. 20 June 2020. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022.
- ^ a b c d al-Hamdani (1940). Faris, Nabih A. (ed.). Kitab al-Iklil al-Juz' al-Thamin. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- ^ Thatcher, G.W. "Hamdānī - Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)". Encyclopaedia Britannica on Wikisource. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- ^ al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Hamdani (16 April 2016). "al-Iklil: This book is published under a Creative Commons license with credit to the author and source". Noor Library.
- ^ a b al-Hamdani, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan. al-Iklil [The Diadem]. Al-Maktaba Al-Shamela.
- ^ a b al-Kumait bin Zaid al-Asadi. "The poem of al-Damighah by al-Hassan bin Ahmed al-Hamdani; from the Ain Shams University Library (History, Archaeology and Geography)". Ain Shams University Library. Archived from the original on 3 February 2023.
- ^ al-Hamdani, Hasan ibn Ahmad (1949). al-Iklil, Volume 10. Cairo, Egypt: Matba'at al-Salafiyyah wa Maktabatiha.