The account of the Isma'ili doctrines in the Jami' al-Tawarikh of Rashid al-Din Fadlallah

Abstract

Although references to the subject of Ismā'īlī doctrine have been frequent enough in the text-books and learned journals, the earliest source quoted in nearly all of them is the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā of Juwaynī. By a comparison of that work with the corresponding section of the Jāmi' al-Tawārīkh of Rashīd al-Dīn it is evident that the latter is the source from which Juwaynī drew most of his materials, and that for his compilation he used such sections of it as suited his purposes, omitting and transposing passages as he thought fit. In certain instances his omissions from the text have caused obscurities which the original version of Rashīd al-Dīn does not contain, and quite often the borrowings have been incorporated without any great effort to make them fit snugly into their context. Since the Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā is fairly well known I shall confine myself here to the work of Rashīd al-Dīn, which seems destined for some time longer to remain in the obscurity of manuscript.