Kitab al-'Uyun

The Kitab al-'uyun wa'l-hada'iq fi akhbar al-haqa'iq (Arabic: كتاب العيون والحدائق في أخبار الحقائق‎) is an Arabic chronicle covering Muslim history up to the year 961 AD. The author of the work is anonymous, but the text was likely written in the late eleventh century.

The contents of the Kitab al-'Uyun are organized by the reigns of successive caliphs and are loosely subdivided in an annalistic fashion. Much of the work consists of selections from the histories of al-Tabari, al-Mas'udi, Miskawayh and al-Farghani, but it also includes otherwise lost material from a number of other sources, especially Egyptian and North African authors.

Only the third and fourth volumes of the work survive. The third volume, covering the period from the beginning of the reign of the Umayyad caliph al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik (705) to the death of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim (842), was published by Michael Jan de Goeje and Pieter de Jong in 1869. The fourth volume, published by Omar Saïdi in 1972, only survives from page 47 on and therefore begins in 870 during the reign of al-Muhtadi, and continues until 961.

References

• Cahen, Claude (1990). "History and historians". In Young, M.J.L.; Latham, J.D.; Serjeant, R.B. (eds.). Religion, learning and science in the 'Abbasid period. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 210–11. ISBN 0-521-32763-6.
• de Goeje, M.J.; de Jong, P., eds. (1869). Kitab al-'Uyun wa'l-Hada'iq fi akhbar al-haqa'iq. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
• Morony, Michael (April 1976). "Review: Kitab al-'Uyun wa-l-Hada'iq fi Akhbar al-Haqa'iq: Chronique Anonyme by Omar Saidi". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 7 (2): 306–307. doi:10.1017/s0020743800023291. JSTOR 162612.
• Saïdi, Amor (June 1970). "Préface à une édition du Kitāb al-ʿUyūn wa-l-ḥadāʾiq fī aḫbār al-ḥaqāʾiq, Volume IV". Arabica. 17 (2): 161–176. doi:10.1163/157005870x00034. JSTOR 4055517.