Futuh al-Buldan
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Futuh al-Buldan (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 Mohammed 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].
It has been translated by Philip Khuri Hitti as "The Origins of the Islamic State" (Columbia University, 1916). 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. It is especially valuable because it was not used as a source by al-Tabari[citation needed].
He also made some translations from Persian into Arabic.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
