Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī Bayhaqī

The first of the Turko-Persian states had its capital at Ghazna, now in Afghanistan. After fifty-five years' service with the Ghaznavids, Beyhaqi wrote thirty volumes on them, of which five survive. What survives covers Mas'ud but often looks back to his greater father Mahmud and the founder Sebuk-Tegin. It roves among other states in contention in these times and includes a "valuable history" of Khwarazm.

Quotes from Beyhaqi on how he writes of events:

"One usually reads that a certain king sent a certain general to such and such a war, and that on such and such a day they made war or peace, and that this one defeated that one or that one this one, and then proceeded somewhere else. But I write what is worthy to be recorded."

"Other chronicles do not have such length and breadth as this one, since they have dealt with historical events in a comparatively simple and relaxed manner, and they invoke but a whiff of the past. However, now that I have embarked on this task, I want to do this History full justice and delve into every nook and cranny so that no aspect of the events remains obscure."

He writes very unlike Juvaini, whose ornate, figurative, quote-laden style I understood to be (not the most baroque example of) the Persian style in history-writing. Beyhaqi is as matter-of-fact as today’s journalist. With his level of detail on events, for instance, when a disgraced official is stoned, you see crowd behaviour (they wept and refused to throw the stones), you see the precise methodology, his own comportment hour by hour on execution day, you hear what his peers had to say... Few histories are so useful as to give you this.

Three volumes available in paperback. Third volume has the commentary.… (mehr)