Robert G. Hoyland's volume of translations of Arabic historical texts on pre-Islamic Iran is especially valuable for those historians of the Sasanian period who are not at ease with the Arabic originals. Hoyland has selected three texts, from which he translates the relevant sections with annotations. None of these had been translated into English when Hoyland started his work. They are Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī's (d. 350/961 or 360/971) Ta'rīkh, al-Masʿūdī's (d. 345/956) Tanbīh, and al-Yaʿqūbī's (d. after 295/908) Ta'rīkh. In addition, there is a general introduction (pp. 1–23) and three appendices (pp. 135–56: on Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; the Chronicle of Siirt; and Abū Maʿshar and the lost books of Jay), which largely consist of translations. A gazetteer, maps, tables, bibliography, and index bring the volume to an end.
By coincidence, a few months before Hoyland's book appeared two other books were published that partly overlap with Hoyland's. A group of scholars published all the works of al-Yaʿqūbī in translation (Matthew S. Gordon et al. (eds), The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī. An English Translation. Islamic History and Civilization 152. Leiden: Brill, 2018), and I published a monograph (Hämeen-Anttila, Khwadāynāmag. The Middle Persian Book of Kings. Studies in Persian Cultural History 14. Leiden: Brill 2018), which includes several key passages from Ḥamza and al-Masʿūdī in translation.
Hoyland's texts are well selected and his translation is eminently readable, making a valuable addition to existing translated sources. In general, the translations are accurate, although it is always possible to find individual passages where the translation could be corrected. Thus on p. 77, Hoyland translates: “This (material), with which I have filled out this section, is from epitomes of the ‘History of the Kings’ …”. The text's min qiṣār akhbār al-mulūk does not, however, refer to any epitomes or book titles, but simply means “short stories about kings”, i.e. “I have filled out this section with short stories about kings (…)”.
Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī listed in his work eight texts on pre-Islamic Iran in Arabic translation, all later lost almost without trace. Hoyland (pp. 26–7), follows almost all other scholars in taking Ḥamza's list to refer to translations of one book, the title of which Hoyland adds in brackets: “…I had no recourse but to collect copies (of the ‘History of the Persian Kings') that have been differently translated. In all I chanced upon eight copies, which are…”. My translation of the same passage reads: “… I have had to take the recourse of collecting variously transmitted manuscripts, of which I have come across eight, namely…”. The key term here is naql, which may mean transmission or translation, as also noted elsewhere by Hoyland (p. 27, note 15). That the eight manuscripts, or copies, were not of the same text is shown by their different titles. Ḥamza's list is studied extensively in Hämeen-Anttila 2018: 59–99.
In earlier scholarship, the Khwadāynāmag is often but wrongly seen as the source of all information on pre-Islamic Iran in Arabic literature. Hoyland may underestimate the importance of the Khwadāynāmag as a source for later scholars, but he is definitely right in emphasizing the plurality of Middle Persian sources and Arabic translations of several different Middle Persian books in his Introduction and Table 4 on p. 172 – in the latter, Life of Anūsharwān should be deleted, as this book belonged to wisdom literature, rather than being a historical book.
Hoyland gives very little attention to preserved Middle Persian historical texts, especially Ayādgār ī Zarērān, Kārnāmag ī Ardashīr ī Pābagān, Wizārishn ī chatrang ud nihishn ī nēw-Ardashīr, and Husraw ud rēdag-ē, all of which left traces to the various Arabic and Persian historical sources and would have merited a place in the discussion.
In Appendix 1, Hoyland challenges the idea that Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ translated the Khwadāynāmag and shows how rarely we find this explicitly stated in our sources. While certainly a salutary reminder to scholars, such as myself, who have taken this almost for granted, it still seems that there is all reason to count Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ among the translators of this Middle Persian book. He is often associated with a book titled Siyar mulūk al-ʿajam, which is the Arabic title of the Khwadāynāmag, as Ḥamza explicitly states (p. 35); Ibn al-Nadīm explicitly mentions Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ's translation of the Khwadāynāmag; and Arabic and Persian historians in general only rarely acknowledge the translators of Persian books or mention them by name, so that we should not expect Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ to be frequently mentioned in connection with his translation, which is mostly referred to by its title only, without any translator's name. However, it is true that one has to be very careful, as I also emphasized in my book (p. 128), not automatically to assume that all references to Siyar mulūk al-ʿajam necessarily refer to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ's work.
All in all, Hoyland's book is an important addition to the sources of pre-Islamic, mainly Sasanian Iran, and the accuracy of the translation and some of the annotations make it also useful for a scholar well familiar with Arabic. For those struggling with Arabic sources, it is invaluable.
