Mukhtasar Sana al-Barq al-Shami
- Author died
- 643 AH
- Editions
- Mukhtasar Sana al-Barq al-Shami
Mukhtasar Sana al-Barq al-Shami (Arabic: مختصر سنا البرق الشامي, "The Abridgment of the Gleam of the Syrian Lightning"), commonly known as Sana al-Barq al-Shami, is a thirteenth-century historical work by the scholar al-Bandari (d. 643 AH / 1245 CE) . It is an abridgment of al-Barq al-Shami ("The Syrian Lightning"), the major chronicle of the Zengid and Ayyubid eras composed by the chancellor and historian Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE) .
Composition and Purpose
al-Bandari completed the work in 622 AH (1224 CE) and dedicated it to the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Isa ibn al-Adil . The original work by Imad al-Din comprised seven volumes and detailed the political and military events of Syria and Egypt, centered on the reigns of Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zanki and Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi), alongside Imad al-Din's personal memoirs in their service .
Because Imad al-Din wrote in an elaborate, rhyming prose style (saj') dense with paronomasia and metaphors, extracting factual history from it proved cumbersome for readers . al-Bandari sought to prune these rhetorical flourishes and summarize the narrative while maintaining fidelity to the original wording, retaining key historical facts, and preserving representative samples of official chancery correspondence drafted by Imad al-Din and al-Qadi al-Fadil .
Structure and Content
The surviving text covers historical events spanning from 562 AH (1166–1167 CE), the year Imad al-Din arrived in Syria, to 583 AH (1187–1188 CE) . It documents key developments of the period, including Shawar's arrival in Damascus, the Yemen expedition, the death of Nur al-Din in 569 AH (1174 CE), the conspiracy of Umarah al-Yamani against Saladin, and the various military campaigns across Syria and Egypt .
In his introduction, al-Bandari indicated that he planned to append excerpts from two additional treatises by Imad al-Din—al-Utba wa-l-Uqba (covering the three years following Saladin's death) and Khatfat al-Bariq (covering the years 593 to 597 AH)—though these supplementary materials do not appear in the surviving text . The manuscript title designates the text as "Part One of Sana al-Barq al-Shami," suggesting that a subsequent volume was either planned or lost . The opening twelve folios and the final three folios of the unique copy show irregularities in chronological sequencing and narrative continuity, which may have arisen during al-Bandari's epitomizing process or through errors by a subsequent copyist .
Manuscript Tradition and Modern Editions
Since the vast majority of Imad al-Din's original al-Barq al-Shami is lost—with only the third and fifth volumes known to survive—al-Bandari's abridgment represents an essential primary witness for modern historians reconstructing the lost portions of the chronicle . Later medieval historians, such as Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Wasil, Abu Shamah in al-Rawdatayn, and al-Maqrizi in al-Khitat, frequently drew upon Imad al-Din's text and al-Bandari's abridgment .
The sole known manuscript of Sana al-Barq al-Shami is preserved in the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul (MS As'ad Efendi 2249, folios 163b–242a, comprising 79 large folios), bound together with al-Suyuti's Husn al-Muhadarah .
The work has been edited and published in modern times:
- Edited by Ramazan Şeşen, published in Beirut by Dar al-Kitab al-Jadid (1970/1971), with subsequent printings in Cairo (1979 and 1982) .
- Edited by Fathiyya al-Nabrawi, published in Cairo by Maktabat al-Khanji (1979) .
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