Zubdat al-Halab fi Tarikh Halab
- Author died
- 660 AH
- Editions
- Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah
Zubdat al-Halab fi Tarikh Halab (The Cream of the Milk Concerning the History of Aleppo) is a chronological political history of Aleppo authored by Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim (d. 660 AH / 1262 CE) .
Composition and Relationship to Bughyat al-Talab
Ibn al-Adim extracted and condensed Zubdat al-Halab from his extensive biographical dictionary, Bughyat al-Talab fi Tarikh Halab (The Object of Search Concerning the History of Aleppo) . While Bughyat al-Talab was arranged alphabetically according to the biographies of notable figures associated with the city, Ibn al-Adim organized Zubdat al-Halab annalistically by year .
In several historical sources, the book is referred to as al-Tarikh al-Saghir (The Lesser History) to distinguish it from the much larger Bughya . The contemporary biographer Ibn al-Sha'ar al-Mawsili titled it Zubdat al-Halab fi Dhikr Wulat Halab (The Cream of the Milk in the Mention of the Rulers of Aleppo), observing that Ibn al-Adim restricted its contents to the rulers and princes who governed Aleppo, giving it the character of a dedicated political history of the city .
Scope and Method
The book opens with an introductory section addressing the name of Aleppo and its origin . It then sets forth an annalistic record of the political events, dynastic transitions, and governance of Aleppo from its Muslim conquest down to the year 643 AH / 1245 CE . Unlike urban histories modeled after traditional hadith compilations that focused primarily on religious scholars and narrators, Ibn al-Adim dedicated Zubdat al-Halab strictly to narrative political and administrative history .
Abridgments
The work was abridged by Radī al-Dīn Muhammad ibn al-Hanbali (d. 971 AH / 1563 CE) under the title al-Zubd wa-l-Darb fi Tarikh Halab, in which he summarized Ibn al-Adim's text and supplemented it with additional historical notices continuing down to his own era . An anonymous summary of the text also survives under the title Mukhtasar Zubdat al-Halab fi Tarikh Halab, also called Hadrat al-Nadim min Tarikh Ibn al-Adim .
Manuscripts, Translations, and Editions
Manuscripts of Zubdat al-Halab are preserved in several collections, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (MS 1666, comprising 268 folios) and the Institute of Oriental Studies in Saint Petersburg (MS 160, comprising 119 folios, copied in 863 AH) .
Portions of the work drew early European scholarly interest: Georg Wilhelm Freytag published an excerpt on the Hamdanid ruler Sa'd al-Dawla with a Latin translation and notes (Paris and Bonn, 1819–1820) . Excerpts were also published with French translations in the Recueil des historiens des croisades by Barbier de Meynard , and a French translation appeared in Paris in 1896 .
The complete Arabic text was critically edited by Sami al-Dahhan and published in three volumes by the Institut Français de Damas (1951, 1954, and 1968) . Another edition, edited by Suhayl Zakkar, was published in two volumes in Beirut in 1997 .
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