The Date of the Manuscript of Rashid al-Din's Jami'al-tavarikh in the Parliamentary Library of Iran, Tehran

Abstract

This paper intends to identify the date of one very important manuscript of Rashid al-Din's Jami'al-tavarikh, namely the MS no.2294 of the Kitabkhanah-i Majlis-i Shura-yi Milli (now Kitabkhanah-i Majlis-i Shura-yi Islami, 1), which is in all probability the original of the Tarikh-i Mubarak-i Ghazani, namely the volume 1 of the Jami'al-tavarikh, which was planned as presentation copy to Ghazan Khan and was eventually accomplished and presented to Öljeytü Sultan, his brother and successor.
This manuscript has internal evidences to show that it was completed when Öljeitü Khan was 24 years old and when he spent one-fourth year as sovereign, i. e., three months after his enthronement in 19th July 1304, thereby we get the date of mid-October 1304 as the most probable date of the completion of this manuscript, which must have been dedicated to Öljeytü Khan without delay in the same month of the year.