Mirkhvand

Muhammad ibn Khvandshah ibn Mahmud, more commonly known as Mirkhvand (Persian: میرخواند, also transliterated as Mirkhwand; 1433/34 – 1498), was a Persian¹ historian active during the reign of the Timurid ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r. 1469–1506). He is principally known for his universal history, the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ ("The garden of purity"), which he wrote under the patronage of the high-ranking functionary Ali-Shir Nava'i (died 1501). According to the German orientalist Bertold Spuler, the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ is the greatest universal history in Persian regarding the Islamic world.

Life

Born in c. 1433/4 in the city of Bukhara in Timurid-ruled Transoxiana, Mirkhvand belonged to a family of sayyids, descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the son of Burhan al-Din Khvandshah (died 1466/7), who was a disciple of the Sufi shaykh Baha al-Din Umar Jaghara'i (died 1453) in the city of Herat, where Mirkhvand's family had distinguished themselves. Mirkhvand's brother was the sadr (head of religious fundings) of the Timurid crown prince Badi' al-Zaman Mirza (died 1514), the eldest son of the incumbent ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r. 1469–1506).²

Mirkhvand wrote under the patronage of Ali-Shir Nava'i (died 1501), an important counselor of Husayn Bayqara and advocate of arts and literature. Mirkhvand enjoyed good relations with Nava'i, as indicated of Mirkhvand's description of the latter in his ("The garden of purity"), as well as the positive account of Mirkhvand in Nava'i's biographical dictionary ("The assemblies of rare talents"). Using the Timurid history book of (died 1482) as his cornerstone, Mirkhvand started writing his in 1474/5. Mirkhvand spent many years in the Ilkhlasiyya , a house for Sufis erected by Nava'i in 1483. Towards the end of his life, he lived for a year at the of the prominent and Sufi scholar (died 1088), near Herat. Mirkhvand died in Herat on 22 June 1498, and was buried in the shrine of Baha al-Din Umar Jaghara'i, the same place as his father.