PREFACE The present volume embodies the text of a unique MS preserv- ed in the British Museum, containing the history of the Seljuq dynasty of Iran from its origin to its downfall. The title of the work, as given on the first page of the MS, is hát but in the beginning of the text it appears as 3¹, and it is under this title that Rieu has described the volume in his Catalogue of the Arabic MSS in the British Museum." The importance of the present work was noticed as early as 1886 by Professor M. Th. Houtsma in his preface to the "Histoire des Seljoucides du Kerman", and again in the preface to the "Histoire des Seljoucides de l'Iraq". In the following year, Baron Victor von Rosen published an extract from its text, relating to the war between Alp Arslan and the Roman Emperor Romanus, in the Zapiski of the Imperial Russian Archæological Society. The extract is accompanied by a Russian translation and a review of the work and its author. But the most comprehensive introduction to the present book was written by Dr. Karl Süssheim under the title Prolegomena zu einer Ausgabe der im Britischen Museum zu London verwahrten Chronik des Seldschuqischen Reiches ", in which he submitted the contents of this Chronik to a detailed and careful examination. As the Prolegomena is not generally known in India and, moreover, is written in German, a language not commonly read in this country, I think the best preface to my edition would be to give briefly in the following lines the results of Dr. Süssheim's investigations. THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR I have said that the book bears two different titles, viz., while the name of the ,زبدة التواريخ and the اخبار الدولة السلجوقية the 1. See p. 1. a. Supplement, No. 550 (p. 342). 3. Leiden 1886, pp. IX-X. 4. Leiden 1889, pp. XXXV-XXXVI. 5. Part III. St. Petersburg 1887, pp. 243-25a. Published by O. Harrassowitz (Leipzig 1911). It comprises 47 pages. 6.
