Firdaws al-iqbāl

Book excerpt: This volume is a translation from Chaghatay (medieval Turkic literary language of Central Asia) of a work written by Uzbek historians Mūnis and Āgahī in the early 19th century. It contains the history of Khorezm, especially detailed for the 18th and early 19th centuries, and it is an outstanding example of Central Asian historiography. The book is the first Western translation of this historical work and the first such translation of a major Chaghatay source for the history of Central Asia in the 18th-19th centuries. Besides the translation, the book includes extensive historical and philological notes and detailed introduction discussing the historical background of the period when the work was written, the biographies of the authors, the history of the text, and its sources.