Ẓafarnāmah (Book of victory) by ʻAli Yazdi (circa 1390-1454) is a biographical work dealing with the life of the central Asian conqueror Timur (reigned 1370-1405). Completed in around 1424, Yazdi's work is based in part on an earlier work, also entitled Ẓafarnāmah, by Nizam al-Din ʻAli Shami (who completed his work in 1404). A poet and scholar, Yazdi wrote works on numerology, astrolabes, and a variety of other topics, and he was renowned for his knowledge of ʻūlūm-i gharība (the esoteric sciences). He was summoned to the provincial capital of Shiraz around 1419 by Timur's grandson, Ibrahim Sultan (1394-1435), and asked to compile and codify the records related to the life of Timur. The present copy of the Ẓafarnāmah is the first volume of a two-volume edition, published under the aegis of the Asiatic Society at the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta in 1887. The editor, Maulawi Muhammad Ilahdad, was a professor in the Arabic department at the Calcutta Madrasah. Ilahdad notes that the decision to publish this work in two volumes was made in order to avoid a bulky single volume. The first volume of this edition covers the events of Timur's life to 1397 and the conclusion of Timur's five-year campaign in the west that resulted in the conquest of Kurdistan, Southern Persia, and Georgia, and in the fall of Baghdad. World Digital Library.
Ẓuhūr al-amān (The advent of security) is a book on civics published during the reign of Ammanullah Khan (1919-29) as amir of Afghanistan. The book's title pays homage to the name of Ammanullah Khan himself. In its treatment of the duties of the members of Afghan society to the ruler and to each other, Ẓuhūr al-amān appears to highlight the challenges faced by Ammanullah Khan in his efforts to modernize Afghanistan. The book is divided into more than 30 short chapters describing the rights and responsibilities of the ruler, of persons living within a family unit, and of members of Afghan society as a whole. Some sections, such as one on the rights that are to be afforded to the king (ḥuquq-i lazima bar padishah), are further divided into subsections. The book begins with several chapters on religious matters, including those on tauhid (the unity of God), on ʻibada (worship), and on fahm-i sharīʻat-i rasūl ʻalayhi al-salām (the sharia). Ẓuhūr al-amān was published on October 11, 1923, by the then newly established Ministry of Education. The author of the work, a religious scholar by the name of ʻAbd al-Haqq, lists his father as ʻAbd al-ʻAziz from the village of Lower Arghanda in the township of Paghman, near Kabul. He highlights, as well, his tribal affiliation with the well-known Pushtun tribe of Suleimankhel. World Digital Library.