Hafez-e AbruMaria Eva Subtelny and Charles Melville, ( fa, حافظ ابرو; died June 1430) was a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

historian working at the courts of Timurid rulers of Central Asia. His full name is ʿAbdallah (or Nur-Allah) Ebn Lotf-Allah Ebn 'Abd-al-Rashid Behdadini; his short name is also transcribed in Western literature as Hafiz-i Abru, Hafez-e Abru, Hafiz Abru etc. Hafiz-i Abru was born in Khorasan and studied in

Hamadān Hamadan () or Hamedan ( fa, همدان, ''Hamedān'') ( Old Persian: Haŋgmetana, Ecbatana) is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2019 census, its population was 783,300 in 230,775 families. The majority of people living in H ...

. He entered

Timur Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kü ...

's court in the 1380s; after the death of Timur, Hafiz-i Abru continued in the service of Timur's son,

Shah Rukh Shah Rukh or Shahrukh ( fa, شاهرخ, ''Šāhrokh'') (20 August 1377 – 13 March 1447) was the ruler of the Timurid Empire between 1405 and 1447. He was the son of the Central Asian conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), who founded the Timurid dynas ...

, in

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...

. He interacted with other scholars congregating around Timur's and Shah Rukh's courts, and became recognized as a good

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

player. Hafiz-i Abru is the author and/or compiler of numerous works on the history and geography of the Timurid state and adjacent regions, commissioned by his master Shah Rukh, in particular ''Majma al-tawarikh'' ("World Histories").

References

Sources

* 15th-century Iranian historians 14th-century Iranian historians Historians from the Timurid Empire Officials of the Timurid Empire {{Iran-historian-stub