Golden horde historiography: the contribution and potential of historico-biographical literature

Abstract

Among the more than thirty works written in the genre of historical and biographical literature Tabaqat al-hanafiya, the work by Mahmud ibn Sulayman al-Kafawi holds a special place, since in this work al-Kafawi first used the productive approach collecting and organizing the chains of tradition transmitters in schools ('an'ana, silsila, isnad) with the aim to show the historical evolution of the Hanafite madhhab. This valuable source, Kata'ib A`lam al-Akhyar, has not been published previously. We decided to revise the old views concerning the activity of al-Kafawi on the compiling and editing his work. The following new sources were detected and processed: 50 copies of the work by al-Kafawi, preserved in Turkey, Western Countries, and Central Asia. These copies of Kata'ib were important for us since they allowed to discover the three sources for the biography of al-Kafawi. Their data made it possible to establish that the work of al-Kafavi on the compiling of Kata'ib A` lam al- Akhyarconsisted of two phases: 1) the preparation of the book (jam', ta'lif) was done by al- Kafawi in 983-985 A. H.; and 2) the editing (tahrir) was the work of his pupil Muslih al- Din Mustafa ibn al-Hasan al-'Arifi al-Sinubi (d. 1018/1609-10). In the editor's part of the work we can see the editor's tendency towards Sufism. This has allowed us to conclude that al- Kafawi was a native of the Golden Horde and could collect rich materials on its history.