Local Histories of the Jazīra: Structural Typology and Content Evaluation

Ta’rīkh Almawṣil by Abu Zakariya Azdī (d. 334).); Ta’rīkh Raqqa by Qushairī Harrani (d. 334).); Ta’ rīkh Mayyāfāriqīn by Ibn Azarq Farqi (d. 577); And Ta’ rīkh Irbil by Ibn Mustawfī Irbilī (d. 637)) are  four surviving local histories of the Jazīra in the Middle Islamic period. Apart from being “local”, what other types of Islamic historiography they are?  A structural and content review of those books revealed: 1. Ta’rīkh Almawṣil is a “local-general chronography” which, in addition to the history of Mosul and the Jazīra, has long report about the history of  late Umayyad and the first Abbasid era; 2. Ta’rīkh Raqqa is a (tabaqat)-“prosopography” which mentions the condition of the “Ulama” of Raqqa and Jazīra, but has very few narrations about the geography and history of this city; 3. Ta’ rīkh Mayyāfāriqīn has narrated the local history of Mayyāfariqīn and the Jazīra under the history of the Caliphate and the history of the Hamdānī, Marwānī and Artuqī dynasties; 4. Ta’ rīkh Irbil is a “non-alphabetic prosopography” in which the lives and works of a number of Ulama and writers of the sixth and seventh centuries AH are discussed