The exposition of some of the difficulties in the new redaction of Tarikh-e Beyhaqi

Emending old texts is one of the most challenging and yet most important scholarly undertakings, especially that of those texts which, due to their literary as well as paraliterary values, are considered to be seminal and of great importance. Tarikh-e Beyhaqi (the Beyhaqi History) is one of such texts whose enormous significance shows itself in different ways. Hence it has been redacted several times. Recently, a noteworthy edition of this book, emended by Mohammad-Jafar Yahaqqi and Mahdi Sayyedi, has been published. Based on a large number of manuscripts, the new redaction has removed very many of the problems found in the previous editions. Nonetheless, despite its many merits, the new edition suffers some problems, especially in its explanatory notes. This article attempts to look at a number of these problems, hoping that it will help resolve some of them.