Twice Toldal-Baladhuri, Futuh al-buldan, transl. Murgotten (New York, 1924): the taking of as-Sus and the tomb of Daniel, pp. 114 to 115
- Language
- English
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Retrieved
- 10 October 2026
Francis Clark Murgotten’s English translation of the second part of al-Baladhuri’s Kitab futuh al-buldan (“The Book of the Conquests of Lands”, ninth century), published as The Origins of the Islamic State, Part II (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. LXVIII, no. 163A). Part I, by Philip K. Hitti (1916), does not reach Khuzistan.
Original
[p. 114] The taking of as-Sus. Abu-Musa went to as-Sus and attacked its people. Then he besieged them until what food they had was consumed, and they were reduced to surrender. Their marzuban asked for safe-conduct to be given to eighty of them on condition that they open the gates of the city and surrender it. But when he named the eighty he left himself out, and abu-Musa ordered that he be beheaded. No harm was done to the eighty, but all the fighting men except them were put to death, their property seized, and their households enslaved.
The tomb of Daniel. Abu-Musa saw in their citadel a house upon which was a veil, and upon asking about it, was told that in it were the remains of Daniel the prophet. (Peace be upon him and upon the [other] prophets of Allah and upon his apostles.) Now the people of as-Sus had been
[p. 115] smitten with drought, and had asked the Babylonians to send Daniel to them in order that they might secure rain by his help. This was done. (Bakht Nassar had taken Daniel captive and had brought him to Babylon.) Thus Daniel came to die in Manadhir. Abu-Musa wrote about this to ‘Umar, who replied, “Wrap him in a shroud and bury him.” Abu-Musa dammed up a river until he could bury him [in the river bed] while it was stopped. Then he let the water flow above him.
Translation
Murgotten’s published English translation; we read al-Baladhuri in translation, with a check of the Arabic on p. 378 (see Notes). Square brackets are Murgotten’s.
Notes
- The footnotes on p. 114 cite Yaqut, vol. iii, pp. 188 to 189, and al-Tabari, vol. i, pp. 2566 to 2567, for the tomb of Daniel; footnote 1 on p. 115 glosses “Bakht Nassar” as Nebuchadnezzar.
- “Thus Daniel came to die in Manadhir” sits oddly after a passage about as-Sus. We read de Goeje’s Arabic on the Leiden page image (archive.org liberexpugnation00bald, leaf n306, printed p. 378, lines 12 to 16): it says that Nebuchadnezzar took Daniel captive and brought him to Babil, “fa-qubida bi-ha” (he died, or was taken, there, with a feminine pronoun), and has no word that reads Manadhir. Its words for the order are “kaffinhu wa-dfinhu” (shroud him and bury him) and, for the river, “fa-sakkara Abu Musa nahran” (Abu Musa dammed a river) “hatta idha inqata’a dafanahu thumma ajra al-ma’a ‘alayhi” (until it was cut off, he buried him, then let the water flow over him). The same lines call what lies in the house “juththat Daniyal” (the body of Daniel). Where Murgotten’s Manadhir comes from we cannot tell.
- The passage has a house and a veil, and says “remains”; it does not say coffin.