Narratives by the “Father of Muslim Historiography” aṭ-Ṭabarī (839–923) on the Arab-Khazar wars in the Caucasus

The author of the publication continues to present the materials extracted from the “History of the Prophets and Kings” (Ta’rīḫ ar-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk) by “the father of the Muslim historiography”, an Arabic spoken Iranian aṭ-Ṭabarī (839–923). This article includes two main sections. The first of them tells about the conquests of Muslims in the Christian countries of the Southern Caucasus under caliphs ‘Umar (634–644) and ‘Uthmān (644–656) up to the fortified city of Derbent (al-Bāb), which formed the bordering with the Khazar Kaganate vilayet of Armīnīya.The following tells about the Muslim campaign into Khazaria and their attempt to storm its largest city of Balanjar. In the second section, the “father of Muslim historiography” talks about the campaigns of the Arabs from 89 to 183 AH (708–799) deep into Khazaria, the conquest of Balanjar and the retaliatory raids of the Khazars into the possessions of the caliphs in the South of the Caucasus. These passages were taken from the classic critical edition carried out in three series and 15 volumes in Leiden (1879–1901), edited by M. de Goeje. The selected passages have been translated from Classical Arabic into Russian for the first time in the history of Oriental Studies. The detailed text notes and scholarly comments based on historical and geographical narratives of the languages of the Christian and Muslim Orient are also attached to the article. The author also took into account the data contained in the leading international academic and reference publications.