Gulistan-i Iram

The Gulistan-i Iram is a 19th-century Persian-language chronicle on the history of Shirvan, Dagestan, and Derbent from ancient times until the Treaty of Golestan concluded between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran in 1813. It was composed in 1841 by Abbasgulu Bakikhanov, a 19th-century Tatar polymath who served under the Russian Empire. The name of the book is an allusion to the Garden of Iram mentioned in the Quran and the Gulistan village, where the treaty was concluded.

Bakikhanov applied the methods he learned from Nikolay Karamzin and other contemporary European historians to Persian and Arabic history when writing the book. His attitude, however, was more innovative and analytical. He altered these methods through his knowledge of Persian genres and Islamic historical traditions, supplementing them with European standards, methods, and ideals. Bakikhanov's fusion of poetry and history is characterized by a number of unique elements, including its utilization of a hilly landscape to inspire awe. Here, Bakikhanov expands on the Arabic and Persian aja'ib ("miracles") genre.

The book draws heavily from major Persian histories to explain the beginnings of human history, the most notable of which are the History of the Prophets and Kings of al-Tabari (died 923), the Tarikh-i guzida ("Excerpt History") and Zafarnamah ("Book of Victory") of Hamdallah Mustawfi (died after 1339/40), the Rawzat as-safa ("Garden of Purity") of Mirkhvand (died 1498), as well as its shortened version, the Khulasat al-akhbar ("Compendium of Reports") by Khvandamir (died 1535/6).

A 1984 Russian edition of the work was published by the Azerbaijani historian Ziya Bunyadov, which has been called "incomplete and defective." Around 20 pages, chapters 63, 64, 65 and 66 of which focuses mostly on Armenia and the Armenians, have been removed.