We only know about the life of Rāvandī thanks to the information he provides in the Rāḥat al-şudūr wa-āyat al-surūr ( راحة الصدور وآية السرور), which is the only
work written by him that has survived to our days. He mentions that he wrote at
least another two works (a polemical work rejecting Shia Islam and a work on
calligraphy) which are unfortunately lost. He was born in the small village of
Rāvand (Iran), near the city of
Kāshān (Iran) in a family of
scholars. He spent at least ten years in the service of his maternal uncle in
Hamadān (Iran), during which
time he studied Hanafi law, calligraphy and book manufacturing. He managed to make
a living by using his calligraphic skills, binding abilities and book gilding.
(see (Browne, E.G.. "Account of a rare, if not unique, manuscript history of the Seljúqs." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 1902: 567-610; 849-87-567-610; 849-87., pp. 575)). His ability in the arts of
the book brought him access to the court of the Seljuq Sultan of Iraq
Ṭoghril III, Sultan of the Great Seljuqs after Rāvandī took part in a team that craftsmen
that produce a Qur’an for the ruler. When the sultan was imprisoned, he came under
the patronage of a certain Shihāb
al-Dīn al-Kāshānī, شهاب الدین
الکاشانی, who encouraged Rāvandī to begin writing the Rāḥat
al-şudūr wa-āyat al-surūr (راحة الصدور وآية
السرور). A fervent supporter of the Seljuq dynasty at a time
when the Khwarzmshāh empire was expanding and the Seljuq sultanate in Iraq was
collapsing, Rāvandī decided to dedicate his work to the rulers of Rūm, who he
saw as the new champions of Sunnī Islam, and their capital, Konya (Turkey) as
the centre for the continuation of Persian scholarly traditions. (see (Hillenbrand, Carole. "Rāwandī." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. , [n.d.].)).
Best known as a history of the Great Seljuqs from the beginning of the dynasty
to the author's own time (418-594), the work is in fact a collection of courtly
advice, including, in addition to its historical sections, discussions of
chess-playing, wine-drinking, calligraphy and hunting. The work relies extensively
on the Saljūqʹnāmah (
سلجوقنامه of Ẓāhir al-Dīn
Nīshāpūrī, d. -approximately 1184 or 1185 but it is an important
source for the history of the last decades of the Great Seljuqs and in particular
for the reign of Ṭoghril III, d. 1194, طغرل , for
which the author provides an eye-witness account. It is unclear whether Rāvandī travelled to Konya (Turkey) in person to present the book to
its dedicatee, Sultan Kaykhusraw I, d. 1211Show more
