Tarikh Yamini

The Tarikh i Yamini, or Kitab i Yamini, written in Arabic^[1] in an embellished, flowery rhetorical rhymed prose,^[2] is a history of the reigns of Sebuktigin and Mahmud.

Written by the historian Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al Jabbaru-l 'Utbi (or al-Utbi). His work comprises the whole of the reign of Sebuktigin, and part of that of Mahmud, down to the year 410 Hijra (1020 AD). The Tarikh Yamini also contains information chronicling Sultan Mahmud's expeditions as well as the end of the Samanid Empire.^[3] Al-Utbi, being Mahmud's secretary, did not accompany the sultan, therefore his topography is deficient and his writing style consists of an explicit orthodox nature.^[4] He also states that he intentionally suppressed many events, unnatural or strange that he found skeptical that did not fit the objectives he had set down in the preface.^[5]