In spite of its importance and interest the detailed examination and comparison of texts is not at present valued highly by academic review bodies and policy makers. It is a particular pleasure to submit a chapter belonging to this unfashionable category in honour of Carole Hillenbrand who is not only a friend of long standing but also a scholar in whose work, beginning with the doctoral thesis based on the History of Mayyafariqin, close and careful attention is given to textual matters. It is a revised version of a talk delivered under her chairmanship at a panel of the Conference of the International Society of Iranian Studies held in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies in August 2006.

Since the later nineteenth century scholars had appreciated that the Saljuqnama of Zahir al-Din Nishapuri was the main Persian source of the information on the Seljuqs of Iran that was available to later Persian chroniclers. For a long time the work was only known from references in later histories. As it happens, a manuscript of the original had entered the library of the Royal Asiatic Society early in the nineteenth century and, though not identified as such, had been described as a history of the Seljuqs in a catalogue published in 1854, but, for reasons that need not be told here, it eluded rediscovery until recently. In preparing an edition, I found that evidence from a number of later histories which exploited the Saljuqnama not only helped to establish that it was the original work of Nishapuri but also made it possible to check and correct readings of the manuscript.