Introduction
Wassaf or Vassaf (Persian: عبدالله ابن فضلالله شرفالدین شیرازی) Abdallah ibn Faḍlallah Sharaf al-Din Shīrāzī (fl. 1265-1328) was a 14th-century Persian historian of the Ilkhanate. Waṣṣāf, sometimes lengthened to Waṣṣāf al-Ḥaḍrat or Vassaf-e Hazrat (Persian: وصّافِ حضرت), is a title meaning "Court Panegyrist".
A native of Shiraz, Wassaf was a tax administrator in Fars during the reigns of Ghazan Mahmud and Öljaitü.
He is the author of the historical work Tārīkḣ-i Waṣṣāf, also known as Tajziyat al-amṣār wa-tazjiyat al-a'ṣār (The allocation of cities and the propulsion of epochs).
Tarik-i Wassaf
His history, Tajziyat al-amṣār wa-tazjiyat al-a'ṣār (The allocation of cities and the propulsion of epochs) also called Tārīkḣ-i Waṣṣāf, was conceived as a continuation of Juwayni's Tārīkḣ-i Jahāngushāy whose account of the rise of the Mongol Empire ended in 1257.
Tārīkḣ-i Waṣṣāf consisted of an introduction and five volumes. The first volume (first part) only was edited and translated by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, published 1855.
Wassaf's florid style of prose is not easily followed by modern readers, and an abridged version entitled the Taḥrīr-i Tārīkḣ-i Waṣṣāf (1346/1967) has been edited by ʿAbd al-Muḥammad Āyatī.