Nasir al-Din ibn Amir Muzaffar

Nasir al-Din ibn Amir Muzaffar was born in the middle of the nineteenth century (1850 is the year usually given) in Bukhara, into the family of Emir Muzaffar of the Manghit dynasty, who ruled from 1860 to 1885. He studied in the madrasas of Bukhara and wrote historical and biographical works in Persian.

His best-known work is the Tuhfat uz-zoirin (“A Gift for Pilgrims”). It gathers information about the saints, shaykhs and scholars buried in and around Bukhara and about their tombs; he finished it in 1906. It was printed in Bukhara by lithography, and part of it has been translated into Russian. The manuscript has been studied by S. A. Zakhidova (2001) as a source on the urban culture of Bukhara.

His other works include the Osori salotin (“Notable Reports on the Rulers”), on the history of the Shaybanids, Ashtarkhanids and Manghits (dated to 1904 in some sources), the Kunuz al-atqiya (“Treasures of the Pious”) and the Hodi uz-zoirin. In 1921–1922 he wrote the Tahqiqoti arki Bukhoro, on the history of the Bukhara Ark.

From 1921 to 1923 Nasir al-Din was a member of the Bukharan Scientific Society of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic. In July 1923, at the demand of the last emir of Bukhara, Sayyid Alim Khan, he was sent to Afghanistan together with other relatives of the emir. Most sources say he died in Kabul in the 1920s; some Uzbek reference works give 1922 and Bukhara instead, so the exact date and place of his death are reported differently.