His studies focused on the early history of Islam and the Caliphate. Among his other works, he completed Julius von Mohl's translation of Ferdowsi's Shahnama, with the French title Livre des Rois. This was the first European translation of the pivotal work made available to a wide audience.
Barbier de Meynard also translated numerous works by al-Masudi, ibn Khordadbeh and other Caliphate-era historians. He studied the history of Zoroastrianism, editing the Dictionnaire Géographique de la Perse, and wrote about the then-nascent Baháʼí Faith. He was involved in the editing of the 19th-century edition of Crusader sources in Arabic with French translations, the Recueil des Historiens des Croisades.
Barbier de Meynard was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1895.
Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron
