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Historiography (Islamic Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Historiography literally means “the writing of history.” It has two main, related, meanings: (1) the actual process of writing about the past, and (2) the study of the theory and philosophy of writing history. This entry is concerned with history writing and historical thought in the Islamic world from the origins of Islam in the early 7th century CE to the present, with a particular focus on the central Islamic lands in the early, medieval, and early modern periods (c. 600–1800). That is, the entry discusses writing about the past that might be described by the Arabic word taʾrikh (“history,” or “chronology”), whence the Persian tarikh and the Turkish tarih. It does not address writing about the past for a more specialist legal or religious purpose (e.g., jurisprudence or Qurʾanic exegesis).
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. There is no single study of all Islamic historiography. Most monographs have focused on the early and medieval periods (c. 600–1500), often referred to as the “formative” and “classical” periods. The best introduction to early and medieval Arabic Islamic historiography is now Robinson 2003, which has a good bibliography. Other important studies include Khalidi 1994 and Rosenthal 1968; the latter is a survey that includes historical writing in Persian. Meisami 1999 is the best modern introduction devoted exclusively to medieval Persian historiography. A useful “state of the field” bibliographic guide to primary and secondary literature on Islamic history and historiography in the early and medieval periods is Humphreys 1991.
  8.  
  9. Humphreys, R. Stephen. Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
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  11. A bibliographic survey of the state of the field of historical studies in early and medieval Islam; devotes considerable space to questions of historiography. Chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6 are particularly relevant.
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  13. Khalidi, Tarif. Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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  15. A wide-ranging and erudite analysis of the history of Muslims' ideas about the past down to around 1500, arranged under the rubrics of four main “epistemic canopies or modes” (p. xii). Khalidi argues that these modes describe the predominant currents in Islamic culture at different stages of history.
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  17. Meisami, Julie S. Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
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  19. The only monograph in English on the history of history writing in Persian in medieval times, and the first survey since Storey 1927. Meisami examines the subject under the three dynastic rubrics: the Samanid period, the Ghaznavid period, and the Seljuk period.
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  21. Radtke, Bernd. Weltgeschichte und Weltbeschreibung im mittelalterlichen Islam. Beirut: F. Steiner, 1992.
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  23. The only monograph on the “universal history” and “world chronicle” in medieval Islamic historiography.
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  25. Robinson, Chase F. Islamic Historiography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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  27. The best introduction to Islamic historiography in Arabic in the formative and medieval periods (to c. 1500), focusing on the social contexts in which history writing was produced. Includes suggested further reading and an extensive and up-to-date bibliography.
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  29. Rosenthal, Franz. A History of Muslim Historiography. 2d rev. ed. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1968.
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  31. Rosenthal's magisterial work, originally published in 1952, was the first survey in English of Islamic historiography. It is still a useful overview, covering the period down to c. 1500.
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  33. Sauvaget, Jean, and Claude Cahen. Introduction to the History of the Muslim East: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
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  35. A classic bibliographic survey of primary and secondary literature for the history of the central Islamic lands to c. 1900. Reprinted by Greenwood Press in 1982. This is an English translation of the 1961 revised French edition of the first (1943) French edition.
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  37. Edited Volumes
  38.  
  39. Some of the best overviews of Islamic historiography are to be found in edited collections. Lewis and Holt 1962 covers the central Islamic lands down to the 20th century and, although it is now rather dated, still includes much useful and important material. Morgan 1982 takes a comparative approach to historiography in the medieval Christian and Islamic worlds. Also of note are the special issue of Iranian Studies 2000, guest edited by Charles Melville and Jürgen Paul, which is devoted to medieval Iranian local histories, and Al-Azmeh 2006, which is a collection of essays by one author that takes a highly theoretical approach to problems in Islamic history and historiography. There are also a number of important entries in more general edited collections: Cahen 1990 is still a useful short survey of medieval Islamic historiography; al-Qadi 1995 provides a good discussion of the distinctive and important Islamic historiographical genre of the biographical dictionary; Whitby 2007 is mainly concerned with the Byzantine empire, but includes useful surveys of medieval source material in Arabic.
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  41. Al-Azmeh, Aziz. The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006.
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  43. A collection of essays by the author. Not a good introduction to the subject but rather a series of theoretically sophisticated discussions of Islamic historiography and of problems with the category of “Islamic historiography” itself.
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  45. Cahen, Claude. “History and Historians.” In Religion, Learning and Science in the ʿAbbasid Period. Edited by M.J.L. Young, J. D. Latham, and R. B. Serjeant, 188–233. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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  47. A short, discursive survey of Islamic historiography from its beginnings to the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in 1258. The collection in which it is found is the second volume of the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, which includes relevant articles in all the volumes.
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  49. Iranian Studies 33, nos. 1–2 (2000).
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  51. Available online, this is a special issue of Iranian Studies, the journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies, devoted to ‘Persian Local Histories’. The volume was guest edited by Charles Melville and Jürgen Paul and includes a useful state of the field survey of the secondary literature by Charles Melville.
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  53. Lewis, Bernard, and P. M. Holt, eds. Historians of the Middle East. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
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  55. This collection of papers on Middle Eastern historiography from conferences held between 1956 and 1958 includes many excellent surveys that are still useful. Parts I and III cover, “Arabic, Persian and Turkish Historiography to the 12th/19th Century” and “Modern Middle Eastern Historical Writing,” respectively. Available online.
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  57. Morgan, David O., ed. Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982.
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  59. An important collection of conference papers from 1979, which takes as its starting point the relative lack of genuine documentary evidence for medieval societies in the Christian and Islamic worlds. Chapters with an Islamic focus include Brett on the Fatimids, Holt on Mamluk historiography, Richards on Ibn al-Athir, and Morgan on Persian historians of the Mongols and Ilkhanids.
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  61. al-Qadi, Wadad. “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance.” In The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East. Edited by George N. Atiyeh, 93–122. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
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  63. A good introduction to this distinctive genre of Islamic historical writing, the first extant examples of which date from the 9th century. For a lengthier study of a particular time and place, see Chamberlain 1994, cited in The Western and Central Islamic Lands and the Pre-Ilkhanid East. For a short bibliographic discussion, see Auchterlonie 1987, cited in Reference Works and Bibliographies.
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  65. Whitby, Mary, ed. Byzantines and Crusaders in non-Greek Sources, 1025–1204. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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  67. An excellent collection of essays surveying sources for the history of the Byzantine empire and the Crusades. On Arabic sources, see Johns (on Sicily) and Hillenbrand.
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  69. Reference Works and Bibliographies
  70.  
  71. The thorough entries in the two major reference works for Islamic studies, The Encyclopaedia of Islam and Encyclopaedia Iranica, are good starting points for all aspects of historiography. See, in particular, Humphreys, et al. 2000 on the Islamic world in general, and Daniel, et al. 2004 on Iranian historiography and historical writing in Persian. Both include full bibliographies. For individual historians and their works, see the relevant entries in the same encyclopedias. The best bibliographic reference works on the early and medieval historical texts themselves are Brockelmann 1898–1942 and Sezgin 1967. Index Islamicus is an invaluable bibliographic tool for all of Islamic studies, including historiography.
  72.  
  73. Auchterlonie, Paul J. Arabic Biographical Dictionaries: a summary guide and bibliography. Durham, UK: Middle East Libraries Committee, 1987.
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  75. The “biographical dictionary” became a very important genre of historical writing in the Islamic world, largely because of the importance of the transmission of religious tradition through a sequence of individual scholars. This short, selective survey covers the genre from its inception down to modern times.
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  77. Brockelmann, Carl. Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. 5 vols. Weimar, Leipzig, and Leiden: E. Felber, C. F. Amelang, and E. J. Brill, 1898–1942.
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  79. A reference work on Arabic manuscripts and their authors, comprising two initial volumes (1898–1902) and three supplementary ones (1937–1942). A revised edition of the two volumes was produced by Brill in 1943–1949 and reprinted in 1996. For the very early period, down to the 1030s, Sezgin 1967 largely replaces Brockelmann.
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  81. Daniel, Elton, A. Shapur Shahbazi, and Charles Melville, et al. “Historiography.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 12. Edited by E. Yarshater. New York: Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, 2004:323–411.
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  83. Extensive entries with bibliographies on historiography in Persian and from the Iranian Islamic world in all languages, covering all periods from before Islam to the present. Particularly important entries include the “Introduction” and the “Early Islamic Period,” by Daniel, the “Mongol Period,” by Melville, the “Timurid Period,” by Maria Szeppe, and “Central Asia,” by Yuri Bregel. Also available online.
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  85. Humphreys, R. S. “Historiography.” In Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol. 6. Edited by J. Strayer, 249–255. New York: Scribner, 1985.
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  87. A good introductory encyclopedia entry on medieval Islamic historiography.
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  89. Humphreys, R. S., Manuela Marín, A. K. S. Lambton, et al. “Taʾrīkh. II, Historical Writing.” In The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 10. Edited by P. J. Bearman, et al., 271–302. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  91. Includes extensive entries on all aspects of Islamic historiography down to the 20th century. Humphreys' entries on the formative and medieval periods are particularly thorough and include excellent annotated bibliographies. Other important entries include: Marín on Muslim Spain, Lambton on Persian historiography, and Woodhead on the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. See also Vol. 12, supplement (2004), 795–810.
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  93. Index Islamicus.
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  95. Available online. The most comprehensive bibliographic resource on modern Islamic studies in European languages, and thus a very important starting point for research into Islamic historiography.
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  97. Sezgin, Fuat. Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Bd. 1, Qurʾānwissenschaften, Ḥadīth, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik bis ca. 430H. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1967.
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  99. A comprehensive bibliographical reference work on Muslim scholars and their works down to the 1030s.
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  101. Storey, Charles A. Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey. 5 vols. London: Luzac and Co., 1927.
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  103. A survey of Persian literature from the medieval period. Updated in the Russian revised edition, translated by Yuri Bregelsidskaya literatura: Bio-bibliografichskii obzor (Moscow, 1972). See also Meisami 1999 (cited in General Overviews) and Daniel, et al. 2004.
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  105. The Formative Period (c. 600–c. 950)
  106.  
  107. The formative period of Islamic historiography is usually taken to begin with the establishment of the first Muslim community in Arabia in the 620s and to end with the collapse of the Abbasid Empire around 950. Here modern scholarship on the formative period is discussed under three rubrics: (1) the question of the origins and development of the early Islamic historical tradition and the debate about how modern historians should best approach this material;(2) the related question of the evolution of historical writing under the early Abbasid caliphs (c. 750–950); and (3) early historical texts translated into European languages. Duri 1983 is the only monograph in English to focus specifically on the whole of the formative period. However, many of the more general works listed under General Overviews discuss it in some detail, as do the major encyclopedia entries. Sezgin 1967, a bibliographic reference work, is also concerned primarily with the formative period.
  108.  
  109. Duri, Abd al-Aziz. The Rise of Historical Writing among the Arabs. Edited and translated by L. I. Conrad. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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  111. A revised edition and translation of Duri's Baḥth fī nashʿat ʿilm al-taʾrīkh ʿinda al-ʿArab (Beirut, 1960). The English edition lacks the long excerpts from Arabic historical texts but has an updated critical apparatus and an additional introduction by Fred M. Donner.
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  113. Sezgin, Fuat. Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Bd. 1, Qurʾānwissenschaften, ḥadīth, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik bis ca. 430H. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1967.
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  115. A comprehensive bibliographical reference work on Muslim scholars and their works down to the 1030s.
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  117. Origins and Source Criticism
  118.  
  119. Almost no written Islamic history is extant from before 750, and very little before 850. Hence, modern scholarship has been very exercised by questions about the transmission of historical knowledge in the early period. Crone and Cook 1977 is a controversial attempt to reconstruct the early history of Islam without recourse to the later Islamic historical tradition. This book is now seen as more valuable for having stimulated further work and for its methodological insights than for its actual historical conclusions. Crone 1980 is a more succinct statement of problems with the sources for the very early period of Islam. Noth and Conrad 1994 (a revision of material first published in German in 1973) is another important work of source criticism. It takes a slightly less skeptical stance than that of Crone and Cook 1977 and Crone 1980. Such skeptical conclusions about the sources were never universally accepted, and a more nuanced, even “counter-revisionist,” position has started to emerge, as in Hoyland 1997 and Donner 1998. This has been accompanied by a shift toward greater consideration of the milieu in which the texts themselves were generated and their qualities as literary artifacts. See, for example, Leder in Cameron, et al. 1992 and the works listed under Historiography in the Early Abbasid Caliphate. On the important question of literacy and orality in early Islam (and for less skeptical attitudes to the sources), see Abbott 1957 and Schoeler 2009.
  120.  
  121. Abbott, Nabia. Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri. Vol. I, Historical Texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.
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  123. An important discussion of the fragmentary documentary evidence for early historical writing in Arabic. On orality and writing in early Islam, see also Schoeler 2009, among others.
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  125. Cameron, Averil, Lawrence I. Conrad, and G.R.D. King, eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East. Vol. 1, Problems in the Literary Source Materials; Papers from the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1992.
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  127. See especially the papers by al-Qadi, Conrad, and Leder on the preservation of state documents, the transmission of early facts about the conquests, and the literary forms of early Islamic historiography, respectively.
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  129. Crone, Patricia. Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  131. The “Historiographical Introduction” (pp. 3–17) is a concise statement by a skeptic about the nature of the early Islamic historical tradition and the implications of this for a modern historian interested in “what happened.”
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  133. Crone, Patricia, and Michael Cook. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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  135. A polemical treatise on the origins of Islam that rejects the later Islamic tradition as historical evidence for the formative period. The arguments and conclusions in this book were highly controversial when it was published. Although many of them have subsequently been refuted, the book's importance for highlighting problems in the early sources and in influencing subsequent research is widely recognized.
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  137. Donner, Fred M. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998.
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  139. An important contribution to the debate about the origins and development of Islamic historiography. Donner emphasizes the formation of ethnic and religious identities in the evolution of a written historical tradition.
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  141. Hoyland, Robert S. Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997.
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  143. A survey of non-Muslim and non-Arabic historiography from the early Islamic period; provides insights into the cultural milieu in the Near East in the formative period and contributes to the debate about the reliability of the early Islamic tradition.
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  145. Motzki, Harald. The Biography of Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2000.
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  147. A collection of papers on the early sources for the life of the Prophet Muhammad, edited by a scholar who tends to take a moderately skeptical approach to the early Islamic tradition.
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  149. Noth, Albrecht, and Lawrence I. Conrad The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study. Translated by M. Bonner. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1994.
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  151. Tendenzen frühislamischer Geschichtsüberlieferung. An influential work that takes a very different stance than Duri 1983 on the idea of regional schools with identifiable “tendencies,” arguing that little difference between authors can be distinguished on this basis. Revised edition and translation of Noth's 1973 Quellenkritische Studien zu Themen, Formen und.
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  153. Schoeler, Gregor. The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read. Translated by S. M. Toorawa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
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  155. A translation and revision of Écrire et transmettre dans les débuts de l'Islam (Paris, 2002). Explores orality and writing in all branches of the Islamic tradition, including historiography, and argues that misunderstandings about the transmission of knowledge in early Islam have led to excessively skeptical assumptions its accuracy.
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  157. Historiography in the Early Abbasid Caliphate
  158.  
  159. The Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq lasted from 750 to 1258. However, the Abbasids' effective domination of the Muslim empire lasted until only about 950. This 200-year period coincided with the first great era of the composition of written history in Islam, and there has been an increasing focus on the interaction between the caliphal court and Islamic historiography. Daniel 1982, Lassner 1986, and El-Hibri 1999 are all directly concerned with the relationship between Abbasid power and historiography; Kennedy 2008 is a collection of essays on the most important historian of the early Abbasid era, al-Tabari (d. 923), who lived and worked in Abbasid Iraq for much of his life, though in relative independence from the caliphal court. Al-Masʿudi (d. 956), even more than al-Tabari, operated beyond the Abbasid court; on him, see Khalidi 1975.
  160.  
  161. Daniel, Elton. “The Anonymous “History of the Abbasid Family” and Its Place in Islamic Historiography.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. 14, no. 4 (1982): 419–434.
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  163. Discusses the importance of the anonymous 9th-century history usually called the Akhbār al-dawla al-ʿabbāsiyya.
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  165. El-Hibri, Tayeb. Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Narrative of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  167. A reflection of the arrival of the “linguistic turn” in Islamic history and historiography. El-Hibri reads Abbasid-era historical texts as literary artifacts reflecting the context of their production rather than as evidence for the past they describe.
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  169. Kennedy, Hugh N., ed. Al-Ṭabarī: A Medieval Muslim Historian and His Work. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 2008.
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  171. A collection of conference papers on Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Tabari (d. 923), whose Taʾrīkh al-rusul waʾl-mulūk (History of the prophets and kings) is one of the most comprehensive histories from the formative period of Islam, as well as one of the most influential “world histories” in the medieval period. The History itself has been translated into English in al-Tabari (1985–2007).
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  173. Khalidi, Tarif. Islamic Historiography: The Histories of al-Masʿūdī. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.
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  175. A monograph on the encyclopedic Shiʿi world historian, al-Masʿudi (d. 956).
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  177. Lassner, Jacob. Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory: An Inquiry into the Art of ʿAbbāsid Apologetics. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1986.
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  179. An analysis of evidence for the “Abbasid Revolution” that brought the Abbasid dynasty to power in 750 and “a study of how medieval Muslims understood historical processes and forged historical traditions” (p. ix).
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  181. Translated Texts from the Formative Period
  182.  
  183. The volume of early Islamic historical texts translated into English is growing quite steadily, although the translations themselves are of uneven quality. The most important work in translation is al-Tabari 1985–2007. An equally important (and equally vast) work, the Ansāb al-Ashrāf (Genealogies of the notables) by al-Tabari's senior contemporary, al-Baladhuri (d. 892) has only recently been edited and remains untranslated. However, al-Baladhuri 1916–1924 is a translation of a much shorter but important work by the same historian. Other basic texts include Ibn Ishaq 1955 and Ibn al-Nadim 1970.
  184.  
  185. al-Baladhuri, Ahmad ibn Yahya. The Origins of the Islamic State. Translated by P. K. Hitti and F. C. Murgotten. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University, 1916–1924.
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  187. This translation of an important history of the early Islamic conquests is old, and thus does not benefit from subsequent advances in the understanding of early Islamic history. It was reprinted in 1966 Khayats (Beirut) and in 1968–1969 by AMS Press (New York). Volume 1 is available online.
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  189. Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's “Sirat Rasul Allah.” Translated by A. Guillaume. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.
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  191. The biography of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632) by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), extant only in a recension by Ibn Hisham (d. 833). It probably originally formed part of a larger “universal history.” In the translation, which reconstructs Ibn Ishaq's work, some material is abbreviated. Reissued in 1967, it has been in print since then.
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  193. Ibn al-Nadim, Muhammad. The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. 2 vols. Edited and translated by Bayard Dodge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
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  195. A survey of books and their authors compiled by a bookseller and courtier at the end of the 10th century; a very important source for early Islamic literary and historiographic culture. Reprinted in Chicago by KAZI Publications, 1998.
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  197. Ibn Saʿd, Muhammad. Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr. Translated by Aisha Bewley. 2 vols. London: Ta-Ha, 1997–2000.
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  199. Translated excerpts from Ibn Saʿd's (d. 945) “Great Book of the Generations”; Volume 1 is titled The Women of Madina; Volume 2 is The Men of Madina. This is the first extant work of tabaqat (literally “layers,” or “generations” of Muslims), probably in a late 9th-century recension.
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  201. al-Masʿudi, ʿAli ibn Husayn. Les prairies d'or: Traduction française de Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille, revue et corrigée par Charles Pellat. Translated by C. Barbier de Meynard, A. Pavet de Courteille, and C. Pellat. 9 vols. Paris: Société asiatique, 1962–1971.
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  203. Revised French translation (in Vols. 5–9, after the Arabic text) of the Shiʿi historian al-Masʿudi's (d. 956) encyclopedic world history, which is distinctive for its wide-ranging geographical interests and its literary style. First published in 1871–1877; this earlier edition is available online from the Internet Archive.
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  205. al-Masʿudi, ʿAli ibn Husayn. The Meadows of Gold: The Abbasids by Masʿudi. Edited and translated by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1989.
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  207. An excerpted English translation of parts of the important world history of al-Masʿudi, covering the period 754–947 (where al-Masʿudi's work ends).
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  209. Millward, William G. “The Adaptation of Men to Their Time: An Historical Essay by al-Yaʿqūbi.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 84, no. 4 (1964): 329–344.
  210. DOI: 10.2307/596772Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. A short treatise on the influence of rulers on the mores of their subjects by al-Yaʿqubi (d. c. 905), a courtier at the Tahirid and Tulunid courts in Abbasid Khurasan and Egypt, respectively. There is an ongoing project to translate this and other of his works into English, under the direction of Matthew Gordon at the University of Ohio.
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  213. al-Tabari, Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad. The History of al- Ṭabarī. 40 vols. Edited by F. Rosenthal and E. Yar-Shater. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985–2007.
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  215. Annotated English translation of the exegete and lawyer al-Tabari's (d. 923) influential universal history, Taʾrīkh al-rusul waʾl-mulūk (History of the prophets and kings). There is a general introduction in Volume 1 (by Franz Rosenthal), and each volume also has its own introduction and indices; there is an index for the whole series in Volume 40. Given the scale of the translation project, undertaken by various translators, the result is inevitably somewhat uneven, but much of it is excellent.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. The Classical or Medieval Period (c. 950–c. 1500)
  218.  
  219. With the fragmentation of the Muslim empire of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th and 10th centuries, it becomes harder to treat Islamic historical culture in a single study. However, the continued use of Arabic as a lingua franca throughout the Islamic world (with Persian in the East from the 10th century) means that it is still possible to do so, and most of the general monographs on Islamic historiography listed in General Overviews cover this period in some detail. The entries in the major encyclopedias under Reference Works and Bibliographies are also important starting points. More specialist studies tend to focus on regions, ruling dynasties, or genres. The most important break in the period is the Mongol invasion of 1255, which resulted in the end of the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in 1258 and the establishment of the Mongol Ilkhanate in Anatolia, Iraq, Iran, and the East. This was an era of great developments in Persian historiography, and for this reason the historiography of the Ilkhanids and their Timurid successors is treated separately here. This latter category is preceded by entries on the secondary literature on the historiography of the western and central Islamic lands and the pre-Ilkhanid East, and on the relevant translated primary texts.
  220.  
  221. The Western and Central Islamic Lands and the Pre-Ilkhanid East
  222.  
  223. Arabic remained the major language of the literate Muslim elite south and west of Anatolia and Iran throughout this period and after it. However, a significant number of works were composed in Persian in the central and eastern Islamic lands from around the beginning of the 10th century. On the latter, see—besides the relevant works in General Overviews, Edited Volumes and Reference Works and Bibliographies—Cahen 1962 and Bosworth 1998. Cahen 1962 is also still important for the Arabic historiography of the Seljuk era (c. 1040–1194). However, much of modern scholarship on Arabic historiography in the period from 950 to 1500 has tended to concentrate on Egypt and Syria. On the historiography of the Fatimids (909–1171), see Walker 2002; on the Mamluk era in Egypt and Syria, see Little 1970 and Guo 1997. For more theoretical literary, sociological, and anthropological readings of historical texts from Syria, see Chamberlain 1994 and Hirschler 2006. North African historiography is comparatively under-researched, with the exception of Ibn Khaldun's (d. 1406) masterpiece, the Muqaddima (Introduction to history); on Ibn Khaldun in his context, see Shatzmiller 1982; on his theory of history, the classic work is Mahdi 1957. For the historiography of Muslim Spain, see the entry by Marín in The Encyclopedia of Islam in the Reference Works and Bibliographies section.
  224.  
  225. Bosworth, Clifford E. “The Persian Contribution to Islamic Historiography in the pre-Mongol Period.” In The Persian Presence in the Islamic World. Edited by Richard G. Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh, 218–236. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  226. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  227. A short survey of the main trends in historical writing in Iran down to the beginning of the 14th century.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Cahen, Claude. “The Historiography of the Seljuqid Period.” In Historians of the Middle East. Edited by B. Lewis and P. M. Holt, 59–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
  230. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. Still a useful short survey of historical writing in the central and eastern Islamic lands in the 11th and 12th centuries. Available online at Questia.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Chamberlain, Michael. Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. Examines the transmission of knowledge as an aspect of social relations in medieval Islam, using Ayyubid and early Mamluk Damascus as a case study and making extensive use of biographical dictionaries as a source of evidence. On the latter, see also Auchterlonie 1987, cited in Reference Works and Bibliographies, and al-Qadi 1995, under Edited Volumes.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Guo, Li. “Mamluk Historiographic Studies: The State of the Art.” Mamluk Studies Review 1 (1997): 15–43.
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  239. A still useful survey, with full bibliographic references and a focus on theory and method in the publication of medieval historical manuscripts, the biographies of Mamluk-era historians and genre in Mamluk-era historical texts.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Hirschler, Konrad. Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as actors. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.
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  243. An analysis of the works of the Syrian historians Abu Shama (d. 1268) and Ibn Wasil (d. 1298) in their social and political context.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Little, Donald P. An Introduction to Mamluk Historiography: an analysis of Arabic annalistic and biographical sources for the reign of al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāʾūn. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1970.
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  247. Still an important work on Mamluk (1260–1517) historiography in the reign of Qalaʾun (r. 1279–1290).
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Mahdi, Muhsin. Ibn Khaldūn's Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1957.
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  251. A good analysis of the historical thought of the great North African Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406).
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Shatzmiller, Maya. L'historiographie mérinide: Ibn Khaldūn et ses contemporains. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1982.
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  255. The only major study of North African, Marinid (1217–1465) historiography, which situates the work of Ibn Khaldun in its wider context.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Walker, Paul E. Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and its Sources. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.
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  259. A bibliographic state-of-field survey of the history and historiography of the Fatimid period (909–1171), begun “in response to … continued frustration over the lack of attention given to the Fatimids by English language scholars” (xii). Chapter 6 concerns memoirs and reportage (131–151) and Chapter 7 (152–169) is devoted to historiography, geography, and prosopography.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Translated Texts from the Classical or Medieval Period
  262.  
  263. Most of the vast corpus of medieval Islamic historical literature remains untranslated (and indeed many manuscripts remain unedited). However, the volume of material translated to a high standard has grown significantly in recent years. Texts relevant to the Crusades have proved particularly popular, as with Ibn al-Athir 2006–2008 and Ibn Munqidh 2008. Other important texts include Ibn Khallikan 1842–1871, a biographical dictionary, and the Muqaddima (Introduction to history) of Ibn Khaldun 1967, which is perhaps the most theoretically sophisticated work of medieval historiography in any language. More translations of material from North Africa and Mamluk Egypt and Syria remain desiderata, as do translations of historical material from the Islamic East.
  264.  
  265. Amedroz, H. F., and D. S. Margoliouth. The Eclipse of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate: Original Chronicles of the Fourth Islamic Century. 7 vols. Oxford: Blackwell, 1920–1921.
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  267. A translation of the chronicles of Miskawayh (d. 1030) and al-Rudhrawari (d. 1095). The former is the most important chronicler of the Buyid period of Eastern Islamic history (c. 945–c. 1055); the latter is his continuator into the early Seljuk period. Volumes 1–3 are the Arabic text; Volumes 4–6, the English translation; Volume 7 contains the preface and indices. Available online.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Ibn al-Athir, ʿIzz al-Din. The Annals of the Seljuk Turks: Selections from “al-Kāmil fiʾl-Taʾrīkh” of Ibn al-Athīr. Translated by D. S. Richards. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
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  271. An excellent translation, with annotation, of parts of the world chronicle, “The Complete Work of History,” by the Iraqi historian Ibn al-Athir (d. 1233), that refer to the Seljuk Turks (c. 1040–1194).
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Ibn al-Athir, ʿIzz al-Din. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fiʾl-taʾrīkh. 3 vols. Translated by D. S. Richards. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006–2008.
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  275. An excellent translation of the sections of al-Kāmil fi'l-taʾrīkh (The complete work of history) pertaining to the Crusades in the period 1097–1231, with annotation and apparatus. These years conclude the world chronicle of Ibn al-Athir.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Ibn Khaldun, Wali al-Din. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. 2d ed. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. One of the most important premodern historical works in any language because of its theoretically sophisticated approach to historiography. This is the second, revised edition of Rosenthal's 1958 translation; editions of the abridgement (abridged by N. J. Dawood) were published in 1969 and 2004.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Ibn Khallikan, Shams al-Din. Ibn Khallikān's Biographical Dictionary. 4 vols. Translated by MacGuckin de Slane. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1842–1871.
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  283. An important early example of a general biographical dictionary, which includes not just religious scholars but other eminent Muslims. It was composed in Cairo in the third quarter of the 13th century. This translation was reprinted in Beirut by Librarie du Liban in 1970. Volume 2 is available online.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Ibn Munqidh, Usama. The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades. Translated by Paul M. Cobb. London: Penguin, 2008.
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  287. The “memoirs” of Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 1188). The Arabic title Kitāb al-ʿIbar (Book of contemplation, or, Book of instruction by example) refers to the use of memoir and history to depict moral lessons and the masculine ideal. See also the 1929 translation by P. K. Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades (New York: Columbia University Press).
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Ibn Shaddad, Bahaʾ al-Din. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, or, al-Nawādir al-sulṭaniyya wa'l-maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya. Translated by D. S. Richards. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
  290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. Laudatory biography of Saladin (r. 1169–1193) by Bahaʾ al-Din ibn Shaddad (d. 1235), widely considered one of the finest works of medieval Islamic political biography.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. al-Maqrizi, Taqi al-Din. A History of the Ayyūbid Sultans of Egypt. Translated by R.J.C. Broadhurst. Boston: Twayne, 1980.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Part of al-Maqrizi's (d. 1442) Kitāb al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk (Book of spun threads for the purpose of knowing the dynasties of kings), concerning the Ayyubids in Egypt (1169–1254).
  296. Find this resource:
  297. al-Yunini, Musa ibn Muhammad. Early Mamluk Syrian Historiography: al-Yūnīnī's Mirʾat al-Zamān. 2 vols. Translated by Li Guo. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
  298. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. Annotated translation of al-Yunini's (d. c. 1326) continuation of an earlier “universal history” by Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1256), covering the period from 1256 to 1311.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Ilkhanid and Timurid Persian Historiography
  302.  
  303. Following the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century and their conversion to Islam a few decades later, the position of Persian as a major literary language of the Islamic East was further developed and consolidated, largely through the Central Asian conquerors' reliance on Persian-speaking administrators. After the fragmentation of the Mongol Ilkhanate (Anatolia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Iraq, which comprised the southwest province of the Mongol empire), the development of Persian historiography continued under Timur (r. 1370–1405) and his successors. Monographs on Ilkhanid and Timurid historiography have yet to be written. The relevant entries in the Encyclopedia Iranica (see the section Reference Works and Bibliographies) are comprehensive and include up-to-date bibliographies. Morgan 1982 discusses al-Juzjani (d. c. 1265), al-Juwayni (d. 1283) and Rashid al-Din (d. 1318). The latter has received much scholarly attention (see Boyle 1971 and Allsen 2001). On Timurid historiography, see Woods 1987. Useful translations include al-Juwayni 1958, Rashid al-Din 1836, and Rashid al-Din 1971.
  304.  
  305. Allsen, Thomas T. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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  307. An analysis of the cultural impact of the Mongol empire. Chapter 12 (83–102) is an up-to-date discussion of the impact of Ilkhanid rule on Persian historiography, focusing on the work of the great universal historian Rashid al-Din (d. 1318).
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Boyle, John A. “Rashīd al-Dīn: the First World Historian.” Iran, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 9 (1971): 19–26.
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  311. A full and detailed discussion of the life and works of Rashid al-Din, with extensive references.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. al-Juwayni, Malik. The History of the World Conqueror. 2 vols. Translated by John A. Boyle. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1958.
  314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. A very important source for the history of the Mongols by al-Juwayni (d. 1283), a courtier and administrator at the Ilkhanid court. Reprinted in 1997.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Morgan, David O. “Persian Historians and the Mongols.” In Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds. Edited by David O. Morgan, 109–124. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. A short article tracing the shifting attitudes to the Mongols in Persian historiography between the time of al-Juzjani (d. c. 1265) and Rashid al-Din (d. 1318).
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Rashid al-Din, Fadl Allah. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse. Edited and translated by Étienne M. Quatremère. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1836.
  322. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  323. A French translation of part of the encyclopedic world history by Rashid al-Din, a senior adviser to the Ilkhanid rulers Ghazan Khan (d. 1304) and Öljeitü (d. 1316). Reprinted in 1968 by the Oriental Press (Amsterdam).
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Rashid al-Din, Fadl Allah. The Successors of Genghis Khan. Translated by John A. Boyle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. An English translation of part of the world history of Rashid al-Din.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Woods, John E. “The Rise of Timurid Historiography.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46, no. 2 (1987): 81–108.
  330. DOI: 10.1086/373225Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. An important study of Persian historiography in the eastern Islamic lands in the 14th and 15th centuries.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. The Early Modern Period (c. 1500–c. 1800)
  334.  
  335. The early modern period of Islamic history was characterized by the formation of long-lasting dynastic empires with distinctive historical traditions in languages other than Arabic. Hence, the best way to present much of the scholarship on the historical writing of the period is under the rubrics of these empires (as well as much of the historical writing itself—translated texts are listed according to the same rubrics). Much of the historical writing in Safavid Iran and Mughal India was in Persian, and both Persian and Turkish were used in the Ottoman Empire. However, historiography in Arabic also continued, especially in the central and western Islamic lands, many of which were under Ottoman rule. This Arabic historiography is treated separately here, whether composed within or outside of the Ottoman Empire. The gradual spread of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia also generated new historiographies; these are treated under separate rubrics. As might be expected, there is no substantial single survey of all of early modern Islamic historiography. However, many of the reference works include important material on the period, as do the major encyclopedias.
  336.  
  337. Arabic Historiography in the Ottoman Era, c. 1500–c. 1800
  338.  
  339. Arabic was the main literary language of the central and western Islamic lands (i.e., between Morocco and Iraq). The defeat of the Mamluk sultanate in 1517 brought Egypt, Syria, and the Hijaz under Ottoman control; Iraq was taken from the Safavids in 1534. These regions remained under Ottoman rule, barring short-lived lapses in their power, for all of this period. Ottoman influence also extended into North Africa, where political authority was quite fragmentary for much of this period. There is comparatively little modern scholarship on the Arabic historiography of this period, although the volume of literature has grown in recent years. For an introduction, see Winter 2006.
  340.  
  341. Crecelius, Daniel. Eighteenth Century Egypt: the Arabic manuscript sources. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1990.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. A collection of important essays with full references to earlier scholarship.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. al-Damurdashi, Ahmad. Al-Damurdāshī's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688–1755. Edited and translated by Daniel Crecelius and ʿAbd Al-Wahhab Bakr. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1991.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. A chronicle by an officer in the Ottoman garrison in Cairo which is a rich source for 17th- and 18th-century Egyptian history.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. al-Jabarti, ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Hasan. Al-Jabartī's Chronicle of the First Seven Months of the French Occupation of Egypt. Edited and translated by S. Moreh. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1975.
  350. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. The most important Ottoman-era Egyptian historian, al-Jabarti (d. 1826) became an historian after the French occupation of Egypt in 1798.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Winter, Michael. “Historiography in Arabic during the Ottoman period.” In Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Edited by Roger Allen and D. S. Richards, 171–188. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  354. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521771603Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. A survey discussion with full references.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Ottoman Historiography to c. 1800
  358.  
  359. Ottoman historiography has roots in the 14th century, but almost no material survives from before the 1440s. From the early 16th century onward, the empire generated a vast historical literature in three languages—Turkish, Persian, and Arabic (the latter treated here under Arabic Historiography in the Ottoman Era, c. 1500–c. 1800). The best introduction to the history and historiography of the Ottoman Empire is Faroqhi 1999. There is also a useful entry by Woodhead in the Encyclopedia of Islam (see Reference Works and Bibliographies). Three other important studies, which focus on statesmen and historians of 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, respectively, but also present wider conclusions about the intellectual and cultural milieus of their subjects, are Fleischer 1986, Aksan 1995, and Thomas 1972. Kafadar 1995 is an important study of debates in modern historiography about how to interpret the evidence of the early Ottoman chronicles.
  360.  
  361. Aksan, Virginia H. Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700–1783. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. A biographical study, but one that sheds light on the wider 18th-century context.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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  367. An excellent bibliographical analysis of problems in Ottoman history, surveying both the secondary literature and the primary sources, and focusing on the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Fleischer, Cornell H. Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: the historian Mustafa Âli (1541–1600). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. A biography of the 16th-century courtier and historian Mustafa ʿAli (d. 1600), important for its wider discussion of court culture and historiography in the Ottoman Empire. Available as an e-book via ACLS Humanities E-Book.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Howard, Douglas A. “Ottoman Historiography and the Literature of “Decline” in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Journal of Asian History 22, no. 1 (1988): 52–77.
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  375. Traces the Western tendency to see a story of decline in the history of the 17th- and 18th-century Ottoman Empire back to narratives of decline in Ottoman treatises from the period in question.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Imber, Colin. “The Ottoman Dynastic Myth.” Turcica 19 (1987), 7–27.
  378. DOI: 10.2143/TURC.19.0.2014268Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. An analysis of the role of 15th-century chroniclers in constructing a legitimating myth of Ottoman origins and the increasingly “orthodox,” Sunni “Islamization” of that myth after about 1500.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Kafadar, Cemal. Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. A study of modern historiography on the Ottoman Empire that revisits the question of how to read the sources for 15th- and 16th-century Ottoman history.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Oczan, Abdulkadir. “Historiography in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.” In The Ottoman Empire in the Reign of Süleyman the Magnificent. Vol. 2, Edited by Tulay Duran, 167–222. Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 1988.
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  387. A useful short essay on the historiography of the reign of Suleyman I (r. 1520–1566), covering both general histories and works specifically concerned with his reign.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Schmidt, Jan. Pure Water for Thirsty Muslims: A Study of Muṣṭafā ʽAlī of Gallipoli's Künhüኾ l-aḥbār. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1991.
  390. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. A study of Mustafa ʿAli's world historical masterpiece.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Thomas, Lewis V. A Study of Naima. Edited by N. Itzkowitz. New York: New York University Press, 1972.
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. Naʿima (d. 1716) was an “official historian” (wakḳʿa-nüwīs) at the Ottoman court. This study is an edition of a 1949 thesis.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Safavid Historiography
  398.  
  399. The historiography of Safavid Iran (1501–1722) has received less specific attention than that of many other regions of the medieval and early modern Islamic world. More general historical discussions, such as Woods 1999 and Newman 2006, are still important starting points because they include significant discussions of historiography. An exception is Quinn 2000, which is a specifically historiographic study of the reign of Shah ʿAbbas I (1587–1629), but which is wide-ranging enough to be the definitive introduction to Safavid historiography. On the Afsharid successors to the Safavids, see Tucker 1993.
  400.  
  401. Khunji-Isfahani, Fadlullah. Tārīkh-i ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Amīnī. Edited by J. E. Woods; Translated by V. Minorsky and J. E. Woods. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1992.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. An abridged translation of an early Safavid history, first published by Minorsky in 1957 and edited and revised by Woods.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Munshi, Iskandar. History of Shah ʿAbbas the Great. 2 vols. Translated by Roger M. Savory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. An important source for the reign of Shah ʿAbbas, completed in 1629.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Newman, Andrew J., ed. Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East: Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. A collection of essays, including some with a historiographical focus, including Sholeh A. Quinn on “The Timurid Historiographical Legacy.”
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Newman, Andrew J. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. A history of Safavid Iran, rather than a work on historiography per se, but one with many discussions of historiographical issues, an up-to-date bibliography, and a useful bibliographic appendix, “Key Chronicles and Travellers” (pp. 135–144).
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Quinn, Sholah A. Historical Writing during the Reign of Shah ʿAbbas: Ideology, Imitation and Legitimacy in Safavid Chronicles. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. A monograph on 16th- and 17th-century Safavid court chronicles that includes significant discussion of earlier and later Safavid historiography; the best introduction to the subject.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Tucker, Ernest. “Explaining Nadir Shah: Kinghsip and Royal Legitimacy in Muhammad Kazim Marvi's Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi Nādirī.” Iranian Studies 26, nos. 1–2 (1993): 95–117.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. A discussion of the legitimisation of an Afsharid-era history of Nadir Shah (r. 1736–1747), the Afsharid ruler who replaced the Safavid dynasty in Iran.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Woods, John E. The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. Rev. ed. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999.
  426. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. A study of early Safavid history, but one that discusses the primary sources in great detail. Originally published in 1976 by Bibliotheca Islamica.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Mughal Historiography
  430.  
  431. Islamic historiography in India began in the 13th century. However, the establishment of the Central Asian Mughal dynasty (1526–1857) brought about a new era in Indian Islamic historical writing, which built upon Timurid historiographic traditions imported by the new rulers. A notable feature of Mughal historiography is the production of memoirs by the Mughal rulers; English translations include Thackston 1996 and Thackston 2004. The best introduction to the historical writing of Mughal India is Nizami 1982; Dale 2006 is a comprehensive encyclopedia entry with a full bibliography.
  432.  
  433. Athar Ali, M. “The Use of Sources in Mughal Historiography.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 5 (1995): 361–373.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. A survey discussion of the sources of Mughal historiography, noting the emphasis placed on primary documents and eyewitness accounts. Reprinted in Athar's Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture (Oxford University Press, 2006).
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Dale, Stephen F. “India. xvi, Indo-Persian Historiography.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 13. Edited by E. Yarshater, 53–63. New York: Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, 2006:
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. A full encyclopedia entry on Indian historiography in Persian from the late 13th century to the end of the 18th century. Available online.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Elliot, H. M., and J. Dowson, trs. and eds. History of India as Told by Its Own Historians. 8 vols. London: Trübner and Co., 1867–1877.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. A collection of translated sources. See also Hodivala 1939–1957.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Hodivala, Shapurshah H. Studies in Indo-Muslim History: A Critical Commentary on Elliot and Dowson's “History of India as Told by Its Own Historians.” 2 vols. Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1939–1957.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. An important commentary on Elliot and Dowson 1867–1877, particularly as it corrects errors of translation.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Marshall, D. N. Mughals in India: A Bibliographic Survey. Vol. 1, Manuscripts. London: Asia Publishing House, 1967.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. The only volume published; surveys both Persian and other literature of Mughal India. Reprinted in 1985 by Mansell Publishing.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Mukhia, Harbans. Historians and Historiography during the Reign of Akbar. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1976.
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  455. An important work on Mughal historiography in the second half of the 16th century.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. On History and Historians of Medieval India. New Delhi: Munshiram Manorharlal, 1982.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. A survey of Indian historiography from the beginning of the 11th century to the end of the 18th century.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Thackston, Wheeler M., ed. and tr. The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, 1996.
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  463. Annotated English translation of the autobiographical writings of Babur (r. 1527–1530), which was originally composed in Chaghatay Turkish and then translated into Persian on the orders of Babur's grandson, Akbar (r. 1556–1605).
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Thackston, Wheeler M., ed. and tr. Three Memoirs of Humayun. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2004.
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  467. Annotated English translation of the memoirs of Humayun (r. 1530–1540, 1555–1556).
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Sub-Saharan and East Africa to c. 1900
  470.  
  471. The earliest extant historical writing from East Africa dates from the early 16th century, and historical literature from Islamic sub-Saharan Africa is extant from the later in the same century; in both cases texts preserve material about earlier periods. The most comprehensive survey of Arabic African historiography is Hunwick and O'Fahey 1994–2003. Besides the relevant entries the in the Encyclopedia of Islam (cited in Reference Works and Bibliographies), see Harrow 2000 for a short introduction with a bibliography. Allen 1970 is an important bibliography of primary material for East African history. Orality is an important feature of Islamic African historical culture: Allen 1970 lists recorded material, while Johnson, et al. 1997 is an edited collection of translated epic oral material.
  472.  
  473. Abitbol, Michel, ed. and tr. Tombouctou au milieu du XVIIIe siècle d'après la Chronique de Mawlāy al-Qāsim b. Mawlāy Sulaymān. Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1982.
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  475. An Arabic edition and French translation of an important source for 18th-century Timbuktu.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Allen, John W. T. The Swahili and Arabic Manuscripts and Tapes in the Library of the University College, Dar-es-Salaam: A Catalogue. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1970.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. An important bibliographic resource for East African history.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Harrow, Kenneth W. “Islamic Literature in Africa.” In The History of Islam in Africa. Edited by Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels, 519–544. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. A survey of the literature of Islamic Africa that engages with the problem of defining “Islamic” literature in the highly syncretic context of sub-Saharan and East Africa.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Hunwick, John O., and R. S. O'Fahey, eds. Arabic Literature of Africa. 4 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1994–2003.
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  487. This series, which is projected to include six volumes, seeks to “provide a bio-bibliographical overview of the literature in the Arabic language of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa” (Vol. 1, ix). Volumes published thus far include: Vol. 1: The Writings of Eastern Sudanic Africa to c. 1900; Vol. 2: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa; Vol. 3a: The Writings of the Muslim Peoples of Northeastern Africa; and Vol. 4: The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Johnson, John W., Thomas A. Hale, and Stephen Belcher, eds. Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. Translated oral material from Africa, including Islamic Africa.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Lange, Dierk. A Sudanic Chronicle: the Borno expeditions of Idrīs Alauma (1564–1576). Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1987.
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  495. Translation of the late 16th-century chronicle byAhmad ibn Furtu, chief imam of Bornu.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Southeast Asia to c. 1900
  498.  
  499. Islamic historical writing from Southeast Asia is extant from the 16th century. However, this remains among the least investigated historiographies of the Islamic world. The collection of essays in Soedjatmoko, et al. 1965 still remains the best introduction to Indonesian historiography. Pigeaud 1967–1970 is an important survey and guide to manuscripts; Ricklefs 1978 and Florida 1995 are discussions of Indonesian historiography that include annotated and translated texts.
  500.  
  501. Florida, Nancy K. Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future: History as Prophecy in Colonial Java. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
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  503. A literary-historical reading of the mid-19th-century Babad Jaka Tingkir, including a translation of the text.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Laffan, Michael Francis. Islamic Nationhood and Colonial Indonesia: The Umma Below the Winds. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.
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  507. Includes some discussion of both Indonesian and Dutch historiography in the context of colonialism and nationalism in Southeast Asia.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Pigeaud, Theodore G.T. Literature of Java: Catalogue Raisonné of Javanese Manuscripts in the Univeristy of Leiden and other Public Collections in the Netherlands. 3 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967–1970.
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  511. The first volume surveys Javanese literature to c. 1900; the second contains the catalogue; and Volume 3 contains illustrations and facsimiles.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Ricklefs, Merle C. Modern Javanese Historical Tradition: A Study of an Original Kartasura Chronicle and Related Materials. London: University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. Provides translated texts and historiographical analysis.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Soedjatmoko, et al., eds. An Introduction to Indonesian Historiography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. An edited volume of essays on Indonesian historiography, which remains a useful introduction to the subject. Reissued by Equinox Publishing in 2006.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. The 19th and 20th Centuries
  522.  
  523. The encounter with European colonialism, the development of mass media, and the formation of independent Muslim nation-states all had profound implications for Islamic historiography. Indeed, the category of “Islamic” historiography has far less utility in describing the historical writing of the modern era than it does for premodern times. Many Muslim historians of the later 19th and 20th centuries wrote first as members of a nation-state or a people, and often as participants in an increasingly professional global academic discourse, rather than as Muslims (although some did—and do—choose to prioritize their Muslim identity). The study of the historiography of this period as a separate subject from intellectual history in general is a relatively recent development. Hourani 1962 and Mardin 1962 are classic studies of Arabic and Ottoman intellectual history that include some discussion of historiography. Haddad 1982 examines Muslims' responses to “modernity” as Muslims, and so might be said to be concerned with “Islamic historiography” stricto sensu. A more prominent theme in much secondary literature is the relationship between the nation-state and historiography; Choueiri 2003, for example, examines nationalist discourse in Arabic historical writing in North Africa, Egypt, and the Levant down to 1980. On the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, see Adanir and Faroqhi 2002; on Iran, Farmayan 1974.
  524.  
  525. Adanir, Fikret, and Suraiya Faroqhi, eds. The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. A collection of papers on the historiography of the Ottoman empire and the Turkish Republic, including Neumann on 19th-century Ottoman historiography, Ersanli on Kemalist historiography, Millas on Greeks in the historiography of republican Turkey, and Adanir on the 19th- and 20th-century historiography of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Choueiri, Youssef M. Modern Arab Historiography: Historical Discourse and the Nation-State. Rev. ed. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. A study of national identity and historiography in Egypt, North Africa, and the Levant. It is quite general in its scope down to 1920 and then focuses on three specific historians for the period 1920–1980. This is the revised edition of Arab History and the Nation State, published by Routledge in 1989.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Crabbs, Jack A. The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: A Study in National Transformation. Detroit and Cairo: Wayne State University Press and American University in Cairo Press, 1984.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. Uses Egyptian historiography as a means to evaluate social change between 1798 and 1922.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Farmayan, Hafez F. “Observations on Sources for the Study of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Iranian History.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, no. 1 (1974): 32–49.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A useful, if dated, survey of Iranian historical writing and Iranian sources for history writing.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Gorman, Anthony P. Historians, State, and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. A study of academic and nonacademic historiography in modern Egypt that focuses on Muslim historians but also looks at the historiography of Copts and “resident foreigners” in Egypt.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck. Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. An influential discussion of some 20th-century Arab Muslims' attitudes to the past, in two parts: the first identifies some of the major challenges to Arab Muslim identity in the 20th century; the second examines the historical thought of seven Arab Muslim writers.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. A classic study of 19th- and 20th-century intellectual currents in the Arab world, which includes some observations on historiography. Reissued in various reprints.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Mardin, Serif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. A study of intellectual currents in the “late Tanzimat era” of the 1860s and 1870s. Reprinted by Syracuse University Press in 2000, and available as an e-book via ACLS Humanities E-Book.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. McDougal, James. History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. A well-received study of nationalism and historiography.
  560. Find this resource:
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