Historiography and Historical Thought: Islamic Tradition

Abstract

‘Islamic historiography’ refers to the enormous body of historical writing produced by the Muslim societies of Western Asia and North Africa between the seventh and nineteenth centuries. History was never recognized as a formal science and always remained the province of self-taught ‘amateurs’—chiefly religious scholars and chancery secretaries. The writings produced by these two groups reflect distinctive but interpenetrating value-systems and social roles. Historical writing emerged in the seventh and eighth centuries as a way to make sense of the radical changes and religio-political conflicts experienced by Arab Muslims during this era. Early Islamic historiography not only reflected but was created by these changes and conflicts. By the late 800s Muslim historians were crafting grand syntheses that summed up Islam's first three centuries and situated it within a framework of world history. In the tenth century, however, historical writing began to emphasize regional and dynastic history and the recent rather than the remote past—a reflection of new political and cultural processes within the Islamic world. Until ca. 950 Arabic was the sole language of historical discourse, but thereafter Persian and (after 1400) Turkish generated distinctive literatures of their own. In the nineteenth century the sophisticated historiographic traditions of Islam faced intense political and intellectual challenges from Europe, and these challenges compelled a reshaping of historical thought and practice. By World War II, history was becoming a professionalized discipline on the European model, though of course Muslim writers have their own concerns and approaches.