New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria. Proceedings of the Themed Day of the Fifth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies. Edited by Jo Van Steenbergen and Maya Termonia

Abstract

The Ayyubid and Mamluk periods witnessed a sharp rise in the production of historical texts, reaching a peak in the first half of the fifteenth century, as well as a transformation in style and contents. Historiography became closer to literature, with the use of anecdotes and mirabilia, colloquialisms and dialogues. In addition, the authors of historical works often placed themselves at the centre of their works, with self-referencing becoming more common. The resulting chronicles and biographical dictionaries, from Ibn al-Dawādārī to al-Maqrīzī, from al-Jazarī to Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, have fundamentally shaped how we view the history of Egypt and Syria in the Islamic era. This volume represents a comprehensive, coherent and sophisticated analysis of this ‘ “explosion” of historical writing’ in the late medieval period. All thirteen chapters approach the historiographical texts not as mines of information, but as authored texts that demand scrutiny for their own sake, representing...