Islamic Historiography

Islamic Historiography
Author: Chase F. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521629362

How did Muslims of the classical Islamic period understand their past? What value did they attach to history? How did they write history? How did historiography fare relative to other kinds of Arabic literature? These and other questions are answered in Chase F. Robinson's Islamic Historiography, an introduction to the principal genres, issues, and problems of Islamic historical writing in Arabic, that stresses the social and political functions of historical writing in the Islamic world. Beginning with the origins of the tradition in the eighth and ninth centuries and covering its development until the beginning of the sixteenth century, this is an authoritative and yet accessible guide through a complex and forbidding field, which is intended for readers with little or no background in Islamic history or Arabic.

Times of History

Times of History
Author: Aziz Al-Azmeh
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2007-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 615521140X

This is a collection of essays on current questions of historiography, illustrated with reference to Islamic historiography. The main concerns are conceptions of time and temporality, the uses of the past, historical periodisation, historical categorisation, and the constitution of historical objects, not least those called "civilisation" and "Islam". One of the aims of the book is to apply to Islamic materials the standard conceptual equipment used in historical study, and to exercise a large-scale comparativist outlook.

Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period

Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period
Author: Tarif Khalidi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1994-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521465540

A survey of an entire tradition of historical thought and writing across a span of eight hundred years.

The Historiography of Islamic Egypt

The Historiography of Islamic Egypt
Author: Hugh N. Kennedy
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004117945

This collection of essays discusses the rich and varied tradition of history writing in mediaeval and early modern Egypt, providing new insights into the works and the lives and outlooks of their authors.

Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography

Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography
Author: Tayeb El-Hibri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1999-11-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521650236

The history of the early Abbasid Caliphate has long been studied as a factual or interpretive synthesis of various accounts preserved in the medieval Islamic chronicles. Tayeb El-Hibri s book breaks with the traditional approach, applying a literary-critical reading to examine the lives of the caliphs. By focusing on the reigns of Harun al-Rashid and his successors, the study demonstrates how the various historical accounts were not in fact intended as faithful portraits of the past, but as allusive devices used to shed light on controversial religious, political and social issues of the period. The analysis also reveals how the exercise of decoding Islamic historigraphy, through an investigation of the narrative strategies and thematic motifs used in the chronicles, can uncover new layers of meaning and even identify the early narrators. This is an important book which represents a landmark in the field of early Islamic historiography.

Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought

Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought
Author: Margaret MESERVE
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674040953

Drawing on political oratory, diplomatic correspondence, crusade propaganda, and historical treatises, Meserve shows how research into the origins of Islamic empires sprang from—and contributed to—contemporary debates over the threat of Islamic expansion in the Mediterranean. This groundbreaking book offers new insights into Renaissance humanist scholarship and long-standing European debates over the relationship between Christianity and Islam.

Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy

Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy
Author: Andrew Peacock
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2007-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134146906

The Tarikhnamah is a history of the world and the oldest surviving work of Persian prose. This book examines it as a political and cultural document and why it became such an influential work in the Islamic world.

Conversion to Islam

Conversion to Islam
Author: Ayman S. Ibrahim
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2021-02-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0197530737

Why did non-Muslims convert to Islam during Muhammad's life and under his immediate successors? How did Muslim historians portray these conversions? Why did their portrayals differ significantly? To what extent were their portrayals influenced by their time of writing, religious inclinations, and political affiliations? These are the fundamental questions that drive this study. Relying on numerous works, including primary sources from over a hundred classical Muslim historians, Conversion to Islam is the first scholarly study to detect, trace, and analyze conversion themes in early Muslim historiography, emphasizing how classical Muslims remembered conversion, and how they valued and evaluated aspects of it. Ayman S. Ibrahim examines numerous early Muslim sources and wrestles with critical observations regarding the sources' reliability and unearths the hidden link between historical narratives and historians' religious sympathies and political agendas. This study leads readers through a complex body of literature, provides insights regarding historical context, and creates a vivid picture of conversion to Islam as early Muslim historians sought to depict it.