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The Master-Chronologers of Islam

by Abdesselam Cheddadi
THE most striking feature of Islamic historical writing or tarikh Is Its Sheer volume. Only a small part of It has so far been published and new texts are continually betn^ discovered From the second half of the first century of the Hegira (late seventh century AD) to the thirteenth century (nineteenth century AD) the writing of Islamic history continued almost without a break wherever the Islamic faith was professed. The language used was primarily Arabic, but there were also writings fn Persian, Turkish and Malay. Although essentially written by Muslims, it also attracted Christian authors. especially In Egypt and S^ria
A second important feature of Islamic historiography Is its very great diversity. It comprises forma and genres ranging from vast universal or gen era! histories and monographs to annals, dynastic and gena-togfcal tables or lists divided
into tabaquat (classes), as well as biographical dictionaries and local histories. It also covers many fields: religious, political, administrative and social life; scientific, literary and artistic activities; schools of thought and Ideological trends; travel, the topography of cities, monuments; natural disasters, famines, epidemics
The historians who worked In this tradition were also curious about non-lslamlc civilizations. western and northern Europe. India. China, the Far East and Africa. They were Interested in any Information relating to man. his relations with hts social and cultural environment and his relations with God. Ibn Khaldun noted that they wrote Just as much for the "crowds" and for "simple folk" as for "kings" and "the great." This view of history as universal in scope and
the attempt to reach a wide audience prefigured modern approaches to the subject.
A grasp of time
A further point of similarity with modern historiography lay In the Importance attached very early on to time and to chronology. From the first to the fourth century of the Hegira (seventh-tenth century AD) a vast amount of knowledge about time was amassed in Islamic culture. Drawing on earlier Arab tradition, it incorporated Persian. Indian, Greek and Egyptian material and also leanea on the work of astronomers and geographers. The masterly conspectus achieved by al-Biruni in the first half of the fifth/elevcnth century is Impressive for its tone of objectivity. It represents the most extensive and most rigorous survey of knowledge about time that we possess up to the modern era.
Muslim historians benefited greatly from this knowledge. From the second/eighth century onwards fn gradually became common practice to give dales, to follow a chronological order and to provide tables. For most of the facts reported by historians ft became a virtually abaolute rule to note the year, month and day when they occurreiL This contrasts with medieval historiography In the West where It was not until the eleventh century AD that a unified chronological system began to be widely accepted and where, as late as the fourteenth century, the chronology
of the main historical events was still uncertain.
Originality and limitations
The originality, but also the limitations of Islamic historiography lie in its conception of historical Information (khabar). Khabar means the fact, the event, as Incorporated into discourse, related In a "story." The historian docs not deal fn raw facts. He starts from a given which Is the story as reported by written or oral tradition, or by a living witness (who may be the historian himself). Ills most Important task Is therefore to authenticate or validate stories by subjecting accounts and channels of transmission to critical scrutiny. The historian does not seek to discover or establish facts but to gather, classify and organize Information while making sure of its validity. The Intrinsic truth of stories was a relatively minor concern until Ibn Khaldun, who based historical criticism on knowledge of the laws of 'umran (the human order, society).
Bound to accept traditional sources, often down to the finest detail, the historian could Incorporate them into a wide variety of genres or organize them at will within more or less voluminous compilations, but he could not formulate them In his own way, reconstruct them or recast them according to his own perspective.
In Islamic historiography then, the past is not recon-
structed as It was by some Greek historians, nor is there any theological history as there was in the Christian Middle Ages. This accounts for its widely acknowledged Impartiality and also for its stationary conception of lime, which contains in itself no potential for change or progress but simply gives external order to a sequence of events. Il was Ibn Khaldun again who. In considering the emergency, evolution and decline of vast human groups such as the Arabs. Berbers. Persians and the Rum (Greeks. Romans and Byzantines) added a new dimension to this vision.
Three major periods
The first major period of Islamic historiography, which extends up to the third century of the Hegira, is crowned by at Tabari's chronicle Tarikh ar-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings). A calendar based on the Hegira soon came to be adopted generally. The Isnad method, whereby the names of those who transmitted Information from generation to generation are cited, was first developed for the purposes of the religious sciences and then ap-flled to the biography of the rophet, to stories of the Muslim conquests and gradually to all kinds of stories.
The earliest historical writing appeared and sometimes crystallized In a number of genres, including maghazl and s1ra (the biography and deeds of the Prophet), futuh (Muslim conquests), ahdath
(major political events), akhbar al-awa 'll (stories of pre-Islamic kings and nations), ayyam al- arab (stories of the Arab past), ansab, ma'athir and mathalib (genealogies, exploits and failures); biographies of scholars, lists of teachers, political and administrative chronicles, history of the Umayyad and Abassid dynasties, and collections of secretaries letters. It gradually became the usual practice to date facts and events precisely and to follow a chronological order.
Numerous compendiums were published, such as al-Waqidi s Maghazi. Ibn Ishaq's Sira, Ibn Sad's Tabaqat, ad-Dlnawari's Akhbar at-Uwal, al-Baladhuri's Ansab al-ashral and al-Ya qubi's Tarikh.
The second period, known as the classical period. 1s marked both by the accentuation of these various tendencies with, however, some slackening of the Isnad method, and by the emergence of new genres. After at-Tabari. but less Influential than he, al-Masudi composed the Golden Meadows, another Universallst history.
From the fourth century of the Hegira onwards the writing of history became a more or less official activity involving greater use of national or provincial archives. This pe riod was notable for the work of a Une of historians starting wfth Hassan Ibn Thablt Ibn Sinan as-Sabl and. later, Mlskawayh s Tajarlb al-umam (History of the Buyid Dynasty), continued in the following century by Abu Shuja.
The history of cities developed into a major genre. Many works were produced, the best known of which is al-Khatlb al-Baghdadi's History of Baghdad. Biographical dictionaries relating to religious and intellectual life became more sophisticated and more numerous. They include lists of poets and other specialists, directories of scholars belonging to different jurldlco-religlous schools, catalogues of writers and lives of saints. In the various regions of the Islamic empire a thriving historiographical tradition thus took root.
Courtesy UNESCO COURIER
ABDESSELAM CHEDDADI Is a Moroccan historian who leaches at the faculty of education sciences at Rabat