Writing History in the Medieval Islamic World: The Value of Chronicles as Archives (Early and Medieval Islamic World)

"In the 'encyclopaedic' fourteenth century, Arabic chronicles produced in Mamluk cities bore textual witness to both recent and bygone history, including that of the Fatimids (969-1171CE). For in two centuries of rule over Egypt and North Africa, the Isma'ili Fatimids had left few self-generated historiographical records. Instead, it fell to Ayyubid and Mamluk historians to represent the dynasty to posterity. This monograph sets out to explain how later historians preserved, interpreted and re-organised earlier textual sources. Mamluk historians engaged in a sophisticated archival practice within historiography, rather than uncritically reproducing earlier reports. In a new diplomatic edition, translation and analysis of Mamluk historian Ibn al-Furat's account of late Fatimid rule in The History of Dynasties and Kings, a widely known but barely copied universal chronicle of Islamic history, Fozia Bora traces the survival of historiographical narratives from Fatimid Egypt. Through Ibn al-Furat's text, Bora demonstrates archivality as the heuristic key to Mamluk historical writing. This book is essential for all scholars working on the written culture and history of the medieval Islamic world, and paves the way for a more nuanced reading of pre-modern Arabic chronicles and of the epistemic environment in which they were produced."--Bloomsbury Publishing. In two centuries of rule over Egypt and North Africa (969-1171CE), the Isma'ili Fatimids threatened Sunni hegemony in the Arab heartlands, yet left few historiographical records. Instead, it fell to Ayyubid and Mamluk historians to represent the Fatimids to posterity. Did medieval Arab historians allow religious commitments and sectarian polemics to shape their accounts of the Islamic past? And did the succeeding Sunni political class destroy the records of its Fatimid predecessors? Via a new translation, contextualisation and analysis of Sunni Mamluk historian Ibn al-Furat's chronicle History of Dynasty and Kings, Fozia Bora maps the survival of historiographical narratives from late Fatimid Egypt after Salah al-Din's alleged destruction of the Fatimid literary corpus. In so doing, Bora demonstrates that Mamluk historical works offer historiographical documentation of past eras of Islamic history through textual witnesses that are not otherwise extant. She espouses a 'chronicle as archive' framework, arguing for a more objective use of chronicles as documents that go beyond sectarian polemics to act as 'archives' of now lost material. This book is essential for all scholars working on the written culture and history of the medieval Islamic world, and paves the way for a more nuanced and sensitive treatment of Arabic chronicles In a modern world where sectarianism can take on violent forms, this is a rigorous historiographical demonstration of the unacknowledged broadmindedness of many medieval Arab historians.