Morality and Idealism: Abu'L-Fazl Bayhaqi's Historical Throught in Tarikh-i Bayhaqi

ABSTRACT

This is a study of an eleventh-century Islamic historian's conception of history. Abu'l-

Fazl Bayhaqi's work Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, written in Persian, is an anomaly in the pre-

modern historical literature that has been written in Persian or Arabic. Many scholars

have written about the historical/historiographical importance of this text. The present

study, however, offers a new, more accurate, and textually supported approach in

studying this historical text. For this reason, chapter one provides an introduction to the

subject. Chapter two explains the author's religious outlook and adherence to principles

of morality, both of which provide the appropriate context to his historical thought.

Chapter three, then, attempts a line-by-line analysis of a theoretical section Bayhaqi

appended to the first "Preface" in the text. A careful analysis of this section has been

overlooked by all Bayhaqi scholars. Finally, chapter four shows how ideal kingship, one

of the major and much-discussed themes of the text, should be understood, not in

isolation from the other themes of the text, but in light of Bayhaqi's understanding and

presentation of history, which are equal to his understanding of the human being and his

experience as an individual and an element in society.

It is the central argument of this thesis that though on the surface Bayhaqi's

understanding of history is similar to some other intellectuals and historians who were

contemporaneous with him, a careful study of the section appended to the first "Preface"

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coupled with an analysis of his practice in writing history indicate that on a deeper level

his conception of history was quite distinct from most medieval historians and

intellectuals. His method, which is of his own making, calls for a philosophical

understanding of the use of history in setting didactic examples from human experience.

This concept of experience, which Bayhaqi emphasizes on numerous occasions and is

understood properly only in the context of the section appended to the first "Preface," is

the basis of his conception of history and a key to the understanding of his text. This

same concept, however, is the most misapprehended theme in the modern scholarship on

Bayhaqi.

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