9 - The View from Anatolia

Summary

Chapter Nine extends the historiographical study of Persian local and regional histories to Anatolian histories. In order to test hypotheses about the distinctive features of Persian local histories, this chapter compares sources produced in and about Anatolia from the 13th – 14th centuries against earlier and contemporary Persian local histories. This chapter argues for the broader theoretical implications of a functionally skeptical reading of local history attuned to a metanarrative constructed by authors for audiences with hybrid Persian-Muslim identities. This fleshes out the comparative historiographical approach of the book, since the process of Islamization occurred in Anatolia roughly 500 years after it occurred in Iran. In contrast to the Persian texts, which use myriad literary strategies to bring legitimacy and authority to their lands and evidence highly localized hybrid Persian-Muslim identities, the few extant Anatolian local histories from the 13th – 14th centuries focus on the construction of dynastic and specifically Seljuq legitimacy and tend to couch claims to legitimacy in terms of military success, genealogy, and the virtues of kingly rule. This chapter not only challenges, stretches, and extends prevailing theoretical assumptions but also validates this book’s argument about distinctive themes in local Persian historiography by testing it against Anatolian samples.