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The Development of a Literary Canon in Medieval Persian Chronicles: The Triumph of Etiquette

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

E. A. Poliakova
E. A. Poliakova*
Affiliation:
Institut Vostokovedeniia, Uz. Akademii Nauk, USSR
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Extract

Islamic chronicles have always been an important source, and in most cases the only source, for studying the history of the Middle East and Central Asia. Consequently, scholars have, as a rule, concentrated on the facts contained in them while overlooking their narrative styles. Moreover, the complexity of many chronicles has made it difficult for scholars to grasp their contents on the one hand while making it easy for them to be critical of these sources on the other.

However, a number of scholars have formulated a quite different approach to the language of medieval works. For example, I. Yu. Krachkovskii has concluded that it is necessary to consider the Quran not only a religious, philosophical, and legislative composition, but also a work of fiction. A. K. Arends has the same opinion of Bayhaqi's eleventh-/fifth-century chronicle, Tarikh-e Mas'udi.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , Spring Summer 1984 , pp. 237 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1984

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References

Notes

1. This article is partly based on another article by the author, “Nekotorye svedeniia o “Tarikh-e Vassaf,” published in Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane, No. 8 (1978), pp. 44-47. In its present form, the article has profited from the valuable comments of Professor M. R. Waldman. The author would also like to acknowledge the help of Professor R. D. McChesney in preparing the article for publication. Other articles of a similar theme which this writer has published are: “Bir sevgi fodzhiasi,” Gulistan, No. 7 (1976); “Ob etiketnosti i realistichnosti v khronikakh Rashid-ad-dina i Dzhuveini,” Obshch. nauki v Uzbekistane, no. 10 (1979); “Ispol'zovanie astrologicheskikh predstavlenii v nekotorykh khronikakh epokhi Ulugbeka,” Iz Istorii Nauki X epokhi ulugbeka (Tashkent, 1979)Google Scholar; “O nekotorykh proiavleniiakh demokraticheskikh tendentsii v persoiazy nykh istoricheskikh istochnikakh XI v.,” obshch. nauki v Uzbekistane, no. 11 (1982); “Nekotorye cherty sotsial'no-politicheskikh vozzrenii v persoiazichnykh khronikakh XI - nachala XIV vv.”; Sotsial'no-utopicheskie idei v Srednei Azii (Tashkent, 1983).Google Scholar At present, the author's study, Transformatsiia mifologicheskikh i legendarnykh obrazov v persidskotadzhikskikh khronikakh XI-XV vv. is in press.

2. A. Krymskii, Istoriia Persii, eia literatury i dervisheskoi teosofii, v. III Moskva (1914-1917), pp. 42, 43, 53, 54; N. V. Pigulevskaia, A. IU. Iakubovskii, I. P. Petrushevskii et al., Istoriia Irana s drevneishikh vremen do kontsa XVIII v. (Leningrad, 1948), p. 212.Google Scholar

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4. V. Beliaev and P. Griaznevich, the preface to the Russian translation of the Quran by I. IU. Krachkovskii (Moskva, 1963), p. 9.

5. Bayhaqi, Abu'l-Fazl, Istoriia Mas'uda, trans, from Persian with notes and appendices by Arends, A. K., 2nd Ed. (Moskva, 1969), p. 46.Google Scholar

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18. Ibid.

19. M. R. Waldman, op. cit., p. 155 (Appendices).

20. E. A. Poliakova, “O nekotorykh proiavleniiakh…,” p. 48.

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25. Tarikh-e Bayhaqi, ed. Dr. Ali Akbar Fayyaz, p. 222.

26. Ibid., p. 164.

27. M. Bahar, op. cit., p. 53.

28. Juvayni, Ata Malik, The History of the World Conquerer, trans. Boyle, J. A. (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), v. 1, p. 5.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., p. 4.

30. M. R. Waldman, Toward a Theory…, p. 61.

31. Juvayni, op. cit., p. 5.

32. Ibid., p. 104.

33. Petrushevskii, I. P., Zemledeliia i agrarnye otnosheniia v Irane XIII - XIV vv. (Moskva-Leningrad, 1960), p. 16Google Scholar; N. V. Piguilevskaia et al., op. cit., p. 170.

34. Rashid-ad-din, Sbornik letopisei, v. III (Moskva-Leningrad, 1946), p. 135.

35. Sharaf al-din ‘Abd Allah “Vassaf,” Tarikh-e Vassaf (Bombay, 1241), p. 184.

36. Ibid., p. 273.

37. Ibid., p. 217.

38. Ibid., p. 184.

39. Ibid., p. 185.

40. Ibid.

41. Ali, Giiasaddin, Dnevnik pokhoda Timura v Indiiu (Moskva, 1958), p. 21Google Scholar; A manuscript, No. 1520/II, f.83b of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Uzbek SSR, Tashkent, was also used.

42. L. Massignon, “Les methodes de realisation artistique de peuples de l'Islam,” Opera Minora, v. 3 (Beirut, . 1963), pp. 9-28.

43. Arabskaia srednevekovaia kul'tura i literatura (Moskva, 1978), p. 10.Google Scholar

44. von Grunebaum, G. E., “Observations on City Panegyrics in Arabic Prose,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, v. 64 (1944), pp. 61–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar