Writing History in the Medieval Islamic World

<p>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.<br>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 <i>The</i> <i>History of Dynasties and Kings</i> 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.<br>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.</p>