Namaeh Farhangistan

Namaeh Farhangistan

Incorporating Ancient Iran’s Epic and Historic Personages in the Universal History of Islam

Document Type : Original Article

10.22034/nf.2021.139850
Abstract
Islamic historiography that was primarily concerned with the deeds and mission of the Prophet fundamentally changed with the expansion of the Muslim empire. Islam’s conquests brought Muslims into contact with a number of peoples, some of whom, the Iranians, the Romans, the Indians, and the Chinese, had rich historical traditions of their own. These traditions had to be incorporated into a new world history befitting the new empire’s vastness and cosmopolitanism. Islam already had a Qur’anic narrative of the universal history that agreed with the Judeo-Christian account of the flood. The histories of the newly conquered peoples had to be incorporated into the Abrahamic story of the world. Ancient kings and heroes, particularly those of the Persians whose historiography was especially admired by Muslim scholars, were adopted into the post-deluge history of the world by being genealogically connected to Noah. This process was not new. Christian historians had already harmonized the histories of Greece and Rome with biblical narrative after Rome’s conversion to Christianity and had also concocted biblical ancestry for a number of Germanic lords after the fall of Rome to Barbarian invasions. Muslim historiography simply followed that model. This paper presents evidence in support of this view from classical sources and modern scholarship.
Keywords
Islamic historiography
Muslim empire
Judeo-Christian account of the flood
Islam’s conquests
Iran’s Epic and Historic Personages
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  • Receive Date 28 September 2021
  • Revise Date 02 October 2021
  • Accept Date 08 November 2021