Behdokht Nezhadhaghighi
Abstract
The relation between history and literature, and the extent to which literature is used in historical narrations, have been at the center of attention of researchers in the fields of both history and literature for a long time. Persian history books abound with examples of combinations of factual historiography ...
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The relation between history and literature, and the extent to which literature is used in historical narrations, have been at the center of attention of researchers in the fields of both history and literature for a long time. Persian history books abound with examples of combinations of factual historiography and narrative literature. A closer look, however, reveals that narrative devices are used for many different purposes. One notable example is the use of narration for confirming historical events and lending credibility to superior power of the ruler. It seems natural and justifiable to use sly language and Quranic verses and hadiths, as a method of Islamic historiography, to justify irremediable mistakes of the ruler or to criticize the performances of powerful individuals in certain historical events. But in certain periods of historiography we witness special fragments that deviate the current scientific historiography altogether and venture into the realm of narrative literature by resorting to fictional stories which show stronger impact on the minds of their popular audience than simply repeating the Quranic verses and hadiths. Only one of the important implications of such deviations is to pave the way for the audience to accept the historical determinism of the time they live in. The Mongol’s era is one of the momentous periods in the history of Iran, and its history forms one the most voluminous dossiers in the Persian historical literature. Jovayni’s Jahāngoshāy can be regarded as the starting point of the historiography of this era, as well as the most notable page of that dossier. Jovayni’s individual way of narrating and his technical language in relating the events as a narrator who is very close to what has happened, in comparison to the plain, unadorned language of later historical works demonstrate an obvious transformation in the way of narrating the same historical era through the time. Telling stories intentionally as a rhetorical device in forming the larger image of the history would develop the author from a historian into a social agent. The closer is the historian to the power system, the more complicated his narration is. This article examines the socio-political implications of using stories/narratives in Jovayni’s Tarikh-e Jahāngoshāy from this point of view, although this view may debilitate the foundation of recoursing to the historical texts
