mohammad ghazvini

Islamic historiography with a great growth in the Abbasid era, doubled in the Mamluks period, so that this period in Egypt and the Levant should be considered the peak of Islamic historiography. Writing hundreds of books with many volumes in various historiographies, especially in the fields of public, local, dynastic and... shows this issue. No period in the history of Islam has witnessed all these works in the field of historical knowledge. The main question of this research is: Why was historiography so important in the period of Mamluks sultans (648-923 AH)? The findings of this study indicate that the long Crusades as well as the war between Mongols and the Mamluks were very effective in this regard. By writing their books, Muslim historians portrayed the great and brilliant victories of the Mamluks sultans against the eastern and western enemies of Islam for the future. Encouragement of Mamluks Sultans and rulers and some other factors that are the subject of this article have also been very effective in this regard. The study method used in this research is descriptive-analytical with reference to first-hand sources as well as looking at the studies and researches and referring to the library and digital sources.

Background of Shi’ism in Sirya and Egypt can be traced to the earliest Islam. Egyptian historians such as Maghrizi and Ibn Taghriberdi believed Siite Islam was present and active in the early centuries in the mentioned areas. The severe and harsh policies of Sunni rules such as Ummayads, Abbasids and, in particular, Ayyubids couldn’t reduce their great role. But because of the Mamalik activities against the Shiites; their number decreased extremely at the end of Mamalik era, according to Egyptian contemporary historian. This article studies the question “why Shiism could not progress after the downfall of Abbasids Caliphate”.It seems that influence of some Hanabalite scholars in Mamalik court, the long hostility between Mamalik and Iran Ilkhanids in Iran and finally Caliphate revival in Cairo by Baybars had important role in this regard.

Writing historical encyclopedias which were initiated by Ibn Khallekan after writing Wafayat Al-‘Ayan in the seventh century was followed and completed by writing two encyclopedias of Alwafi Bilwafayat and ‘Ayan Al’asr. The dates of deaths in translations were considered by the writer and in most of the translations he has recorded dates of deaths in alphabetical edition as being a common feature of the encyclopedias. In many translations، he has expressed his own idea about the translators and even in some cases has kept a recording of the translators’ appearance and ethical characteristics. Although the mentioned encyclopedias include some deficiencies، but they are very important because of including lots of translations from Muslim scholars especially in the eighth century during development of cultural studies and Islamic civilization. The paper attempts to provide an answer for the question: what may be counted as Safadi’s motivation in writing these works? Also، some topics such as historiography method، resources، literary style، organization style، importance and pathology of these two encyclopedias will be analyzed and criticized.