Biographer as a Historian: Historiography Thought of Azar Bigdeli

Historiography and history naration of Zand dynasty as one stage of Iranian historiography should be further studied. ḤĀJJ LOṬF-ʿALĪ BĪG B. ĀQĀ KHAN BĪGDELĪ ŠĀMLŪ (fl. 1134/1721-1195/1781) is one of the most prolific writers of the 18th century.Although he is more known as a poet and biographer, but one of the aspects of his scientific life is attention to historiography, which is the result of an insignificant piece of his writings that he has included in his literary work. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is review the thought of Azar Bigdeli's historiography. He has played an effective role in the continuity and evolution of Zandee's historiography, which from one side modled from historians like Astarabadi and Ghafari-e Kashani and from other side was one of the pioneers of the revulsion against the so-called sabk-e hendī, Indian style (BĀZGAŠT-E ADABĪ) and tendency to simple writing of historiography. Azar had a great impact on the next writers, especially on Qajar historians. His effort in expressing historical events with a simple and emotional passion, later in the Qajar period, became as a pattern for other istorian s like Abd-al-Razagh Donboli and Fazlollah Khavari-e Shirazi. The emergence and expansion of social&economic aspects and causal and critical approach, realism, fairness and impartiality is one of the achievements of his historiography.