Narrative and History: The Evaluation of the Methods of Histography in Bayhaqi, Tabari, and Bal'ami's Histories

Bal'ami's history and Bayhaqi's history are among the masterpieces of the early histography and examples of smooth and intermediate texts of the Iranian prose literature. There have been several studies on the two pieces; however, few comparative studies of them could be found in the literature. This study, thus, aims to show the attitude, method, and features of histography in Bayhaqi, Tabari, and Bal'ami's histories focusing on the similarities and differences. The comparison of the two works can shed light on the quality and changing process of writing history. The results suggest that Bayhaqi's history tries to analyze and explain the events besides mere narration. His method stands among the analytic histography. But Bal'ami, in his translation, only chooses the reliable narratives from Tabari, because he believes that the repetition of reports on an event does not mean its validity. Bal'ami focuses on rationality as a criterion in such reports. Bal'ami and Bayhaqi consider history different from superstition and focus on the realities which are reported by credible narrators. Some of the other features of Bal'ami's histography is to analyze and find the causes through his narration, thus, this histography is different from that of the Tabari. Bayhaqi believes that the aim of history is to learn a lesson. Tabari, also, believes in learning from history and pursues religious goals in his history writing as well. But Bal'ami is influenced by political and nationalist motivations. People and society play a more dominant role in Tabari's (and Bal'ami) histories in comparison with Bayhaqi's.