Banakati Historiography, Characteristics and Methodology

The present research analyzes the historiography of Banakati, the historian of the last decades of the Ilkhanid era. The author of this research believes that the main issue in this regard is knowing the historian's viewpoints in understanding and narrating historical events and how they affect the historian's historiography method. Accordingly, this paper seeks to answer the main questions, i.e. “What are the principles and rules of Banakati's historiographical methodology”, and “What is its relationship with explanatory-critical insight based on historical fairness?” The findings of the research based on the historical method show that in his historiographical method, Banakati favors explanatory-critical insight for the pre-Ilkhanid period. However, he has distanced from this in the post-Ilkhanid period and has come closer to the descriptive vision. Therefore, the most important fixed features of Banakati's methodology in his historiography in both periods include his effort to avoid prejudice and partiality and approaching historical fairness on the one hand, and his worldview and the discussion of different nations in the form of world history, not mingling them with unrealities, including legends and superstitions, and bringing history closer to wisdom and identity-oriented view towards history and trying to continue and strengthen Iranian identity, on the other hand.