Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative. A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography.

The author challenges in this work the prevailing practice in Islamicate historiography by undertaking a multifaceted analysis of a single text - a major historical narrative and a pivotal work in the history of new Persian language and literature since the tenth century: The Ghaznavid period’s Tarikh-i Bayhaqi.
Abu’l-Fadl Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn Bayhaqī (died 1077), better known as Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi, was a Persian secretary, historian and author. Educated in the major cultural center of Nishapur, and employed at the court of the famous Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud, Bayhaqi was a highly cultured man, whose magnum opus—the Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, is seen as the most reliable source of valid information about the Ghaznavid era, which was written in an exquisite and vivid Persian prose that would become an ideal model for several eras. Bayhaqi is praised by modern scholars for his frankness, precision, and elegant style in his book, which he had spent 22 years to write, finishing it in thirty volumes, of which however only five volumes and half of the sixth exist today.