A Comparative Study of Historiographical Views of Iskandar Beg Munshi and Molla Jalal Yazdi

One of the problems encountered in Safavid historiographical criticism is lack of information on biography, approaches, and viewpoints of historians and chroniclers who were mainly the court administrators. In this study, two courtier historians at the time of Shah Abbas I (996-1038 AH) have been selected: Iskandar Beg, the author of History of Alam Aray Abbasi, as the special secretary, and Molla Jalal Yazdi, the author of Abbasid History, as the astronomer. Both served Shah Abbas I about thirty years. The reasons for the selection of these two historians are their contemporary career lives, encountering events occurred in a certain period of time, provision of different reports, and finally, writing their history in the name of Shah Abbas I. The present paper aims at comparing the chronology styles of these two historians and their viewpoints about certain common historical issues; such as Khan Ahmad s’ rise, Shah Abbas’ rescue from death in 1001 AH, his travelling from Isfahan to Mashhad on foot in 1010 AH, and the like. This paper answers such questions as what factors influenced the chronology styles and viewpoints of each of these historians and why there are few common issues in their works, despite them living in the same period. Altogether, it can be said that chronological approaches of each of them were influenced by quantity and quality of their knowledge of chronology. Moreover, their career features had an influence on their viewpoints and perception of issues.