2. Islam. Islam had drawn upon Jewish and Chris-
tian sources, and continued to have contact with such
sources (with the culture of the Byzantine empire for
example) all of which contributed to its consciousness
of being an “historical religion.” Its students learned
much from ancient philosophy and science, but did not
discover the historians of classical Greece, though, in
Aristotle or elsewhere, they learned how history could
contribute to a science of politics. They were aware
of early Christian historiography, however, and were
acquainted with the writings of Eusebius and Orosius.
For them it was the life of Muhammad that made the
great dividing-line in history. Even if the prophet
himself had not attached great importance to history,
they would have wanted to know more about the men
around him or to discuss the difficult historical refer-
ences in the Koran. It generally appears that an un-
usually large section of the literature of Islamic peoples
is connected with history, and the works produced
were sometimes very substantial in size. In some
countries, like India, a serious interest in the past (as
we understand it) and a considerable literary produc-
tion in this field, did not really emerge until the coming
of Islam. Yet the Muslim theologians were jealous of
history, which was a minor branch of study, without
a place in higher education; it never provided the
stimulus for an important intellectual movement. The
West in the Middle Ages seized upon the science of
the Arabs but seems to have ignored their historical
work. It is doubtful whether in any case the Muslims
would have contributed very much to European his-
toriography from the time of the Renaissance.
It seems that in pre-Islamic Arabia there had existed
a feeling for the past, and this expressed itself in forms
which are typical of primitive societies in that part
of the world. It issued in “battle-day” narratives of the
kind which survive from earlier times in parts of the
Old Testament—a Semitic product, describing the
events and adding a song, like the Song of Deborah
in Judges 5. As Islamic historiography emerges in the
eighth century, such things have developed into liter-
ary pieces, dealing with a single person or event. Influ-
ences from the Byzantine empire seem to have stimu-
lated annalistic writing, extending to points of cultural
history and to notes about unusual occurrences in na-
ture, as in the work of al-Tabari at the beginning of
the tenth century. The same writer produced an influ-
ential treatise, the most important of a number of
world-histories which appeared in that century. The
Muslim writers did not devote themselves greatly to
the remoter past, or learn much about the pre-Islamic
world, or establish a chronology for ancient times. They
did not go to archives for a more effective recovery
of a previous age, but would engage in documentary
work if they were producing histories of their own
period. And what the annalist wrote about his own
day carried a special authority; it would be reproduced
without change by the writers of subsequent genera-
tions. Much of the writing was the work of official
historians, commissioned to produce the life of a ruler,
and possessing authority because they had held high
office or had inside knowledge. Partly perhaps because
of the interest in Muhammad and his associates, num-
berless biographies were produced, and they formed
an important part of history itself, while the course
of politics was regarded as determined by human wills,
personal motivation, and the character of individuals.
Historical novels abounded, but there were also his-
tories on special topics, like plagues; and one learns
of treatises on subjects such as “those rulers of Islam
who received the oath of allegiance before they
reached puberty.” These latter developments came to
their peak in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The one writer who might have influenced the West
was Ibn Khaldūn (1332-1406), for a considerable early
section of his History was a quasi-scientific treatise on
the formation of states, the rise and fall of dynasties,
the maintenance of a civilization, and the relations
between urban and desert societies. From the Greek
geographers he had learned to relate peoples to their
environment, and he seems to stand alone amongst
Islamic writers in his attempt to connect history with
political science and forms of sociological enquiry. He
believed in the possibility of divine intervention in
human affairs, but allowed it only an exceptional role,
and was not deterred from a study of processes. He
held a cyclic view of the destiny of dynasties and states.
When the Westerns discovered him at a late date they
were astonished that Islam should have produced any-
thing that came so close to Vico and Montesquieu.
