Chapter 31 - Historiography

Summary

Jews of medieval Islamicate lands were avid consumers and producers of historical writing. They constructed histories that strove to reflect on contemporary political and cultural developments. They considered both their history and that of others, and in some cases preserved rare information about periods from which few writings have survived. Included here are prose texts written by authors who spent all or parts of their life in Islamic lands, including general, universal, and local histories, individual and communal letters, travelogues, and the approaches to history implicit in the writings of some leading medieval Jewish scholars. Written in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Arabic, or – rarely – Aramaic, most Jewish historical works originated in the central areas of Jewish settlement: Andalusia, North Africa, Syria-Palestine, and Iraq.