The chapter argues for the importance of being familiar two literary traditions that made their way into Persianate histories. The first tradition is Mirrors for Princes. The chapter demonstrates that it is possible to view certain portions of Persian histories as “responses” to “mirrors for princes.” Several Persian histories contain a conventional element that describes the qualities of a particular king.This section demonstrates how narratives on the “qualities” of the Safavid king ‘Abbas and the Mughal king Akbar reflect the same ideal qualities that a king is supposed to possess, as indicated in the mirrors for princes literatures.The second tradition explored is the tazkirah, or biographical dictionary.Like the mirrors for princes literatures, the tazkirah is a genre in its own right that flourished during the Timurid era. Some Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal histories contain their own “mini-tazkirah” sections.The chapters trace the historiographical influences on the mini-tazkirahs, and show just how influential Mirkhvand and Khvandamir were for chroniclers writing under the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. The chapter also explains how the chroniclers’ political agendas were reflected in how they used tazkirah to highlight the royal courts where many of them wrote.

Chapter 3 shows how, in addition to drawing on earlier models, the chroniclers also looked to each other’s works as they composed their narratives.We see movement across dynasties in various ways, whether intellectually, as the chroniclers looked beyond dynastic borders to read and cite texts being produced in other parts of the Islamicate world, or physically, as chroniclers moved between Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman territories, writing under different dynasties for different patrons.The chapter has as its centerpiece a case study focusing on one historian, Khvandamir. Drawing on a late Timurid history, Khvandamir wrote one of the earliest Safavid histories, his Habib al-siyar, and then moved to India, where he wrote one of the earliest Mughal narratives, the Qanun-i Humayuni.The analysis shows precisely how Khvandamir appropriated a portion of his Safavid era text dealing with the significance of the number twelve relative to the Shi‘i Imams, carefully transformed it into a “cosmological” text, and incorporated it into his Mughal history written for the emperor Humayun (1505-1556).The chapter ends with an overview of the fortunes of Mir Yahya Qazvini’s descendants, who left Safavid Iran for Mughal India.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the book and provides the reader with background information regarding the main themes in the volume.It opens with an overview of Persian historiography across the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires, providing a brief overview of each empire.The chapter then examines recent studies on connected histories and the Persianate world. This is followed by a summary of the “state of the field,” noting recent scholarship on Persian historiography under the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, and studies on Persian historiography during the early and middle periods of Islamicate history. Next, the chapter presents an overview of each of the subsequent chapters in the book. It concludes with notes on terminology and transliteration.