An Analysis of the Historiography of Mohammad Shafi Tehrani in the Meraat al-Sadiqin

Abstract

Mohammad Shafi Tehrani, Indian born from an Iranian origin, has written the book Meraat al-Sadiqin from 1729 to 1746, in four sections with the aim of presenting the history of the Timurids of India. A separate section of it, was published in the history of Afshari under the title of Nadernameh and Meraat E-Varedat. In this article, an attempt was made to express in a descriptive-analytical method, with the help of library resources to show how the Nadernameh and the Meraat E-Varedat can be the same as the Meraat al-Sadiqin. What are the reasons for the similarities and differences between Mohammad Shafi's historiography and the Iranian historiographical tradition? What issues were involved in choosing the type of historiography he used? This study shows that both works, due to the similarity of the writing method and thematic relationship and Tehrani reference to the general name of the work in both versions that have been neglected by the editors, is the same part of a single work entitled Meraat al-Sadeqin. Despite the continuation of the Iranian historiographical tradition in Merat al-Sadiqin and to some extent the tendency towards tolerance and open-mindedness, distance from Iran, familiarity with Persian literature and interaction with Iranian writers living in India, accessing to and influence from Iranian sources, his time and place in narrating history, being influenced by the Indian intellectual atmosphere and having Sufi beliefs and the prevalence of this kind of attitude in Tehrani’s thought determine the type of orientation in his method of historiography.

Keywords

• historiographical method
• mohammad shafi tehrani
• meraat al-sadeghin
• meraat e-varedat
• nadernameh