Rasool Jafarian; Seyyed Reza Lavasani
Abstract
History - narrative interaction is one of the most important issues have being discussed in critical philosophy of history. A historian normally compiles the historical events, as the ...
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History - narrative interaction is one of the most important issues have being discussed in critical philosophy of history. A historian normally compiles the historical events, as the essential parts of history recording, and imports them besides some connectors through a narrative structure. The existing relation between such a narrative and the reality is of considerable concerns which are explored based on different epistemological approaches. Regardless of inevitable influence of historian’s values on his historiography, it seems possible to evaluate such works with the amounts of fictional elements in the narrative as a measure. To achieve this aim, one should compare various descriptions of a specific historical event, to recognize its historical information out of its fictional layers. This article deliberates the “Nabil Zarandi`s précis History” from this standpoint. As a case study, it concentrates on its narrative style of the first meeting of Mulla Hossein’s Bushrui and Mirza Ali Mohammad Shirazi (Known as Bāb) in 23 May 1844 (the 5th day of Jumada al-Oola 1260 A.H), which is recognized as one of the milestones in the history of Babi/Bahai movements. Comparing this narration with other historical evidences makes it clear that “Nabil Zarandi`s précis History” was organized in five issues of “the reason of Bashrui’s presene in Shiraz”, “his previous acquaintance with Bāb”, “his initial encountering with Bāb’s claims”, “the time they discussed each other”, and finally, “the reason of Mulla Hossein’s trust in Bāb” and contains some differences which can be considered as a good example of historical narration.
