Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
University of Tehran, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Islamic Social Sciences
Abstract
This study aims to analyze the relationship between the political–cultural context of the Buyid rule and the conceptual framework of Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh by examining the emergence of “ethics-oriented historiography” in the Islamic tradition. The central research question concerns how the institutional and epistemic conditions of the Buyid period, in interaction with Miskawayh’s bureaucratic experience and virtue-based method, led to the formation of a political–ethical rationality in which history becomes an instrument for normative judgment and political reform. Adopting a qualitative and interpretive approach and drawing on intra-textual and extra-textual analysis of Miskawayh’s two major works, Tajārib al-Umam and Tahdhīb al-Akhlaq, the study demonstrates how the Buyids’ rationalist religious tolerance, together with Miskawayh’s administrative experience and analytical method, facilitated a transition from mere chronicle-writing to ethics-oriented historiography.
The findings indicate that through causal analysis of political events and critique of fiscal and administrative policies, Miskawayh extracted principles such as distributive justice, moderate political economy, and governmental fiscal responsibility from historical experience, thereby elevating history from a narrative of events to a “laboratory of political ethics.” Within this framework, the role of the historian shifts from a reporter of events to a normative analyst, and politics is redefined as the art of governing for the common good. The results further show that, in Miskawayh’s thought, historical experience is transformed through rational judgment into a normative and generalizable rule, establishing a structural link between ethics, history, and politics.
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