Meta-Alexander- A New Complementary Model and Jurisprudential Theory for the Study of Muslim Historiography – 3rd/9th – 4th/10th Centuries

Abstract

This thesis seeks to determine and study the historiographical structure and concepts as well as historical concepts and their historical reflections as concerns the history of Alexander the Great in eight Muslim universal historical writings in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. Such components constitute the complementary model for these historical writings. The aim will be achieved by functioning two approaches from the jurisprudential theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), i.e. probe and segmentation (al-sabr wa al-taqsīm) and the indications of context (dilālāt al-siyāq) as a general approach. This will be accompanied by two Western theories and concepts, i.e. Hayden White’s theory: The Event-making man, and the concept of anachronism, to shape and address the complementary model in an appropriate way. The thesis’s contribution centres on its emphasis on an interdisciplinary and triangulated methodology and conceptual epistemological framework for studying cross-cultural historiographical cases such as that of Alexander the Great in Muslim universal historical writings in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries.