Understanding History

I only travelled with the late Iraj Afshār once; we stayed in Leiden in Netherlands. I have a memoir of him from that trip which is of relevance to my topic of discussion. We were in Leiden for a seminar, and we were out for lunch at a restaurant. I don`t exactly remember whether it was before lunch or after it when Mr. Afshār took the piece of blank sheet which is traditionally on the table in restaurants, displays the name and address of the restaurant, and is occasionally patterned. He inscribed in his calligraphic writing on the back of the paper the date that we went to Leiden for a seminar on Safīna-yi Tabriz (The Vessel of Tabriz or The Treasury of Tabriz) and the names of the people with whom he shared a meal at the said restaurant. He then passed the paper to all of us to sign, folded the paper, slipped it inside his folder, and explained that he had many of such papers, bearing the name of the places he has eaten at and the name of the people with whom he had dined. I guess this memoir embodies one of his most important characteristics which I intend to address with a hypothetical question; the discovery of which of the followings would hold more appealing to you: the missing excerpts of Beihaqi`s history or the record of the annual living expenses of a resident of Ghazni at Sultan Mas`ūd`s time. We would clearly answer that naturally unearthing the former would excite us incomparably more than finding the record of earnings and spending of an ordinary man; but I am not so sure that Mr. Afshār would answer the question so easily. This would be due to the fact that he approached history not as if only composed of major events, wars, victories, defeats, and the like; what mattered to him was the material and spiritual life of the Iranians during the years. The late Mr. Afshāri did of course publish many documents of major historic events such as constitutionalism in Iran as well as biographical documents of many political figures. However, part of what he published might be disregarded as historically insignificant by traditional approaches towards history. You might think that I am exaggerating when I claim that it would be difficult for the late Mr. Afshār to choose between the missing parts of the great history of Beyhaqi and a record of daily expenses of an Iranian family who lived during the same historical era. But recently, in the recent issue of Bukhārā Journal, in the columns of Iranology, I saw a note which reflects Mr. Afshār`s real approach towards history and justifies my claim that Mr. Afshār might have hesitated in answering the aforementioned question. The aforementioned note reads as the following: “One of my critics recently asked me about my purpose of publishing ‘carelessly written and literally tasteless pieces on cooking, archery, farming, birds of prey, and hospitability which are usually written by anonymous and upstart authors’. The said critic further sharply added: ‘When there remain to be many mystical, poetic, and rhetorical texts unpublished, and there are copious literary pieces which need to be edited and re-published based on valid documents; publishing such mediocre literature does indeed appear to be a waste of time, paper, and money’. We began to discuss the matter ardently, and it was then that I felt compelled to point out that the individual, cultural, social, and industrial past of this nation may only be restored by discovering and re-analyzing the said short volumes on archery, horse care, birds of prey, chivalry, pigeon keeping, trade centers, securities, and bonds. In other words, the daily life may better be explored in theses texts rather than the literary works, volumes of poetry, and even historical books where passages of the kind mentioned are thin on the ground.

Definitely, literature and history constitute the most important of texts, are entertaining, and provide good readings for educational and spiritual entertainment; but my prior experiences with these writings have led me to seek the solution in the other aforementioned types of texts in order to gain an understanding of the civil processes”. This short article proves Afshār`s divergence from the traditional approach towards history which has undergone any significant change even in the contemporary era. Afshār approaches history first and foremost from a social perspective. Nevertheless, he has not written any works dedicated to the discussion of this approach to history, an approach that is yet discernible in his writings and his selection of documents to be published. Not only does the type of writings a number of which are discussed in the aforementioned quotation, but also his choice of specific mystical and scientific texts reflects his consideration of their socio-historical value. Rooted in this specific approach to history is the fear that with the speed with which the social developments occur, there is the danger that the historical documents of our social life in the far and even near past shall cease to exist. This justifies why Mr. Afshār wasted no time in publishing the documents. But, had it not been for his rush, would we still have many historical documents?

Historians and philosophers have often debated over what to call historical event or historical document. In his works, Iraj Afshār implicitly answers this question. His response can be restored by a re-analysis of his stack of works. However, in my opinion, his works influence our history-writing traditions in two major ways. These two major impacts shall be better felt in the course of the coming years. One is that we are beginning to realize that history is not to be established from the pages of the historical books, for historical books serve only as one of the many sources that the historian can consult. The other is that we have realized that history does not have a single aspect and is not bound to the political sphere only; but there lies beyond the major, observable historical events a slow and enduring process which manifests itself in population developments, commerce, changes in social and ethical norms, and the daily life. It is, therefore, impossible to deliberate over those events usually considered historic without reference to the said developments which themselves can only be traced in the scarce documents we have at our disposal. That is the reason why we apply more caution (or at least I hope we do) in writing history. I believe that if today there is no historian, or at least no serious historian, who dares to write a book under the general title of History of Constitutionalism or the history of Iran from the beginning to the very end, it is due to the teachings of people like the late Mr. Afshār, who engendered and espoused the view that there is no one reading to the history, and that history-writing is no easy task. I work in another historical field, but I think it took me many years to internalize this lesson that I hope the young generation learns soon enough.

Hussein Ma`sūmi Hamedāni
Translated by: Katayoun Davallou

Source: Mehrnameh Monthly, No. 11