Universal in Scope, Pluralist in Outlook: Rashīd al-Dīn’s (d. 718/1318) Compendium of Histories and the Narrating of Difference in Mongol Eurasia

Abstract

* I am indebted to several readers, in particular to Evrim Binbaş, Heidrun Eichner, Constantin Fasolt, Peter Geiss, and Helge Jordheim, for their invaluable feedback on this article at various stages. I am especially grateful to Helge Jordheim for our peripatetic discussion of the visual aspects of Rashīd al-Dīn’s work. To Constantin Fasolt I am indebted for reminding me of the value of sound philological work and for suggesting a more flowing and elegant version of the translation of two of the passages of the English translation of Rashīd al-Dīn’s methodological deliberations in his preface to the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh. All remaining errors are, of course, my own. Further and special thanks go to Lucy Russell for her meticulous proofreading and endless patience during the final stages of the preparation of this article. Funding for the research for this article was made available by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, through an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at the University of Bonn, and the European Research Council, under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Starting Grant 263557 IMPAcT at the University of Oxford. This has enabled me to acquire some of the manuscripts used for preparing this article. 1 “Fruchtbar und weit umfassend ist das Gebiet der Geschichte; in ihrem Kreise liegt die ganze moralische Welt.” Friedrich Schiller, Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte? Eine Akademische Antrittsrede bey Eröfnung seiner Vorlesungen gehalten von Friedrich Schiller, Professor der Geschichte in Jena (Jena: in der Akademischen Buchhandlung, 1789), 4; also published in: Der Teutsche Merkur 4 (1789): 105. For the English translation, I refer to the following throughout, with minor emendations: Schiller, “The Nature and Value of Universal History: An Inaugural Lecture [1789],” History and Theory 11,3 (1972): 321-334. The English translation of the above passage is found on p. 322. This article does not provide the translator’s name. I am grateful to Adam Sabra for referring me to this English translation, and to Harold Marcuse for making a copy available to me.