From the Heavens to the Nile and from Creation to al-Nāṣir Muḥammad: Universal Historiography and Literary Scale in the works of Ibn al-Dawādārī

Abstract

In the early eighth/fourteenth century the scope and scale of historiographic projects in Syro-Egypt shifted from an earlier focus on biographical monographs towards expansive chronicles, often of universal scope. This article studies the nine-volume universal chronicle Kanz al-durar wa-jāmiʿ al-ghurar and the single-volume but similarly universal chronicle Durar al-tījān wa-ghurar tawārīkh al-azmān, both composed by the Egyptian litterateur Ibn al-Dawādārī (d. after 736/1335). The chronicles are analysed for their use of scalar strategies in managing large amounts of historical information. In their literary and historical presentations, the texts appeal to a celestial scale and a localised Egyptian perspective, both of which are repeatedly connected to praise of the sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (third reign 709/1310–741/1341). This article argues for a holistic understanding of such chronicles by considering their structural organisation, the holograph manuscripts in which the texts survive, and a close reading of their introductions alongside multiple panegyric sections across the works. The shift in scale in historiographical production is linked to the intellectual environment of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad's court in the decades following his return to power in 709/1310.