Pre-modern intellectual debates on the knowledge of history and ẒiyÄ Í— al-DÄ«n Baranī’s TÄ rÄ«kh-i FÄ«rÅ«zshÄ hÄ«

This article connects the Delhi Sultanate historian ẒiyÄ Ê¾ al-DÄ«n BaranÄ« (ca. 684–758/1285–1357) and his thinking on the knowledge of history (Ê¿ilm-i tÄ rÄ«kh) to the broader intellectual milieu developing across South Asia and the Middle East during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries. It situates his contributions within intense debates to define knowledge and the various fields of knowledge traditionally divided between the al-Ê¿ulÅ«m al-naqliyya, the ‘transmitted fields of knowledge,’ and the al-Ê¿ulÅ«m al-Ê¿aqliyya, the ‘rational fields of knowledge’. Here BaranÄ« is shown to classify historiography within the al-Ê¿ulÅ«m al-naqliyya and to defend history writing against its critics. Understanding his efforts to integrate historiography within the transmitted fields of knowledge sheds new light on the intellectual history of Islamic South Asia and wider debates about the knowledge of history in the Middle East.