Conglomeration of facts or structured information? A problem of method in the study of history

Abstract

The present article deals with the structural unit in historic narrative which the documents in Arabic and Persian languages dating from the 9th–15th centuries designate using the Arabic term ẖabar. The author’s aim is to find out whether the ẖabar structure is reducible to the familiar subject-predicate construction or rather its foundation rests on a deep logical predication structure which can be symbolically expressed as S (process) P. After examining a wide representation of medieval texts, she arrives at the conclusion that a ẖabar structure invariably retains the same principles of organization irrespective of the literary genre or even the grammar and language of a given text; its raison d’être is rather the Gestalt of ‘resting upon’ a wholesome image which can be realized in either verbal or non-verbal texts.