volume Number 8، number In Volume 1، Spring 2015 ، issue Number 27

Literature of Biography writing in the Historical Texts of Safavid period

Jahanbakhsh Savagheb(Author in Charge)

Abstract
Biography writing, or the literature of biography, is a form of Islamic history writing. The literature consists of books concerning the written history of different social groups, or individuals. In the real sense of the word, biography writing is few during the Safavid Period, and few formal historians have written biographies in that period. However, there are considerable books dealing with genealogy, autobiography, personal accounts of individuals, tribes, and local chronicles in the period that give information about personal events in the lives of famous people living in the period. Through these books, one can get a relatively clear picture of the contemporary classes, guilds, and various personalities in the society, and therefore, one can reconstruct a sort of social history of the period. Before the Safavids, the biographical texts had a religious orientations in the sense that they focused on religious personalities and classes as the Muslim Community [that is, the Muslim Omah]. During the Safavids, however, there was a shift towards other strata in a way that all the elements within the government received equal attentions. The present study tries to analyze the approaches and the evolution of biography writing and to discuss different social classifications in the Safavid Period

Keyword
Safavie , Historical Texts , Biography Writing , Statesmen.