Journal of the stylistic of Persian poem and prose
volume Number 19، number In Volume 2، May 2026 ، issue Number 120

Women’s Status in Medieval Texts: A Comparative Study of Mu‘jam al-Buldān by Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī and Āthār al-Bilād by Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī

Roughayeh Fathizadeh zal , Mohammad Hakimazar (Author in Charge), Zahra Ghoroghi

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The status of women in texts from the sixth to the eighth centuries AH has consistently been characterized by ambiguity and multilayered meanings, owing to the intrinsic differences in these works’ combination of literary narratives and documentary descriptions. A precise understanding of women’s social, cultural, and political roles requires a comparative analysis of literary narratives and empirically grounded evidence. The simultaneous focus on Muʿjam al-Buldān and Āthār al-Bilād, and their comparative examination as two medieval socio-geographical texts, constitutes a relatively neglected approach in women’s studies. Most previous research has concentrated on juridical or literary texts, while geographical encyclopedias have largely been overlooked.

METHODOLOGY: This study employs a qualitative descriptive content analysis, drawing on the theoretical framework of the sociology of literature particularly the perspectives of Bastide, Löwenthal, and Goldmann alongside narrative discourse analysis. Textual data related to women’s status, including familial, social, political, and cultural roles, are extracted from the two works and systematically analyzed.

FINDINGS: Muʿjam al-Buldān, by attributing social, scholarly, and political agency to women and by employing field-based narratives, poetic citations, and concrete examples, presents a model of active and realistic representation of feminine identity, in which women can be identified as social agents. In contrast, Āthār al-Bilād by Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī, while documenting the presence of women, largely confines this presence to general, moralistic, and symbolic descriptions, with women appearing less frequently as independent agents within the narrative structure. The comparative analysis demonstrates that differences in the representation of women stem not merely from stylistic variation, but from each text’s epistemic function, degree of reality-orientation, and discursive logic.

CONCLUSION: Women’s status in medieval texts is contingent upon the epistemic position and social function of the text itself. Socio-scientific texts, with their inclination toward recording lived experiences and concrete forms of action, provide greater scope for representing women as active agents, whereas ethical–literary texts tend to reproduce normative models and idealized identities.

Keyword
Women’s status , historical sociology , social-scientific texts , women’s discourse , Mu‘jam al- Buldān (Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī) , Āthār al- Bilād (Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī)