Iranian Journal for the History of Islamic Civilization

Iranian Journal for the History of Islamic Civilization

What is modern historical description?

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Professor, Research Institute of History, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
When historical events are transformed into historical accounts, a historical narrative is formed. This narrative can be presented in various formats, one of which is description. There is controversy and disagreement about description and descriptive historiography. The main issue of this article is the discussion of this controversy. Its central question is: What is modern historical description, and what are its characteristics and foundations? With an epistemological approach, this article first attempts to define the method of description and descriptive history, then enumerates their characteristics, foundations, and nature. The findings show that historical description is a situation in which different dimensions of events – including contexts; how and when they occurred; their characteristics; factors and actors; scenes; spaces (time and place); and the relationships between the variables involved in the event – are described in an acceptable manner. This historical description is based on a narrative, and the narrative, in turn, is based on a plot. Therefore, descriptive historiography rests on a well-thought-out plan and, by collecting and evaluating all reliable evidence and data, describes the details of an event to explain why, how, where, when, in what context, and with what quality this event occurred, what process it underwent, and what results it produced. Such a narrative is an in-depth description based on the descriptive-analytic method (descriptive analysis), as it seeks to produce knowledge beyond existing sources in a methodical, documented, reasoned, coherent, and rational manner.
Keywords
Subjects

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Volume 59, Issue 1
(Spring & Summer 2026)
September 2026
Pages 100-124

  • Receive Date 12 October 2025
  • Revise Date 04 July 2026
  • Accept Date 29 June 2026