Astrology and the Construction of Historical Knowledge in Early Islam

FAIN: FEL-289376-23

Antoine Borrut
University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)

Research and writing leading to a book on the construction of historical knowledge in Islam and the neglected genre of astrological histories in the Middle East from 7th-10th centuries CE.

My book offers a cultural history of historical writing in early Islam (7th-10th centuries CE). It focuses on the construction of historical knowledge during the first centuries of Islam and sheds light on the much-neglected genre of astrological histories. I contend that astrologers played a significant, albeit totally overlooked, role in the making of Islamic historiography. *Astrology and the Construction of Historical Knowledge in Early Islam* thus aims to document a unique moment in historical writing and to reveal enduring legacies of this exceptional corpus of texts and horoscopes.