HIST 1000 : INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY & CIVILIZATION KIRKHS, IIUM

1. HOW HISTORIANS WORK
BASIC
METHODOLOGIE
S OF HISTORY

2.  Sources / Evidences
 Historical Sources
 Primary Sources
 Forms of Primary Sources
 Secondary Sources
 Reliability of Primary Sources
 Historiography
 Methods of Historical Analysis / Writing History
 Problems in Historical Analysis / Writing History

3. Sources / Evidences
 History is about evidence – interpretation of
evidence.
 No evidence – no history.
 The surviving evidence must be fallible or
reliable.
 The nature or forms of evidence.
 The changing nature of evidence, e.g. from
letters to tapes/ recordings.

4. Sources / Evidences
 The question of also how much evidence,
either too much or too little.
 Too much evidence, esp. for the modern or
early modern period events.
 Too little evidence for ancient periods.

5. Historical Sources
Sources
Primary Source Secondary Source

6. Primary Sources
 Primary sources are first hand evidences by
eyewitness accounts come from people who
saw or participated in the historical events
that are being analyzed.
 Various forms of primary sources.
 2 main criteria of primary sources:
1. authentic/ original.
2. contemporary (of the time under study).

7. Forms of Primary Sources
Forms of
Primary Sources
Physical
Artifacts
Visual
Images
Oral and
audio
Statistics
Printed
Document
Unpublished
manuscript

8. Forms of Primary Sources
 1. Physical Artifacts: such as tools, weapons,
machines, toys, uniforms, tombstones, etc.
 2. Visual Images: such as photographs, film,
video, paintings, sculpture, cave drawings,
maps, etc.

9. Forms of Primary Sources

10. Forms of Primary Sources
 A painting of a bank scene,
Florence, painted by Niccolo di
Pietro Gerini (14th-15th c),

11. Forms of Primary Sources
 3.Oral and audio evidence: such as live
interviews and audio recordings, songs,
poems, etc.
 4. Statistics: such as census data, figures on
the economy, land surveys, account books,
etc.
 5. Printed text documents: such as cookbooks,
traveler's reports, advertisements, memoirs,
government publication, etc.

12. Forms of Primary Sources
 6.Manuscript (handwritten) documents: such
as diaries, journals, letters, etc.

13. Forms of Primary Sources

14. Secondary Sources
 Secondary sources: Second-hand evidences,
provided by persons not present during the
historical time under discussion.
 Most of books you read are secondary
sources.
 Good historians combine a wide range of
primary sources with a careful reading of the
ideas of other scholars in secondary sources.

15. Secondary Sources
 Among secondary sources, we prefer
SCHOLARLY sources. Scholarly books and
articles use footnotes or endnotes to show
where the information comes from.

16. Reliability of Primary Sources
 Does it accurately reflect the historical past?
To determine that we need to apply the tests
of reliability.
 1. Authenticity of the sources.
Is the evidence what it appears to be or is it
possibly a fraud or forgery?
How to determine it?

17. Reliability of Primary Sources
Depends on the type of evidence. E.g. written
documents - scientific proof of the age of the
antique documents & the use of language.
i) Test the age of document - scientific test, e.g.
radio carbon-dating analysis.
ii) analyze the language structure, e.g. by
linguists.

18. Reliability of Primary Sources
 2. Identity of the author/ source.
Is the author or source clearly identified?
His/her position? Title?
Historians do not rely on "anonymous"
sources or hearsay.
 3. Reliability of the author/ source.
Is the source qualified to provide this
evidence?

19. Reliability of Primary Sources
Sources may be qualified by training/education
or by experience with the topic of the evidence.
Cf. in ‘Ilm hadith, Ilm Al-Rijal.
 4. Bias.
Does the author have a vested interest in the
topic of the evidence that might distort the
evidence?

20. Reliability of Primary Sources
 5. External Consistency.
Is the evidence consistent with outside
qualified sources?

21. Reliability of Primary Sources
Identity of
Sources
Bias
External
Consistency
Reliability
Of Sources
Authentic
Or Fraud?
Test of
Reliability

22. Reliability of Primary Sources
 E.g. Islamization of North Sumatera.
 Various sources.
 E.g., Marco Polo who transited there in
1292 - only Perlak had a very few Muslims
& other areas idolaters & cannibals.
 Chinese sources - Samudra, which Marco
argues idolaters were Muslims at least well
before 1280s.

23. Reliability of Primary Sources
 Local source - Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai -
as early as 13 century the islamization
process had taken place. The King
changed his name from Merah Silau to a
Muslim name, Sultan Malik Saleh.
 Artifact – Sultan Malik Salih’s gravestone
dated 1297.

24. The Famous Malikus Salih Gravestone, dated 1297.
The grave complex is located
at Desa Beringin, Samudera, 17
Km, east of Lhokseumawe

25. Historiography
 The study of the way history has been and is
written – the history of historical writing.
 The analysis usually focuses on the
interpretations, worldviews, use of evidence, or
method of presentation of other historians.
 When you study ‘historiography’ you do not
study the events of the past directly, but the
changing interpretations of those events in the
works of individual historians.

26. Methods of Historical Analysis/
Writing History
 1. The selection of a subject for investigation.
 2. The collection of probable sources of
information on that subject.
 3. The examination of those sources for
genuineness.
 4. The extraction of credible particulars from
the sources (or parts of sources) proved
genuine.

27. Problems in Historical Analysis /
Writing History
 Historians not being critical or objective.
Influenced by own ideologies, views,
beliefs,etc.
 Biased information or sources.
Through ages, the truth had often been
manipulated or covered esp. by past rulers or
politicians for their own interests.
Forged evidence.

28. Problems in Historical Analysis /
Writing History
 Difficulty to record on the lives of general
masses.
The accounts or documents are mainly
concerned with rulers, aristocrats, kings,
politics and systems of government.
Lack of observation on common people,
peasants, slaves, etc.