Interacting with the Primary Sources

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Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM
Interacting with the Primary Sources

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Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM
 On Hypothesis
• 1. What kind of person the thinker was ?
• 2. What distinguished his writings on creed
from other writers?
• 3. How serious was the religious unbelief
confronting early 20th century K?
• 4.Was WS really an original thinker as A
argues or rather he was a synthesizer as HZ
contends?

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 3

 Contents
• Defining PS
• Types of PS
• Interacting with Primary Sources-(Written
Evidence)

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 4

 Primary Sources: Forms

Forms of
Primary Source

Physical Visual Oral and Printed Unpublished

Artifacts
Statistics Document manuscript
Images audio

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Images

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 Forms Bank scene, Florence, painted by Niccolo di
Pietro Gerini (14th-15th c),
• 2.Visual Images, such
as photographs, film,
video, paintings,
sculpture, cave
drawings, maps

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 Forms
• 3.Oral and audio histories, including live interviews
and audio recordings, songs, poems
• 4.Statistics, such as census data, figures on the
economy, land surveys, account books
• 5.Printed text documents, such as cookbooks,
traveler's reports, advertisements, memoirs,
government publication

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 Sample: Islamic manuscript
• 6.Manuscript (handwritten) documents, such as diaries,
journals, letters.

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Ibn Khaldun’s Manuscript

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 Evaluating Written Evidence
• First read and understand the content. Easy or not?
• Who is the author? (where to get this info?
Biographical dict/tabaqat, gleaned from d book itself
• Id author’s relationship to the event. Eyewitness, or
only a contemporary to the event.
• E.g. first hand observer of J occ of Malaya or a
person reading it from newspaper?

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 11

 A’s Point of View
• All a’s have prejudices, biases that may
influence their perspectiver
• A’s b/g that might influence a’s viewpoint
• Is the a’s trustworthy? How do we know? Any
other sources to corroborate his account?

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 12

 Intended audience
• The targ audience may influence what the
writer wrote.
• Intended audience for diaries
• (Most for author’s eyes only—don’t want
other ppl to read—shorthand to guard against
other ppl reading it—intended for private &
personal, if we discover it, would take efforts
to decode it.

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 13

• If intended for public to read e.g. Napoleon’s
memoir
• Is there possibility to stretch the truth.

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 14

 PURPOSE
• U to und the the doc’s purpose.
• Why it was produced and has survived?
• Some records e.g. produced by govt agency
tax records are intended to survive
• These records generally neutral in their tone

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 15

 Tone(attitude) & Language
• Beginning researcher, this is complex &
require attentive reading
• What is a’s att toward d subject? Angry?
Argumentative? Sarcastic?Judgemental?

Hafiz bin Zakariya, IIUM 16

How do we know reliability of evidence?
TEST OF RELIABILITY
Authentic
Or Fraud?

Identity of
Reliability
Sources
Of Sources
Test
Reliability

External
Bias
Consistency

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 Reliability of the PR: How trustworthy do you
consider the evidence is?

• Does it accurately reflect the historical past? To

determine that apply the tests of reliability
• 1. Authenticity Is the evidence what it appears to
be or is it possibly a fraud or forgery?
• How to determine it? depends on the type of
document-use of language, scientific proof of the
age of antique documents (we need CSI help here)
I) test the age of document-scientific test
ii)language structure

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 TEST OF RELIABILITY
• 2.Is the author or source clearly identified? His/her
position? title? Historians do not rely on
"anonymous" sources or hearsay
• 3. Is the source qualified to provide this evidence?
Sources may be qualified by training/education or
by experience with the topic of the evidence. Cf. in
‘Ilm hadith Ilm al-Jarh wal ta’dil/Ilm Rijal
• 4. Bias: Does the author have a vested interest in
the topic of the evidence that might distort the
evidence?

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 TEST OF RELIABILITY
• 5.External Consistency: Is the evidence
consistent with outside qualified sources?
• E.g. Islamization of North Sumatera, Marco
Polo who transited there in 1292, only Perlak
very few Muslims. 7 other areas idolaters &
cannibals. Chinese sources Samudra, which
Marco argues idolaters were Muslims at least
well before 1280s.
• Local source-Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai as early as
13 century Merah Silau->Malik Saleh
• Artifact: Malik Salih’s gravestone dated 1297

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

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Gravestone of Sultan Muhammad Malik
Al-Zahir or Malikuzzahir (Malikus Salih’s
son)

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