Narrational and Rational Understandings of History in the Islamic Middle Age: Examples of Taber？ and Ibn Hald？n

Two significant historical understandings have been observed to develop in the Islamic world; the first one is story- based, narration- oriented understanding of history which carries traces of the transfer- oriented understanding of pre-Islamic era and which evolves by starting from the narration of the life and the wars of Muhammad (siyer and megazi). The second one is rational-philosophical understanding of history which carries traces of the philosophical understanding of Ancient Greek. This second understanding was earlier seen in Ibn Miskeveyh and then developed by Ibn Hald？n. It is possible to emphasize that among the historical understandings in question, especially the transfer-oriented understanding of history had overwhelming superiority in the Medieval Islamic World. In this article, these two significant historical undestandings will be analyzed through the examples of Taberi and Ibn Haldun. These two philosophers were selected on a purpose. Because Taberi represents the peak of transfer-oriented understanding of history while Ibn Hald？n represents the advance form of the rational understandings of history in the Medieval Islamic World. In this article, lives, works, historical understandings of both of the philosopher will be outlined based on their works with a descriptive pattern