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Sholeh Quinn demonstrates that far from composing arbitrary and haphazard compositions, the court historians adhered to specific conventions and methodologies in their texts. In the course of unveiling these Safavid historiographic conventions, Quinn also shows that thc chronicles could be highly imitative. When narrating the past, for instance, Safavid historians usually chose one model that they repeated, often word-for-word, while introducing specific changes to make the earlier text reflect changing notions of political legitimacy and to establish Safavid connections to earlier dynasties.
Because these techniques were not unique to the Safavids, this study has implications for many other periods of Iranian history, and provides a new
