Oman Memory CenterScholarly paper archive

Ethical Foundations in the Omani Historian: Imam al-Sālimī as a Case Study

al-Taʼṣīl al-Akhlāqī ladá al-Muʼarrikh al-ʻUmānī: al-Imām al-Sālimī Unmūdhajan

التأصيل الأخلاقي لدى المؤرخ العُماني – الإمام السالمي أنموذجا-

ʻĀdil ibn Ḥamad ibn Saʻīd al-Rashīdī
عادل بن حمد بن سعيد الرشيدي
Conference: The Ninth International Conference in Malaysia: The Omani Role in Promoting Ethics between Theory and Practice — Kuala Lumpur, 2025
Romanized conference title: al-Muʼtamar al-Duwalī al-Tāsiʻ bi-Mālīziyā: al-Dawr al-ʻUmānī fī Taʻzīz al-Akhlāq bayna al-Tanẓīr wa-al-Taṭbīq
Language of the paper: Arabic — this page presents the English metadata layer.
Permanent citation ID: MHF-AKHLAQ2025-012

Abstract

Imam al-Sālimī is among the most celebrated Omani historians and is best known for Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān fī Sīrat Ahl ʿUmān, a work he composed with care according to a particular method confined to Oman and its people without treating Oman's relations with others. Given the singularity of this book, Imam al-Sālimī held to an elevated ethical manner in which he drew the ethical pattern proper to the historian in treating historical events: standing as critic and counsellor in presenting narrations or historical difficulties, while maintaining neutrality in exposition and critical practice. A reader of Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān finds that al-Sālimī's method in accepting narrations, whether written or oral, moves between successive accumulation and then sifting — that is, criticism of those narrations with preference given to the soundest according to the standard he adopted and held to. The paper raises the ethical question of the historian's assumption of moral judgements concerning the fit between a historical event and ethical foundations, and the tension this creates with historical fidelity and detached transmission.

Keywords

Nūr al-Dīn al-SālimīOmani historiographyEthics of historyTuḥfat al-AʿyānHistorical criticism

How to cite

Rashīdī, ʻĀdil ibn Ḥamad ibn Saʻīd. "al-Taʼṣīl al-Akhlāqī ladá al-Muʼarrikh al-ʻUmānī: al-Imām al-Sālimī Unmūdhajan" [Ethical Foundations in the Omani Historian: Imam al-Sālimī as a Case Study]. Paper presented at al-Muʼtamar al-Duwalī al-Tāsiʻ bi-Mālīziyā: al-Dawr al-ʻUmānī fī Taʻzīz al-Akhlāq bayna al-Tanẓīr wa-al-Taṭbīq, Kuwālā Lumbūr, 2025. MHF-AKHLAQ2025-012

Catalog record

Romanization follows the ALA-LC Arabic table used by the Library of Congress and the British Library. The original Arabic is carried in the parallel MARC 880 fields, linked by subfield $6 — the standard treatment for non-English resources.

Show the MARC 21 record
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=242  10$aEthical Foundations in the Omani Historian: Imam al-Sālimī as a Case Study$yeng
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=500  \\$aConference theme (in Arabic): المحور الثالث: الأخلاق النظرية.
=520  3\$aImam al-Sālimī is among the most celebrated Omani historians and is best known for Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān fī Sīrat Ahl ʿUmān, a work he composed with care according to a particular method confined to Oman and its people without treating Oman's relations with others. Given the singularity of this book, Imam al-Sālimī held to an elevated ethical manner in which he drew the ethical pattern proper to the historian in treating historical events: standing as critic and counsellor in presenting narrations or historical difficulties, while maintaining neutrality in exposition and critical practice. A reader of Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān finds that al-Sālimī's method in accepting narrations, whether written or oral, moves between successive accumulation and then sifting — that is, criticism of those narrations with preference given to the soundest according to the standard he adopted and held to. The paper raises the ethical question of the historian's assumption of moral judgements concerning the fit between a historical event and ethical foundations, and the tension this creates with historical fidelity and detached transmission.
=546  \\$aText in Arabic; title also romanized (ALA-LC); abstract and keywords in English.
=653  \0$aNūr al-Dīn al-Sālimī
=653  \0$aOmani historiography
=653  \0$aEthics of history
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