1. Why study History?

12. Historical Criticism:Historical criticism, also known as the historical -critical method is a branch of critism which investigates the origins of ancient texts,in order to understand” the world behind the text” The critical of a source, whose object is to establish its credibility, is divided into 2 parts, internal and external criticism. Internal criticism can be divided into two processes, positive analysis and negative analysis. The positive analysis is concerned with the ascertainment of what the author meant when he made various statements in his document .In every document some words’ which are not in use today or whose meaning different in modern times. such words might be used in different contexts. It is necessary to ascertain the exact meaning in which the words are used in the document. For example, the word diwan changes its meaning from time to time. Sometimes it meant a minister, sometimes a department. Today its meaning is totally different furniture . Sometimes statements are made allegorically or symbolically or metaphorically or jocularly when it becomes necessary to penetrate through the symbolism, etc. in order to ascertain the real meaning of the statements made.Thus by positive criticism we are enabled to know just what the author meant In negative criticism there are again two processes, the first aimed at the ascertainment of the “good faith” of the author and the second directed towards the examination of the ‘accuracy’ of the author’s observations.in the first process of negative criticism, we doubt – of course this must be done methodically – the good faith of the author himself. We want to test his sincerity. If the author is an official historian like Abual Fazl, he cannot write anything against the king or the government,. If the author belongs to a religion and writes about another religion whose followers are against his religion, his statements about them are mostly prejudiced. If the author is the member of a privileged group or family, his statements are likely to glorify his family or clan, and to belittle or ignore other families or groups.And so on. In all such situations the facts are generally distorted or ignored, or exaggerated.