Conduct studies of the Historical Sources Sunni Imams; (The case of Imam Muhammad Ibn Sjad and Soldiers on Damascus to Medina)

Abstract

Considering historical sources in Sira studies (study on biography and characteristics) is highly important. These sources have been underestimated in the area of producing written heritage among Shi'ites. On contrary, Sunni Muslims have made considerable efforts in writing historical works which is the reason that understanding and analyzing the history of Shi'ism and Ahl al-Bayt (a) in reliant on considering such Sunni sources. The question which is raised here is: How we can refer to historical sources of Sunnis in gaining historical understanding of Ahl al-Bayt (a). The hypothesis which is analyzed in the present paper is: It seems that Sunni historical sources have significant influence on Sira studies. Therefore, the history and Sira of Imam Sajjad (a) will be studied based on "The History of Damascus" written by Ibn Asakir (d. 571) by means of three Imamiyya sources: Al-Irshad by Shaykh Mufid (d. 413), Al-Khara'j by Qutb Ravandi (d. 573) and Manaqib Al Abi Talib by Ibn Shahr Ashub (d. 588). Then by doing a comparative analysis of the three Imamiyya sources and the mentioned Sunni source about Imam Sajjad (a), it is shown that there are significant differences between the quantity of data and content presented in these sources in a way that disregarding Sunni sources would clearly have an impact on the findings of the research. Keywords: The history of Ahl al-Bayt (a), Historical sources, Sira studies, Sira of Imam Sajjad (a), the History of Damascus.

Keywords

• the history of ahl al-bayt (a)
• historical sources
• sira studies
• sira of imam sajjad (a)
• the history of damascus