Methodology and Resources of Al-Kalai'i' (d. 634 AH/1236 CE) Regarding the Narratives of the Wars of Apostasy in His Book "Al-Iktifā’"

Abstract

     The study of the sources and methods of historical books is one of the studies of great importance; as it is the main resource that helps us in tracking historical events, and we can know its value in light of the study of the origin of each historical event, the scholars of the Islamic West have contributed since the first centuries of the Hijrah like the scholars of the East in recording historical events, especially those related to the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) and the events that followed his death, so a number of historians have emerged who classified and wrote Despite the fact that some sources have been lost, only fragments of them have survived through the sayings of a number of historians, including the events of the apostasy, as most of the historians‘ works have been lost; without these quotes, we would not know anything about the first writings, and we find our historian Abu al-Rabi’ al-Kalaei has transferred the narratives of the apostasy wars from those lost sources in his book al-Iktifa, so we chose to study his methodology and resources in this section because of their importance.