Ali ibn Abbas Maghanei and the Study of the Book Fazl al-Shiah: A Partial Study with the Aim of Identifying and Reconstructing the Missing Shiite Historical Sources

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Student in History and Civilization of Islamic Nations, Islamic Azad University, Qom, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of History, Research Institute of Hawzeh and University, Qom, Iran

3 Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature, Islamic Azad University, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Understanding the hidden layers in the existing ancient sources, which are the main reference of historical information, is one of the ways to advance in-depth historical research. The results of such cognition can lead us to the roots of recorded accounts and sometimes to revision of assumptions or resolution of historical problems. The present study aims to identify one of the third century narrators and historians and to examine one of the reliable but missing sources of Shiite narrators. Ali ibn Abbas Maghanei (died 310 AH) is one of the hadith scholars in the circle of narrators of Abolfaraj Isfahani (284-356 AH) in compiling the book Maghatel al-Talebin. In the sources of cataloging writings and the narrators of hadiths, there is a mention of Maghanei and his only composition entitled Fazl al-Shiah. In this new and unprecedented research, using descriptive-analytical method and library studies and rules of reconstruction of lost works, we try to introduce Maghanei and his book and to provide a way to better understand the historiography in general and historiography of Shiite historians in particular through component research. The content of the recovered narrations of Maghanei indicates the fact that his historiography is a part of the Alawite historiography system with its components, which is manifested in the issues of caliphate, Mahdism and expectation by focusing on the Ahl al-Bayt (AS), especially the legitimacy of Imam Ali (AS).

Keywords

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