Tarikh Islam

Hisham Ibn Muhammad, known as Ibn Kalbi, is a prominent historian of the second half of the second century of Hijri and a famous author who has written more than 150 books on Islamic history, genealogy and pre-Islamic history. Sunni scholars have adopted a dual stance in evaluating Hisham's scientific personality. They introduce Hisham as an expert and outstanding scholar of Jahiliyyah (age of ignorance) history and genealogy; but evaluate him a weak scholar of Islamic history and Hadith! Considering the close bond between the science of history and hadith in their learning foundations, the question arises as to why Hisham is confirmed in Jahiliyyah history; but is considered weak in the history of Islam. According to the investigations of this article, three factors caused this conflicting evaluation: 1. Hisham's prominent position; 2. Hisham's religion; 3. Hisham's non-Islamic historical narrations. Hisham, who is considered Shiah from the Sunni scholars’ point of view, has been judged by his narrow-minded contemporary scholars due to the wide scope of his researches and numerous writings, and has been considered a weak narrator under the pretext of narrating the age of ignorance (Jahiliyyah) narrations, which Islam has invalidated. Using a descriptive-analytical method and direct reference to first-hand Sunni sources in this article, I have analyzed the opinion of Sunni scholars about Hisham, and also studied some of his narrations and have proved that there are non-scientific motives in regarding him a weak narrator.