Tarikh Islam

The Prophet’s succession is one of the important issues Islamic scholars and sirah(conduct) writers have discussed. Representation of prophet’s succession in early sirahs is very important because they are the first-hand sources in this field. Considering the wide range of sirah sources, I studied sirah of Ibn Hisham as a standard text, which is a comprehensive text and the rectification of the first complete sirah. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the question of this research is how sirah of Ibn Hisham narrates the succession of Prophet Mohammad, and why is it such narrated? The result is that Ibn Hisham’s religious and diplomatic ideas, which were in accordance with Ahl al-Hadith and the policies of Abbasids, greatly influenced his selection of Prophet’s narrations. He did not mention any tradition related to Imam Ali's succession; and on the other hand, narrating a couple of hadiths, he tried to show that Abu Bakr deserves successorship and Prophet Mohammad and Muslims approve his succession. His selection of narrations regarding succession has made Sirah of Ibn Hisham acceptable for Sunni narrators and especially Ahl al-Hadith - who had increasing theoretic dominance on the world of Islam in the third century - and the financial support of Khalifeh Abbasi for its publication made it long lasting.