This volume provides a discussion of the works of al-Ṭabarī (d. 932 CE) the greatest historian of the early Islamic world. An international team of well-known scholars examine the life of the man, his work, the sources he used and his intellectual legacy. The Historian of Islam at Work is a volume in honor of Hugh N. Kennedy. It offers thirty contributions by three generations of prominent scholars in the field of pre-modern Middle Eastern studies, covering the many areas of Islamic historical inquiry in which Hugh Kennedy has been active throughout his career. Grouped around four major themes - Caliphate and power, economy and society, Abbasids, and frontiers and the others - the contributions deal with the history, archaeology, architecture and literature of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond, from the time of the Prophet until the fifteenth century. Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari d. 923 was the towering figure among the historians of early Islam. Living in Baghdad when the city was at the height of its position as a cultural centre, he was in a perfect position to collect and edit the early histories of Islam and produce his magnificent synthesis. His great History of the Prophets and Kings was the crowning achievement of early Islamic historiography. Running to 39 volumes in the new English translation, he told the story of the Muslim world, beginning with the biblical and old Persians traditions and continued the story down to his own time. He also produced one of the fullest and most respected commentaries of the Qur’an. Yet the man himself remains something of a mystery. He almost never intrudes into the narrative. It is difficult to say whether we should treat him as an author or as an editor, repackaging earlier works, all fully acknowledged. What were his biases and prejudices? Was he a propagandist for the reigning Abbasid dynasty or simply a passer on of the traditions he found? This volume, bringing together some of the most eminent scholars of early Arabic historiography is the first attempt to answer some of these questions and it will be of fundamental importance to anyone interested in the early Islamic world or in comparative historiography. With a new foreword by the editor.weiterlesen