The events described in this volume took place during al-Ṭabarī's own time. Al-Ṭabarī was thus writing "contemporary history," and his narrative, often ba

This volume covers the history of the Muslim community and the biography of Muḥammad in the middle Medinan years. It begins with the unsuccessful last Meccan

Volume I of the thirty-eight volume translation of Ṭabarī's great History begins with the creation of the world and ends with the time of Noah and the Flood.

The assault on Samarra, which was built in the period of the Abbasid caliphate in the ninth century CE, therefore came to represent for many a symbol of the des