section_path: Historiography
section_name: Historiography
paragraph_text: Historiography
  
  Much has been written about Ali in Islamic literature, second only to Muhammad. However, much of this material is colored by a positive or negative bias towards Ali. The primary sources about Ali are the Quran, hadiths, and other early Islamic works, the most notable being The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays, attributed to a companion of Ali. Such works were initially scarce, but this changed with the introduction of affordable paper in the Abbasid period. For instance, at least twenty-one monographs were composed on the Battle of Siffin between 750 and 950, thirteen of which were authored by the early historian Abu Mikhnaf (d. 773–774). Most of these monographs are not extant except through quotations in later collections, such as the tenth-century Tarikh al-Tabari. In addition to numerous works authored by Muslims, the secondary sources about Ali include writings of Arab Christians, Hindus, and also works by Western scholars. When writing about Ali, early Western scholars often dismissed as fabricated the reports gathered in later periods because their authors often advanced their own Sunni or Shia partisan views. For instance, L. Caetani (d. 1935) often rejected the historical reports attributed to the pro-Ali Ibn Abbas and anti-Ali Aisha. Caetani instead preferred accounts reported without isnad by early historians like Ibn Ishaq (d. 767). By contrast, W. Madelung (d. 2023) argued that the tendentiousness of a report alone does not imply its fabrication. Madelung instead advocated for the authentication of historical reports on the basis of their compatibility with other events and figures.