A comparative study of the history of the caliphs, Ibn  Uqda and Tabari's Histories

History of the Caliphs (11-40 AH) which is known among Sunni as "Rightly Guided Caliphs", is one of the most important Islamic periods. This period as the first experience of theocracy after the prophet was noteworthy to scholars and historians. Each of them according to their denomination expressed the events of this period and its analysis in which studying their works leads to a better understanding of this period and also to the various and different approaches. Given that the history of Tabari is an important source of Islamic history and on the other hand, Ibn ‘Uqdah, is one of the Zaydi scholars, this paper examine the history of the caliphs with an emphasis on remaining traditions of Ibn ‘Uqda and comparing them with the history of Tabari based on narrative- historical approach and library search method. After a critical analysis of the validity of the narrative- historical documents of Ibn ‘Uqdah and Tabari the result shows that the viewpoints of Tabari and Ibn ‘Uqdah are different in reflecting the history of Caliphs and significant characters. While Tabari, in explaining the events of this period, benefited from the personality of three caliphs and refused reflection of some reports related to blame of the caliphs and some of their associated characters but Ibn ‘Uqdah tried to reduce the status of the Caliphs and reflect a kind of reports blaming the caliphs and their related figures.