Application of the " Theory of School" to Islamic Historiography: Possibility or Impossibility

Most of the 20th century studies on Islamic Historiography have demonstrated the importance of time, subject, structure and geographical origins of both narrators and authors. Of these factors, the latter has been emphasized as the base for “theory of school” for Islamic historiography. According to the theory, Islamic historiography, affected by the geographical origin, could be divided into two main schools of Medina (in Ḥijāz) and Kufa (in Iraq). The present work intends to evaluate “theory of school”. The findings show basing the theory on geographical origin is not supported by existing evidence. Moreover, such a theory is useful only to understand genres of works in the field of Islamic history such as Futūḥ, Ansāb, and Sīra etc.