The Thematic Analysis of the News of Ahl al-Bayt And the Shi‘is of the Umayyad Period (41-132 AH) In the Historical Sources of Hadith Scholars

Understanding the value of the historical heritage of hadith scholars and its effect on the addressee’s mind regarding the issues of Ahl al-Bayt and the Shiites of the Umayyad period, and with the aim to discover the existing thematic network in those texts and achieving a model for explaining their general logic and structure, the present study attempts to answer the following question: “What themes do the hadith scholars present to their addressees in registering the news of Ahl al-Bayt and the Shiites?” To find the answer, we first investigated the historical heritage of the hadith scholars in this regard and, then, selected the following sources: Tārīkh Khalīfa bin Khayyāṭ (Ibn Khayyat, 240 AH); the extant parts of al-Ma‘rifa wal-Tārīkh (Fasavi, 277 AH); Tārīkh al-Umam wal-Mulūk (Tabari, 310 AH); al-Muntaẓam fī Tārīkh al-Umam wal-Mulūk (Ibn Jowzi, 597 AH). Then, the data related to the news of Ahl al-Bayt and the Shiites were extracted, and using the method of thematic analysis and its stages, the data were analyzed and the themes hidden in various sources were discovered. We found four overarching themes as follows: “Shiism: a political-religious movement”, “the Shiites’ perpetual threats for governments”, “efforts to suppress the Shiites based on religion”, and “suppression of the Shiites along with undergoing damages”. Considering the approach of the hadith scholars to caliphate, these themes are for legitimizing the behaviors of Umayyad rulers in suppressing Ahl al-Bayt and the Shiites.