Imam al-Shafi’i and the making of usul al-fiqh
Imam al-Shafi’i (767 to 820 CE) taught in Makkah, Madinah, Baghdad and Egypt, and wrote al-Risala. Here is his life as a timeline, with the sources.
Heritage
The Seerah, the Sahaba, the four imams and Islamic history.
Imam Malik ibn Anas and the Muwatta: life and legacy
The life of Imam Malik of Madinah: his teachers, the flogging, how the Muwatta came to be written, and how his school spread across North and West Africa.
The Battle of Badr: what the early sources actually say
A timeline of the Battle of Badr in 2 AH, drawn from early biographies and hadith, showing what is agreed and what sources report differently.
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah: a truce that history called a victory
How a ten-year truce with the Quraysh, signed outside Mecca in 6 AH, became the turning point that opened Arabia to Islam.
Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the Trial Over the Quran
A Baghdad hadith scholar faced flogging and imprisonment rather than call the Quran created, and Sunni Islam remembers why he held firm.
Fatima al-Fihri and the Founding of al-Qarawiyyin
How a ninth-century merchant’s daughter in Fez used her inheritance to found a mosque that grew into the world’s oldest working university.