İbn Kuteybe ve el-İmâme ve's-Siyâse [Ibn Ḳutayba and al-Imāma wa's-Siyāsa]

The sources of the first period of Islamic History and the authors
who wrote these sources are of great importance. Ibn Ḳutayba is
one of the first authors of Islamic history. He has proved that he was a
versatile author by writing various works on different subjects. Ibn
Ḳutayba’s well-known work on history reveals his place in Islamic Historiography
and his understanding of historiography. The information
he gave about Islamic History, and the evaluations and methods that he followed, have developed an important perspective in the field of history
and culture. One of the particular aspect that makes Ibn Ḳutayba important
in terms of his historiography is the information that he gave about
the problem of caliphate after the death of the Prophet. His work entitled
al-Imāma wa’s-siyāsa is also of great importance, which gives detailed
information about the conquest of Andalusia, along with important information
about the events that took place until the times of ‘Abbasiad
caliphs al-Maʾmūn and al-Muʿtaṣim. Various discussions have been put
forward on the question of whether al-Imāma wa’s-siyāsa belong to Ibn
Ḳutayba or not, and some have claimed that this work does not belong
to him. However, in order to be able to find a consistent and accurate
approach in this regard, the period of Ibn Ḳutayba’s life, his scientific personality,
his works and his method must be known. The subject covered
in the present article is the importance of Ibn Ḳutayba’s work, the claims
that have been made about the belonging of the book to him. Together
with the answers given to those claims, I refer to the historians and their
works that are used as a direct source, which do not mention whether
this work belongs to Ibn Ḳutayba.