Works › Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings)
Work #1795 · Early period

Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings)

Al-Tabari's universal chronicle from creation to 915 CE

Al-Tabari (Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir) · c. 915 · Arabic · Universal chronicle

Tradition: Islamic historiography based on isnad (chains of transmission)

The most comprehensive universal history of the early Islamic world — from creation through the prophets to the Abbasid caliphate, transmitted through chains of scholarly authority

The Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings) is al-Tabari's monumental universal history, running to approximately forty volumes in modern editions. It begins with the creation of the world as described in the Qur'an and the Bible, continues through the histories of the pre-Islamic prophets and the Persian and Roman empires, and culminates in a detailed year-by-year chronicle of Islamic history from the life of Muhammad through the Abbasid caliphate to 915 CE. Al-Tabari's method is based on the isnad: each report is attributed to a chain of named transmitters, allowing the reader to evaluate the reliability of the evidence. When sources disagree, al-Tabari typically presents all versions without forcing a resolution, creating an archive rather than a unified narrative.

Author

Editions cited

  • Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (numerous Arabic editions; English: The History of al-Tabari, 39 vols, trans. various scholars, SUNY Press, 1985–2007)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Islam (Generic) · 30%
Hermeneutics · 25%
Historicism · 20%
Scholasticism · 10%
Rationalism · 10%
Rabbinic Judaism · 5%
Islam (Generic) 30%

Islamic salvation history from creation to eschaton.

"God created the heavens and the earth in six days." (Tarikh, opening)
Hermeneutics 25%

Isnad-based method of source criticism and transmission.

"We have related everything that has reached us, attributing each report to its transmitter." (Tarikh)
Historicism 20%

Proto-historicist commitment to preserving multiple, contradictory sources.

"The scholars differed; we have preserved their reports." (Tarikh, paraphrase)
Scholasticism 10%

Systematic compilation and classification of transmitted opinions.

"Encyclopaedic, systematic organisation of historical reports." (Tarikh)
Rationalism 10%

Rational-linguistic analysis used to adjudicate among sources.

"The Arabic language and context determine the correct reading." (Tarikh, paraphrase)
Rabbinic Judaism 5%

Incorporates Isra'iliyyat (Jewish biblical traditions) in the pre-Islamic sections.

"Drawing on Ka'b al-Ahbar and Wahb ibn Munabbih for pre-Islamic history." (Tarikh)

Internal Tensions

Tension between archival completeness (presenting all contradictory reports) and historical truth; between Islamic salvation-history framework and empirical isnad method.

⧖

I. Time

Both: God's eternity and created historical time; linear salvation history from creation to eschaton.

Attributes
Extent: Both Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

Finite created cosmos; geographically expansive chronicle.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: not engaged Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◉

III. Matter

Created, finite, conserved; attention to physical details of the historical world.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Embodied observers transmitting knowledge through isnad chains.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Mediate Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Personal
⚡

V. Energy

Finite divine sustaining power; no independent energy theory.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

Substantival, conserved through chains of named scholarly authority.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

100%
Al-Tabari
31/31
97%
Al-Jahiz
32/33
97%
Rabanus Maurus
32/33
97%
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus
31/32
97%
Columba (Colmcille)
30/31
97%
Al-Kindi
29/30

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

83%
Christianity (Generic)
24/25
83%
Rabbinic Judaism
24/25
83%
Scholasticism
24/25
83%
Protestant Reformation (Magisterial)
24/25
83%
Islam (Generic)
24/25
83%
Pietism
24/25
83%
Pacifism
24/25
83%
Methodism
24/25

How Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of Prophets and Kings) resolves each dilemma

51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions · 6 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69% How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. 26% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. 26% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. 26%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 56% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 56% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 56% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 55% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 55% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 55% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 55%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 55% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 55% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 50% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 50% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 50% Is reality fundamentally digital? No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. 44% Are there indivisible units of experience? No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. 44% Is memory stored or reconstructed? Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. 44% What happens to "you" when you die? A soul continues into another mode of being. 38% Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Prayer reaches because God or a cosmic ordering acts on the prayed-for. 38% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? What looks like coincidence is providence — there is no such thing as a real coincidence. 38% Are the dead morally present to the living? The dead are present through divine memory, communion of saints, or ancestor presence. 37% Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? The human observer is in time, but God's vantage is not — and foreknowledge is not foreordering. 34% Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Meditation participates in a real eternity — divine or cosmic — that the bounded human observer ordinarily cannot reach. 34% Does prayer change God's mind? God sees from outside time; prayer doesn't change God's mind, but it is part of how providence is enacted. 34% Could an AI have a mind that matters? No — minds are not the kind of thing we engineer. 31% Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Moral standing comparable to humans requires what only humans have. 30% Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Without ensoulment, an organoid is tissue, not a person. 30% What makes someone the same person over time? You are a soul — what persists through change is the non-bodily aspect. 30% Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? The soul persists; the cognitive change is the body's, not the person's. 30% If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? The soul accompanies the person; engineering can't transfer it. 30% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Defer to credentialed traditions; experts are the modern analog. 30% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is the paradigm case of authoritative knowledge. 30% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM has no soul to whom revelation could be addressed; the question doesn't apply. 30% Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Distance doesn't dilute obligation; communion of saints / divine relation spans the cosmos. 29% Does history have a direction or meaning? — — How is knowledge of reality produced? — — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? — — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? — — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? — — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? — —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it. 39% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access. 39% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible. 39% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was. 39%
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