Islamic historiography

Al-Tabari (839-923) was the most important historian and Quranic exegete of the early Islamic period. His annalistic History and his vast commentary on the Quran preserved earlier scholarship that would otherwise be lost, and both remain foundational sources.

Ibn Hisham (d. 218 AH / 833 CE) was a historian and philologist of Basra and Fustat who produced the recension of Ibn Ishaq's biography of Prophet Muhammad. It is the oldest life of the Prophet to survive complete, and the channel through which Ibn Ishaq's lost original reached later writers.

Ibn Kathir (c. 1300-1373) was a Shafi'i scholar of Mamluk Damascus whose commentary on the Quran and universal history became two of the most widely read works in Sunni Islam. He studied under al-Mizzi, al-Dhahabi and Ibn Taymiyya.