Dans la première moitié du Xe siècle, Abū al-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī (m. 967) écrit son Kitāb al-Aġānī, le Livre des Chants. Des divers sujets que traite l’ouvrage, nous avons étudié la représentation d’une classe située en bas de l’échelle sociale : celle des chanteurs. Al-Iṣfahānī présente des hommes situés sur les marges de la société autant sur le plan physique que moral. Et leur origine de mawlā ne fait qu’aggraver leur situation. Quant à leurs consoeurs les qiyān, elles usent de leur statut d’esclaves - chanteuse pour transgresser les normes sociales et religieuses et, par leur beauté et leur formation d’excellence, parviennent à soumettre les hommes les fréquentant. De la marge, les chanteurs d’al-Aġānī purent ainsi occuper le centre de la vie de plaisir dans les grandes métropoles musulmans. Toutes ces représentations qu’elles soient vraies ou fausses, réelles ou fantasmatiques, sont transmises sous forme de ḫabar avec de longue chaînes de transmission qu’al-Iṣfahānī tient particulièrement à évoquer suivant l’unique méthode d’authentification des récits reconnue à son époque. / Alī Ibn Al-Ḥusayn, Abū Al-Faraǧ Al-Iṣfahānī (c.967) wrote his masterpieces, Kitāb al-Aġānī : The Book of Songs, in the first half of the tenth century. The various subjects about which the book concerns represent a social class at the bottom of the social ladder : the singers. Al-Iṣfahānī pictures these men physically, socially and morally marginalized. Moreover, their mawlā origin aggravates their situation. On the contrary, Qiyan, their female counterparts, who took advantage of their slave - singer status, their beauty and their excellent training to transgress the social and religious norms, were able to bring the visiting men to their knees. The marginalized singers of Al-Aġānī ironically occupy the center of the life of pleasure in big cities of the Muslim empire. All these representations ; either true or false, real or fantastic, were recorded in the form of Habar through long chains of transmission that al-Iṣfahānī is particularly keen to evoke and repeat one after the other using the unique method of authentication of the celebrated tales of his time.

The early split of Islam is regarded as one of the most profound and complex events in Islamic history, not only would it lay the foundation of two predominant branches of Islam, but it would also be one of the oldest arguments in Islamic history. Who is the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammed? This essay aims to explore the deep root behind the initial schism of Islam and understand the arguments both schools use to legitimize their position. What do the Sunnis and Shi’as say about the event of Ghadir, the hadith of the two weighty things and the incident of Saqifa, and how do each school of Islam interpret these events? The source material consists of Hadiths and scholastic literatures from both Sunni Islam, Shi’a Islam, as well as literatures from Secular sources. By basing the analysis on Wilfred Madelung’s and Ali Asghar’s theory of disserting Orientalist understanding of a monolith perspective on Islamic history, the essay aims to understand and broaden the reality of the schism of Islam and to bring emphasis on the events that often goes ignored throughout history. Finally, the results prove that both Sunnis and Shi’as differ regarding the caliphate, and the assertions for these lay in their respective interpretations. The Shi’as maintain that Ali should’ve been the successor, while the Sunnis believe Abu Bakr was the caliph.