This chapter is centered on the biography of Musa al-Ka?im (d. 183/799). Sunni historical chronicles utilized al-Ka?im to highlight the deterioration of the relationship between the ‘Abbasids and the ‘Alids. Many chroniclers integrated these familial tensions into a broad narrative detailing the rise and fall of ‘Abbasid power. Sunni biographical works, by contrast, included al-Ka?im in a wider community of pious scholars, focusing on his generosity and piety. Zaydi authors focused almost exclusively on court and caliphal politics, citing al-Ka?im’s refusal to support the rebellion at Fakhkh to compare him unfavorably with Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah. Twelver authors appropriated malleable narrative elements to craft interpretive frameworks that reflected the community’s political and social conditions. Overall, the chapter highlights the fact that all Muslim historians operated within the presuppositions of rhetoricized historiography with no real methodological difference between those of Sunni and Shi‘i backgrounds.

This chapter discusses the last eleven years of the life of Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah (d. 187/803). The Sunni sources express an interest in Ya?ya only insofar as he helps explain other developments in the ‘Abbasid world. In other words, Sunni historians are vested in an interpretive framework shaped by the larger tapestry of ‘Abbasid caliphal history in which Ya?ya plays a marginal role. The Zaydi sources exist within a different conceptual world where the ‘Abbasid caliphs play the role of tyrants in a broad ‘Alid led struggle for the establishment of a just state. In Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah, they rehabilitate a figure generally accepted as a Zaydi Imam but saddled with a history of accommodating ‘Abbasid power through interpretive frameworks that place him in the mold of an ideal Imam. The chapter demonstrates that Sunni and Shi‘i works adhere to the same rhetoricized model of historical writing despite the modern tendency to deem the latter as either hopelessly polemical (in the case of Twelver sources) or to ignore them altogether (in the case of Zaydi sources).