Hisham ibn al-Kalbi

Hishām ibn al-Kalbī (Arabic: هشام بن الكلبي), 737 AD – 819 AD/204 AH, also known as Ibn al-Kalbi (إبن الكلبي), was an Arab historian.^[1] His full name was Abu al-Mundhir Hisham ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib ibn Bishr al-Kalbi. Born in Kufa,^[2] he spent much of his life in Baghdad. Like his father, he collected information about the genealogies and history of the ancient Arabs. He was considered unreliable by Hadith scholars.

Ibn al-Kalbi's most famous work is the Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnam), which aims to document the veneration of idols and pagan sanctuaries in different regions and among different tribes in pre-Islamic Arabia.^[3] In this work, Hisham posited a genealogical link between Ishmael and the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and put forth the idea that all Arabs were descended from Ishmael.^[1] He relied heavily on the ancient oral traditions of the Arabs, but also quoted writers who had access to Biblical and Palmyrene sources.^[1] According to the Fihrist, he wrote 140 works. His account of the genealogies of the Arabs is continually quoted in the Kitab al-Aghani.^[3] He also wrote the Strain of Horses (Ansab al-Khayl), which tries to document the history of the Arabian horse from 3000 BC to his own time.^[4]