A critical review of the historiographical method of Wilfred Madelung in the book "Succession of Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH)"

In the last century, Orientalists have created many works about the Prophet (PBUH) and the events of the beginning of Islam. One of them is the book of Wilfred Madelong (a German orientalist) entitled "Succession of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)". In this book, the issue of the succession of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) has been analyzed with the Qur'anic, hadith and historical approaches, and the events after his death up to the time of Muawiya have been studied. Although the author has done better than other orientalists and has presented scholarly analyzes in some cases and presented new findings to the scientific community, but in many cases he has distanced himself from the standards of the historical method. And he made inappropriate comments about the issue of succession and the events after that. The current research, based on the criteria of the historical method and using the historical analysis method, has criticized and examined the author's historiography method. The most important criteria of the historical method that have been considered as criteria are: a comprehensive approach to sources, presenting the logic of selection, examining all propositions and evidences, not imposing presuppositions on history, analyzing historical events by investigating natural causes, not entering the boundaries of Kalam and supernatural issues. The obtained findings show that in many cases, the author of the book has distanced himself from the requirements of the historical method and therefore has reached incorrect results.