The book Futūḥ al-Shāmcommonly ascribed to al-Wāqidī, the fa-mous historian of the2nd/8th and early3rd/9th century, rarelydraws the attention of scholars of IslamicStudies. Taking a look at the scientificliterature that presently exists, one learns thatno serious study has been conducted on this bookfor at least the last four decades. The lastpublished study on this work is an article by RudiParet in 1970 in which he examines whether thiswork can be considered as an Arabic epic work.Part of the title of Paret's paper, which reads“Die LegendäreFutūḥ-Literatur […; emphasis mine]”, mayexplain the limited attention this work hasreceived. The work contains for the most part someallegedly legendary accounts on the Arab conquestsof the Middle East in the 1 st/7th century, some of which maynevertheless rely on historical accounts.

One may also consider in this regard the researchdone on this book in the 19 th century,which also denies al-Wāqidī's authorship and thereliability of the book for historical studies onthe Muslim conquests. However, these studies agreein attributing a “historical core” to al-Wāqidī'swork, which is considered to be derived fromearlier historical sources. Some studies show thatone can observe similarities between accounts inthis work and other historical works on the Muslimconquests, such as the Futūḥal-Shām by al-Azdī or the accounts ofal-Ṭabarī in his Annals, which is considered afoundational source for the history of Islam.

The limited literature on the Futūḥ al-Shām on the onehand, and the results of the previous studieswhich acknowledge a historical core for this bookon the other provide good reason to revisit thework. The aim of such a research would be toexamine the work's value for modern scholarship asa historical source for early Islam in general andthe Muslim conquests in particular. Hence the aimof this essay is to introduce some preliminarythoughts on questions which have to be raised inthis context and to describe a possible approachto answer them by giving some specific examplesdrawn from al-Wāqidī’s work.