Research Methodology

We collected and traced the narrations used to establish the incident of Fatimah’s rib being broken. We also reviewed the dedicated works on this subject. After cataloguing these narrations, we found that many of them are not relevant to the issue at hand, as some of these narrations are general reports that do not mention anything about Fatimah radiya Llahu ‘anha being beaten, her rib being broken, or her miscarriage. Therefore, we excluded all reports that do not indicate the required matter, except for several narrations frequently and repeatedly cited by opponents, which we singled out in a separate study to fully address their most important evidence.

When examining the reports about the breaking of the rib, we found that they fall into two categories: those with a chain of transmission and those without. We divided them into two sections, prioritising the study of the reports with chains over reports without.

We followed the prevalent methodology in the study of the narrators in the science of Rijal (biographical evaluation) within the Shia tradition, relying on the texts of renowned scholars in the field for the accreditation and criticism of narrators, considering the status of the narrator in terms of trustworthiness and weakness as the basis for judging the chains of narrations.

Our approach was not uniform in studying the narrators’ conditions, especially concerning narrators whose reliability is disputed. We sometimes expanded on tracing the scholars’ opinions and balancing them. We also intentionally digressed in discussing the conditions of certain narrators to highlight that the consistent weakening and discrediting of a narrator by scholars is clear evidence of the anomaly of any opposing view.

We concluded our discussion on the chain of each narration by presenting the Shia scholars’ judgements on it, if available. We also examined the texts of many of the narrations we mentioned, pointing out their flaws wherever possible. However, some narrations were not subjected to text criticism due to their brevity and conciseness, with some only stating that Fatimah’s rib was broken and her unborn child was miscarried without additional details. This type of narration was not textually critiqued but left for a separate section later, where we explained the flaws in these narrations in general, avoiding repetition after each narration.

Occasionally, we also responded to some who disagreed with our judgement on the narrations when we saw benefit in doing so. Otherwise, addressing every piece of evidence used to prove the authenticity of these narrations would have increased the volume of this research without significant added benefit, especially since most of the arguments used to authenticate some narrations or narrators are based on the methodologies of the Akhbari Shia, who are known for their leniency in accepting reports, but are generally rejected in contemporary Shia scholarly circles.

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