al-ashraf, the Sunni al-Baladhuri partly follows Ibn Sa'd's pious technique but also retains some of the controversial material about the Saqifa event in favor of Ali. On the other hand, the contentious content in the work of the Shia al-Ya'qubi is often dismissed by later Sunni authors as fabricated, while Jafri views his work as a valuable collection of documents which survived the tendentious efforts of the Sunni majority historians, who largely suppressed or dismissed divergent views. Madelung similarly believes that the Shia or Sunni partiality of a report alone does not imply its fabrication. The account of the Saqifa meeting by al-Tabari is mostly balanced and unbiased, notes Jafri, and the most detailed, writes Ayoub (). Ibn Abbas The main narrator of the Saqifa event is Ibn Abbas (), Muhammad's cousin and an authority in Medina's scholarly circles. He witnessed the event himself and also received the first-hand account of his father Abbas, who was politically active then. Madelung accepts the authenticity of Ibn Abbas' narration, noting that it reflects his characteristic view point. The bulk of Ibn Abbas' narration concerns a Friday sermon by Umar in 23/644. Though this is omitted from most Sunni reports, Madelung and Jafri are confident that the second caliph delivered the speech to discourage those who might have planned to back Ali's nomination as caliph after Umar. Event During Muhammad's lifetime, Muslims in Medina were divided into two groups: the Muhajirun, who had converted to Islam in Mecca and migrated to Medina with Muhammad, and the Ansar, who were originally from Medina and had invited Muhammad to govern their city. Ansar's meeting In the immediate aftermath of Muhammad's death in 11/632, a gathering of the Ansar took place at the Saqifa () of the Banu Sa'ida clan, while his close relatives prepared for the burial. The conventional wisdom is that the Ansar met there to decide on a new leader for the Muslim community among themselves, with the intentional exclusion of the Muhajirun. This is also what Umar stated in his speech. The leading candidate was possibly Sa'd ibn Ubada, a companion of Muhammad and a chief of the Banu Khazraj, the majority tribe of the Ansar, who was sick on that day. For Madelung, the absence of the Muhajirun instead indicates that the Ansar met to re-establish their control over Medina under the belief that the Muhajirun would mostly return to Mecca