and literally scope, according to Shah-Kazemi. Authenticity The compilation of Nahj al-Balagha is often credited to al-Sharif al-Razi, a renowned tenth-century Shia scholar, over three hundred years after Ali. In view of its sometimes sensitive content, the attribution of this book to Ali or al-Sharif has long been the subject of Sunni-Shia debates, as with the majority of the works about Shia theology. Ibn Khallikan might have been the first to question the authenticity of the book in the thirteenth century and his view has been echoed by most Sunni authors to date. On the other hand, the Mu'tazila scholar Ibn Abil-Hadid, who authored a major commentary on Nahj al-Balagha, has no doubts that it is the work of Ali and compiled by al-Sharif. Nahj al-Balagha is regarded by the Shia as authentic. According to the Shia scholar Motahhari, in compiling the book, al-Sharif was primarily interested in the literary value of Ali's inheritance. As a result, Motahhari continues, al-Sharif preserved those passages which he found literary valuable and paid little attention to recording his sources. After al-Sharif, other scholars took up the task of collecting the chains of transmission (isnads) for Nahj al-Balagha. For instance, Muhammad Baqir al-Mahmudi collected all of Ali's extant speeches, sermons, decrees, epistles, prayers, and sayings. Motahhari adds that this collection includes the content of Nahj al-balagha and other discourses which were not incorporated by al-Sharif or were not available to him. According to Motahhari, except for some aphorisms, the contents of Nahj al-Balaghah have over time been traced back to Ali. In support of Ali's authorship, some of the material in Nahj al-Balagha is also listed in al-Fihrist or can be found in earlier works attributed to Ali. More recently, Veccia Vaglieri verified that a large portion of Nahj al-Balagha can indeed be attributed to Ali, although it was difficult to gauge the authenticity of the more apocryphal sections. Djebli has been able to identify a considerable number of passages, accompanied by chains of transmission dating back to the time of Ali, which were recounted by ancient scholars, such as al-Tabari. In his book, Modarressi, an expert in Islamic law, refers to Madarek-e Nahj al-Balagha by the Shia scholar Ostadi which, in turn, links Nahj al-Balagha to Ali. Another notable work was done by the Indian Sunni scholar Imtiyaz Ali Arshi, who succeeded in tracing back the early sources of 106 sermons, 37 letters