Ibn Ishaq

Template:Short description Template:About {{#invoke:Hatnote|hatnote}} Template:Infobox religious biography

Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar al-Muttalibi (Template:Langx; Template:Circa–767), known simply as Ibn Ishaq, was an 8th-century Muslim historian and hagiographer who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. His biography is known as the Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah, and it has mainly survived through several recensions.

Life

Born in Medina circa A.H. 85 (A.D. 704),<ref name="Suqa">Mustafa al-Saqqa, Ibrahim al-Ibyari and Abdu l-Hafidh Shalabi, Tahqiq Kitab Sirah an-Nabawiyyah, Dar Ihya al-Turath, p. 20.</ref> ibn Isḥaq's grandfather was Yasār ibn Khiyar (according to some ibn Khabbar, Kuman or Kutan),<ref name="Jones" /> one of forty Christian or Jewish boys who had been held captive in a monastery at Ayn al-Tamr.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> After being found in one of Khalid ibn al-Walid's campaigns, Yasār was taken to Medina and enslaved to Qays ibn Makhrama ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Quṣayy. On his conversion to Islam, he was manumitted as "mawlā" (client), thus acquiring the surname, or "nisbat", al-Muṭṭalibī. His three sons, Mūsā, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Isḥāq, were transmitters of "akhbār", i.e. they collected and recounted written and oral testaments of the past. Isḥāq married the daughter of another mawlā and from this marriage Ibn Isḥāq was born.<ref name="Jones">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Gordon D. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet (University of South Carolina 1989) at 5.</ref><ref name="Robinson 2003, p. xv2" />

No facts of Ibn Isḥāq's early life are known, but it is likely that he followed in the family tradition of transmission of early akhbār and hadith. He was influenced by the work of ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, who praised the young ibn Ishaq for his knowledge of "maghāzī" (stories of military expeditions). Around the age of 30, ibn Isḥaq arrived in Alexandria and studied under Yazīd ibn Abī Ḥabīb. After his return to Medina, based on one account, he was ordered out of Medina for attributing a hadith to a woman he had not met, Fāṭima bint al-Mundhir, the wife of Hishām ibn ʿUrwa.<ref name="Jones" /> But those who defended him, like Sufyan ibn ʽUyaynah, stated that Ibn Ishaq told them that he did meet her.<ref>Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Taqdima al-maʿrifa li kitāb al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl, at "Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna".</ref> Also ibn Ishaq disputed with the young Malik ibn Anas, famous for the Maliki School of Fiqh. Leaving Medina (or forced to leave), he traveled eastwards towards "al-Irāq", stopping in Kufa, also al-Jazīra, and into Iran as far as Ray, before returning west. Eventually he settled in Baghdad. There, the new Abbasid dynasty, having overthrown the Umayyad dynasty, was establishing a new capital.<ref>Gordon D. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet (University of South Carolina 1989) at 6–7, 12.</ref>

Ibn Isḥaq moved to the capital and found patrons in the new regime.<ref>Robinson 2003, p. 27.</ref> He became a tutor employed by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur, who commissioned him to write an all-encompassing history book starting from the creation of Adam to the present day, known as "al-Mubtadaʾ wa al-Baʿth wa al-Maghāzī" (lit. "In the Beginning, the mission [of Muhammad], and the expeditions"). It was kept in the court library of Baghdad.<ref name="EQ-Sira" /> Part of this work contains the Sîrah or biography of the Prophet, the rest was once considered a lost work, but substantial fragments of it survive.<ref>Gordon D. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet (University of South Carolina 1989) at 7–9, 15–16.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He died in Baghdad in A.H. 150.<ref name="Robinson 2003, p. xv2">Robinson 2003, p. xv.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Biography of Muhammad (Sīrat Rasūl Allāh)

Original versions, survival

Ibn Isḥaq collected oral traditions about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. These traditions, which he orally dictated to his pupils,<ref name="EQ-Sira" /> are now known collectively as Sīratu Rasūli l-Lāh (Template:Langx "Life of the Messenger of God") and survive mainly in the following sources:

• An edited copy, or recension, of his work by his student al-Bakka'i, which was further edited by ibn Hisham. Al-Bakka'i's work has perished and only ibn Hisham's has survived, in copies.<ref name="Donner">Template:Cite book</ref> Ibn Hisham edited out of his work "things which it is disgraceful to discuss; matters which would distress certain people; and such reports as al-Bakka'i told me he could not accept as trustworthy."<ref name=[5]-sira>Guillaume, A. The Life of Muhammad, translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sira Rasul Allah, (Oxford, 1955), p. 691.</ref>
• An edited copy, or recension, prepared by his student Salamah ibn Fadl al-Ansari. This also has perished, and survives only in the copious extracts to be found in the voluminous History of the Prophets and Kings by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari.<ref name="Donner" /><ref>W. Montgomery Watt and M. V. McDonald, "Translator's Forward" xi–xlvi, at xi–xiv, in The History of al-Tabari. Volume VI. Muhammad at Mecca (SUNY 1988). Regarding al-Tabari's narratives of Muhammad, the translators state, "The earliest and most important of these sources was Ibn Ishaq, whose book on the Prophet is usually known as the Sirah". Discussed here are Ibn Ishaq and his Sirah, the various recensions of it, Guillaume's translation, and Ibn Hisham.</ref>
• Fragments of several other recensions. Guillaume lists them on p. xxx of his preface, but regards most of them as so fragmentary as to be of little worth.

According to Donner, the material in ibn Hisham and al-Tabari is "virtually the same".<ref name="Donner"/> However, there is some material to be found in al-Tabari that was not preserved by ibn Hisham. For example, al-Tabari includes the controversial episode of the Satanic Verses, while ibn Hisham does not.<ref name="EQ-Sira" /><ref>Cf., Ibn Ishaq (Guillaume's reconstruction, at pp. 165–167) and al-Tabari (SUNY edition, at VI: 107–112).</ref>

Following the publication of previously unknown fragments of ibn Isḥaq's traditions, recent scholarship suggests that ibn Isḥaq did not commit to writing any of the traditions now extant, but they were narrated orally to his transmitters. These new texts, found in accounts by Salama al-Ḥarranī and Yūnus ibn Bukayr, were hitherto unknown and contain versions different from those found in other works.<ref name="EI2-Sira">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Reconstruction of the text by Guillaume

Template:Further The original text of the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh by Ibn Ishaq did not survive. However, much of the original text was copied over into a work of his own by Ibn Hisham (Basra; Fustat, died 833 AD, 218 AH).<ref>Dates and places, and discussions, re Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham in Guillaume (pp. xiii & xli).</ref>

Ibn Hisham also "abbreviated, annotated, and sometimes altered" the text of Ibn Ishaq, according to Guillaume (at p. xvii). Interpolations made by Ibn Hisham are said to be recognizable and can be deleted, leaving as a remainder, a so-called "edited" version of Ibn Ishaq's original text (otherwise lost). In addition, Guillaume (at p. xxxi) points out that Ibn Hisham's version omits various narratives in the text which were given by al-Tabari in his History.<ref>Al-Tabari (839–923) wrote his History in Arabic: Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk (Eng: History of Prophets and Kings). A 39-volume translation was published by State University of New York as The History of al-Tabari; volumes six to nine concern the life of Muhammad.</ref><ref>Omitted by Ibn Hisham and found in al-Tabari are, e.g., at 1192 (History of al-Tabari (SUNY 1988), VI: 107–112), and at 1341 (History of al-Tabari (SUNY 1987), at VII: 69–73).</ref> In these passages al-Tabari expressly cites Ibn Ishaq as a source.<ref>E.g., al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, volume VI. Muhammad at Mecca (SUNY 1988) at p. 56 (1134).</ref><ref>See here above: "The text and its survival", esp. re Salamah ibn Fadl al-Ansari. Cf, Guillaume at p. xvii.</ref>

Thus can be reconstructed an 'improved' "edited" text, i.e., by distinguishing or removing Ibn Hisham's additions, and by adding from al-Tabari passages attributed to Ibn Ishaq. Yet the result's degree of approximation to Ibn Ishaq's original text can only be conjectured. Such a reconstruction is available, e.g., in Guillaume's translation.<ref>Ibn Hisham's 'narrative' additions and his comments are removed from the text and isolated in a separate section (Guillaume at 3 note, pp. 691–798), while Ibn Hisham's philological additions are evidently omitted (cf., Guillaume at p. xli).</ref> Here, Ibn Ishaq's introductory chapters describe pre-Islamic Arabia, before he then commences with the narratives surrounding the life of Muhammad (in Guillaume at pp. 109–690).

Reception

Notable scholars like the jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal appreciated his efforts in collecting sīra narratives and accepted him on maghāzī, despite having reservations on his methods on matters of fiqh.<ref name="Jones" /> Ibn Ishaq also influenced later sīra writers like Ibn Hishām and Ibn Sayyid al-Nās. Other scholars, like Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, made use of his chronological ordering of events.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The most widely discussed criticism of his sīra was that of his contemporary Mālik ibn Anas.<ref name="Jones" /> Mālik rejected the stories of Muhammad and the Jews of Medina on the ground that they were taken solely based on accounts by sons of Jewish converts.<ref name="Arafat">Template:Cite journal</ref> These same stories have also been denounced as "odd tales" (gharāʾib) later by ibn Hajar al-Asqalani.<ref name="Arafat" /> Mālik and others also thought that ibn Isḥāq exhibited Qadari tendencies, had a preference for Ali (Guillaume also found evidence of this, pp. xxii &xxiv),<ref name="Jones" /> and relied too heavily on what were later called the Isrā'īlīyāt. Furthermore, early literary critics, like ibn Sallām al-Jumaḥī and ibn al-Nadīm, censured ibn Isḥāq for knowingly including forged poems in his biography,<ref name="Jones" /> and for attributing poems to persons not known to have written any poetry.<ref name="EI2-Sira" /> The 14th-century historian al-Dhahabī, using hadith terminology, noted that in addition to the forged (makdhūb) poetry, Ibn Isḥāq filled his sīra with munqaṭiʿ (broken chain of narration) and munkar (suspect narrator) reports.<ref name="mizan" />

Guillaume notices that Ibn Isḥāq frequently uses a number of expressions to convey his skepticism or caution. Beside a frequent note that only God knows whether a particular statement is true or not (p. xix), Guillaume suggests that Ibn Isḥāq deliberately substitutes the ordinary term "ḥaddathanī" (he narrated to me) by a word of suspicion "zaʿama" ("he alleged") to show his skepticism about certain traditions (p. xx).

Michael Cook laments that comparing Ibn Ishaq with the later commentator Al-Waqidi — who based his writing on Ibn Ishaq but added much colorful but made-up detail — reveals how oral history can be contaminated by the fiction of storytellers (qussa).<ref name="Cook-1983-62-3">Template:Cite book</ref> "We have seen what half a century of story-telling could achieve between Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, at a time when we know that much material had already been committed to writing. What the same processes may have brought about in the century before Ibn Ishaq is something we can only guess at."<ref name="Cook-1983-67">Template:Cite book</ref>

Cook's fellow revisionist Patricia Crone complains that Sīrat is full of "contradictions, confusions, inconsistencies and anomalies,"<ref name=Crone_slaves_12>Template:Cite book</ref> written "not by a grandchild, but a great grandchild of the Prophet's generation", that it is written from the point of view of the ulama and Abbasid, so that "we shall never know ... how the Umayyad caliphs remembered their prophet".<ref name=Crone_slaves_4>Template:Cite book</ref>

Translations

In 1864 the Heidelberg professor Gustav Weil published an annotated German translation in two volumes. Several decades later the Hungarian scholar Edward Rehatsek prepared an English translation, but it was not published until over a half-century later.<ref>See bibliography.</ref>

The best-known translation in a Western language is Alfred Guillaume's 1955 English translation, but some have questioned the reliability of this translation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In it Guillaume combined ibn Hisham and those materials in al-Tabari cited as ibn Isḥaq's whenever they differed or added to ibn Hisham, believing that in so doing he was restoring a lost work. The extracts from al-Tabari are clearly marked, although sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from the main text (only a capital "T" is used).<ref>E.g., Guillaume at pp. 11–12.</ref>

Other works

Ibn Isḥaq wrote several works. His major work is al-Mubtadaʾ wa al-Baʿth wa al-Maghāzī—the Kitab al-Mubtada and Kitab al-Mab'ath both survive in part, particularly al-Mab'ath, and al-Mubtada otherwise in substantial fragments. He is also credited with the lost works Kitāb al-kh̲ulafāʾ, which al-Umawwī related to him (Fihrist, 92; Udabāʾ, VI, 401) and a book of Sunan (Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa, II, 1008).<ref name="EQ-Sira">Raven, Wim, Sīra and the Qurʾān – Ibn Isḥāq and his editors, Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an. Ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Vol. 5. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. pp 29-51.</ref><ref>Gordon D. Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet (University of South Carolina 1989) at 2–4, 5, 7–9, 15–16.</ref>

Reliability of his hadith

In hadith studies, ibn Isḥaq's hadith (considered separately from his prophetic biography) is generally thought to be "good" (ḥasan) (assuming an accurate and trustworthy isnad, or chain of transmission)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and himself having a reputation of being "sincere" or "trustworthy" (ṣadūq). However, a general analysis of his isnads has given him the negative distinction of being a mudallis, meaning one who did not name his teacher, claiming instead to narrate directly from his teacher's teacher.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Others, like Ahmad ibn Hanbal, rejected his narrations on all matters related to fiqh.<ref name="Jones" /> Al-Dhahabī concluded that the soundness of his narrations regarding ahadith is hasan, except in hadith where he is the sole transmitter which should probably be considered as munkar. He added that some Imams mentioned him, including Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, who cited five of Ibn Ishaq's ahadith in his Sahih.<ref name="mizan">Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, at "Muhammad ibn Ishaq". [1], [2]</ref>

See also

• Ibn Sufi
• List of biographies of Muhammad
• List of Muslim historians

References

Books and journals

• Michael V McDonald and William Montgomery Watt (trans.) The history of al-Tabari Volume 6: Muhammad at Mecca (Albany, New York, 1987) Template:ISBN
• Michael V McDonald (trans.), William Montgomery Watt (annot.) The history of al-Tabari Volume 7: The foundation of the community: Muhammad at al-Madina (Albany, New York, 1987) Template:ISBN
• Michael Fishbein (trans.) The history of al-Tabari Volume 8: The victory of Islam (Albany, New York, 1997) Template:ISBN
• Ismail K Poonawalla (trans.) The history of al-Tabari Volume 9: The last years of the Prophet (Albany, New York, 1985) Template:ISBN

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad. A Translation of Isḥaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah", with introduction [pp. xiii–xliii] and notes (Oxford University, 1955), xlvii + 815 pages. The Arabic text used by Guillaume was the Cairo edition of 1355/1937 by Mustafa al-Saqqa, Ibrahim al-Abyari and Abdul-Hafiz Shalabi, as well as another, that of F. Wustenfeld (Göttingen, 1858–1860). Ibn Hasham's "notes" are given at pages 691–798. digital scan
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• Gustav Weil, Das Leben Mohammed's nach Mohammed Ibn Ishak, bearbeitet von Abd el-Malik Ibn Hischam (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler'schen Buchhandlung, 1864), 2 volumes. The Sirah Rasul Allah translated into German with annotations. digital edition
• Ibn Isḥaq, The Life of Muhammad. Apostle of Allah (London: The Folio Society, 1964), 177 pages. From a translation by Edward Rehatsek (Hungary 1819 – Mumbai [Bombay] 1891), abridged and introduced [at pp. 5–13] by Michael Edwards. Rehatsek completed his translation; in 1898 it was given to the Royal Asiatic Society of London by F.F. Arbuthnot.
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Traditional biographies

• Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn al-athar fī funūn al-maghāzī wa al-shamāʾil wa al-siyar.
• Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād.
• Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl.
• Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Irshād al-arīb fī mʿrefat al-adīb.

Secondary sources

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• Robinson, Chase, Islamic Historiography, Cambridge University Press, 2003, Template:ISBN
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External links

• List of biographies of Muhammad
• Biodata at MuslimScholars.info