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A Note on the Sīra of Ibn Isḥāq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Alfred Guillaume
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Extract

It would be all but impossible to compile a complete list of all the Arabic writers who used Ibn Isḥāq's Biography of the Prophet. In the Introduction to my translation of his work1 I endeavoured to collect and include anything of importance which other writers had quoted on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq. Among the writers whom I may have overlooked must now be mentioned Abū Nu‘aym Ahmad b. ‘Abdullah al-Ispahānī (d. 430)2 who wrote a book entitled Dalā’ilu'l-Nubၫwa.3

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1956 , pp. 1 - 4
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1956

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References

page 1 note 1 O.U.P., 1955, xxx-xxxiii.

page 1 note 2 Brockelmann, GAL, I, 362; Suppt., 1, 616–7.

page 1 note 3 2nd ed. Haydarabad, 1950.

page 1 note 4 Another Muhammad b. Ishāq, often quoted in this book, is not the author of the Sīra, but a certain al-Ahwāzī; cf. p. 12 where his nisba is given.

page 1 note 5 i.e. Wüstenfeld's edition of the Arabic text of Ibn Hishām's edition of Ibn Ishāq's work. VOL. XVIII. PART 1.

page 2 note 1 The name is given as ‘Utba throughout; but, as the editor points out, the apostle's daughter Ruqayya was married to ‘Utba who became a Muslim when Mecca was occupied, and her sister Umm Kulthū m, was married to this ‘Utayba who died as an unbeliever.

page 2 note 2 If the text is sound, the cry ‘ 0 dog! ’ must be addressed to ‘Utayba's companionṡ below, and so in English could almost be rendered by ‘ Damn you! ’ However, the version that follows, which Abū Nu'aym says was in Ibn Ishāq's book al-Maghāzī in the rīwāya of Yazīd b. Ziyād, simply has qatalanī thus it is not impossible that the two variants go back to an original reading qatalanī ’l-kalb.

page 3 note 1 Doubtless Ibn Hishām omitted this story because it recorded a gross insult to the prophet.

page 3 note 2 Nevertheless the story continues: ‘ And he said ’, and proceeds to quote the ‘ verses ’ he uttered.

page 3 note 3 This is an interesting addition. On the whole it seems to bear out the translation given in my edition, p. 304: ‘ Am I anything more remarkable than a man you have killed ? ’ See the footnote there.