Introduction of Early Sirah Sources

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:42 pm · Est. Reading Time: 6 minutes

First Generation Sirah Traditionalists

Aban bin Uthman

One of the earliest known Muslim Sirah recorders was Aban bin Uthman (Abān bin ‘Uthmān اّبان بِن عُثمان), the son of caliph Uthman.¹  Being the son of the caliph, he might be aware of some inside stories not known to the general public.²  We would not have been aware of Aban’s writing activities had Zubayr bin Bakkar (d. 870) (Bakkār بَكّار), an Abbasid era historian, not written about him.  According to Ibn Bakkar, Aban compiled his work in 702 CE at the behest of Umayyad prince (later caliph) Sulayman bin Abdul Malik (Sulaymān bin ‘Abd al Malik سُلَيمان بِن عَبدُالمَلِك), who also provided Aban with ten scribes (Kuttāb) and the parchments needed to write the book.  It was soon burned on orders of caliph ‘Abd al Malik, father of Sulayman, because it was brief on the virtues of Umayyad ancestors from Mecca and was full of praises for the Prophet Muhammad’s Medinan Companions.³  Aban’s work is lost forever.  Later Islamic sources don’t quote a single tradition from Aban.  Mention of Aban is necessary just to underscore a fact that his was a Sirah literature in written form as early as 702 CE.   

Urwa bin Zubayr

Another early Muslim historian was Urwa bin Zubayr (‘Urwah bin Zubayr bin Awwām عُروَه بِن زُبَير بِن عَوّام).  Waqidi gives credit to Urwah bin Zubayr’s written material in his Kitab al Maghazi.⁴  Urwah remained known to medieval historians.  For example, Turkish literary historian Haji Khalifa (d. 1657) (Ḥājjī Khalīfah حاجِى خَلِيفَه) identifies Urwah ibn Zubayr as earliest gatherer of Sirah literature.⁵  Being a nephew of Aisha, he had access to her.   His original work is lost, but few traditions have survived through citations in Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi, and others.  Urwah died in 712 CE.⁶  In this context, he appears to be among the first published historians of Islam.  Umayyad caliph Abdul Malik considered him an expert on Islamic history, and modern historians consider him the founder of the history of Islam.⁷  All attempts to excavate Urwa’s material have been futile up to now.⁸

Second Generation Sirah Traditionalists

Wahb bin Munabbih

Wahb bin Munabbih (وَهْب بِن مُنَبِّه) (654 CE – 728 CE), a Yemenite of Persian origin, belongs to the second generation of historians.   Few pages of his book on Maghazi have survived on a papyrus (Heidelberger Papyrus), and it is the earliest extant writing of Sirah literature.  This papyrus was written in 844 CE.⁹  Though this manuscript does not give us any new insight into the life of the Prophet, it proves beyond doubt that verbal traditions about the Prophet were already written down by the time Wahb was active, i.e., end of the first Islamic century. Further, the analysis of the papyrus shows, like all other early Sirah writings, that giving a full line of isnad was still not popular.¹⁰.  By the way, there is another folio of Wahb bin Munabbih which Kister has identified lately.  It is kept at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.¹¹  Interestingly, Wahb’s another work, ‘kitab al-Mubtada’, recorded biographies of prophets and other biblical stories and serves basis of all later biographies of prophets (qasas al anbia) written by Muslims.¹²

Musa bin Uqba

One interesting case of second-generation Islamic historians is that of Musa bin Uqba (Mūsā bin ‘Uqbah مُوسىٌ بِن عُقبَه) (c. 675 – 758 CE), a freedman of the family of Zubayr bin Awwam.  A fragment of his work (Berlin manuscript) has survived and was published by Sachau in 1904.¹³  Goldziher has proved that Musa’s work existed up to the end of the 9^th century of the Islamic era before becoming extinct.¹⁴

Third Generation Sirah Traditionalists

Ibn Ishaq

Muhammad bin Ishaq (Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq مُحَمَّد بِن اِسحاق), commonly known as Ibn Ishaq, is one of the earliest biographers of the Prophet Muhammad whose seminal work has reached us almost intact.  His Sirat Rasul Allah (Sīrat Rasūl Allah سِيرَت رَسُول اللَّه) has a reputation of being the first hagiography of Prophet Muhammad.  Nabia Abbott has studied a papyrus fragment preserved in the Oriental Institute of Chicago University.  She identifies it to be from Ibn Ishaq’s Tarikh al Khulafa (Tārīkh al-Khulafā تارِيخ الخُلَفاء).¹⁵  The discovery shows that Ibn Ishaq’s recension proceeded later than the death of the Prophet.  That portion of his writings is lost forever.¹⁶  He was born in Medina (c. 704 CE) and died in Baghdad (c. 761 CE).¹⁷  In this sense, he was active during the first half of the second Muslim century and was in contact with the second generation of traditionalists.  As he was young when the Abbasid revolution took place (750 CE), and it is known that he presented his works to the Abbasid caliph Mansur, it can be assumed that his writings might have been twisted to Abbasid favour.[For Ibn Ishaq’s presentation of his work to Mansur, see: Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad.  Ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume.  Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013) xvi, xiv.[/note]  His original book did not survive, but later historians quoted it extensively.  Thanks to Guillaume, who collected all his quotations from the books of later historians and published them in the form of a book.  In doing so, Guillaume invented a technique for future historians of Islam to regenerate lost literature.

Waqidi

Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Umar al Waqidi (Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad bin ‘Umar al Wāqidī اَبُو عَبداللَّه بِن عُمَر الواقِدى) appeared almost half a century after Ibn Ishaq.  Commonly known as Waqidi, he was born in Medina (c. 747 CE) and died in Baghdad (c. 823 CE).¹⁸  Originally a wheat trader interested in history, he acted as a tour guide to Abbasid Caliph Harun ur Rashid during his visit to Medina, and it was he who took Waqidi to Baghdad and appointed him a judge.¹⁹  His book Kitab al Maghazi (kitāb al Maghāzi كِتاب اَلمَغازِى), which appeared a few decades later than Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, is the earliest Sirah tradition that has reached us directly in its entirety.²⁰  Its original manuscript, dated 1169 CE, is preserved in the British Library.²¹  As Waqidi took up a government job and as the government provided him with a scribe (Ibn Sa’d), one can fairly assume that his writings might be skewed towards Abbasid favour.

Ma’mar bin Rashid

Ma’mar bin Rashid (Ma’mar bin Rāshid مَعمَر بِن راشِد) also belongs to the third generation of historians.  He was a disciple of Zuhri and wrote whatever Zuhri told him.  His principal source, Zuhri, was attached to the Umayyad court.  Zuhri’s contemporary Makḥūl (d. 731) reportedly once exclaimed, “What a great man al-Zuhri would have been if only he had not allowed himself to be corrupted by associating with kings!”²²  So the reader can safely assume that traditions recorded by Ma’mar are biased in favour of the Umayyads.  Ma’mar did not note down Sirah traditions specifically.  He collected and noted Hadith.  Even those Hadiths, like any other third-generation traditionalist’s work, are lost.  Sean has tried to trace in later Islamic sources only those Hadiths narrated by Ma’mar, which contain pure political content, and has published them in a book form.

Further Reading

https://islamichistory.com/advent-of-islam/introduction-of-early-hadith-literature

https://historyofislam.org/sources-of-advent-of-islam

Endnotes

1. Ibn Sa’ad,  Biographien Muhammeds, seiner Gefahten und der spateren Trager des Islams bis zum jahre 230 der Flucht, ed. E. Sachau  (Leiden: 1905), 3:23.
2. Alfred Guillaume, introduction to  The Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, ed. and Trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), xiv.
3. Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār, Al-Akhbār al-Muwaffaqayyāt, ed. Sāmi al-‘Anī (Baghdad: Maṭba’at al-‘Anī, 1972), 332–35.
4. Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī.  Ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob (London: Routledge, 2011), 75.
5. Ḥājjī Khalīfah, Kashf al- ẓunūn ‘an asāmī al-kutub wal-funīn (Beirut: Dār al-‘Ilm, 1994), 2:604.
6. Khalifa Ibn Khayyat, Khalifa ibn Khayyat’s History on the Umayyad Dynasty (660 – 750), ed. and trans. Carl Wurtzel (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2015), 178, Year 93.; Abū Jā’far Muḥammad bin Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, The History of al- Ṭabarī, ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater, trans. Martin Hinds (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 23:213.
7. Alfred Guillaume, introduction to The Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), xiv.
8. Stephen J. Shoemaker, “In search of ‘Urwa’s Sīra: Methodological Issues in the Quest for ‘Authenticity’ in the life of Muḥammad,” Der Islam 85 (2011): 257–344.
9. Raif Georges Khoury, Wahb bin Munabbih: der Heidelberger Papyrus PSR Heid Arab 23.  Leben und Werk des Dichters (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972), 118–81.
10. Alfred Guillaume, introduction to The Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), xvi.
11. M. J. Kister, “Notes on the Papyrus Text About Muhammad’s Campaign Against the Banu al-Naḍīr,” Archiv Oreintàlni 32 (January 1964): 233-236.
12. Alfred Guillaume, introduction to The Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), xvi.
13. Von Eduard Sachau, “Das Berliner Fragment des Mūsa ibn ‘Ukba.  Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis der ältesten arabischen Geschichtsliteratur,” in Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften XI. (Berlin: 1904) 445 – 70, plate opp. p. 470.; “Ms Petermann 30,” n.d., Handschrift der Koniglliehen Bibliothek in Berlin, Folio 75b, 76a.
14. Ignaz Godziher, Muhammedanische Studien, (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1889), 207n1.
15. Nabia Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 1: 80 – 99.; Oriental Institute no. 17636, c. 767/ – 91 CE, Institute of the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago, Chicago.
16. Joseph Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and Their Authors, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Princeton: Darwin, 2002), 80–89.
17. Ibn Sa’ad, Biographien Muhammeds, seiner Gefahten und der spateren Trager des Islams bis zum jahre 230 der Flucht, ed. E. Sachau (Leiden, 1905), P 67 Vol. 7 Part 2.
18. Ibn Sa’ad, Biographien Muhammeds, seiner Gefahten und der spateren Trager des Islams bis zum jahre 230 der Flucht, ed. E. Sachau (Leiden, 1905), 5:314–21.
19. Joseph Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and Their Authors, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Princeton: Darwin, 2002), 107.
20. Rizwi Faizer and Andrew Lippin, introduction to The life of Muḥammad:  kitāb al-Maghāzī by Muhammad bin ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, ed. Rizwi Faizer, trans. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob (London: Routledge, 2011), xiii.
21. Or. 1617, Oriental Manuscripts, British Library, London.
22. M. A. S Abdal Haleem, introduction to The Expeditions by Rāshid ibn Ma‘mar, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, trans. Sean W. Anthony (New York: New York University Press, 2015), xxviii.