Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah (Ibn Hisham)

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Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah (Revised)
Siraat-e Ibn Hisham
Original titleالسيرة النبوية
CountryCaliphate
LanguageArabic
GenreEarly Islamic History,
History of Muhammad

Al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah (السيرة النبوية, 'The Life of the Prophet') also known as Siraat-e Ibn Hisham is a

al-Tabari work, along with fragments by several others, are the only surviving copies of the work traditionally attributed to Ibn Ishaq.[4] Ibn Hishām and al-Tabarī share virtually the same material.[4]

Ibn Hishām said in the preface that he chose from the original work of Ibn Isḥāq in the tradition of his disciple Ziyād al-Baqqāʾi (d. 799), omitting stories from Al-Sīrah that contain no mention of Muḥammad,[5] certain poems, traditions whose accuracy Ziyād al-Baqqāʾi [n 1] could not confirm, and offensive passages that could offend the reader.[5][6][7] Al-Tabari includes controversial episodes of the Satanic Verses including an apocryphal story about Muḥammad's attempted suicide.[8][9] Ibn Hishām gives more accurate versions of the poems he includes and supplies explanations of difficult terms and phrases of the Arabic language, additions of genealogical content to certain proper names, and brief descriptions of the places mentioned in Al-Sīrah. Ibn Hishām appends his notes to the corresponding passages of the original text with the words: "qāla Ibn Hishām" (Ibn Hishām says).[5]

History of compilation

Main article: List of biographies of Muhammad

According to Islamic tradition, the first biographers of Muhammad were

Abbasid period was the most renowned and highly documented, but no copies exist. Half a century later, Ibn Hisham rewrote the alleged biography of Ibn Ishaq as narrated to him by Ziyād al-Baqqāʾi. Two versions of the biography exist today. Both published by Ibn Hisham under the same title. The earlier edition has undergone less editing and censorship than the later edition.[11]

Reconstruction of text

According to Islamic tradition,

Arabic: سيرة رسول الله "Life of the Messenger of God"). The text of the Sīrat Rasūl Allāh by Ibn Ishaq exists. Two edited copies, or recension, of his work attributed to his student al-Bakka'i, which Islamic tradition teaches was further edited and published by Ibn Hisham do exist.[12]

The earliest extant manuscript, which Islamic tradition says was transmitted by Ibn Hishām's students.

Ibn Hisham also "abbreviated, annotated, and sometimes altered" the text of Ibn Ishaq, according to Guillaume (at p. xvii).

History.[13][14] In these passages al-Tabari expressly cites Ibn Ishaq as a source.[15][16]

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.[17] 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).

Translations and editions

Later Ibn Hishām's As-Sira would chiefly be transmitted by his pupil, Ibn al-Barqī.

Islamic Spain by around 864. The first printed edition was published in Arabic by the German orientalist Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, in Göttingen
(1858-1860). The Life of Moḥammad According to Moḥammed b. Ishāq, ed. 'Abd al-Malik b. Hisham. Gustav Weil (Stuttgart 1864) was the first published translation.

In the 20th century the book has been printed several times in the Middle East.[18] [19] The German orientalist Gernot Rotter produced an abridged (about one third) German translation of The Life of the Prophet. As-Sīra An-Nabawīya. (Spohr, Kandern in the Black Forest 1999). An English translation by the British orientalist Alfred Guillaume: The Life of Muhammad. A translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. (1955); 11th edition. (Oxford University Press, Karachi 1996).

Influence

Main article:
Prophetic biography

Ibn Ishaq's works had been referenced numerous times as a major source of information by future scholars who would delve into the biography of Muhammad. For a very long time, the biography by Ibn Ishaq was known amongst Islamic scholars as the biography by Ibn Hisham because Ibn Hisham narrated and edited it. Ibn Khallikan said, "Ibn Hisham is who compiled the biography of the Messenger of Allah from battles and stories narrated by Ibn Ishaq and it is the biography in the people's hands, known as the biography by Ibn Hisham". Abdul-Qasim Abdur-Rahman as-Suhayli (d. 581) presented an extensive annotation of the biography of his book, Ar-Rawd al-Anf. After this, Abu Dharr al-Khushayni (d. 604) addressed the parts that were unclear, as well as providing some criticism in his Sharh Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah.[20]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Ziyād al-Baqqāʾi (d. 183/799), lived mostly in Kufa. Ibn Hishām's knowledge of Ibn Isḥāq's biography derived from al-Baqqāʾi.

References

  1. ISBN 9788172111540
  2. ^ Antonie Wessels, A Modern Arabic Biography of Muḥammad: A Critical Study of Muḥammad Ḥusayn, pg. 1. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1972.
  3. ISBN 9780521779333
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-87850-127-4
    . Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  5. ^
    ISBN 9004081186
    .
  6. ISBN 9780385531368
    .
  7. ^ Newby, Gordon Darnell; Ibn Isḥāq, Muḥammad (1989). The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad. University of South Carolina Press. p. 9.
  8. ^ a b 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. p. 29-51.
  9. ^ Cf., Ibn Ishaq (Guillaume's reconstruction, at pp. 165-167) and al-Tabari (SUNY edition, at VI: 107-112).
  10. ISBN 977-5813-80-8
    .
  11. ISBN 977-5813-80-8
    .
  12. ISBN 978-0-87850-127-4
    .
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ 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).
  15. ^ E.g., al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, volume VI. Muhammad at Mecca (SUNY 1988) at p. 56 (1134).
  16. ^ See here above: "The text and its survival", esp. re Salamah ibn Fadl al-Ansari. Cf, Guillaume at p. xvii.
  17. ^ 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).
  18. Brill
    .
  19. ^ Sezgin 1967, p. 298.
  20. ISBN 977-5813-80-8
    .

External links

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