Talk:Ibn Ishaq

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There was some bias in this account. The phrase "so-called" assumes the theory in a negative light. We also have no idea whether Ibn Is'haq "would have been the first to insist" on anything. We just know what he expressed. Wrsutton 03:35, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fixed that. Now that we're talking on the talk page, we can collaborate rather than play revert war. Zora 03:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What of the phrase "so-called" should we just bring Sir William Muir's name into this. That seems distracting to me. It would be best to simply let readers link to that controversy and decide if it should be "so-called" in their own minds. Wrsutton 03:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If so-called doesn't work for you, and giving Muir's name is too much detail, there might be another way to phrase it. Story of a verse added and then removed from the Qur'an? Then a ref to Satanic verses in parens? Zora 03:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think? Does "so-called" reflect a preconceived conclusion? This page could use some specific information about Ibn's writing. What would you suggest? Wrsutton 04:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usually we add new stuff at the bottom rather than the top. Also, use colons to indent a whole block of prose so that replies can be put in the middle of something rather than having to quote. Not the best interface, but we're making the wiki software do something it's not designed to do, really. Zora 03:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, got it! Wrsutton 04:03, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That reads much better. Good work. Wrsutton 04:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now which of the other million articles do you want to tackle? :) Zora 04:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added links to the Constitution of Medina and isnad with a little bit of explanation. This is my first Wiki edit and I don't know any of the rules or ettiquette, so I'd appreciate any feedback! malchikiwik 01:40, 2 July 2006

I was unhappy with this article for a variety of reasons, most of them indicidually small, but adding up to a large total. So I rewrote it completely. The Satanic Verses are trendy just now but almost trivial in the big picture. The hostility shown by many Muslim writers extends to all the early historians - alKalbi and alWaqidi have worse reputations than Ibn Is'haq. If there are other historians - for example, Musa ibn 'Uqba - who have not been attacked so often it is because their works are now lost.

The tension and hostility between the historians and the fiqh is worth a whole monograph. But I think it is too technical a matter for an article in the Wikipedia. Another source of hostility to the historians is sectarian. The Shi'ites, for example, feel that Ibn Is'haq must have omitted pro-Ali material because things like Ghadir Khum do not appear in the Sirat. In fact, Ibn Is'haq contains a lot of pro-Ali material (it is the biggest flaw in his presentation). The fact seems to be that Ibn Is'haq was an strong supporter of the Abbascides and in his day the Shi'ites and the Abbascides were not yet differentiated. Rather than tackle all these issues, still fraught, I have attempted to reduce the negative material to the irreducible minimum.

Kleinecke 17:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i put up a cleanup notice for the following reasons:

-the article does not any references, since it seems a controversial topic would be helpful to know what is supported by references

-could do with a little structuring, separating intro from main article

-some of the language seems sloppy :'The first part did not interest Ibn Hisham and much of it is lost' , is this somebody guessing or did Ibn Hisham say so...

-from the article:In the third part there is a careful month-based chronology (which falls apart at the end) and the campaigns (Ibn Is'haq counts 27, but he stretchs the meaning of campaign) made by Muhammad from his base of operations in Medina are carefully embedded in this chronology. But before this campaign literature there is a copy of the document called the Constitution of Medina and an extensive section of tafsir and hadiths. Tafsir also occurs several times embedded in the campaign literature. The campaign literature itself includes extensive poetry and lists of persons involved as well as description of battles or why no battle took place. The tafsir is among the earliest in Islam and Wansbrough classifies it as haggadic in his most primitive subset of the tafsir. That is, it is primarily devoted to passing on a narrative. After the campaign literature proper ends there is an appendix describing campaigns made by other Muslims under Muhammad's directions and a relatievly brief account of his death and succession by Abu Bakr.

particularly this section could be improved, the language, more wikilinks, i don't even understand what is being said here -explain to the interested layman who wansbrough is and why he should be quoted.. trueblood 09:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

deleted this sentence:However, the legacy of Ibn Is'haq has a great deal more in it than just the campaigns. ' because it just horrible, seems pov and anyway sentences that start with however should be illegal... trueblood 10:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of this material comes from the Preface to Guillaume's translation. Wansbrough is in the references. Ibn Hisham says he omitted "irrelevant" material. I agree a few links to other articles would be helpful. Feel free to add them. DKleinecke 04:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both the external links pointed to the same material so I deleted the one that wasn't quite a pretty as the other one. DKleinecke 05:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been keeping an eye on this article. It had been reworked by someone with some erroneous notions who gave no references. There was a very bad and garbled link, which a recent editor has removed and replaced with a "version" of Ibn Is'haq housed at a notorious anti-Muslim site.

I dug out a stack of books and rewrote, with references. I would have liked to use the Encyclopedia of Islam, but I don't have a copy. Anyone with access to the newer, second version could help by adding any new material there, or correcting anything that is wrong. I used Guillaume for the bio and he's an old source.

I also removed the new link, which is not encyclopedic. It's better to have no links than bad ones. Zora 07:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a piece from NEW LIGHT ON THE STORY OF BANU QURAYZA AND THE JEWS OF MEDINA, By W. N. ARAFAT. From Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,(1976), pp. 100-107^[1]:

"One authority, Ibn Hajar, however, denounces this story and the other related ones as "odd tales".⁹ A contemporary of Ibn Is'haq, Malik,¹⁰ the jurist, denounces Ibn Is'haq outright as "a liar"¹¹ and "an impostor"¹² just for transmitting such stories. "

⁹. Tahdhib al-tahdhib, IX, 45. See also `Uyun al-athar, I, 17, where the author uses the same words, without giving a reference, in his introduction on the veracity of Ibn Is'haq and the criteria he applied. <sup>10</sup>. d. 179. <sup>11</sup>. `Uyun al-athar, I, 12. ¹². ibid, I, 16. Faro0485 (talk) 08:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i think it is exaggeration, different sources have different opinions on him

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XeMtAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA677

i have added a praise section to balance the article

--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. This message is being sent to inform editors and those interested in the article that there is currently a discussion at noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with the Ibn Is'haq article --Misconceptions2 (talk) 14:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The abridged translation of Rehatsek is available in the Internet, too. Just "google" it! --Dlugacz (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The wikipedia policy of neutral POV does not imply that contending points of view cannot be expressed. Yet one among several POVs, as I understand it, cannot exclude its rivals. Rather the whole of accepted commentary however divided and contradictory should be given a fair hearing in the text. Elfelix (talk) 01:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. But introducing a "praise" section that repeats information mentioned elsewhere doesn't fix the POV problem, rather it makes it worse. Also praise/criticism sections are considered bad style. Better to integrate both in other sections, which was already the case before your edits. Now, while some of your edits are useful, others are misleading. For instance, Eerik Dickinson's quote is about his hadith, why did you add it to the prophetic biography section? And Dickinson wasn't discussing the reliability of Ibn Is'haq per se, but was merely pointing out an example of how "seemingly" irreconcilable some statements are. In fact, Dickinson's quote of Ibn Uyayna is actually refuted in the primary sources (if not in a later chapter in Dickinson's, as the note seemingly indicates). Also, do you have a secondary source citing Ibn Khalikan's opinion on Ibn Is'haq? Ibn Khalikan's "summary" is not commonly cited in the literature and it's original research to handle a primary source like this (especially considering the outdated translation). Thus it should be removed. You also linked the name of Bukhari to Sahih Bukhari even though it is well known that Bukhari hardly ever cited Ibn Is'haq in his Sahih book. Are you sure about that link? Per

WP:NOCONSENSUS, we're supposed to revert to the long-standing version until these major and controversial changes are discussed. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 05:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

It depends on context. Some of the claims made by Arafat are notable, such as the ones you have removed from Ibn Ishaq's[2]. If those claims have been refuted by top scholars, then it would be best to include the refutation in our article. Also, most historians aren't truly independent and are often swayed by their religious and national backgrounds. Wiqi⁵⁵ 17:16, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

most historians aren't truly independent and are often swayed by their religious and national backgrounds.

@

independent

secondary sources about those matters, especially if the books contain apologetic or promotional content. On the other hand, books published by reputable academic publishers and written by top scholars outside Aum Shinrikyo are generally considered independent sources, although in some cases, such as when an author is paid to write favorably about the subject, this may negate their independent status and reliability. But to accuse independent sources of not being independent just because of the assumption that those outside the Aum Shinrikyo religion have bad intentions toward Aum Shinrikyo? That's not really a valid argument. The same applies to other religions, including Islam.

Some of the claims made by Arafat are notable, such as the ones you have removed from Ibn Ishaq's. If those claims have been refuted by top scholars, then it would be best to include the refutation in our article

You mean by keeping Arafat's claims, but also adding refutations of them by top scholars? No, Wiqi, that would only be giving undue weight to Arafat, a religiously driven

fringe theorist who was clearly neither an independent nor a reliable source, as shown by his arguments that got nothing but rejection and refutation from top scholars. Rather, we should omit his statements entirely and include only those from truly reliable sources. Here, I quote what some of them had to say about the matter between Ibn Ishaq and Malik ibn Anas:^[3]

Page 75:
The utterance of Mālik b. Anas about Ibn Ishaq as it is recorded by Arafat from Ibn Sayyid al-Nās is in fact a combined saying blended together in a later period. The story of the enmity between Mālik b. Anas and Ibn Ishaq has it that Ibn Ishaq spoke with disdain about Malik's compilation and said: "Lay the knowledge of Malik before me, I will handle it as a surgeon". Thereupon Malik said: "Look at this dajjal of the dajājila, are my books to be in front of him?"

Page 76–7:
The assumption that the enmity between Malik and Ibn Ishaq was caused mainly (or even solely) by the fact that Ibn Ishaq disseminated traditions of Jewish converts to Islam seems an oversimplification. The main cause for the antagonism is indicated in the report of Ibn Sayyid al-Nās: Ibn Ishaq surpassed every scholar in the Hijaz in his knowledge of the tribal strifes and tribal genealogy. He claimed that Malik had to be counted as a maula of the Dhū Asbah, Malik stated that he was a genuine descendant of this clan. When Malik completed the compilation of the Muwatta' Ibn Ishaq asked for it to be brought to him for examination, since he had said that he would be its surgeon. Malik responded with the contemptuous comment quoted above. The genealogical discussion seems to have been heated, as it touched upon the status of Mālik and humiliated his ancestors: Ibn Ishaq claimed that these ancestors had come to Medina as a group of clients of Taym (mawālī), not as their allies (hulafa').
Ibn Ishaq was, however, not the first scholar who questioned the truth of Malik's pedigree. He was preceded in this matter by the highly respected traditionist Sa'd b. Ibrahim (d. ca 125 A.H.), the grandson of "Abd al-Rahman b. Auf, the distinguished companion of the Prophet. Sa'd's criticism of Malik's pedigree brought about a clash between the two scholars.

Page 78:
The accounts saying that the only reason for the enmity between Malik b. Anas and Muhammad b. Ishaq was the problem of Malik's pedigree are verified by a report transmitted by the well-known scholar of hadith, Baqiyy b. Makhlad (d. 276A .H.) and recorded in the compilation of Abu l-"Arab (d. 333 A.H.) “Kitab al-mihan". Baqiyy relates a question of Yaqub b. Ibrahim b. Sa'd (d. 208A .H.) addressed to his father Ibrahim b. Sa'd b. Ibrahim (d. 183 A.H.). He inquired whether Ibn Ishaq was indeed affected by the vices and faults of which he was accused by the people of Medina. Ibrahim denied it; Ibn Ishaq had the misfortune to abide in Medina with its people. They charged him with foul deeds because he knew the pedigrees (of the people of Medina - K.); thus there was no clan in Medina the pedigree of which Ibn Ishaq did not impeach.

This is also supported by this source:[4]

Page 153–4:
“What seems really to have accounted for the longevity of the Medinans’ hostility to Ibn Isḥāq is his feud with Mālik ibn Anas, the revered doyen of the Medinan school and the author of the Muwaṭṭaʾ. The feud between Ibn Isḥāq and Mālik arose when Ibn Isḥāq exposed the falsity of Mālik’s claim to be of Arab descent. Mālik laid claim to Arab lineage from the Dhū Aṣbaḥ of Taym ibn Murrah, but Ibn Isḥāq rebutted this. He asserted that Mālik—as well as his father, grandfather, and uncles—descended rather from non-Arab clients of Taym ibn Murrah. Ibn Isḥāq was not the only scholar to make such accusations, nor was he the only learned Medinan to suffer Mālik’s wrath as a result. Indeed, every indication suggests that Ibn Isḥāq’s charge against Mālik was true.”

— Kaalakaa ^(talk) 10:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]