Ibn Ishaq
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar al-Muttalibi (Arabic: أَبُو عَبْدُ ٱلله مُحَمَّد ٱبْن إِسْحَاق ٱبْن يَسَار ٱلْمُطَّلِبيّ, romanized: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʾIsḥāq ibn Yasār al-Muṭṭalibī; c. 704–767), known simply as Ibn Ishaq, was an 8th-century Muslim historian and hagiographer. Ibn Ishaq, also known by the title ṣāḥib al-sīra, collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
This article is about the historian. For the grammarian, see Ibn Abi Ishaq.
Ibn Ishaq
Ṣāḥib al-Sīra
c. 704 (85 AH)
c. 767 (150 AH)
al-Sira al-nabawiyya ('Life of the Prophet')
- Al-Bakka'i
- Salama ibn al-Fadl
Life[edit]
Born in Medina circa A.H. 85 (A.D. 704),[1] ibn Isḥaq's grandfather was Yasār ibn Khiyar (according to some ibn Khabbar, Kuman or Kutan),[2] one of forty Christian or Jewish boys who had been held captive in a monastery at Ayn al-Tamr.[3] 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.[2][4][5]
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.[2] But those who defended him, like Sufyan ibn ʽUyaynah, stated that Ibn Ishaq told them that he did meet her.[6] 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.[7]
Ibn Isḥaq moved to the capital and found patrons in the new regime.[8] 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.[9] 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.[10][11] He died in Baghdad in A.H. 150.[5][12][13]
Biography of Muhammad (Sīrat Rasūl Allāh)[edit]
Original versions, survival[edit]
Ibn Isḥaq collected oral traditions about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. These traditions, which he orally dictated to his pupils,[9] are now known collectively as Sīratu Rasūli l-Lāh (Arabic: سيرة رسول الله "Life of the Messenger of God") and survive mainly in the following sources:
Other works[edit]
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).[9][36]
Reliability of his hadith[edit]
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)[37] 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.[38]
Others, like Ahmad ibn Hanbal, rejected his narrations on all matters related to fiqh.[2] 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.[27]