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 512 APPENDIX Oriental Sources. [An excellent list of Arabic historians and their works will be found in Wiis- tenf eld's Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber, 1882.] I. For the Life of Mohammad. (1) For the life of Mohammad the only contemporary sources, the only sources which we can accept without any reservation, are : [a] the Koran 29 (for the early traditions of the text, see above, p. 342-3). The order of the Suras has been thoroughly investigated by Noldeke, Geschichte des Qorans, 1860, and by Weil ; and (from the character and style of the revelations, combined with occasional references to events) they can be arranged in periods, and in some cases assigned to definite vears. (Periods : (1) written at Mecca, (a) earlv, 3) late : (2) Medina, (a) early, (^) middle, (7) late.) 30 (6) A collection of treaties : see below. (2) The other source for the life of Mohammad is tradition (Hadlth). The Ashab or companions of Mohammad were unimpeachably good authorities as to the events of his life ; and they told much of what they knew in reply to the eager questions of the Tabiun or Successors, — the younger generation who knew not the Prophet. But it was not till the end of the first century of the Hijra or the beginning of the second that any attempt was made to commit to writing the knowledge of Mohammad's life, which passed from lip to lip and was ultimately derived from the companions, few of whom can have survived the sixtieth year of the Hijra. The first work on Mohammad that we know of was composed at the court of the later Omayyads by al-Zuhri, who died in the year a.d. 742. It is deeply to be regretted that the work has not survived, not only on account of its relatively early date, but because a writer under Omayyad patronage had no interest in perverting the facts of history. Zuhri's book, however, was used by his successors, who wrote under the Abbasids and had a political cause to serve. The two sources which formed the chief basis of all that is authentic in later Arabic Lives of the Prophet (such as that of Abii-1-Fida) are fortunately extant ; and, this having been established, we are dispensed from troubling our- selves with those later compilations, {a) The life by Mohammad ibn Ishak (ob. 768, a contemporary of Zuhri) has not indeed been preserved in an independent form ; but it survives in Ibn Hisham's (ob. 823) History of the Prophet, which seems to have been practically a very freely revised edition of Ibn Ishak, but can be controlled to some extent by the copious quotations from Ibn Ishak in the work of Tabari. Ibn Ishak wrote his book for Mansiir the second Abbasid caliph (a.d. 754-775) ; and it mu.st always be remembered that the tendency of historical works composed under Abbasid influence was to pervert tradition in the Abbasid interest by exalting the members of the Prophet's family, and misrepresenting the forefathers of the Omayyads. This feature appears in the work of Ibn Ishak, although in the world of Islam he has the reputation of being an eminently and exceptionally trustworthy writer. But it is not difficult to make allowance for this colouring ; and otherwise there is no reason to doubt that he reproduced truthfully the fairly trustworthy tradition which had been crystallized under the Omayjads, and which, in its general framework, and so far as the outer life of the Prophet himself was concerned, was preserved both by the supporters of the descendants of All and by those who defended the claims of the family of Abbas. [The work of Ibn Hisham has been translated into German b}- "Weil, 1864.] _ (6) A contemporary of Ibn Hisham, named (JNIohammad ibn Omar al) Wakjdi (ob. 823), also wrote a Life of Mohammad, independent of the work of Ibn Ishak. He was a learned man and a copious writer. His work met with the same fortune 29 For translations see above, p. 342, n. 96. 30 A translation of the Koran has been published with the Suras arranged in approxi- mately ichronological order (by Rodwell, 2nd ed., 1876).