The Expeditions- An Early Biography of Muhammad

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About the Book The Expeditions is one of the oldest extant biographies of the Prophet Muhammad. Its primary author, Ma'mar ibn Rashid (714-770 AD/96-153 AH), was a prominent schol ar from Basra who was revered for his learning in prophetic traditions, Islamic law, and the interpretation of the Qur'an. This fascinating foundational work contains sto ries handed down by Ma'mar to his most prominent pupil, 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani, relating Muhammad's early life and prophetic career as well as the adventures and tribulations of his earliest followers during their conquest of the Near East.

This modern, readable rendering-the very first translation into English-is ac companied by numerous annotations elucidating the cultural, religious and histori cal contexts of the events and individuals described within its pages. The Expeditions represents an important testimony to the earliest Muslims' memory of the lives of Muhammad and his companions, and is an indispensable text for gaining insight into the historical biography of both the Prophet and the rise of the Islamic empire.

About the Author MA'MAR IBN RASHID (96-153 11/714-770 AD) was originally a Persian slave from Basra who traveled extensively trading wares for the Azd tribe. Thanks to his nomadic profession and his dealings with the court of the Umayyad caliphs, he became ac quainted with-and ultimately the pupil of-one of the greatest Muslim scholars of his generation, Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124 H/742 AD).

Foreword Scholars of Arable literature and readers with an interest in Arabic and Islamic are now most fortunate to have available to them the works being as the Library of Arabic Literature, the first series to attempt a sys tematic coverage of the Arabic literary heritage. The editors have already shown published good judgment in selecting books for the series, and the present volume, The Expeditions, an early biography of the Prophet Muhammad by Ma'mar ibn Rashid, is no exception.

Ma'mar ibn Rashid (d. 153/770) was a contemporary of Ibn Ishaq (d. 151/768), author of the famous Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah (The Prophetic Biography), also known as Sirat rasil Allah (The Biography of the Messenger of God), which has come to be widely circulated and is known simply as the Sirah. Alfred Guillaume's English translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirah was published more than fifty years ago, so the English translation of another important early text about the life of the Prophet Muhammad is well overdue. Indeed, there is a real need for more such texts from the early Islamic period to see the light of day.

It should be pointed out that these two works are not the earliest writings on the subject of the Prophet's life. In his discussion of the genres of maghazi and sirah, the Ottoman literary historian Hajji Khalifah (d. 1067/1657) reports that Ibn Ishaq compiled his work from preexisting materials, and goes on to iden tify "Urwah ibn al-Zubayr (d. 93/711-12) as the earliest to gather material on the topic. Thus, both Ma'mar ibn Rashid and Ibn Ishaq must have taken their infor mation from written sources as well as authenticated oral reports collected by 'Urwah and others."

The major contribution of Ma'mar ibn Rashid and Ibn Ishaq was to bring the material from different sources together in one place. Other early Muslim schol ars immediately recognized the value of this activity. This is why we have Ibn Ishaq's work in a recension by the later Ibn Hisham (d. 212/828 or 218/833), and Ma'mar ibn Rashid's work in a recension by 'Abd al-Razzaqal-Şan'ani (d. 211/827). Similarly, written material about the pillars of Islam-including ritual prayer (salah), the giving of alms (zakah), fasting in Ramadan (sawm), and pilgrim age to Mecca (hajj)-cannot be assumed to have appeared for the first time at the end of the first or at the beginning of the second Hijri century.

Introduction The Expeditions (Ar. Kitab al-Maghazi) by Ma'mar ibn Rashid (d. 153/770) is an early biography of the Prophet Muhammad that dates to the second/eighth century and is preserved in the recension of his student 'Abd al-Razzaq ihn Hammám of Sanaa (d. 211/827). The text is exceptional because, alongside Ibn Hisham's (d. 218/834) redaction of the prophetic biography of Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 150/767-68), The Expeditions is one of the two earliest and most semi nal examples of the genre of prophetic biography in Arabic literature to have survived.

Early biographies of the Prophet Muhammad-and by "early" I mean written within two centuries of his death in 10/632-are an extremely rare commod ity. In fact, no surviving biography dates earlier than the second/eighth century. The rarity of such early biographies is sure to pique the curiosity of even a casual observer. The absence of earlier biographical writings about Muhammad is not due to Muslims' lack of interest in telling the stories of their prophet. At least in part, the dearth of such writings is rooted in the concerns of many of the earliest Muslims that any recording of a book of stories about Muhammad's life would inevitably divert their energies from, and even risk eclipsing, the status of Islam's sacred scripture, the Qur'an, as the most worthy focus of devotion and scholar ship. This paucity of early biographies is also partially the result of the fact that, before the codification of the Qur'an, the Arabic language had not fully emerged as a medium in which written literary works were produced.

For modern historians enthralled by such issues, the attempt to tease out the consequences of this chronological gap between Muhammad's lifetime and our earliest narrative sources about him can be all-consuming. Debates thus continue in earnest over whether we may know anything at all about the "historical Muhammad" given the challenges presented by the source material. But what is meant exactly by the "historical Muhammad"? Modern historians speak of the historical Muhammad as a type of shorthand for an historical understanding of Muhammad's life and legacy that is humanistic, secular, and cosmo politan.

**Contents and Sample Pages**