Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), and not as an integral book. Isḥāq al-Dabarī, by contrast, transmitted Maʿmar’s Maghāzī from ʿAbd al-Razzāq both as part of the latter’s Muṣannaf and as a standalone work.58
There are several indications that Isḥāq al-Dabarī was primed to be a key transmitter of the Muṣannaf from a tender age. His father, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbbād al-Dabarī, was the appointed lector for ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s works (qāriʾ al-dīwān) late in the scholar’s life, and he supervised his son’s recording of ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s corpus, which his son received via audition (samāʿ).59 The main intent of Ibrāhīm al-Dabarī in requiring his son Isḥāq to hear the corpus of ʿAbd al-Razzāq as early as ten, or by some accounts even seven years of age was likely to ensure the durability of his son’s transmission. The most sought-after isnāds for a hadith often had—and continue to have—a property called ʿuluww, a term roughly meaning “height” or “elevation.” There are many reasons an isnād with “height” was the ideal for scholars of the hadith. One pragmatic reason was because such an elevated isnād covers the largest amount of time with the fewest names of scholars, and therefore is easier to commit to memory. More important, however, an elevated isnād contained fewer names between the transmitter (rāwī) and the Prophet, and therefore was “nearer” to the Prophet.60 Having heard ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s corpus at such a young age ensured that the isnāds from Isḥāq would have this property of ʿuluww, and his father’s supervision ostensibly assured the accuracy of his transmission.
Most hadith scholars of the subsequent generation indeed recognized Isḥāq al-Dabarī’s transmission as thoroughly reliable;61 however, it is noteworthy that earlier scholars, in particular older students of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, did question the quality of Isḥāq al-Dabarī’s transmission. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, for instance, held that because ʿAbd al-Razzāq had lost his eyesight in 200/815–16, subsequent transmissions from him were of a shoddier quality, given that ʿAbd al-Razzāq could no longer personally review and verify the accuracy of his students’ written notes.62 Ibn Ḥanbal’s comments may in fact be directed against Isḥāq al-Dabarī’s transmission, which he began receiving via audition sometime between 202/817 and 205/821, after ʿAbd al-Razzāq lost his eyesight.63 Certainly the fact that Ibrāhīm al-Dabarī supervised his son’s audition of ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s corpus mitigates this criticism to some degree; however, at least one scholar of the following century, Ibn Mufarrij (d. 380/990–91), saw fit to compose an entire book detailing and correcting the errors made by Isḥāq al-Dabarī in his transmission of ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s corpus.64
The Murad Mulla manuscript upon which I have based my tradition is written in a fine, readable hand, but the text does suffer from the usual array of scribal errors and lacunae that one finds in most manuscripts. As a result, the text in several parts was in need of “reconstruction” inasmuch as I have not regarded the text of the manuscript itself as so “sacred” as to bind me to reproduce slavishly its errors and lacunae. With the exception of a handful of instances, such reconstructions are possible due to the proliferation of texts that directly cite ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s transmission (riwāyah) of Maʿmar’s text. The most important of these are ʿAbd al-Razzāq’s Tafsīr [تع] (which survives in two manuscript testimonies predating the Murad Mulla manuscript),65 Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s Musnad [ح], and al-Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam al-kabīr [ط]. Where the readings in these other texts depart from the manuscript in merely iterative or minor ways, I have favored the Murad Mulla manuscript rather than the citations found in other works.66
I have consulted further sources appearing in the critical apparatus to the text that play a more marginal role in establishing the text. Hence, less ideally, I have relied occasionally on citations of traditions found in the Kitāb al-Maghāzī from lines of transmission that derive from students of Maʿmar other than ʿAbd al-Razzāq to reconstruct obscure passages. As a means of last resort, I have occasionally drawn upon alternative transmissions of al-Zuhrī’s traditions. Difficult passages often had no clear parallel or citation in other sources, and in such cases I leaned upon my own ijtihād and corrected the text of the manuscript to the best of my ability to guess the original reading in the hope that, indeed, kull mujtahid muṣīb, “every qualified scholar hits the mark.” Whether or not I have succeeded, I leave to my colleagues’ judgment. The intrepid Arabist concerned with such minutiae will find the indications thereof marked in the critical apparatus to the text.
Given the LAL's focus on readability, I have endeavored to make my editorial decisions as transparent as possible while simultaneously unobtrusive to the casual reader. I have also edited my Arabic text with the underlying assumption that it will be read as a bilingual text alongside the English translation. Thus, cosmetic textual features such as section numbering, paragraphing, font size, standardized orthography, and punctuation have been introduced to facilitate easy cross-referencing between the Arabic edition and English translation.
The following sigla designate the sources referred to throughout the textual apparatus (full bibliographic references to the editions used appear in the bibliography):
[بخ] al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ
[بد] al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-nubuwwah
[بس] al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-kubrā
[بل] al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf
[تط] al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh
[تع] ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Tafsīr
[ح] Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Musnad
[ز] al-Azraqī, Akhbār Makkah
[ط] al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-kabīr
[عب] Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Durar fī ikhtiṣār al-maghāzī wa-l-siyar or al-Tamhīd li-mā fī l-Muwaṭṭaʾ min al-maʿānī wa’l-asānīd
[لش] Hibat Allāh al-Lālakāʾī, Sharḥ uṣūl iʿtiqād ahl al-sunnah wa’l-jamāʿah
[مم] MS Murad Mulla 604
[ن] Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Dalāʾil al-nubuwwah
Timeline
Dates and events for the life of Muḥammad are fraught with difficulties; therefore, dates are here given according to al-Zuhrī’s calculations.
| After 558 (?) | The “Elephant Troop” and Abrahah, king of Ḥimyar, march against Mecca to destroy the Kaaba |
| 608 (?) | Muḥammad receives his first revelation atop Mount Ḥirāʾ |
| 622, Sept. | Muḥammad’s Hijrah from Mecca to Medina |
| 624, Mar. | Battle of Badr |
| 624, Sept.–Oct. | Expulsion of the Jewish clan al-Naḍīr from Medina |
| 625, Mar.–Apr. | Battle of Uḥud |
| 627, Feb.–Mar. | Battle of the United Clans/the Trench |
| 628, Feb.–Mar. | Treaty of Ḥudaybiyah |
| 630, 3 Jan. |
Muḥammad’s Conquest
|
