The Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Ibn Kathir - Volume 1 of 4

INTRODUCTION
THE work at hand in its original Arabic is, in a sense, the product of two minds:
the author himself, Aha al-Fid2 'Irnzd al-Din Ism%'il b. Wmar b. Kathir,' and,
to a lesser extent, its editor, Mggafa 'Abd al-Wahid. In his introduction to the
Arabic, 'Abd al-Wshid points out that this work is in fact the culmination of a
search for a biography of the Prophet Muhammad to which Ibn Kathir makes
reference in his celebrated exegesis of the Qur'm. There is, however, no extant
copy of any such independent biographical study traceable to Ibn Kathir. That
such a study did exist is questionable, notwithstanding Ihn Kathir's own allusion
thereto. Given the unavailability of this particular work, 'Abd al-Wahid offers
the theory that the biography in question is none other than that which appears
in Ibn Kathir's chief work, his opus on history, the al-B~daya wa al-Nzh~ya.~ He
argues that the sira section of the latter work is so comprehensive in its analysis
of the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad as to almost obviate the need for
any independent study of the same topic. The biography at hand, therefore, is the
same as found in the al-Brd~ya. Nevertheless, 'Abd al-W@d must be commended
for the not inconsiderable task of editing and publishing this particular section as
an independent unit, and appropriately titling it al-Sira al-Nabawyya Iz Ibn
Kathir.
Ibn Kathir, whose ancestors are said to have been from Iraq, was himself
born around the year 1313 c~/700 AH in the Boesra district of eastern
Damascus. He died 74 years later, shortly after suffering a total loss of vision.
He counts as his tutors such illustrious personages as the eminent historian
Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi, the MZliki jurist Aba Mas% al-Qarsi, and the celebrated
Damascene polemicist and jurist Ibn Taymiyya al-Harrmi.
Ibn Kathir's was an era of the great political and social upheavals that posed
many challenges to the Muslim world at large, and in particular, to its scholars.
What with the scourge of the Tartars threatening the very existence of Islam as a
soci~political entity from the outside and the sectarian and ethnic strife created
by the Mamluk revolution doing much the same from within, Ibn Kathir and his
1. According to R. Y. Curtis, Authoritative Interpretation of Clanical Islamic Taf3r: Critical
Amlyni of Ibn Kathir's Tafjir ol-@+hn al-'Asfm (unpublished dissertation, Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, 1989) (21), dassid bibliographers have cited Ihn Kathir's name in more
than one way. Al-Dbahabi for insrance, in the supplement to his bibliography, Dhayl Tadhkirot al-
Huffzz, gives Ibn Kathrr's name as Ism%'ll h. Wmar b. Kathir b. paw h. Kathir h. Zar'. Other
versions have been given, however, such as apptar in al-Zirikli's al-A'hm (1: 320) and Wmar Rida
Kahhaa's Muyarn ol-Mu'olli@n (1: 28).
2. According to C. Brockelman in his Gesclri~hte der Arabjschen Literatur ii. 49, this historical
work of Ihn Kathir is itself based on d-Bi-li's chronicle. For more information see also, Ihn
Hadjar d-Asqalmi, al-har al-Kzmim (Cad. Vierma, no. 1172).