THE BEGINNING OF MUSLIM HISTORICAL RESEARCH*

forms of descriptions: the first historical works were exactly like the other
traditional sciences, simple collections of oral traditions presented through
a long, unbroken chain of authorities, who either witnessed these events or
heard about them. The narrations were preserved mostly in the words
of those who transmitted them first. And when one event was reported
differently by a number of contemporary persons, the traditions are trans-
mitted in the usual form side by side, even though the variations may be
immaterial and irrelevant.
The oldest available text on the Prophet's life is by Ibn his him(^)
(d. 834 A.D.). It is, in fact, only a recension of the work of another older
scholar Ibn I&aq(~) (d. 776) who had with great diligence collected all the
traditions about the Prophet, about his genealogy, his birth, his youth,
his family life, about his preaching of the message of God, which he defended
with unshaken firmness, and about his Companions, his actions and
sayings.
Ibn Hishiim, who did not make any change in the text of Ibn
Isl~iiq, goes a step beyond his predecessor in that he with his own notes and
commentaries tried to verify the reliability of each individual tradition.
This book constitutes one of the most important sources concerning
the Prophetlo and is highly valued by the most modem orientalists,
whereas opinion about the author was much divided among the Muslims.
Al-Wlqidl(~) (d. 823) especially writes about the military campaigns
of the Prophet. He had at his disposal a comprehensive collection of
traditions which he did not arrange simply in serial order as Ibn IsS9q
had done but worked over the so~uces independently and narrated them
in a lively style in his own words. Besides, he tried to ascertain the exact
dates of events. A comparison with non-Islamic sources shows that al-
Wiiqidi's descriptions are mostly correct.] l His pupil and secretary Ibn
Sa'd(~) (d. 845) utilized the same large amount of source-material of his
teacher for a different purpose. His life of the Prophet is followed by the
biographies of all those men and women to whose faithful reports posterity
owes its fairly exact knowledge of the beginnings of Islam. These transmitters
of the traditions of Islam have been classified according to their
generation beginning from the time of Muhammad. This categorization
under classes was first of all undertaken with a view to affecting control of
the science of tradition over the chain of transmitters, and it was necessary