The Expeditions. Maʿmar ibn Rāshid
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Lowry
Letter from the General Editor
The Library of Arabic Literature is a new series offering Arabic editions and English translations of key works of classical and pre-modern Arabic literature, as well as anthologies and thematic readers. Books in the series are edited and translated by distinguished scholars of Arabic and Islamic studies, and are published in parallel-text format with Arabic and English on facing pages. The Library of Arabic Literature includes texts from the pre-Islamic era to the cusp of the modern period, and encompasses a wide range of genres, including poetry, poetics, fiction, religion, philosophy, law, science, history, and historiography.
Supported by a grant from the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, and established in partnership with NYU Press, the Library of Arabic Literature produces authoritative Arabic editions and modern, lucid English translations, with the goal of introducing the Arabic literary heritage to scholars and students, as well as to a general audience of readers.
Philip F. Kennedy
General Editor, Library of Arabic Literature
For Susu and Suraya,
who love Muḥammad
Foreword
Scholars of Arabic literature and readers with an interest in Arabic and Islamic civilization are now most fortunate to have available to them the works being published as the Library of Arabic Literature, the first series to attempt a systematic coverage of the Arabic literary heritage. The editors have already shown good judgment in selecting books for the series, and the present volume, The Expeditions, an early biography of the Prophet Muḥammad by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid, is no exception.
Maʿmar ibn Rāshid (d. 153/770) was a contemporary of Ibn Isḥāq (d. 151/768), author of the famous Al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah (The Prophetic Biography), also known as Sīrat rasūl Allāh (The Biography of the Messenger of God), which has come to be widely circulated and is known simply as the Sīrah. Alfred Guillaume’s English translation of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīrah was published more than fifty years ago,1 so the English translation of another important early text about the life of the Prophet Muḥammad 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 maghāzī and sīrah, the Ottoman literary historian Ḥājjī Khalīfah (d. 1067/1657) reports that Ibn Isḥāq compiled his work from preexisting materials, and goes on to identify ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr (d. 93/711–12) as the earliest to gather material on the topic.2 Thus, both Maʿmar ibn Rāshid and Ibn Isḥāq must have taken their information from written sources as well as authenticated oral reports collected by ʿUrwah and others.3
The major contribution of Maʿmar ibn Rāshid and Ibn Isḥāq was to bring the material from different sources together in one place. Other early Muslim scholars immediately recognized the value of this activity. This is why we have Ibn Isḥāq’s work in a recension by the later Ibn Hishām (d. 212/828 or 218/833), and Maʿmar ibn Rāshid’s work in a recension by ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827). Similarly, written material about the pillars of Islam—including ritual prayer (ṣalāh), the giving of alms (zakāh), fasting in Ramadan (ṣawm), and pilgrimage to Mecca (ḥajj)—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. Muslims had been continually engaging in ritual activities, and writing about them, since the time of the Prophet. Nor should it be assumed that hadiths (reports about the Prophet Muḥammad) were only written down when al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) and the other famous collectors of hadiths of that era produced their great compilations. Nonetheless, the compilation by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid of the present book was significant in its time for preserving the earlier scattered material.
The Arabic edition produced here, carefully edited from the extant manuscripts, as well as the translation into lucid English, have been undertaken by a gifted young scholar. What is more, his detailed introduction contains much useful guidance for the reader. Scholars of early Islam, Arabists, and interested readers will find this volume a welcome addition to the literature available and to their libraries.
Professor M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, obe
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Acknowledgements
The idea for this translation first came to me a decade ago while reading through the back matter of Michael Cook’s excellent monograph Muḥammad, published in Oxford University Press's now-defunct “Past Masters” series in 1983. Cook opined that, given the daunting size of the English translation of Ibn Hishām’s redaction of the biography of Muḥammad compiled by Ibn Isḥāq, “an annotated translation of Maʿmar ibn Rāshid’s account as transmitted by ʿAbd al-Razzāq ibn Hammām would be a welcome addition to the literature.”4 Reading these words as a first-year graduate student some two decades after they had been written, I presumed that the feat had already been accomplished. In fact, it had not.
That same first year of graduate study at the University of Chicago, I would also face the formidable challenges of translating maghāzī literature for the first time. I was fortunate enough to do so in nearly ideal conditions: in a class supervised by Fred M. Donner. I recall with fondness convening in Prof. Donner’s office in the Oriental Institute. Seated around a large wooden table, my classmates and I pored over every jot and tittle of the text under Donner’s tutelage. It was a great place to begin a journey—a journey made all the more amazing by the instruction I would receive at the hands of two of the finest Arabists I have had the pleasure to know, Prof. Wadād al-Qāḍī and Prof. Tahera Qutbuddin. To all three of these mentors, I remain profoundly thankful.
In pursuing this project I have incurred many a debt that, for now, I can only repay with gratitude. I am deeply grateful to Phil Kennedy, James Montgomery, Shawkat Toorawa, and the rest of editorial board of the Library of Arabic Literature (LAL), who were so open to taking my project under their wings and who continued to nurture the project and me as I gradually came to grasp the incredible vision of the series. Chip Rossetti, LAL’s managing editor, was a constant guide and ever helpful throughout the project’s realization. Rana Mikati lent me her keen eye and saved me from a number of errors in translation. Most of all, my project editor, Joseph Lowry, deserves my deepest gratitude. Continually challenging me and pushing me to better refine the translation, Prof. Lowry saved me from many errors and missteps along the way. If this project is any way successful and its fruits deemed praiseworthy, he surely deserves as much of the credit as I. “As iron sharpens iron does one person’s wit sharpen the other’s” (Prov. 20:17). Of course, any faults this work contains are mine alone.
I was fortunate to be able to work on this project unimpeded for the 2012–13 academic year thanks to the generous support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the willingness of the University of Oregon’s History Department to grant me a yearlong leave. That this volume joins the ranks of the many illustrious projects funded by the endowment is an especially great honor. It is my hope that the NEH’s support for the flourishing of the humanities, and thus enrichment of all humanity’s heritage, will continue to thrive in the decades and centuries to come.
Many less directly involved in the project also made its current form possible. I must thank Feryal Selim for helping me acquire digital scans of the Murad Mulla manuscript from the Süleymaniye Library, as well as my many undergraduate students who allowed me to try out early drafts of this translation in class and who provided me with interesting and often unexpected feedback. An old friend, Craig Howell, provided me with great conversation and excellent insight into how a nonspecialist might read the text.
To my wife and children, I offer my deepest and most heartfelt thanks. You are beyond all else the inspiration behind my strivings and the center from which I draw my strength.
Introduction
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