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 of Mecca |
| 632, 27 May | Muḥammad’s Death |
| 644, Nov. | Assassination of the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb |
| 656, June | Assassination of the third caliph ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān |
| 656–61 | The Great Civil War (al-fitnah al-kubrā) |
| 656, Nov.–Dec. | The Battle of the Camel between ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr, al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, and Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd Allāh |
| 657, July | The Battle of Ṣiffīn between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān |
| 661, Jan. | Assassination of ʿAlī |
| 661–750 | The Umayyad Caliphate |
| 680–92 | Second Civil War—the Marwānid Umayyads emerge victorious over their Zubyarid rivals |
| 685–705 | Caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān |
| 723–43 | Caliphate of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik |
| 742 | Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī dies |
| 744–50 | Third Civil War ensues after the assassination of al-Walīd II, leading to the rise of Abbasid dynasty of caliphs |
| 754–75 | Caliphate of Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr |
| 768 | Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq dies |
| 770 | Maʿmar ibn Rāshid dies |
| 827 | ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī dies |
* Dates and events for the life of Muḥammad are fraught with difficulties; therefore, dates are here given according to al-Zuhrī’s calculations.
Notes to the Frontmatter
Foreword
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