Narrations of Muhammad ibn Ishaq in the Book of kitab altabaqat liabn saed

Abstract

Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Mutalibi, the Imam of the biographies and battles, has many narrators who transmitted from him the biography of the Prophet and the battles of the Prophet. Ibn Ishaq is very famous, and many students narrated from him in many countries and cities. Therefore, his students spread in Medina, Baghdad, Kufa, Al-Jazirah, and Rayy. Therefore, the narrations about him are many. This research shows the most important narrators of Ibn Ishaq, from whom Ibn Saad transmitted in Al-Tabaqat Al-Kubra. Ibn Saad preserved narrations from the biography of Ibn Ishaq from narrators whose copies did not reach us and were not as famous as the copies of Ziyad Al-Bakka’i, Yunus ibn Bakir, and Salamah ibn Al-Fadl.

Ibn Sa'd preserved narrations from Ibn Ishaq that are not found in the works of other historical encyclopedists. He relied on six versions of Ibn Ishaq's Maghazi (accounts of the Prophet's military campaigns): those of Ibrahim ibn Sa'd, al-Awdi, Harun ibn Isa, Salama al-Fadl, Muhammad ibn Salama al-Harrani, and Ali ibn Mujahid—a distinction unmatched by any other historian. Ibn Sa'd transmitted a great deal of information from Ibn Ishaq's Maghazi and Siyar (biographies of the Prophet's companions), to the point that it can be said that virtually every biography of a Companion in the Tabaqat (Biographical Dictionary) includes a narration from Ibn Ishaq concerning the migration to Abyssinia, the brotherhood established between the Companions, the lineages of the Companions, or their participation in military campaigns. In the second part of his Tabaqat, dedicated to the Prophet's military campaigns, Ibn Sa'd relied on the narrations of Ibn Ishaq that reached him, particularly those of Harun ibn Abi Isa, Abdullah ibn Idris al-Awdi, and Ibrahim ibn Sa'd.