1850.] of the original text of Tabary, 109 



appointed him as Qadhy and he died in A. H. 124. The greater 

 number of traditions respecting the life of Mohammad collected in 

 the works of Ibn Ishaq, a pupil of Zohry, who died in A. H. 151, 

 as well as those collected by Abu Ishaq, who died in A. H. 188, 

 by Waqidy who was born in A. H. 130, and died in 207, by Bokha- 

 ry, by Moslim and Tabary, &c, had been handed down by Zohry, 

 and there is every reason to believe that he preserved the accounts which 

 he had received regarding Mohammad, not only by teaching them to 

 his pupils but by committing them to writing. 



Tabary in conformity with the pedantic habit of his time, traces 

 every tradition to an eye witness ; the names of the authors from whose 

 books he makes extracts (which are, wherever I have verified them 

 literal) occur in the string of his isnad, but no mention is made of 

 their writings. So that the reader who is not acquainted with the 

 literary history of that period, is led to suppose that the traditions 

 which his book contains had been handed down to him orally and that 

 he was the first who wrote them down. I give an example of his 

 isnads : " I have been informed by Ibn Homayd that he has been 

 informed by Salamah, who said that he had been informed by Mo- 

 hammad Ibn Ishaq, who said I have been informed by Mohammad b. 

 Moslim Zohry, and by 'Asim b. Omar b. Qatadah and by 'Abd Allah 

 b. Aby Bazr and by Yazyd b. Riiman who all had it from 'Orwah and 

 other learned men, and they had it from 'Abd Allah b. 'Abbas (who 

 was an eye witness of the story related)." The story which follows 

 after this isnad, is literally copied from the book of Mohammad 

 Ibn Ishaq, yet who could guess from the quotation of authorities that 

 Tabary gives an extract from a book ? In the same manner he quotes 

 Waqidy and other authors. 



I will now examine the contents of this volume. 

 Page 1 top. 58 an account of the ancestors of Mohammad. It is chief- 

 ly derived from Ibn Ishaq, but the subject was treated at greater length 

 and with more accuracy by Waqidy. The genealogy of Mohammad must 

 be divided into three parts. The first, that is to say, the genealogy from 

 Abraham to 'Adnan is mythological. Mohammad maintained that he 

 was descended from Ishmael, (though it is more likely that he was a 

 Jocktanite,) and his followers to give more credit to his assertion made 

 up of Jewish names a genealogy from 'Adnan to Abraham. In the 



