396 On the earliest Biography of Mohammad. [No. 5 



men who agreed in the battle of Ohad, to kill the prophet if they were 

 to see him, or they would die themselves. The men who thus united 

 themselves were 'abd iUlah b. Shahab, Obay b. Khalaf, Ibn Qamyyah 

 and 'otbahb. Aby Waqqac. Zohry's father Moslim b. 'obayd Allah 

 followed the standard of Ibn al-Zobayr. Zohry lived at the court of 

 the Khalif'abd al • Malik b. Marwan and of his son and successor, 

 Hisham. Yazyd b. 'abd al-Malik gave him the appointment of Qadhy. 

 He died in Ramadhan, A. II. 124." He was then 72 years old. He 

 may therefore have begun his literary career about sixty years after the 

 death of the prophet, when several of those men who had known him 

 were still alive. 



Notwithstanding the testimony of the author of the Insan al'oyun 

 I doubt very much whether Zohry has written a history of the prophet 

 in a connected form, excepting perhaps of his military expeditions, 

 ^U/o We find no such book mentioned even by ancient authors, 

 such as Ibn Aby Ya'qub Nadym or the Sayyid alnas, and compar- 

 ing traditions quoted by different writers on the authority of Zohry, it 

 appears that it frequently happens that what one author gives as two 

 traditions is mentioned as one by another. I am, therefore, inclined to 

 suppose that Zohry merely took memoranda of the traditions which 

 he heard and encouraged his numerous pupils to do the same. This 

 opinion seems to be confirmed by Nawawy (Biogr. Diet. p. 119). 

 " Malik relates, Zohry one day told me a very long tradition, I requested 

 him to repeat as much of it as he thought necessary, that I might 

 impress it on my memory. He refused to repeat it, but when I request- 

 ed him to write it, he put it to paper for me." In this manner it 

 would appear traditions were at the time of Zohry preserved in writing, 

 but it was left for the following generation to compile them in systema- 

 tic works. 



Besides Zohry two other early works on the Biography of Moham- 

 mad deserve mention and may possibly still be extant, viz. Abu 

 Ma'shar and Miisa Ibn 'oqbah. Of the latter I have not been able 

 to find any account. It appears, however, from an isnad in Ibn Sa'd 

 who died in A. H. 230, that he flourished early in the second or towards 

 the end of the first century of the Hijrah, for this author did not 

 know Ibn 'oqbah himself but he was instructed in his work by Isma'yil 

 b. 'abd Allah b. Aby Oways of Madynah, who had been instructed in 



