60 Alfred von Kremer's edition of Walddy. [No. 1. 



a pupil of the author. 4. The work of Mrisa b. 'Oqbah [a client 

 of the Zobayr family, d. 141]* which he took on the testimony of 

 Isma'yl b. 'Abd Allah b. Oways Madany who had it from a nephew 

 of the author, Isma'yl b. Ibrahym b. 'Oqbah and he had it from the 

 author himself. I insert here Ibn S'ad's own words : 

 K:y ^J\ ^ ^j <^Ui* &*j+* ^jM «,$*Mll **\) v J .j+* w? ^^ t ir^ 1 



*f & v.^ v J . ls^J lsj*j*\ cr^' tri' f^ ^-' *^ *** ^ *■*** j 

 ^U^l M&'<^l ^j &li| ^ u j t^Hj (4>*yi &o^° ^JJr^l 



U***-*>( L>* <^^l cT^jt j^l iyJ *^l ^ O"? cU*-*-"»l l^^l JTJf*' ^i] &R 



In reading over this passage of Ibn Sa'd, we should hardly suspect 

 that he refers to books, and if we did not know from other sources 

 that these four men to whom he refers had written down their state- 

 ments, we might suppose that he received from them merely oral 

 traditions.. 



"Wakidy like Ibn Sa'd does not give the isuad for every fact, 

 but he mentions in the first page twenty-six Shaykhs on whose 

 testimony he had received the statements which he worked into 

 one continuous narrative. Among them occur Abu Ma'shar and 

 Isma'yl b. Ibrahym Ibn 'Oqbah, of these two we know distinctly 

 that they taught complete, original works on the campaigns of the 

 prophet, and it may be asserted with certainty of the remaining 

 twenty-four Shaykhs that they were teaching books or collectanea, 

 because the method in which in those days traditions were taught 

 was, that one of the pupils read and the Shaykh listened to his 

 reading and made the necessary corrections. The remaining pupils 

 in some instances wrote down what he read, and hence the term 



* See my remarks on these two works in an article in the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, Vol. 20. " On the earliest biographies of Mohammad." 



