62 Alfred von Kremer's edition of Walcidy. [No. 1. 



I insert here a passage from Tabary from which it appears that 

 the Rawiys did make slight omissions : 



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" Tabary observes : Wakidy fancies that the Messenger of God 

 appointed in this year, .ffamzah, leader of an expedition and tied a 

 white flag to his spear, and that the Messenger of God tied also, 

 in Shawwal, in the eighth month after the flight, a white flag to a 

 spear for 'Obaydah and sent him to Ba£n Rabigh. This standard 

 was borne by Mista£. The expedition consisted of sixty refugees 

 and no Ancary, and it proceeded as far as al-Morrah in the neigh- 

 bourhood of al-JoAfah. They met the enemy at A^ya and there 

 were some arrows exchanged, but it did not come to close combat 

 with the sword. The accounts do not agree as to the leader of the 

 caravan. Some say, it was Abu Sofyan and some say, Mikraz. 

 ^Tabary says : the words of Wakidy are " I consider it as settled 

 that Abu Sofyan was the leader and that the caravan was defended 

 by two hundred men." It is true, ^Pabary gives at first merely an 

 abstract of Wakidy' s statements, but Arabic authors always preserve 

 the words of the original and at the end ^abary quotes Wakidy's 

 own words. In referring to Kremer's text, we find that neither 

 these words are in it, nor is the rest of the story so full. There 

 are other quotations in 3Pabary, which are not found complete in 

 Kremer's original. In another place we find Ibn 'Oqbah quoted, 

 and the manner in which it is done, leads us to suspect that this 

 quotation is one of the many additions of a rawiy to Wakidy's text. 



The first affair regarding which Wakidy enters into very valuable 

 details is the expedition of Ibn JaAsh. This infamous exploit throws 

 much light on the character of Mohammad and I therefore, give 

 here an account of it. If the reader pays attention to the authorities 



