208 Alfred von Kremer's edition of W&qidy. [No. 3. 



traditions from 'Orwah and also from 'Abd Allah b. 'Amr b. al-'A'c, 

 Vol. I. p. 181. 



£alih b. Kaysan, the friend of the Khalif 'Omar b. 'Abd al-'Azyz 

 and the tutor of his children, is also quoted, but very rarely. He 

 took traditions from Zohry, Vol. T. p. 153, and also from others 

 Vol. II. p. 22. He died about ninety years of age after A. H. 140. 



Zohry, whom I shall mention lower down, took most of his tradi- 

 tions from 'Orwah and his relations. 



'Orwah b. al-Zobayr was born at Madynah in A. H. 23. His 

 mother Qafyyah was an aunt of the prophet. His brother 'Abd Allah 

 gained a large party and was proclaimed Khalif in Arabia, Egypt 

 and Khorasan, but after he had maintained himself nine years in his 

 lofty position, he was defeated by the lieutenant of the Omayyides 

 and crucified at Makkah in A. H. 73. 'Orwah seems not to have 

 meddled with politics, and he even spent the last days of his life at 

 the Omayyide court at Damascus, where it became necessary to am- 

 putate one of his legs on account of a malignant ulcer. No man of 

 that age had better opportunities to collect information regard- 

 ing the history and tenets of the Islam than him, and he made the 

 best use of them. He was one of the seven men who are called 

 the great divines of Madynah, and his distinguished pupil Zohry 

 said, that he found that he was an inexhaustible sea and was 

 able to give an answer to any question that might be proposed 

 to him. He wrote down the result of his enquiries and to judge 

 from the quotations which occur in Ibn Is7*aq, Bokhary and Ibn 

 Sa'd, the assertion of -Hajy Khalyfah, No. 12464, that he has written 

 a biography of Mohammad, seems to be correct. But unfortunately 

 the prejudice, that it was not proper to have any other book than the 

 Qoran, induced him to efface all his writings.* He regretted it sub- 

 sequently and took great pains to teach the numerous traditions with 

 w T hich his memory was stocked to his children and pupils, and they 

 have preserved a great portion of his labours. He died in 94 A. H. 



* Dzohaby says ^^ ci>>^ *U\ <JX *** bUT ±£^ % Jj6 \JS ijjfi J I* 

 * ^jlc ^i^ o| o^J &U\y . The Khafyb Baghdady thinks that the rea- 

 son why he repented to have destroyed his writings was, because when he got old, 

 his memory got weak ; but in one version he says his books would be very useful 

 for his children. 



