218 Alfred von Kremer's edition of Wdqidy. [No. 3. 



^ammad considered the scriptures as divine revelation. Whilst on 

 the other hand from a number of incidents in his life, it is clear that 

 neither he nor any of his early converts considered him unfallible 

 unless he pretended to speak from inspiration. It was to be expect- 

 ed that the Musalmans would refer to the scripture for information 

 on law and religion not contained in the Qoran. They followed quite 

 the contrary course : they relied entirely on the accidental sayings 

 of the prophet and even of his companions, and if the Bible were 

 lost, and we had no other information regarding it than that con- 

 tained in the theological writings of the Musalmans, we should hardly 

 know that it ever existed. This tendency of the Mo^ammadans, to 

 separate themselves from Christianity and to supersede it is the 

 leading fact of the Mo&ammadan church history of the first two cen- 

 turies during which the Islam received its present form. 



There remains that I should say a few words on Musa b. 'Oqbah 

 and Abu Ma'shar, who, as I have stated above, were pupils of Sho- 

 raAbyl and left works on the biography of Mokmmad, 



Musa b. 'Oqbah Asady was a client of the family of Zobayr or 

 rather of Omm Khalid, who was either the mother or step-mother 

 of 'Orwah. He was one of the learned men of Madynah. His 

 two brothers, Mohammad and Ibrahym were also men of great 

 erudition, and they all three when they sat in the mosque of Ma- 

 dynah, were surrounded by large circles of pupils. Sib£ Ibn 'Ajamy 

 puts him in his " Black-Book," which has the title of Tabyyn biasmd 

 al-modallisyn, accusing him of Tadlys,* but it appears to me that 

 he does not substantiate his charges. Ibn 'Oqbah's campaigns are 



* Tadlys is of two kinds ; first the Tadlys al-isnad : a man relates from a con- 

 temporary what he has not heard from him, but believes to have heard from him 

 omitting the name of his real informant. Sometimes he does not omit the name of 

 his Shaykh but of another witness, who is of weak authority or close to his own 

 time, with a view to enhance the value of the tradition. Second, Tadlys al-shoyukh : 

 a man gives a name or cognomen to his Shaykh by which he is not known. Persons 

 are frequently induced to commit the latter kind of Tadlys by a desire to make 

 the reader believe that they have consulted a great number of authorities. Thus 

 a man might say : " Zohry informed me" then " Ibn Shibab informed me" then 

 " Mohammad b. Moslim informed me," meaning one and the same person, yet the 

 reader would probably think three distinct authorities are quoted. Sometimes the 

 intention is to disguise the name of a weak witness. 



