Muhammad and The Jews — Page 17
INTRODUCTION that lbn Isl_iaq's life of the Apostle "is recorded with honesty and truth- fulness and, too, an impartiality which is rare in such writings". l But a historian is very much part of his time. He cannot isolate him- self from the climate of opinion in which he breathes. Men can do only what the norms of their times permit, declared Macaulay. 2 To sum up, the character of lbn IsI:iak in comparison with the authors who preceded him is that of a real historian and in him we have the final fusion of biography of the religious type of the mu/:laddithun with that of the epic-legendary type of the kuJJaJ. It is this original and personal character of the work of Ibn IsQa. k, which, while it explains the hostility of the school of traditions, justifies the immense success which it has enjoyed through the centuries, a success which has not only over- shadowed similar previous works and some which closely followed him. . . but made him a decisive influence on the future development of the Sira. ln addition to Ibn Hishilm's recension, Ibn IsJ:iak's biography was reproduced for the most part by al-Tabari in his two great compilations, the Ta'rikh and the Tafsir and through the intermediary of these two writers it has become 1he principle source of later historiography. 3 By the time al-Waqidi (130/747-207/823) and Ibn Sa"d (168/784- 230/845) completed their works both the Abbasid caliphate and the post-Islamic Exilarchate were firmly established. lbn "Isa al-I~fahani's rebellion had been forgotten and forgiven. The Saboras who headed the two leading academies at Sura and Pumbaditha bad given themselves the new title of Gaon, "Your Eminence", and were recognized by the Caliphs as the judicial authority for the Jews within the Muslim Empire. Yehudi ben Naham during his brief term of office (760-764) helped to lay the foundations of what may be described as the invisible Jewish government in exile. The Jews in the Diaspora were governed through the Gaonic Responsa. Abu "Abd Allah MuJ:iarnmad b. "Urnar al-Waqidi was born in Medina and was called al-Waqidi after his grandfather al-Waqid, who was a maw/a of "Abd Allah b. Buraida who belonged to a Medinite family. His only surviving work is Kitiib a/-Maghiizi (The Book of Expeditions). Within that limited scope he has collected some very useful information about the Medinite life of the Apostle. Kitiib al-Tabaqiit a/-Kabrr of Ibn Sa"d, who was al-W aqidi's pupil and secretary, is 1 Guillaume, p. xxiv. Quoted by Melvin Maddocks, the reviewer of his biography by John Clive, Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian (New York, 1974), in Time, April 22, 1974, p. 90. 3 G. Levi Della Vida, "Sira", El(l) Vol. IV, p. 442. 17