ابن إسحاق
Ibn Isḥāq
Person
The earliest major biographer of the Prophet (d. around 767), whose work survives mainly in Ibn Hisham’s edition.
What it means
Muhammad ibn Ishaq, born in Medina, collected traditions about the life of the Prophet, his battles and the earlier prophets, and wrote them as a continuous narrative. His book survives through the edition of Ibn Hisham (d. around 833) and in quotations by al-Tabari. It is the basis of almost every later biography.
What the sources say
Sira is not held to the same standard as hadith of law. Scholars praised Ibn Ishaq on the campaigns but some, such as Malik, criticised him, and later writers weigh his reports against the Quran and hadith collections.