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Ibn Hisham

Ibn Hisham

?–833 CE · Basra

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām (d. 218 AH / 833 CE), commonly known as Ibn Hisham, was a Sunni Muslim scholar of South Arabian (Himyari) descent who grew up in Basra and later settled in Fustat, Egypt, where he was known as a grammarian and historian. He is best known for his edited recension of Ibn Isḥāq's biography of the Prophet Muhammad, transmitted through al-Bakkāʾī, which survives as al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya and is the earliest substantially complete prophetic biography to come down to us; in editing it he abridged material, omitted reports and poetry he considered weak or inappropriate, and added philological notes. He also compiled Kitāb al-Tījān fī mulūk Ḥimyar, a work on the legends and genealogies of the pre-Islamic kings of South Arabia. His birth year is not recorded in the sources.

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BasraבצרהSouthern Iraq — Persian Gulf port

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About Basra

Basra hosted one of the oldest Babylonian-Jewish communities, with continuous residence from the Talmudic era until the mid-20th century. R. Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad (Ben Ish Hai) maintained extensive correspondence with the Basra rabbinic court.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Ibn Hisham’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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Works(3)