Ahadith Muntakhaba min Maghazi Musa ibn Uqba
- Author died
- 141 AH
- Editions
- Mu’assasat al-Rayyān
Ahadith Muntakhaba min Maghazi Musa ibn Uqba ("Selected Traditions from the Military Expeditions of Musa ibn Uqba") is an extant selection of historical traditions from the early biography and campaign work of Musa ibn Uqba (d. 141 AH / 758 CE) .
Origin and Historical Background
The source material stems from the Kitab al-Maghazi composed by the Medinese scholar Musa ibn Uqba . Musa undertook the recording of his work late in life to document accurately those who took part in the Battle of Badr, the Battle of Uhud, and the emigrations to Abyssinia and Medina, prompted by doubts raised about the listings compiled by contemporary narrators such as Shurahbil ibn Sa'd .
While the full original compilation of Musa's Maghazi was transmitted in early centuries through narrators such as Muhammad ibn Fulayh and Ibrahim ibn al-Mundhir al-Hizami, the complete work eventually ceased to circulate as an independent text . The surviving selection preserved under this title represents an abridgment prepared in the eighth Islamic century by Yusuf ibn Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Qadi Shuhba (d. 789 AH / 1387 CE) .
Method and Content
The text comprises selected reports detailing pivotal events of the prophetic biography, early expeditions, and rosters of early Muslim participants . Musa ibn Uqba arranged his historical material chronologically by year and relied primarily on transmission from leading authorities, notably Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri . In contrast to more expansive compendia, the text is concise and contains relatively little poetry .
Reception and Scholarly Standing
The traditions of Musa ibn Uqba's Maghazi were regarded by classical scholars as among the most reliable accounts of early Islamic campaigns . Malik ibn Anas commended the work, stating that one should rely upon it because it was the most sound of the campaign books and that Musa did not add unnecessary material . Yahya ibn Ma'in considered Musa's transmission from al-Zuhri to be among the most authentic books in the field . Al-Dhahabi observed that the compilation was contained in a single volume and that the majority of its narrations were authentic (sahih) and sound expedited reports (mursal jayyid), though brief .
Manuscript Tradition and Modern Editions
The primary surviving manuscript witness of Ibn Qadi Shuhba's selection is preserved in the Berlin State Library under manuscript number 1554 (folios 74–77), copied in 782 AH .
The orientalist Eduard Sachau edited the Berlin manuscript and published it alongside a German translation in 1904 in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin) . The text was subsequently re-edited in Arabic by Mashhur Hasan and published by Dar Ibn Hazm in 1991 .
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