Marwiyyat al-Imam al-Zuhri fi al-Maghazi
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- Marwiyyat al-Imam al-Zuhri fi al-Maghazi
Marwiyyat al-Imam al-Zuhri fi al-Maghazi (The Narrations of Imam al-Zuhri Regarding Military Expeditions) is a specialized academic study in early Islamic historiography and hadith documentation by Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Awaji . Originating from the Islamic University of Madinah in the Department of Islamic History, the work is dedicated to collecting, organizing, and critically authenticating the historical transmissions of the early scholar Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124 AH / 742 CE) concerning the military campaigns (maghazi) and expeditions (saraya) of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ .
Scope and Methodology
The work focuses exclusively on narrations transmitted through al-Zuhri regarding the Prophet's ﷺ expeditions and raids, excluding non-military biographical events such as tribal delegations and his death . The author gathered a total of 195 distinct, non-repeated narrations from primary hadith compendia, biographical dictionaries, and historical chronicles . These transmissions are classified into three categories:
- 79 musnad reports traced back directly to the Prophet ﷺ or to eyewitness Companions .
- 38 reports halted (mawquf) at senior Successors (tabi'un) .
- 73 reports halted at al-Zuhri himself as mursal narrations .
The material is structured chronologically, with individual identification numbers assigned to each narration . For every report, the author provides biographical evaluations of the narrators in the transmission chains, relying primarily on Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Taqrib al-Tahdhib, except for transmissions already documented in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim . Each report is graded according to standard hadith critical methodology, citing previous scholarly verdicts or deducing rulings from narrator reliability rules . Sources for each narration are documented in chronological order of their authors, and supporting continuous (mawsul) routes are cross-referenced for mursal texts wherever available .
Structure
The book is organized into an introduction, a preparatory chapter (tamhid), three main parts (abwab), and a concluding section:
- Preparatory Chapter (al-Tamhid): Divided into two chapters examining the merit of jihad, the conceptual definitions of siyar, maghazi, ghazwah, sariyyah, and ba'th, followed by an analytical survey of previous scholarship and the primary resources used in the study .
- Part One: Explores the biography and scholarly standing of al-Zuhri across two chapters covering his life, birth, teachers, students, and his impact on maghazi literature, including whether he composed an independent written work and the methodological characteristics of his narrations .
- Part Two: Contains six chapters covering military expeditions chronologically from the initial skirmishes preceding the Battle of Badr up to the conclusion of the Siege of Banu Qurayza .
- Part Three: Contains five chapters spanning events from the Treaty of al-Hudaybiyyah through the Battle of Khaybar, the Conquest of Mecca, the Battle of Hunayn, the Siege of al-Ta'if, and the Expedition of Tabuk, along with their subsequent events .
- Conclusion and Indexes: Summarizes findings and provides comprehensive indices for Quranic verses, hadiths, biographical entries, places, tribes, poetry, and subjects .
Findings and Analysis
Through his survey, al-Awaji established that al-Zuhri's transmissions represent roughly 90% of the campaigns and 80% of the expeditions documented in the classical corpus of Ibn Ishaq . The author concluded that it is unproven that al-Zuhri compiled an independent, standalone book solely devoted to maghazi, although his recorded sheets (suhuf) and vast body of transmitted material formed a cornerstone for later chroniclers .
The study found that al-Zuhri's historical accounts generally conform to mainstream hadith and maghazi sources, noting three major points of divergence:
- Captives and casualties at Badr: al-Zuhri noted figures exceeding seventy, whereas the Sahihayn specify seventy killed and seventy captured, which the author confirmed as the more authentic figure despite noting that al-Zuhri aligned with the Sahihayn in other transmissions .
- Dating of Banu al-Nadir: al-Zuhri dated the expulsion before the Battle of Uhud, contrary to Ibn Ishaq and most historians who place it in the fourth year of the Hijrah; al-Awaji preferred al-Zuhri's dating as correct .
- The death of Marhab at Khaybar: al-Zuhri mentioned in a mursal report that Muhammad ibn Maslamah killed Marhab, whereas Sahih Muslim explicitly records that Ali ibn Abi Talib killed him; the author noted that the narration in Sahih Muslim is the authoritative one .
The study also defends al-Zuhri against accusations of narrator deception (tadlis) that would undermine his indirect phrasing ('an'ana), noting that early hadith masters accepted his transmissions due to his authority, and dismisses charges of political bias toward the Umayyad Caliphate or anti-Alid sentiments (nasb) .
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