Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri

Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (full name Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Shihab) was a scholar of Medina counted among the Tabi'un — the "Successors," the generation that knew the Prophet's Companions but not the Prophet himself. He is remembered as one of the most influential figures in the early formation of the Islamic religious sciences.

Born in Medina (the year is disputed in the sources, variously given as 50, 51 or 56 AH, roughly 670–676 CE), he studied with leading Medinan authorities, among them Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib and Urwa ibn al-Zubayr. He later attached himself to the Umayyad court, serving successive caliphs; under Yazid II he is reported to have accepted the office of qadi (judge), and under Hisham he tutored the caliph's sons.

Tradition credits al-Zuhri with a central role in the tadwin — the systematic writing-down of hadith — said to have been encouraged by the caliph Umar II; how far this is institutional fact versus later memory is debated by historians. He also gathered scattered reports about the Prophet's campaigns (maghazi) into connected narratives, material that passed to his students Ibn Ishaq and Ma'mar ibn Rashid and shaped the later sira (biography of the Prophet).

He died in 124 AH (741–742 CE) on an estate at Shaghb, on the frontier between the Hijaz and Palestine. Because so much rests on later biographical tradition, several specifics of his life remain uncertain.