Ibn Hisham

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.