Ibn Ishaq

Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar, known as Ibn Ishaq, was an early Muslim scholar who compiled the first comprehensive sira (life-account) of the Prophet Muhammad. He was born in Medina around 85 AH (c. 704 CE); the exact year is a traditional estimate rather than a documented fact. His grandfather is reported to have been a war-captive from Iraq who was brought to Medina and freed after embracing Islam, and his father and uncles transmitted reports about the Prophet — the milieu in which Ibn Ishaq became an authority on the maghazi (the Prophet's military campaigns).

He gathered oral traditions into Sirat Rasul Allah ("The Life of the Messenger of God"). His own text does not survive intact; it is known chiefly through a recension by his student al-Bakka'i as edited by Ibn Hisham, and through quotations preserved in the history of al-Tabari. Later hadith critics divided over his reliability: Malik ibn Anas and others reportedly faulted his use of material from converts and his transmission practices, while many regarded his historical reporting as valuable — these are scholarly judgments, attributed, not settled facts.

After leaving Medina (tradition links his departure to a dispute with the jurist Malik ibn Anas), he is reported to have travelled through Egypt, Kufa, the Jazira region and Rayy before settling in Baghdad under Abbasid patronage, where the caliph al-Mansur is said to have commissioned historical work from him. He died in Baghdad around 150 AH (c. 767 CE); sources also give 151, 152 or 153.