1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ibn Hishām

by Griffithes Wheeler Thatcher

IBN HISHĀM [Abū Maḥommed ‛Abdulmalik ibn Hishām ibn Ayyūb ul-Himyarī] (d. 834), Arabian biographer, studied in Kufa but lived afterwards in Fostāt (old Cairo), where he gained a name as a grammarian and student of language and history. His chief work is his edition of Ibn Isḥāq’s (q.v.) Life of the Apostle of God, which has been edited by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1858–1860). An abridged German translation has been made by G. Weil (Stuttgart, 1864; cf. P. Brönnle, Die Commentatoren des Ibn Isḥaq und ihre Scholien, Halle, 1895). Ibn Hishām is said to have written a work explaining the difficult words which occur in poems on the life of the Apostle, and another on the genealogies of the Himyarites and their princes. (G. W. T.)