Prophet, *Abū Ṭālib (said to be named ʽAbd Manāf), ? *Zubair,
Ḥārith, Ḥajal, Moqawwam, Ḍirār, *Abū Lahab (said to be named
‘Abd al-ʽUzzā, d. A.H. 2), *Ṣafiyyah (d. A.H. 20), Umm Ḥakīm, al-Baiḍā,
‘Ātikah, Umaimah, Arwā, Barrah.
2. Family of Abū Tālib:—*‘Aqīl (d. after A.H. 40), *Jaʽfar (d. A.H. 8), Ṭālib, Ṭulaiq, ‘Alī, the caliph, Umm Hāni’, Jumānah, Raiṭah.
3. Family of Mahomet. Wives:—*Khadīja (Children:—Qāsim; ? ʽAbd Manāf (Ṭāhir, Tayyib); *Zainab m. Abu’l-ʽĀs b. Rabīʽ, d. A.H. 7; *Ruqayyah, m. ‘Othmān b. ‘Affān, d. A.H. 2; *Umm Kulthūm m. ‘Othmān b. ‘Affān, d. A.H. 9; *Fāṭimah, m. ‘Alī, d. A.H. 11): *Saudah bint Zamʽah,? d. A.H. 54, *‘A’ishah (Ayesha) bint Abī Bekr (d. A.H. 56), *Hafṣa bint ‘Omar (d. A.H. 45 or 47), *Zainab bint Khuzaimah, d. before A.H. 11, *Zainab bint Jaḥsh, d. A.H. 20, *Umm Salimah, d. A.H. 59, *Maimūnah, d. A.H. 38, *Juwairiyah, d. A.H. 56, *Umm Ḥabībah Ramlah bint Abī Sofiān, d. A.H. 44.
Concubines:—*Ṣafiyyah bint Ḥuyyay, d. A.H. 36, *Raiḥānah bint Zaid, *Māriyah the Copt, d. A.H. 15 or 16, mother of Ibrāhim. (Other names given by Ibn Saʽd, vol. viii.)
Chronological Table of Chief Events in the Life of Mahomet.[1]
| ? | 570 | Birth. | |
| ? | 595 | Marriage with Khadīja. | |
| ? | 610 | Commencement of call. | |
| ? | 613 | Public appearance. | |
| 616 | Persian conquest of the nearer East. | ||
| ? | 617 | Flight of his followers to Abyssinia. | |
| ? | 618 | – | 619 Siege in Mecca. Retractation and subsequent repudiation. |
| Death of Abū Talīb and Khadija. | |||
| ? | 620 | Flight to Ṭāif. | |
| 622 | July 16. Beginning of the Moslem era. | ||
| Sept. 20. Arrival at Kuba after the Flight. | |||
| 632 | Jan. 27. Death of his son Ibrāhīm. | ||
| 632 | June 7. Death of Mahomet. |
The following dates are given by the Arabic historians according to their own calendar. For the reasons which have been seen it is impossible to obtain certain synchronisms.
| A.H. | 2. | Rajab 1. Raid of ʽAbdallah b. Jaḥsh to Nakhlah. |
| Ramaḍān 19. Battle of Badr. | ||
| Shawwāl 15. Attack on the Banū Qainuqā. | ||
| 3. | Rabīa I. 14. Assassination of Kaʽb b. al-Ashraf. | |
| Shawwāl 7. Battle of Uḥud. | ||
| 4. | Ṣaphar. Massacre of Mahomet’s 70 missionaries at Bi’r Maʽūnah. | |
| Rabīa I. Attack on the Banu Naḍīr. | ||
| Dhu’l-Qaʽda. Abortive raid called “the lesser Badr.” | ||
| 5. | Shaabān 2. Attack on the Banu’l-Muṣṭaliq (according to Wāqidī). | |
| Dhu’l-Qaʽda. Battle of the Trench. | ||
| Massacre of the Banū Quraiẓah. | ||
| 6. | Jomādā i. Capture of a caravan by Zaid b. Ḥārithah. | |
| Futile attempt to assassinate Abū Sofiān. | ||
| Dhu’l-Qaʽda. Affair of Ḥodaibiyah. | ||
| 7. | Jomādā i. Taking of Khaibar. Mission extended to the world. | |
| Dhu’l-Qaʽda. Pilgrimage to Mecca (called ‘umrat al-qaḍiyyah) | ||
| 8. | Jomādā i. Expedition to Mūtah. | |
| Ramaḍān 20. Taking of Mecca. | ||
| Shawwāl. Battle of Ḥonain. Attack on Ṭā‘if. | ||
| 9. | Muḥarram. Tax-gatherers sent over Arabia. | |
| Rajab. Expedition to Tabūk. Rival Mosque built at Kubā, destroyed on Mahomet’s return to Medina. | ||
| Dhu’l-Ḥijja. Pilgrimage conducted by Abu Bekr. Abolition of idolatry in Arabia. | ||
| 10. | Ramaḍān. Expedition of ‘Alī to Yemen. | |
| Dhu’l-Qaʽda. “Farewell Pilgrimage.” | ||
| 11. | Ṣaphar. Expedition ordered against the Byzantines. |
Companions of the Prophet.
The saḥābah, as they are called, are the subject of a vast literature, and the biographical dictionaries devoted to them, of which the best known are the Usd ul-ghāba of the historian Ibn Athīr and the Iṣābah of Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalāni, enumerate many thousands. The following two lists are of special groups.
(a) Naqībs, i.e. leaders selected by Mahomet from the Medinese tribes: i. Khazrajites:—As‘ad b. Zurārah, Saʽd b. al-Rabīʽ, ʽAbdallah b. Rawāḥah, al-Barā’ b. Maʽrūr, ʽAbdallah b. ʽAmr b. Ḥarām, ʽUbādah b. al-Ṣāmit, Saʽd b. ʽUbādah, al-Mondhir b. ʽAmr; ii. Ausites: Usaid b. Ḥuḍair, Saʽd b. Khaithamah, Rifāʽah b. ʽAbd al-Mondhir.
(b) Commanders of Expeditions: names occurring in (a) are not repeated: ʽAbdallāh b. Jaḥsh, ʽAbd ar-Raḥmān b. ʽAuf, Abū Bekr, Abū Qatādah, Abū ʽUbaidah b. al-Jarrāḥ, ʽAli, ʽAlqamah b. Mujazziz, ʽAmr b. al-‘Āṣ (ibn el-Ass), Bashīr b. Saʽd, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sofiān, Ghālib b. ʽAbdallāh, Ibn Abi’l-Aujā, Kaʽb b. ʽUmair, Khālid b. al-Walīd, Kurz b. Jābir, Marthad b. Abī Marthad, Muḥammad b. Maslamah, Quṭbah b. ʽĀmir, Saʽd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, Saʽd d. Zaid, Salama b. ʽAbd al-Asad, Shujāʽ b. Wahb, ʽUbaidah b. al-Ḥārith, ʽUkkāshah b. Miḥṣan, ʽUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, Usamah b. Zaid, ʽUyainah b. Ḥiṣn, Zaid b. Ḥārithah.
Authorities.—The biography of Ibn Isḥāq was before the world long before the two chief causes for the falsification of tradition had begun to have serious effects; these were the need for legal precedents, and the concept of saintliness, combining those of asceticism and thaumaturgy. These gave rise to the classical works on the Evidences of Mohammed’s Mission by Abū Nuʽaim (d. A.D. 1012–1013) and Baihaqī (d. A.D. 1066).
Lives of the Prophet († indicates that the work is lost); †ʽUrwah b. Zubair (d. 712–713); †Musa b. ʽUkbah (d. 758–759); †Mohammed b. Isḥāq (d. 768); Mohammed b. Hishām (d. 828–829), ed. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1860); reprinted in Egypt by Zubair Pasha, a series of excerpts from the last; Mohammed b. Omar al-Wāqidī (d. 823), portion published by Kremer (Calcutta, 1855), abridged trans. of a fuller copy by Wellhausen, Muhammad in Medina (Berlin, 1882); Mohammed b. Saʽd (d. 844–845), an encyclopaedic work on the history of Mahomet and his followers, called Ṭabaqat, ed. Sachau and others (Berlin, foll.); Mohammed b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (see Tabari). Many more writers on this subject are enumerated in the Fihrist, cf. Sprenger’s Leben Muhammads, iii. 54–76.
Among the most popular compilers of later times are: Ibn al-Athir (q.v.) al Jazarī, the historian (d. 1233); Aḥmad b. Ali al Kasṭalānī (d. A.D. 1517), whose al-Mawāhib al-Laduniyyah was published with commentary (Cairo, 1278); Ḥosain b. Mohammed al Diyarbakrī (d. 1574) whose work Ta’rikh al-Khamīs was published in Cairo, A.H. 1382; ‘Ali b. Burhān al-dīn al-Ḥalabī (d. A.D. 1634), whose biography called Insān al-ʽuyūn was published in Cairo, A.H. 1292. To these must be added all the collections of Tradition.
Modern Authorities.—The critical study of the Life of Mahomet begins in Europe with the publication by Th. Gagnier in 1723 of the Life by Abulfeda (q.v.). Presently there appeared an apologetic biography by Henri Cmte. de Boulainvilliers (2nd ed., Amsterdam, 1731), to which Gagnier replied in 1732 (La Vie de Mahomet, traduite, &c. ibid.). The next considerable advance in the treatment of the subject is marked by the biography of G. Weil (Muhammed der Prophet, Stuttgart, 1843), which is wholly without religious bias; the popular life by Washington Irving (London, 1849) is based on this. That by J. L. Merrick (the Life and Religion of Mohammed, Boston, U.S.A., 1850) rests on Shi‘ite sources. The search for MSS. in India conducted by A. Sprenger led to the discovery of fresh material, which was utilized by Sprenger himself in his unfinished Life of Mohammad (Pt. 1, Allahabad, 1851), and his more elaborate Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad (Berlin, 1861–1865), and by Sir William Muir in his Life of Mahomet, (London, 1858–1861) 4 vols.: afterwards abridged in one volume and reprinted. These are still the standard treatises on the subject; the pro-Christian bias of Muir is very marked, while Sprenger has hazarded numerous conjectures on subjects with which he had little familiarity. The biography by S. W. Koelle, Mohammed and Mohammedanism (London, 1889), is pro-Christian, the popular work of Syed Ameer Ali The Spirit of Islam, (London, 1896) an apology for Mahommedanism. Later treatises, resting on original authorities, are those by H. Grimme Mohamed, (Münster, 1892, and Munich, 1904), F. Buhl, Mohameds Liv (Copenhagen, 1903—Danish: since translated into German), D. S. Margoliouth Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (N.Y., 1905, &c.), and Prince Caetani Annali del Islam, i. ii. (Milan, 1905–1907). For the direction of public opinion in Mahomet’s favour the Lecture on The Hero as Prophet in Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero-worship (London, 1846) was singularly effective; his views were enforced by R. Bosworth Smith Mohammed and Mohammedanism, (London, 1873, &c.). A somewhat similar line was taken in France by J. Barthélémy Saint-Hilaire, Mahomet et le Coran, (Paris, 1865), while the Vie de Mahomet d’après la Tradition of E. Lamairesse and G. Dujarric (Paris, 1897) is written entirely from the Moslem standpoint.
See further Caliphate, ad init.; Mahommedan Institutions; Mahommedan Law; Mahommedan Religion. (D. S. M.*)
MAHOMMED AHMED IBN SEYYID ABDULLAH (1848–1885),
Sudanese tyrant, known as “the Mahdi,” was born in Dongola.
His family, known as excellent boat-builders, claimed to be
Ashraf (or Sherifs), i.e. descendants of Mahomet. His father
was a fiki or religious teacher, and Mahommed Ahmed devoted
himself early to religious studies. When about twenty years old
he went to live on Abba Island on the White Nile about 150 m.
above Khartum. He first acquired fame by a quarrel with the
head of the brotherhood which he had joined, Mahommed asserting
that his master condoned transgression of the divine law.
After this incident many dervishes (religious mendicants)
gathered round the young sheikh, whose reputation for sanctity
speedily grew. He travelled secretly through Kordofan, where
(with ample justification) he denounced to the villagers the extortion
of the tax-gatherer and told of the coming of the mahdi
who should deliver them from the oppressor. He also wrote a
- ↑ Dates are given A.D.
