The standard English translations: in prose by Geo. Sale (first publ., Lond., 1734, also 1801, 1825,
Philad., 1833, etc.), with a learned and valuable preliminary discourse and notes; in the metre,
but without the rhyme, of the original by J. M. Rodwell (Lond., 1861, 2d ed. 1876, the Suras
arranged in chronological order). A new transl. in prose by E. H. Palmer. (Oxford, 1880, 2
vols.) in M. Müller’s "Sacred Books of the East." Parts are admirably translated by Edward W.
Lane.
French translation by Savary, Paris, 1783, 2 vols.; enlarged edition by Garcin de Tassy, 1829, in 3
vols.; another by M. Kasimirski, Paris, 1847, and 1873.
German translations by Wahl (Halle, 1828), L. Ullmann (Bielefeld, 1840, 4th ed. 1857), and parts
by Hammer von Purgstall (in the Fundgruben des Orients), and Sprenger (in Das Leben und
die Lehre des Mohammad).
- Secondary sources on the Life of Moh. and the origin of Islâm are the numerous poems of
contemporaries, especially in Ibn Ishâc, and the collections of the sayings of Moh., especially
the Sahih (i.e. The True, the Genuine) of Albuchârî (d. 871). Also the early Commentaries on
the Koran, which explain difficult passages, reconcile the contradictions, and insert traditional
sayings and legends. See Sprenger, III. CIV. sqq.
II. Works On The Koran.
Th. Nöldeke: Geschichte des Quorâns, (History of the Koran), Göttingen, 1860; and his art. in the
"Encycl. Brit., 9th ed. XVI. 597–606.
Garcin de Tassy: L’Islamisme d’après le Coran l’enseignement doctrinal et la pratique, 3d ed. Paris,
1874.
Gustav Weil: Hist. kritische Einleitung in den Koran. Bielefeld und Leipz., 1844, 2d ed., 1878.
Sir William Muir: The Corân. Its Composition and Teaching; and the Testimony it bears to the
Holy Scriptures. (Allahabad, 1860), 3d ed., Lond., 1878.
Sprenger, l.c., III., pp. xviii.-cxx.
III. Biographies of Mohammed. - Mohammedan biographers.
Zohri (the oldest, died after the Hegira 124).
Ibn Ishâc (or Ibni Ishak, d. A. H. 151, or a.d. 773), ed. in Arabic from MSS. by Wüstenfeld, Gött.,
1858–60, translated by Weil, Stuttg., 1864.
Ibn (Ibni) Hishâm (d. A. H. 213, a.d. 835), also ed. by Wüstenfeld, and translated by Weil, 1864.
Katib Al Waquidi (or Wackedee, Wackidi, d. at Bagdad A. H. 207, a.d. 829), a man of prodigious
learning, who collected the traditions, and left six hundred chests of books (Sprenger, III.,
LXXI.), and his secretary, Muhammad Ibn Sâad (d. A. H. 230, a.d. 852), who arranged, abridged,
and completed the biographical works of his master in twelve or fifteen for. vols.; the first vol.
contains the biography of Moh., and is preferred by Muir and Sprenger to all others. German
transl. by Wellhausen: Muhammed in Medina. From the Arabic of Vakidi. Berlin, 1882.
Tabari (or Tibree, d. A. H. 310, a.d. 932), called by Gibbon "the Livy of the Arabians."
Muir says (I., CIII.): "To the three biographies by Ibn Hishâm, by Wackidi, and his secretary, and
by Tabari, the judicious historian of Mahomet will, as his original authorities, confine himself.
He will also receive, with a similar respect, such traditions in the general collections of the
earliest traditionists—Bokhâri, Muslim, Tirmidzi, etc.,—as may bear upon his subject. But he
will reject as evidence all later authors." Abulfeda (or Abulfida, d. 1331), once considered the
chief authority, now set aside by much older sources.