Biographical Sources[8] There were at least fifteen direct recensions of Ibn Ishaq's biography of
Muhammad, a list of which Guillaume quotes from Fueck in Muhammad,
p. xxx:
1) Ibrahim b. Sa`d [b. Abu Waqqas] (d. 184 AH)
2) Ziyad b. `Abdullah al-Bakka'i (d. 183 AH)
3) `Abdullah b. Idris al-Audi (d. 192 AH)
4) Yunus b. Bukayr (d. 199 AH)
5) `Abda b. Sulayman (d. 187-8 AH)
6) `Abdullah b. Numayr (d. 199 AH)
7) Yahya b. Sa`id al-Umawi (d. 194 AH)
8) Jarir b. Hazim (d. 170 AH)
9) Harun b. Abu `Isa
10) Salama b. al-Fadl al-Abrash (d. 191 AH)
11) `Ali b. Mujahid (d. ca. 180 AH)
12) Ibrahim b. al-Mukhtar
13) Sa`id b. Bazi`
14) `Uthman b. Saj
15) Muhammad b. Salama al-Harrani (d. 191 AH)[9] See nn. 10-13, below, and Guillaume, Muhammad, pp. xxxi f.
[10] Ibn Hisham used the Ibn Ishaq recension of Ziyad b. `Abdullah al-
Bakka'i, which he rather heavily edited, omitting: parts not mentioning
Muhammad, parts not supported by the Qur'an, some poetry, matters which
were "disgraceful to discuss," material "which would distress certain
people" and "reports" which al-Bakka'i himself "could not accept as
trustworthy" (see Ibn Hisham's note in Guillaume, Muhammad, p. 691,
n. 10).
[11] According to Kitab al-Tabaqat (see Sachau's edition III, 1, p. xxv and
III, 2, p. 51, ll. 17-19), which was composed by some of his students, Ibn
Sad made use of the Ibn Ishaq recensions of Ibrahim b. Sad b. Abu
Waqqas and Harun b. Abu Isa. Guillaume mistakenly gives Yunus b. Bukayr (Muhammad, p. xvii), in which he appears to have exchanged Ibrahim b. Sad (whom Sachau describes as Ibn Ishaq's fourth narrator)
with Yunus b. Bukayr (whom Fueck describes as being Ibn Ishaq's fourth
narrator). However, even Schwally must have noticed (GQ, vol. 2, p. 135,