yet his work teems with exhaustive genealogies whose abridgement would be far more becoming; with lines of poetry of little value, whose omission is preferable; and with reports that have never been verified. At the same time, he failed to include a large number of authentic traditions that were not available to him. Consequently, the book requires pruning, correction, and the incorporation of the reliable material that it misses.
As for the Maghāzī Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, it is contained in a single, modest-sized volume that we have heard in full. The greater part of it is sound, and even its mursal reports are of good quality; nevertheless, it is concise and would benefit from additional explanation and completion. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī rendered fine service in this regard through his work Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa. I myself produced an abridgement of the Prophetic biography and of the Medinan campaigns at the beginning of my al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr, and—Allah willing—it is complete in its subject matter.
Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir al-Ḥizāmī related: “Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah narrated to us: In Medina there was an elder known as Shuraḥbīl Abū Saʿd, one of the most knowledgeable people concerning the Maghāzī. He was accused of attributing precedence (sābiqa) to men who had none; because he had fallen into need, people set aside his Maghāzī and his learning.”
Ibrāhīm continued: “I mentioned this to Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah ibn al-Ṭawīl—no one knew the Maghāzī better than he—and he said to me: ‘Shuraḥbīl Abū Saʿd was indeed learned in the Maghāzī, but they suspected him of including among the participants those who had not fought at Badr, those who were killed on the Day of Uḥud, the emigrants, and others who were not of them. Since he had become needy, he lost standing with the people.’
“When Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah heard of this he said, ‘People have become bold in such matters.’ Though advanced in years, he set about recording the names of everyone who had been present at Badr and Uḥud, and all who had emigrated to Abyssinia and to Medina, and he wrote it all down.
“Ibrāhīm also told us: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk narrated: I heard al-Miswar ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Makhzūmī say to Mālik, ‘Abū ʿAbd Allāh, so-and-so has spoken to me—he wishes to present himself to you—claiming that his grandfather fought at Badr.’
“Mālik replied, ‘You do not know what people say. Whoever is listed in (Kitāb Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah) as having witnessed Badr was certainly there; and whoever is not mentioned in (Kitāb Mūsā) did not witness Badr.’”