—also known as al-Sadusī (while some held him to be al-Himyari), al-Maʿāfiri, originally from Basra and later a resident of Egypt.

He produced a refined edition of the Prophet’s biography (sīra). He had learned it from Ziyād al-Bakkāʾī, the disciple of Ibn Isḥāq, reduced its poetic passages, and, in several places, narrated it on the authority of ʿAbd al-Wārith ibn Saʿīd and Abū ʿUbaydah. That recension was transmitted from him by Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan al-Qaṭṭān, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Barqī, and his brother Aḥmad ibn al-Barqī.

He also authored a separate work on the genealogies and kings of Ḥimyar.

The sounder view, as stated by Abū Saʿīd ibn Yūnus, is that he was indeed Dhuhlī. He recorded his death as occurring on the thirteenth of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir in the year 218 AH. (1)

Al-Dāraquṭnī said: “ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Muṭṭalibī in Ramla narrated to me; Zakariyyā ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥaywayh narrated to us; I heard al-Muzanī say:

‘When al-Shāfiʿī arrived among us, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Hishām—the author of al-Maghāzī—was then in Egypt. He was the foremost authority of the Egyptians in Arabic language and poetry. People urged him to go and meet al-Shāfiʿī; he at first hesitated, but then he went and declared, “I never imagined that Allah would create anyone like al-Shāfiʿī.”’ (2)

In al-Rawḍ al-Unuf it is stated that Ibn Hishām died in 213 AH. (3)

Abū al-Qāsim al-Suheylī erred in this; the correct date is the one given above.