[EARLY ARABIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET PRINTED IN SARAJEVO] تحفة من كتاب سيرة سيدنا محمد رسول الله [= Izbor iz Kitabu sireti Resulillahi po Muhammad...] [i.e., A masterpiece from the book of the biography of our master Muhammad...]

IBNI ISHAQ, MUHAMMAD (704-768)

Troskom i Nakladom Zemaljske Vlade za Bosnu i Hercegovinu, Sarajevo, 1913.

COMPLETE TITLE: [EARLY ARABIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET PRINTED IN SARAJEVO] تحفة من كتاب سيرة سيدنا محمد رسول الله - Tuhfat min kitab sîrat sayyedinâ Muhammad Rasulullah [= Izbor iz Kitabu sireti Resulillahi po Muhammad ibni Ishaku preradio Abdül-melik Ibni Hisam. Za gimnazije sastavio Sukrija Alagic. Prvi dio = A masterpiece from the book of the biography of our master Muhammad, the Messenger of God, according to Muhammad ibn Ishaq edited by Abdül-melik Ibni Hisam].

Original brown publisher’s cloth. Title in Arabic lettering on front board. Roy. 8vo. (24 x 16 cm). Text in Arabic, colophon is Serbo-Croatian both in Latin and Cyrillic letters. [2], 275, [1] p. Stains on boards. Overall, a very good copy.

Extremely rare first Arabian edition printed in Bosnia, of the earliest surviving “Sirah” is dedicated to Ibn Ishaq, written about 100 years later after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Ibn Ishaq collected oral traditions that shaped the basis of an important biography of the Prophet. Despite some biographies of the Prophet existing before Ibn Ishaq, his Sirah is accepted as no rival and outshone the fame of all his predecessors and contemporaries. (Bozkurt).

The book was published by Sukrija Alagica (1881-1936), who was an Arabist and a professor of Arabic language in Sarajevo for the teaching of Arabic language to Muslim students. This rare book was used as a textbook for many years in the curriculum of Bosnian schools.

The original work of Ibn Ishaq, which is known in the literature “al-Mubtada’ wa al-Ba’th wa al-Maghâzî” or shortly the “Sirah”, is the early biography has reached today as a whole, though with considerable absent parts. An edited copy or recension of his work by his student Ziyâd al-Bakka’i (d. 799), which was further edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833) is known today as al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah. Although Ibn Hisham’s edition wholly survived, he abbreviated, annotated, and sometimes altered the text of Ibn Ishaq.

Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyya, commonly shortened to “Sirah” and translated as prophetic biography, are the traditional Muslim biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad from which, in addition to the Quran and Hadiths, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.

Not in “Bibliografija radova o Islamskoj zajednici u Bosni i Hercegovini: Austrougarski Period”. As of January 2024, we could not trace any copies in the OCLC and KVK.