Author : Muhammad Ibn Sa'd
THE AUTHOR Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn Sa'd is one of the greatest authorities on Muslim biography. His collection, the Kitab at-Tabagat al-Kabir, is one of the most important and earliest surviving biographical collections of narrations. Ibn Sa'd was born in 148/764 in Basra, and died in 230/845. He moved to Baghdad where he studied under various people, especially Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Waqidi. He also visited Kufa and Madina in the course of his quest for knowledge. Many authorities have testified to his reliability. THE BOOK Volume 8 of the Kitab at-Tabagat al-Kabir, which deals exclusively with the women who met the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, or who transmitted from him, was published as The Women of Madina. This book, The Men of Madina - Volume I, is a translation of Volume 7 of the Kitab at-Tabagat al-Kabir. It deals with the Companions, Tabi'un and the subsequent generations of the people of knowledge in Basra, Baghdad, Khurasan, Syria and Egypt. (The people of Kufa are found in Volume 6, and the people of Madina in Volume 5 - the translations of which will, insh'Allah, be published as Volumes II and III of The Men of Madina in due course.) The Men of Madina - Volume I is of particular interest because its pages demonstrate the attitude and action of the Companions and the Tabi'un when confronted by that most dangerous of trials - fitna, or civil war. This is extremely important in the modern age, in which fitna is commonplace, for we can learn a great deal from how the early Muslims dealt with it. THE TRANSLATOR: Aisha Abdarrahman at-Tarjumana Bewley is one of today's most reliable and prolific translators of classical works from Arabic into English. Unlike many non-Muslim orientalists - who either did not fully understand the meaning of what they were translating or who deliberately wished to misrepresent it - Aisha Bewley not only understands Arabic but also the teachings and history of Islam. For more than twenty years she has made the contents of many classical works in Arabic accessible to English-speaking readers for the first time, including Al-Muwatta' of Imam Malik and The Foundations of Islam and Ash-Shifa' of Qadi'lyad. Size : cm
Weight : 550 gm / 1.21 lbs
Pages : 337
Binding : Paper Back