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An Interpretation of The Different Accounts of the Visit of The Tamīm Delegation to the Prophet in A.H. 9
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
OF all the delegations that are said to have come to pay homage to the Prophet in Madina in A.H. 9, none received so much attention from Arab historians as the delegation of the trībe of Tamlm. They tell1 of a boasting competition between members of the delegation and representatives of the Prophet, which resulted in their defeat and subsequent conversion to Islam. This explanation of the conversion of the Tamīmīs, which was accepted in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2 does not appear, however, to be warranted by the circumstances. Moreover, the confusion apparent in the whole story casts grave doubt at least on its details as well as on the degree of importance usually assigned to it, and, furthermore, the poems connected with the story appear to be of later date.
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- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , October 1955 , pp. 416 - 425
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1955
References
page 416 note 1 For references see below.
page 416 note 2 EI, article on Hassān b. Thābit
page 416 note 3 Reference to the length of the poems in their different versions will be made only when the fact is important to the argument.
page 416 note 4 Different members of the delegation are sometimes credited with a poem, but the fact is not important.
page 416 note 5 Sīra (ed Wüstenfeld), 935–8; Tabarī (ed. De Goeje), 1713–6; Ibn al-Athīr (ed Tornberg), n, 220–1; Ibn 'Asākir (ed. Badrān), IV, 130 ff. and III, 255–7; Aghānī (Bulaq), LV, 8–9.
page 416 note 6 Dīwan of Hassān b. Thābit, ed. Hirschfeld, No. XXIII.
page 416 note 7 Dīwan No. xxv.
page 416 note 8 Dīwan No. xxII.
page 417 note 1 Minor differences which are of no importance have been disregarded.
page 417 note 2 Minor differences which are of no importance have been disregarded.
page 418 note 1 Kitāb al-Maghāzī, B.M. MS. Or 1617.
page 418 note 2 al-Bidāya Wa'l-nihāya (Cairo, 1932 ), v, 45.
page 418 note 3 'Uyūn al-Athar (Cairo, 1937), II, 203.
page 418 note 4 The second expression would seem to mean that the necessary spells were cast on his behalf.
page 419 note 1 The Tunis edn. and editions based on it.
page 420 note 1 would seem to indicate Jews.
page 421 note 1 This is the reading in the Dīwān, the Sīra, and Ibn Kathīr.
page 421 note2 Further reference to this line will be made below.
page 421 note3 cf., for example, Dīwān No. xxI (Sīra 799), 11. 12 ff., where the praise is also directed towards the Family of Hāshim and not to the Prophet.
page 421 note4 v. Dīwān No. cxxxI, Sīra, 884–6. The poem concerned is probably a forgery, but it expresses the mood which undoubtedly prevailed among the Ansār at the time. Such forgeries were often composed with this end in view, and were based directly on the facts given in the narrative.
page 422 note1 See footnote on these poems in my article ‘ A Controversial Incident in the Life of Hassān b. Thābit’, BSOAS xvII, 2, p. 205. Reference to the said footnote and comparison with some of the poems mentioned in it will be sufficient to show that the poem now under consideration is undoubtedly the work of an Ansārī of a later generation.
page 423 note1 cf. also Dīwān xvii, 21.
page 423 note2 cf., e.g. Dīwān vi, 19.
page 424 note1 Sīra 881.
page 424 note2 Ibn Kathīr, v, 45.