Wathīma ibn Mūsā (died 9 December 851), nicknamed ''al-Washshāʾ'' ('trader in embroideries'), was a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Muslim historian The following is a list of Muslim historians writing in the Islamic historiographical tradition, which developed from hadith literature in the time of the first caliphs. Chronological list Historians of the Formative Period The First Century ...

and silk trader. Born in the city of

Fasā FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001, after which they closed publishing operations for several years, becoming an IP holding company under the name FASA Inc. In 2012, ...

, Wathīma moved first to

Baṣra Basra () is a port city in southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq border at the north-easternmost extent ...

, then to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and to

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

before returning to Egypt, where he settled in the city of

Fusṭāṭ Fustat (), also Fostat, was the first List of historical capitals of Egypt, capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, though it has been integrated into Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Caliphate, Rashidun ...

. He studied ''

ḥadīth Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

'' (traditions) and, according to Ibn al-Faraḍī, this was the purpose of his travels to the West. He wrote a ''Kitāb fī Akhbār al-ridda'', an

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

account of the great apostasy of 632. It is a lost work, although at least 110 passages from it are quoted by other authors, including

Ibn Khallikān Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān (; 22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Islamic historian of Kurdish origin who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedi ...

, Ibn Shākir al-Kutubī, Yāqūt al-Rūmī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. It was praised for its literary quality and its breadth by

Ibn al-ʿImād Ibn al-ʿImād () (1623-1679), full name ʿAbd al-Ḥayy bin Aḥmad bin Muḥammad ibn al-ʿImād al-ʿAkarī al-Ḥanbalī Abū al-Falāḥ (), was a Syrian Muslim historian and faqih of the Hanbali school. Life Born in the Al-Salihiyah q ...

. Wathīma died in Fusṭāṭ. He had a son,

ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma Abū Rifāʿa ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma ibn Mūsā ibn al-Furāt al-Fārisī d. was a Muslim historian from Egypt. Born in Fusṭāṭ, he was a son of the historian and silk trader Wathīma ibn Mūsā, a native of Fasā in Persia. The year of his birt ...

, who was born in Fusṭāṭ. The ''Kitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ'', a collection of legends of the prophets, is attributed to ʿUmāra, but is more probably the work of Wathīma.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * *{{cite book , editor-link=William McGuckin de Slane , editor-first=William , editor-last=Mac Guckin de Slane , title=Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary , volume=3 , location=Paris , year=1868 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qQUVAAAAQAAJ 851 deaths People from Fasa 9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate 9th-century Arabic-language writers