The Life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ Kitab al-Maghazı by Al-Waqidı¯. “Al-Waqidı¯’s Kitab al-Maghazı maintains the broad narrative outline provided by Ibn Ishaq. It describes for us a leader who is very much a part of his community; he shares in the people’s hunger and pain, insists on their charity for the needy, partici-
pates in their toil and labor, and incessantly reminds them of a just, but forgiving Lord, who is on his (Muhammad’s) side, helping him win battles and perform miracles as only a prophet can. Like Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidı¯ is driven by a focus on the narrative itself. After listing a series of transmitters, he often mixes each one’s disparate accounts into a combined narrative to convey a more interesting ‘tale’ of what the Prophet did on a certain occasion. Contained, as well, are communications from persons who are either
unrecognized or lacking in credibility, after which, al-Waqidı¯ sometimes conveys his skepticism.
The knitting together of these materials required considerable skill, and compilers competed with each other to produce what they hoped would be the most artful and plausible representation of the Muslim Prophet. The Maghazı compilation by al- Waqidı was probably an attempt to challenge that of his older contemporary, Ibn Ishaq. With this in mind he tries to differentiate his work, most obviously, by moving
the focus of his compilation directly to those traditions regarding the Prophet’s life in Yathrib (known as the ‘City of the Prophet,’ Medinat al-Nabı¯, and called “Medina,” for short), the chosen home, to which he immigrated in 622 C.E. and where he died and was buried. It was from here that he captured the sanctuary of the Kaba from the polytheistic Mecca’s to finally establish the Arab version of monotheism that was
Islam. As well, al-Waqidı entitles only those expeditions in which the Prophet actively
participated as ghazwa (those in which the Prophet did not participate are differentiated as sariyya). He then extends the term to incorporate all the key negotiations , including the Peace of Hudaybiyya and several defensive battles, and thus brings together what may be viewed as the Prophet’s achievements under the title Maghazı
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