ʿUmāra Ibn Wathīma
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Abū Rifāʿa ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma ibn Mūsā ibn al-Furāt al-Fārisī d. was a Muslim historian from Egypt. Born in
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 was a son of the historian and silk trader Wathīma ibn Mūsā, a native of
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in Persia. The year of his birth is unknown, but his father died in 851.


Works

ʿUmāra wrote at least two works in
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 ...
. His only surviving work is what was, before the discovery of Abū Ḥudhayfa Isḥāq ibn Bishr Qurashī's ''Mubtadaʾ al-dunyā wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ'', thought to be the oldest surviving book of the '' qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ'' genre. Entitled ''Kitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ'' ('Book of the Beginnings of Creation and the Stories of the Prophets'), it is a collection of didactic stories of those considered
prophets in Islam Prophets in Islam () are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (; sing. , ), those who transmit divine revelation, mos ...
. It is the earliest source to cite the enigmatic Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī. It was itself never widely cited. Of its original two volumes, only the second survives, covering prophets from Moses to Jesus, in two
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s. There is a modern French translation by ., citing . It has been argued that the real author of the ''Badʾ al-khalq'' is Wathīma, who was much more prominent than his son. According to Ibn al-Jawzī, ʿUmāra also wrote an ''Annalistic History''.


Notes


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{Authority control 9th-century births 902 deaths 9th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate 9th-century Arabic-language writers Writers from Cairo