[22] IN THE GENERATION following that of the tābi‘ūn, among the greater number of connoisseurs in tradition, there are three men who deserve spe-cial mention in this place because they devoted their attention especially to the Maghāzī. ‘Abd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad, Āṣim ibn ‘Umar ibn Qatāda, and Muḥammad ibn Muslim al-Zuhrī; all three being among the weightiest authorities of Ibn Isḥāq, and all three being adherents of the Medina school.

'Abd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr sprang from a Medinan family whose ancestors already in the Prophet’s time had rendered signal service to Islam.‘Abd Allāh’s great-grandfather had been sent by the Prophet to the Yemen with the commission to instruct the inhabitants of that region in the teaching of Islam, and he remained there as the Prophet’s governor in Najran. ‘Abd Allāh’s grandfather, Muḥammad ibn ‘Amr, met his death on the day of the Ḥarra (AH 63) when the Umayyads defeated the [23] forces of Medina. Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam, afterwards caliph, who saw him lying dead upon the field that day, exclaimed: “May Allāh have mercy on thee! By how many a pillar have I seen thee standing long in prayer!”

Lastly, ‘Abd Allāh’s father, Abū Bakr, was judge in Medina from AH 86, the year in which ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz took over the governorship.He was famed as an expert in jurisprudence,which he had learnt from Aban ibn ‘Uthman.In the year AH 96, the caliph Sulayman conferred on him, in addition to his judgeship, the office of governor of Medina,a post that no Medinan before him had held under the Umayyads,but that Abū Bakr retained also under ‘Umar II,and of which Yazīd II first deprived him.He, however, still continued to be judge a while longer under the new governor,with whom he was, however, on bad terms, and who even had him flogged on one occasion.Abū Bakr was later, in AH 118, once more [24] governor of Medina for a few days.He died in AH 120, or some years later.