IT HAS for some time been evident to modern scholars that the earliest Muslim transmissions relating to the period of the Prophet Mul).ammad appear to have been concerned with maghāzī and that the use of the term szra in that connection came as a later development. It is also evident that those early transmissions about maghāzī were not restricted in scope to the expeditions and raids organised by the Prophet in the Medinan period. On these two connected matters, one may note for example the remarks of F. Sezgin (published in 1967) that “schon bei … der ältesten Generation der tābi'ūn, tritt die eigentliche Prophetenbiographie unter dem Namen magāzī in verhältnif3mässig grof3en Werken auf. Sie wurden in recht frūher Zeit sīra genannt”and that “die magiizī-Literatur … diente anfangs dazu, nicht nur die Kriegszüge des Propheten, sondern seine Biographie überhaupt aufzuzeichen und wurde später sīra genannt”.One point that becomes readily apparent from these statements is that the two phrases “wurden in recht früher Zeit sfra genannt” and “wurde später sīra genannt” are together less than specific about when the term sīra first became current in respect of material relating to the time of the Prophet. The purpose of this paper is to enquire into precisely this question.

To begin with, it will be convenient to consider those earliest transmitters and compilers of material relating to the time of the Prophet who died before the middle of the second century A.H. and so predeceased Ibn Isḥāq. In Sezgin's presentation there I are nineteen of these, including 58 notably ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayī (d. 94/714), al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) and Musā ibn ‘Uqba (d. 141/758). No compilation from this early period has survived as a whole and the bulk of what is available survives as fragmented citations attributed in later works to those earlier transmitters and compilers. What is important here is to stress that the early compilations seem to have been identified in their own time as being about maghāzī, not sīra.