Umara ibn Wathima

Abū Rifāʿa ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma ibn Mūsā ibn al-Furāt al-Fārisī d. 289 AH (901/902CE) 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.^[1] The year of his birth is unknown,^[1] but his father died in 851.^[2]

Works

ʿUmāra wrote at least two works in Arabic.^[3] 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.^[4] 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.^[1][5] It is the earliest source to cite the enigmatic Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī.^[6] It was itself never widely cited.^[7] Of its original two volumes, only the second survives, covering prophets from Moses to Jesus, in two manuscripts.^[5] There is a modern French translation by R. G. Khoury [de].^[8] It has been argued that the real author of the Badʾ al-khalq is Wathīma, who was much more prominent than his son.^[2][5]

According to Ibn al-Jawzī, ʿUmāra also wrote an Annalistic History.^[3]