Abū ʿAbdallāh or Abū Bakr Muḥammad Ibn Isḥāq (d. c.151/768) ṣāḥib al-sīra/ṣāḥib al-maghāzī (the compiler of the monograph on the Prophet's biography/battles) compiled the most widespread mediaeval biography of the prophet Muḥammad, known to us mainly through an abridged and censored version produced by Ibn Hishām (d. 218/833 or 213/828). Ibn Isḥāq was a mawlā , that is, a descendant of a manumitted slave. His grandfather Yasār was among a group of Jewish boys taken captive in the village of Nuqayra, near