Writings: IslamThe Ibn Lahi'a roll at Heidelberg9 of 10

Writings: Islam

The Ibn Lahi'a roll at Heidelberg

This Arabic papyrus roll, 189 centimeters long, holds about 200 early Islamic reports, most on the word of Ibn Lahi'a, a judge of Egypt who died in 790 CE. It bears no date: a 1995 Heidelberg University report dates it to the end of the 8th century, and its editor says a version of the early 9th century survives.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    715 or 716 to 790 CE, the traditional dates of Ibn Lahi'a's life (the Turkish Religious Foundation's Islam Encyclopedia, a Sunni reference work of 1999, gives his birth in 96 or 97 AH (the Islamic calendar) and his death in 174 AH, where the bar ends (some sources give 173 AH); it says the early sources name no work by him and that the roll has no date and no title, so the bar shows his lifetime, the time in which the attribution places the reports; researchers named the roll after him because about three-quarters of its reports reached it through his pupil Uthman ibn Salih; Bekir Tatli's article of 2022 does not mention the roll; the sources used include no Shia statement on the roll)

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    No source used gives a method for dating the reports as a written collection. Raif Georges Khoury, the roll's editor (1997), names Ibn Lahi'a (715 to 790 CE) as its author and his pupil Uthman ibn Salih (761 to 834 CE) as its transmitter, and a 1995 Heidelberg University report names a judge of Egypt of the 8th century as its author; if Ibn Lahi'a is the author, the reports are no later than 790 CE. Daniel Gimaret reports that Khoury's edition says nothing more of its date than that it is probably from the time of its transmitters. Harald Motzki urges caution in dating one account that Ibn Lahi'a gave on Urwa's authority.

  3. This copy made

    775 to 825 CE, a band drawn here (a 1995 Heidelberg University report says the roll is undated but comes from the end of the 8th century; Raif Georges Khoury, its editor, wrote in 1997 that a version of the early 9th century survives; neither gives a method; the bar covers both dates)

  4. This copy found

    by 1906 (Carl Heinrich Becker reported a Heidelberg papyrus holding Ibn Lahi'a's reports in Papyri Schott-Reinhardt that year, as the Turkish Islam Encyclopedia notes; Khoury writes that the Heidelberg papyri were bought on the Cairo market and given to the university, but the year of purchase and the find-spot of this roll are not recorded in the sources used)

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

This is a papyrus roll 189 centimeters long, written in Arabic on both sides. Its editor, Raif Georges Khoury, counts 63 printed pages and calls it the only papyrus roll to survive from Islamic culture.12 Daniel Gimaret, who reviewed the edition in 1987, counts 422 lines and about 200 reports.2

The sources describe its contents differently. Khoury says they concern mainly ritual and legal life. Gimaret lists events, such as the killing of Uthman, the third caliph (leader of the Muslims after Muhammad), and Ibn al-Zubayr besieged in Mecca. He also lists the signs of the Hour (the end of the world) and sayings on women, Arabs, and illness. The Turkish Islam Encyclopedia says they are especially about civil strife (fitan) and end-time battles (malahim), besides some legal topics.123

How the copy was dated

The roll bears no date. A 1995 Heidelberg University report says it is known to come from the end of the eighth century CE, without saying how.4 Khoury wrote in 1997 that a version from the start of the ninth century survives, again with no method given.1 Gimaret notes that Khoury says only that the roll probably comes from the time of its transmitters. These were pupils of Ibn Lahi'a: Uthman ibn Salih (761 to 834 CE) and Abd Allah ibn Wahb (743 to 812 CE), in Khoury's 1997 years.21 The Turkish Islam Encyclopedia agrees that it has no date and no title.3

No radiocarbon test or handwriting study is reported in the sources used. The strip's bar runs from 775 to 825 CE, a band drawn here to cover both dates. For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

Sources in both columns link the reports to Ibn Lahi'a, a judge of Egypt.31 The tradition row draws the traditional dates of his life, because the Turkish Islam Encyclopedia gives no year for the reports as a written text.3 The critical row is blank and says why in words: no source used gives a method for dating the reports as a written collection.

The tradition's view

The tradition's view here comes through a Sunni reference work and a scholar's article, not a community's statement. Nihat Dalgin, in the Turkish Religious Foundation's Islam Encyclopedia (1999), says Ibn Lahi'a was born in Cairo in 715 or 716 CE, served as judge of Egypt from 772 CE for about ten years, and died in 790 CE. The encyclopedia says the early sources name no work by him. It adds that he had a large library, and that researchers named the roll the Sahifa of Abd Allah ibn Lahi'a because about three-quarters of its reports reached it through his pupil Uthman ibn Salih.3

Sunni critics of hadith (reports of what Muhammad said or did) divided over him. Malik, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and al-Layth ibn Sad are reported to have called him reliable, and al-Nasa'i, Abu Zur'a, and Ibn Ma'in weak.3 Bekir Tatli writes that early sources often mention him negatively while others praise him, and that he should be reassessed without prejudice.5 The sources used include no Shia statement on the roll.

Scholars of early Islam: Khoury, Gimaret, and Motzki

Khoury names Ibn Lahi'a as the roll's author in 1997. His pupil Uthman ibn Salih, he writes, transmitted it on his master's authority, as was usual in the first Islamic centuries. In 2014 Khoury calls it the roll attributed to him.16 Gimaret notes that Ibn Lahi'a is in fact only the roll's central author (l'auteur central, in Khoury's phrase). About three-quarters of the reports come on his word and about 40 on that of his pupil Abd Allah ibn Wahb. Khoury holds that doubts about Ibn Lahi'a's reliability were wrongly raised.2

Harald Motzki studied one account that Ibn Lahi'a gave from Abu l-Aswad on the authority of Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, the killing of Ibn Abi l-Huqayq. He finds the dictionaries' record of Ibn Lahi'a not very favorable. He cites recent studies that find some features in Ibn Lahi'a's accounts on this chain that did not originally belong to Urwa's text. The version may still be independent of al-Zuhri's and go back to earlier sources, but he would not use it for dating until it is studied further.7

How it was found

Khoury writes that the Heidelberg manuscripts were bought on the Cairo market and given to the university. He adds that Ibn Lahi'a's library was the source of this roll and of other documents found with it. The documents carry no signs of origin, so it is not always possible to say which.16 The sources used do not name this roll's find-spot or the year it was bought.

Carl Heinrich Becker reported it in his Papyri Schott-Reinhardt of 1906.3 Khoury edited it in 1986, with the Arabic text, a summary in place of a full translation, and a photograph of the whole roll.2 Khoury's 2014 chapter lists the roll among the collection's treasures. The library's page on its digital collection (read on 6 November 2026) says the Institute for Papyrology houses its Arabic papyri but does not name the roll.68

What it shows, and what it does not

Neither a university report nor Khoury states a method for the roll's date. On the university report's date, the roll suggests that reports of this kind were being written on papyrus in Egypt by the end of the eighth century CE, and on Khoury's, by the early ninth. Most came on the word of one judge, Ibn Lahi'a. Khoury says rolls, called sahifas, were in common use in early Islamic Egypt, and that the judge's house held a library unique for its time.21

It does not show that the reports are accurate or go back to the events they tell. Sunni critics split on Ibn Lahi'a, and Motzki, studying one account he gave on Urwa's authority, urges caution in dating it.37 Nor does it show that Ibn Lahi'a himself compiled it. About 40 reports come on his pupil Ibn Wahb's word, and Khoury says Uthman ibn Salih passed it on.21 Few of its reports go back to Muhammad, so it is not a collection of his hadith in the usual sense.2

See also

Sources

  1. Raif Georges Khoury. Die aeltesten islamischen Papyri (The oldest Islamic papyri). Ruperto Carola, Forschungsmagazin der Universitaet Heidelberg, issue 1/1997 (online edition on the university's press pages), 1997, the whole article (German). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Daniel Gimaret. Review of Raif Georges Khoury, 'Abd Allah Ibn Lahi'a (97-174/715-790), juge et grand maitre de l'ecole egyptienne, avec edition critique de l'unique rouleau de papyrus arabe conserve a Heidelberg (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1986). Bulletin critique des annales islamologiques no. 4 (Cairo, 1987), pp. 44 to 45; online at Persee, 1987, pp. 44 to 45 (French). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Nihat Dalgin. Ibn Lehia (Ibn Lahi'a). TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi (Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam), vol. 20, Istanbul, 1999, pp. 158 to 159, 1999, the whole entry (Turkish). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. No author is named on the page (the item is headed 'Aus der Stiftung Universitaet Heidelberg'). Aus der Stiftung Universitaet Heidelberg (From the Heidelberg University Foundation), a report on a symposium of November 1994. Ruperto Carola, Forschungsmagazin der Universitaet Heidelberg, issue 2/1995 (online edition on the university's press pages), 1995, the whole item (German). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Bekir Tatli. The Scholarly Environment in the Period When Ibn Lahi'a (d. 174/790) Lived (Ibn Lehi'a'nin (o. 174/790) Yasadigi Donemde Ilmi Muhit). Hitit Theology Journal 21, no. 2, pp. 1363 to 1388 (open access, CC BY-NC 4.0), 2022, the English abstract (p. 1364). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Raif Georges Khoury. Les papyrus arabes de Heidelberg disparus. Essai de reconstruction et d'analyse (The lost Arabic papyri of Heidelberg: an attempt at reconstruction and analysis). Chapter 13, pp. 249 to 260, in Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World, Brill (the Brill page lists an e-book print date of 8 February 2019; the scholarly index OpenAlex dates the chapter to 2014, which is the year used here), 2014, section II ('Quelques raretes specialement precieuses') and section V ('Les papyrus disparus de la collection'); the whole chapter (French). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. Harald Motzki (editor of the volume; the passage cited is his chapter 'The Murder of Ibn Abi l-Huqayq: On the Origin and Reliability of Some Maghazi-Reports'). The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources. Brill (Islamic History and Civilization 32), 2000, 2000, pp. 223 to 224 (Motzki's chapter). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Heidelberg University Library (with the Institute for Papyrology). Heidelberger Papyrussammlung - digital (Heidelberg Papyrus Collection, digital). Heidelberg University Library, the introductory text (English). Accessed 2026-11-06.