Writings: IslamThe Heidelberg papyri of Wahb ibn Munabbih8 of 10

Writings: Islam

The Heidelberg papyri of Wahb ibn Munabbih

Two Arabic papyri at Heidelberg hold a life of Muhammad and a story of David, attributed to Wahb ibn Munabbih, a Yemeni judge who died between 728 and 734 CE. The David papyrus bears 229 AH (the Islamic calendar), July 844 CE in its editor's conversion. The editor reports no date on the life; others give 228 or 229 AH.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

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

    654 or 655 to 732 CE, the traditional dates of Wahb's life (the Turkish Islam Encyclopedia, a Sunni reference work of 2012, gives his birth as 34 AH and his death as Muharram 114 AH, March 732 CE, where the bar ends; other reports give 110, 113, and 116 AH, and 116 AH, 734 CE, is the latest; it lists the Maghazi first among his works and gives no year for composing it, so the bar shows his lifetime, the time in which that attribution places the text; the sources used include no Shia statement on this text)

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

    the start of the second half of the 8th century CE, drawn as 750 to 800 CE (Raif Georges Khoury, the papyri's editor, 1997: Wahb's material was written down on papyrus, partly by Wahb and wholly by members of his family, at that time; the same article gives Wahb's years as 655 to 728; Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler date the papyrus to 229 AH, give no date for the text, and note that its ascription to Wahb rests on one source with one strand; M. J. Kister gives no date for the writing in the pages used; the bar shows the whole second half of the century because Khoury's sentence does not say how far its start runs, a band set here)

  3. This copy made

    229 AH, July 844 CE by Raif Georges Khoury's conversion (the David papyrus carries the date Dhu l-Qa'da 229; in Khoury's 2014 account the life of Muhammad bears no date but is in the same hand and probably of the same period; Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler give 229 AH for the papyrus with the hijra story, and the Turkish Islam Encyclopedia gives 228 AH, 843 CE, as the year the Maghazi part is said to have been copied; the bar runs from 843 to 844 CE)

  4. This copy found

    by 1906 (Kister cites Carl Heinrich Becker's Papyri Schott-Reinhardt of 1906 for a remark on this papyrus; Khoury reports that the papyri were bought on the Cairo market and given to Heidelberg University, which acquired its Arabic papyri late in the 19th century and above all early in the 20th; the sources used give no year of purchase, no find-spot in Egypt, and no finder)

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

What it is

The Heidelberg papyri are two Arabic texts on papyrus, the writing material of the ancient Egyptians.1 The first, about 21 pages, is a life of Muhammad that its editor, Raif Georges Khoury, calls the oldest known biography of him. It tells of a council of Quraysh leaders (the dar al-nadwa) who decided to kill him. It then follows his move from Mecca to Medina (the hijra) and an expedition of his cousin Ali against a tribe.12

The second papyrus tells of David. Khoury calls it the oldest known story of King David in Islam. The life survives only in part, a 1995 university report says; Khoury rebuilt both almost completely from old manuscripts.13

How the copy was dated

The David papyrus carries a date, Dhu l-Qa'da 229 AH, which Khoury converts to July 844 CE. In his 2014 account the life of Muhammad bears neither title nor date, but is in the same hand and, he writes, probably belongs to the same period.4

Others give a year. Gimaret says one of the two papyri bears 229 AH, without saying which. Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler date the papyrus with the hijra story to 229 AH, citing Khoury. The Turkish Islam Encyclopedia gives 228 AH (843 CE) as the year the Maghazi part is said to have been copied. None of the three says how the year was reached.567 In 1997 Khoury called these pieces the oldest dated book manuscripts of Islam. He did not make clear whether he meant the two Wahb papyri, the Ibn Lahi'a roll, or all three.1 For methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks the Maghazi (the campaigns, a word early Muslims also used for the life of Muhammad) that sources attribute to Wahb. Both rows ask when that text was made, not when this copy was.1 The tradition row draws the traditional dates of Wahb's life, since the Turkish encyclopedia gives no year for composing the Maghazi.7 The critical row draws a band set here from Khoury's dating.1

The tradition's view

The tradition's view here comes through a Sunni reference work and a scholar of hadith, not a community's statement. The Turkish Religious Foundation's Islam Encyclopedia (2012) calls Wahb a Yemeni judge of Sana'a. It gives his birth as 34 AH (654 or 655 CE) and his death as Muharram 114 AH (March 732 CE), with 110, 113, and 116 AH as other years. It names the Maghazi first among his works and reports that critics including al-Ijli and al-Nasa'i held him reliable, but calls his authorship of the David text doubtful. It gives no year for composing the Maghazi.7

Mohammad Hashim Kamali writes that Muhammad is reported to have discouraged writing down hadith (reports of his words and deeds), lest they be mixed with the Quran. Later reports say he allowed it. Companions such as Ali kept small booklets, and Abd Allah ibn Amr compiled a collection called al-sahifa al-sadiqa.8 The sources used include no Shia statement on this text, and none from either branch on the miraculous details of its hijra account.

Scholars of early Islam: Khoury, Kister, Shoemaker, Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler

Khoury holds that members of Wahb's family wrote down his material on papyrus, with Wahb writing part of it, at the start of the second half of the eighth century.1 M. J. Kister called the fragments probably the earliest extant document of sira-literature2, meaning writing on Muhammad's life. He suggests that if it records the tradition as Wahb passed it on, it mirrors the first extant attempt to combine Shia and Sunni versions of the hijra.2

Stephen Shoemaker, as Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler quote him, argues that the papyrus's hijra traditions call into question nearly every aspect of the account traced to Urwa ibn al-Zubayr. They argue in reply that its ascription to Wahb rests on one source with one strand. They hold that it tells the hijra with miraculous details the Urwa version lacks, and place it among non-historical traditions beside the historical one.6

How it was found

Khoury reports that the papyri were bought on the Cairo market and given to Heidelberg University. They carry the mark PSR (Papyri Schott-Reinhardt). Reinhardt, a dragoman (interpreter and guide) at the German consulate, made the purchases, and Schott, a former cement-works director, gave generously.1 The sources used give no year of purchase and no find-spot, though Kister cites Becker's Papyri Schott-Reinhardt of 1906 for a remark on this papyrus.2 Khoury traces the papyri to Ibn Lahi'a's library and house at Fustat.4

Khoury published the life in 1972, and Kister corrected some of his readings in 1974.2 Khoury's 2014 chapter lists both papyri among the collection's treasures, though the library's page on its digital collection (read on 6 November 2026) does not name them.49

What it shows, and what it does not

The David papyrus shows that by 229 AH (July 844 CE by Khoury's conversion) a story of David, attributed to Wahb, was being copied on papyrus.4 Khoury writes that the life is in the same hand and probably of the same period.4 On that reading, an account of the hijra and of a campaign of Ali was being copied then too, with a chain of transmitters traced to Wahb.6 Kister, agreeing with Becker, found it closer to the miraculous stories of later popular lives of Muhammad than to al-Tabari and Ibn Hisham, and its hijra story different from the accepted versions.2

It does not show that Wahb wrote the text it carries. Khoury holds that Wahb and his family wrote it down. He dates that to the start of the second half of the eighth century, which by a comparison computed here falls after the years the sources give for Wahb's death (728 to 734 CE). Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler note that the ascription rests on a single source with a single strand, and the Turkish encyclopedia calls Wahb's authorship of the David text doubtful.167

Nor does it show that this telling of the hijra records what happened: Gorke, Motzki, and Schoeler class its miraculous version as non-historical, beside what they call the historical tradition, which they say Urwa and his students largely kept free of later additions, while Shoemaker argues from it against the Urwa version.6 The sources used do not settle whether the life carries its own date.

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. Meir J. Kister. On the Papyrus of Wahb b. Munabbih. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 37, no. 3, pp. 545 to 571 (Cambridge University Press); the full text is hosted on the Hebrew University's Kister works site, 1974, pp. 545 to 571 (the PDF's page 1 is p. 545). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Andreas Gorke, Harald Motzki, and Gregor Schoeler. First Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad? A Debate. Der Islam 89, no. 2, pp. 2 to 59 (De Gruyter); full text read in the University of Edinburgh's repository copy, 2012, pp. 2 to 4 (introduction) and p. 22 (the Wahb papyrus); the PDF's page numbers are the journal's. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. Mahmut Demir and Mehmet Emin Ozafsar. Vehb b. Munebbih (Wahb ibn Munabbih). TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi (Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam), vol. 42, Istanbul, 2012, pp. 608 to 610, 2012, the whole entry (Turkish). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Hadith. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. 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.