Wa-bi-Ra¯dha¯n ma¯ bi-Ra¯dha¯n... The landed property of 'Abdalla¯h ibn Mas'u¯d

Digitized text repositories (such as al-Ja¯mi' al-Kabi¯r, al-Maktaba al-Sha¯mila and Maktabat Ahl al-Bayt) open new horizons in the study of early Islamic history. By employing them it was found that 'Abdalla¯h ibn Mas'u¯d had at least four courts, two in Ku¯fa and two in Medina, and at least two estates cultivated by sharecroppers, one in Ra¯dha¯n near Ku¯fa and another in Saylahi¯n near Qa¯disiyya. His situation is comparable to that of a member of the pre-Islamic Sassanian landed aristocracy of absentee landlords. He also had three households in three different places. The desire for control and worldly assets is human, and those who lack it never make it to the highest echelons of power. Put differently, hagiography should not be mistaken for historiography. Whether or not Ibn Mas'u¯d's Ra¯dha¯n should be linked with the Ra¯dha¯nite Jewish merchants remains an open question.