Wathima ibn Musa

{{Short description|Persian muslim historian and silk trader}}

Wathīma ibn Mūsā{{efn|{{harvnb|Khoury|2002}} gives his full name as Wathīma ibn Mūsā ibn al-Furāt al-Fārisī al-Fasawī al-Azhar al-Ghanī.}} (died 9 December 851), nicknamed al-Washshāʾ ('trader in embroideries'), was a Persian Muslim historian and silk trader.{{sfn|Khoury|2002}}

Born in the city of Fasā, Wathīma moved first to Baṣra, then to Egypt and to al-Andalus before returning to Egypt, where he settled in the city of Fusṭāṭ. He studied ḥadīth (traditions) and, according to Ibn al-Faraḍī, this was the purpose of his travels to the West. He wrote a Kitāb fī Akhbār al-ridda, an Arabic account of the great apostasy of 632. It is a lost work, although at least 110 passages from it are quoted by other authors, including Ibn Khallikān,{{efn|Ibn Khallikān's entry on Wathīma in his biographical dictionary can be found in {{harvnb|Mac Guckin de Slane|1868|pp=647–656}}.}} Ibn Shākir al-Kutubī, Yāqūt al-Rūmī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. It was praised for its literary quality and its breadth by Ibn al-ʿImād.{{sfn|Khoury|2002}}

Wathīma died in Fusṭāṭ.{{sfn|Khoury|2002}} He had a son, ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma, who was born in Fusṭāṭ.{{sfn|Mac Guckin de Slane|1868|p=648}} The Kitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, a collection of legends of the prophets, is attributed to ʿUmāra, but is more probably the work of Wathīma.{{sfn|Blatherwick|2016|pp=70–71}}