Urwa serves as a source for two types of materials on the early Islamic period: hadith and letters. His situation in an important early Islamic family enabled him to obtain first hand information on the period. He would gather accounts from his father, mother, as well as his aunt, but also reported from other authorities such as
Abd Allah ibn Abbas,
Abu Hurayra,
Abd Allah ibn Amr ibn al-As,
Usama ibn Zayd, and
Abu Dharr al-Ghifari.
Hadith Urwa narrated a number of
hadiths (traditions about the sayings and deeds attributed to Muhammad as well as early Muslims) which are transmitted through his son Hisham and his student
Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 742). These have been reported in hadith collections—
Musnad of
Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), and the
canonical compilations of
al-Bukhari (d. 870) and
Muslim (d. 875) among others—legal works like
Muwatta of
Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), historical works (Ibn Ishaq, al-Tabari, al-Baladhuri), and the exegetical works (e.g.
Tafsir al-Tabari). The hadiths cover all events of significance on early Islam, but his reports concerning the life of Muhammad are of central importance. According to Schoeler, these are taken as the starting point for any
historical study of Muhammad's life. They include subjects like the beginning of Muhammad's prophecy,
Meccan persecution, the emigration of the Muslims to Medina (
hijra), campaigns against the Jewish tribes of
Qaynuqa and
Qurayza, the battles of the
Trench and
Hunayn, the treaty of
al-Hudaybiya, Muhammad's letters to various people, as well as his last days. He also narrated short reports on the Rashidun period such as the
Ridda wars,
campaigns in Syria, the claims of
Abbas,
Fatima, and
Muhammad's wives to his inheritance, battles of the
Yarmuk,
Qadisiyya, and of the Camel, and Umar's journey to Jerusalem. However, some of these are no more than passing references. In addition to historical data, he transmitted hadiths on legal issues concerning laws (such as those on property, marriage, divorce, the status of women and slaves) and rituals, such as ablution, prayer, and pilgrimage. Many of his transmitted hadiths give explanations for various Qur'anic passages and provide historical background to their origin. This would later become a standard practice in
Qur'anic exegesis to explain verses in terms of Muhammad's life. In the traditional Muslim
hadith criticism, Urwa is considered a trustworthy transmitter and is praised for his piety and depth of his knowledge. In some of his hadith narrations, Urwa did not specify the authorities from whom he got these traditions (), whereas in others, his do not fulfil the requirements of criticism as they developed later on. In his day, the use of was somewhat customary but was nevertheless flexible, and rules of reliability had not yet fully developed (e.g. it was not required to stretch the back to a
companion of Muhammad). Two-thirds of his hadiths are transmitted on the authority of A'isha, although in some of these her name might have been inserted later. The historian
Montgomery Watt assumes that all of the in his traditions that go beyond him are likely later insertions based on conjecture, which may or may not be correct. In some reports, his sources were written documents, such as Muhammad's letter to the residents of the
East Arabian town of
Hajar.
Written sources Urwa's letters to the caliphs Abd al-Malik and al-Walid, which he wrote in response to their queries, have been reported to the fullest in the
History and the
Tafsir of
al-Tabari (d. 923), although to a lesser extent also in earlier works of
Ibn Ishaq (d. 767),
al-Waqidi (d. 823),
Ibn Sa'd (d. 844/845), Ibn Hanbal, and
Umar ibn Shabba (d. 875), which contain excerpts and references to these letters. Some letters, however, only appear in al-Tabari's works. The letters have not survived in the documentary form nor has their exact wording been preserved, due to the process of oral transmission. Nine letters in total have been reported through three different chains of transmission from Hisham, al-Zuhri, and Abu al-Zinad, a
mawla (freedman) of the family of Caliph Uthman. However, not all are transmitted through each of these . The letters contain accounts of the Meccan persecution,
hijra to Abyssinia (
Ethiopian Empire) and Medina, the battles of
Badr and Hunayn, treaty of al-Hudaybiya,
conquest of Mecca, and calumniation of A'isha. Later authors attribute to Urwa books on the military campaigns of Muhammad (). Abu al-Aswad Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman, an Egyptian orphan Urwa is said to have raised during his stay there, allegedly compiled into such a book traditions he had collected from Urwa. A 9th-century scholar from Baghdad, Abu Hassan al-Ziyadi, also compiled a now lost of Urwa.
Anthony and
Schoeler claim that both attributions to Urwa are spurious and that it is almost certain he did not write a book. According to
Cook, during his day, dissemination of traditions through writings was frowned upon and he most likely relied upon oral transmission, which was the preferred medium of transmission of traditions at the time. He did write down some of the hadiths he taught, but these were mainly written as notes for topically arranging his hadith lectures and not as a book. ==Assessment==