Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (), commonly shortened to Sīrah and translated as prophetic biography, are the traditional
Muslim biographies of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
from which, in addition to the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
and
Hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
s, most historical information about his life and the early period of
Islam is derived.
Etymology
In the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
the word ''sīra'' or ''sīrat'' ( ar, سيرة) comes from the verb ''sāra,'' which means to travel or to be on a journey. A person's ''sīra'' is that person's journey through life, or
biography
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
, encompassing their birth, events in their life, manners and characteristics, and their death. In modern usage it may also refer to a person's
resume. It is sometimes written as "seera", "sirah" or "sirat", all meaning "life" or "journey". In Islamic literature, the plural form, ''siyar'', could also refer to the rules of war and dealing with non-Muslims.
The phrase ''sīrat rasūl allāh'', or ''as-sīra al-nabawiyya'', refers to the study of the life of Muhammad. The term ''sīra'' was first linked to the biography of Muhammad by
Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri
Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubaydullah ibn Abdullah ibn Shihab al-Zuhri ( ar, محمد بن مسلم بن عبید الله بن عبد الله بن شهاب الزهری, translit=Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh b. S̲h̲i ...
, and later popularized by the work of
Ibn Hisham. In the first two centuries of
Islamic history, sīra was more commonly known as ''maghāzī'' (literally, stories of military expeditions), which is now considered to be only a subset of sīra
—one that concerns the military campaigns of Muhammad.
Early works of sīra consist of multiple historical reports, or ''akhbār'', and each report is called a ''khabar''. Sometimes the word ''tradition'' or ''hadith'' is used instead.
Content
The sīra literature includes a variety of heterogeneous materials, containing mainly narratives of military expeditions undertaken by
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
and his
companions. These stories are intended as historical accounts and are used for veneration. The sīra also includes a number of written documents, such as political treaties (e.g.,
Treaty of Hudaybiyyah
The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah ( ar, صُلح ٱلْحُدَيْبِيَّة, Ṣulḥ Al-Ḥudaybiyyah) was an event that took place during the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was a pivotal treaty between Muhammad, representing the state of ...
or
Constitution of Medina), military enlistments, assignments of officials, letters to foreign rulers, and so forth. It also records some of the speeches and sermons made by Muhammad, like his speech at the
Farewell Pilgrimage
The Farewell Pilgrimage ( ar, حِجَّة ٱلْوَدَاع, Ḥijjatu Al-Wadāʿ) refers to the one Hajj pilgrimage that Muhammad performed in the Islamic year 10 AH, following the Conquest of Mecca. Muslims believe that verse 22:27 of the Quran ...
. Some of the sīra accounts include verses of poetry commemorating certain events and battles.
At later periods, certain type of stories included in sīra developed into their own separate genres. One genre is concerned with stories of prophetic miracles, called ''aʿlām al-nubuwa'' (literally, "proofs of prophethood"—the first word is sometimes substituted for ''amārāt'' or ''dalāʾil''). Another genre, called ''faḍāʾil wa mathālib'' — tales that show the merits and faults of individual
companions, enemies, and other notable contemporaries of Muhammad.
Some works of sīra also positioned the story of Muhammad as part of a narrative that includes stories of
earlier prophets,
Persian Kings,
pre-Islamic Arab tribes, and the
Rashidun.
Parts of sīra were inspired by, or elaborate upon, events mentioned in the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
. These parts were often used by writers of
tafsir
Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
and
asbab al-nuzul
Occasions or circumstances of revelation (''asbāb'' ''al-nuzūl'', ) names the historical context in which Quranic verses were revealed from the perspective of Traditionalist theology (Islam), traditional Islam. Though of some use in reconstructi ...
to provide background information for events mentioned in certain
ayat.
Comparison to hadith
In terms of structure, a
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
and a historical report (''khabar'') are very similar; they both contain
isnads (chains of transmission). The main difference between a hadith and a khabar is that a hadith is not concerned with an event as such, and normally does not specify a time or place. Rather the purpose of hadith is to record a religious doctrine as an authoritative source of
Islamic law
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
. By contrast, while a khabar may carry some legal or theological implications, its main aim is to convey information about a certain event.
Starting from the 8th and 9th century, many scholars have devoted their efforts to both kinds of texts equally. Some historians consider the ''sīra'' and ''maghāzī'' literature to be a subset of Hadith.
Reception
During the early centuries of Islam, the sīra literature was taken less seriously compared to the
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
s.
In
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
times,
storytellers (''qāṣṣ'', pl. ''quṣṣāṣ'') used to tell stories of Muhammad and
earlier prophets in private gatherings and
mosques, given they obtained permission from the authorities. Many of these storytellers are now unknown. After the Umayyad period, their reputation deteriorated because of their inclination to exaggerate and fantasize, and for relying on the
Isra'iliyat. Thus they were banned from preaching at mosques.
In later periods, however, works of sīra became more prominent. More recently, Western historical criticism and debate concerning sīra have elicited a defensive attitude from some Muslims who wrote
apologetic
Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and ...
literature defending its content.
Authenticity
For centuries, Muslim scholars have recognized the problem of authenticity of hadith. Thus they have developed sophisticated methods (see
Hadith studies
Hadith studies ( ar, علم الحديث ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith", also science of hadith, or science of hadith criticism or hadith criticism)
consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in th ...
) of evaluating ''isnāds'' (chains of transmission). This was done in order to classify each hadith into "sound" (''ṣaḥīḥ'') for authentic reports, as opposed to "weak" (''ḍaʿīf'') for ones that are probably fabricated, in addition to
other categories. Since many sīra reports also contain isnād information and some of the sīra compilers (''akhbārīs'') were themselves practicing jurists and hadīth transmitters (''muḥaddiths''), it was possible to apply the same methods of hadīth criticism to the sīra reports. However, some sīra reports were written using an imprecise form of isnād, or what modern historians call the "collective isnād" or "combined reports". The use of collective isnād meant that a report may be related on the authority of multiple persons without distinguishing the words of one person from another. This lack of precision led some hadith scholars to take any report that used a collective isnād to be lacking in authenticity.
According to Wim Raven, it is often noted that a coherent image of Muhammad cannot be formed from the literature of sīra, whose authenticity and factual value have been questioned on a number of different grounds.
He lists the following arguments against the authenticity of sīra, followed here by counter arguments:
# Hardly any sīra work was compiled during the first century of Islam. However,
Fred Donner points out that the earliest historical writings about the origins of Islam first emerged in AH 60–70, well within the first century of Hijra (see also
List of biographies of Muhammad
This is a chronological listing of biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, ranging from the earliest traditional writers to modern times.
Earliest biographers
The following is a list of the earliest known Hadith collectors who specialized ...
). Furthermore, the sources now extant, dating from the second, third, and fourth centuries AH, are mostly compilations of material derived from earlier sources.
[Raven, W., “Sīra”, in: Brill Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, v.9 p.662]
# The many discrepancies exhibited in different narrations found in sīra works. Yet, despite the lack of a single orthodoxy in Islam, there is still a marked agreement on the most general features of the traditional origins story.
[
# Later sources claiming to know more about the time of Muhammad than earlier ones. Scholar ]Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone (March 28, 1945July 11, 2015) was a Danish historian specializing in early Islamic history. Crone was a member of the Revisionist school of Islamic studies and questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginni ...
found a pattern, where the farther a commentary was removed in time from the life of Muhammad and the events in the Quran, the more information it provided, despite the fact it depended on the earlier sources for its content. Crone attributed this phenomenon to storytellers' embellishment.If one storyteller should happen to mention a raid, the next storyteller would know the date of this raid, while the third would know everything that an audience might wish to hear about.
In the case of Ibn Ishaq, there are no earlier sources we can consult to see if and how much embroidering was done by him and other earlier transmitters, but, Crone argues, "it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in the three generations between the Prophet and Ibn Ishaq" fictitious details were not also added.[
# Discrepancies compared to non-Muslim sources. But there are also similarities and agreements both in information specific to Muhammad, and concerning Muslim tradition at large.][
# Some parts or genres of sīra, namely those dealing with miracles, do not qualify as sources for scientific historiographical information about Muhammad, except for showing the beliefs and doctrines of his community.][
Nevertheless, other content of sīra, like the Constitution of Medina, are generally considered to be authentic.]
Early compilations of sīra
The following is a list of some of the early Hadith collectors who specialized in collecting and compiling sīra and maghāzī reports:
* ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr (d. 713). He wrote letters replying to inquiries of the Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
caliphs, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and al-Walid I, involving questions about certain events that happened in the time of the Prophet. Since Abd al-Malik did not appreciate the maghāzī literature, these letters were not written in story form. He is not known to have written any books on the subject.
* Wahb ibn Munabbih
Wahb ibn Munabbih ( ar, وهب بن منبه) was a Yemenite Muslim traditionist of Dhimar (two days' journey from Sana'a) in Yemen; died at the age of ninety, in a year variously given by Arabic authorities as 725, 728, 732, and 737 C.E. He was ...
(d. during 725 to 737). Several books were ascribed to him but none of them are now extant. Some of his works survive as quotations found in works by Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, and Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī.
* Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī
Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubaydullah ibn Abdullah ibn Shihab az-Zuhri ( ar, محمد بن مسلم بن عبید الله بن عبد الله بن شهاب الزهري, translit=Muḥammad ibn Muslim ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh b. S̲h̲i ...
(d. c. 737), a central figure in sīra literature, who collected both ahadith and akhbār. His akhbār also contain chains of transmissions, or isnad
Hadith studies ( ar, علم الحديث ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith", also science of hadith, or science of hadith criticism or hadith criticism)
consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in th ...
. He was sponsored by the Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
court and asked to write two books, one on genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
and another on maghāzī. The first was canceled and the one about maghāzī is either not extant or has never been written.
* Musa ibn ʿUqba, a student of al-Zuhrī, wrote ''Kitāb al-Maghāzī'', a notebook used to teach his students; now lost. Some of his traditions have been preserved, although their attribution to him is disputed.
* Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 767 or 761), another student of al-Zuhrī, who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Prophet. His traditions survived through a number of sources, most notably Ibn Hisham and Ibn Jarir al-Tabari.
See also
* Biographical evaluation
Biographical evaluation ( ar, عِلْمُ الرِّجال, ʿilm al-rijāl; literally meaning'' 'Knowledge of Men' , ''but more commonly understood as the ''Science of Narrators)'' refers to a discipline of Islamic religious studies within ha ...
(ʿIlm al-rijāl)
* Hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
* Historiography of early Islam
The historiography of early Islam is the scholarly literature on the early history of Islam during the 7th century, from Muhammad's first revelations in 610 until the disintegration of the Rashidun Caliphate in 661,
and arguably throughout the 8 ...
* List of biographies of Muhammad
This is a chronological listing of biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, ranging from the earliest traditional writers to modern times.
Earliest biographers
The following is a list of the earliest known Hadith collectors who specialized ...
* List of hadith collections
* Sunnah
Notes
References
*
*
Further reading
*
*
* Hagen, Gottfried, ''Sira, Ottoman Turkish,'' in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp. 585–597. .
* Jarar, Maher, ''Sira'' (Biography), in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp. 568–582. .
* Williams, Rebecca, Sira, Modern English, in Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (2 vols.), Edited by C. Fitzpatrick and A. Walker, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2014, Vol. II, pp. 582–585.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prophetic Biography
Biographies of Muhammad
Islamic terminology