''Ash-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyya'' () is a collection of hadiths compiled by the 9th-century scholar

al-Tirmidhi Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi (; 824 – 9 October 892 CE / 209–279 AH), often referred to as Imām at-Termezī/Tirmidhī, was an Islamic scholar, and collector of hadith from Termez (early Khorasan and in present-day Uzbekistan). He w ...

regarding the intricate details of the

Islamic prophet Prophets in Islam () are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (; sing. , ), those who transmit divine revelation, mos ...

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

's life including his appearance, his belongings, his manners, and much more. The book contains 399 narrations from the successors of Muhammad which are divided into 56 chapters. The best known and accepted of these hadith are attributed to Ali, cousin and son-in-law to Muhammad. Another well-known description is attributed to a woman named Umm Ma'bad. Other descriptions are attributed to

Aisha Aisha bint Abi Bakr () was a seventh century Arab commander, politician, Muhaddith, muhadditha and the third and youngest wife of the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. Aisha had an important role in early Islamic h ...

`Abd Allah ibn `Abbas ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās (; c. 619 – 687 CE), also known as Ibn ʿAbbās, was one of the cousins of the prophet Muhammad. He is considered to be the greatest mufassir of the Qur'an. He was the son of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of ...

, Abu Hurairah and

Hasan ibn Ali Hasan ibn Ali (; 2 April 670) was an Alids, Alid political and religious leader. The eldest son of Ali and Fatima and a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Hasan briefly ruled as Rashidun caliphate, Rashidun caliph from January 661 unt ...

. While ''shama'il'' lists the physical and spiritual characteristics of Muhammad in simple prose, in ''

hilya The term ''ḥilya'' (, plural: ''ḥilān'', or ''ḥulān''; , plural: ) denotes both a visual form in Ottoman art and a religious genre of Ottoman-Arabic literature each dealing with the physical description of Muhammad. Hilya means "ornament". ...

'' these are written about in a literary style. Among other descriptive ''Shama'il'' text are the ''Dala'il al-Nubuwwah'' of

Al-Bayhaqi Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Khusrawjirdī al-Bayhaqī (, 994–1066), also known as Imām al-Bayhaqī, was a Sunni scholar widely known for being the foremost leading hadith master in his age, leading authority in th ...

, ''Tarih-i Isfahan'' of Abu Naeem Isfahani, ''Al-Wafa bi Fadha'il al-Mustafa'' of

Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi Abu al-Faraj Jamal al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Hasan Ali Al-Jawzi also known as Ibn al-Jawzi (16 June 1201) was a Muslim jurisconsult, preacher, orator, heresiographer, traditionist, historian, judge, hagiographer, and philologist who played ...

and ''Al-Shifa'' of

Qadi Ayyad Abū al-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn ʿAmr ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ al-Yaḥṣubī al-Sabtī (Camilo Gómez-Rivas, Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists, ...

are the main shemaa-il and hilya books.

Content of descriptions

The description of Muhammad by Ali, according to Tirmidhi, is as follows: The description attributed by Umm Ma'bad goes as follows: Muhammad's title as the " Nabi" ( ; i.e. the last of them, as it were the "seal" closing Allah's communication to Nabi) is taken from Ali's description,

Between his two shoulders was the seal of Nabouati or prophethood, and he was the seal of the Nabi's or prophets

This "seal of Nabuwwahti or prophethood" ( ) between Muhammad's shoulders is given a closer description in other texts of the hadith, and it is given a dedicated discussion in ''

Sahih Muslim () is the second hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Q ...

''. It is depicted as a mole on the end of his left shoulder blade, in size compared to a pigeon's egg or an apple. A passage from ''

Sunan Abu Dawood ''Sunan Abi Dawud'' () is the third hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. It was compiled by scholar Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (). Introduction Abu Dawood compiled twenty-one books related to Hadith and preferred those (plural of ...

'' (32.4071), also collected in the ''Shama'il'', reports how one Qurrah ibn Iyas al-Muzani on the occasion of swearing allegiance to Muhammad put his hand inside his shirt to "feel the seal".

Commentaries

* Sharḥ al-Shamāʾil al-Nabawiyyah li-Al-Tirmidhī by

Al-Sakhawi Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī (, 1428/831 AH – 1497/902 AH) was a reputable Shafi‘i Muslim hadith scholar and historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an ...

* Ashraf al-Wasa’il ila Fahm al-Shama’il by

Ibn Hajar al-Haytami Sheikhul Islam Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī al-Makkī al-Anṣārī known as Ibn Hajar al-Haytami al-Makki () was a renowned Sunni Egyptian scholar. He was the leading jurist of the ...

Translations and editions

The Shama'il is generally printed as an appendix to the Jami' of Tirmidhi in India and Pakistan. Professor M.H.F. Quraishi translated the Shama'il of Tirmidhi into English, which was published in 1980 in India. An

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

translation and commentary, '' Khasa'il Nabawi'' was written by Muhammad Zakariya al-Kandahlawi in 1926. An English translation and commentary, "A Commentary on the Depiction of Prophet Muhammad" was published in 2015. An Uzbek translation and commentary, "Shamoili Muhammadiya" by Ziyovuddin Rahim was published in 2020.

Citations

References

External links