Historicity of Muhammad

The historicity of Muhammad is the subject of the study of Muhammad as a historical figure and critical examination of sources upon which traditional accounts (the Quran, sīrah, hadith especially) are based. Other historical sources that can be investigated include sealed documents, orders, treaty texts, archaeological findings and internal and external correspondence of neighboring states or communities, as well as the discovery of Muhammad's genetic makeup and kinship through his personal belongings and physical remains (hair, beard, etc.) that are among his alleged legacies.

Prophetic biography, known as sīra, along with attributed records of the words, actions, and the silent approval of Muhammad, known as hadith, survive in the historical works of writers from the second and third centuries of the Muslim era (c. 700−1000 CE), and give a great deal of information on Muhammad, but the reliability of this information is very much debated in academic circles (hadith studies) due to the gap (oral tradition) between the recorded dates of Muhammad's life and the dates when these events begin to appear in written sources. Islamic tradition traces the lineage of the Islamic prophet Muhammad back to the Adnani branch of the Arabs, through the Hashim family and the Quraysh tribe. And, Muhammad is believed to be descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham, through the Hashim tribe who are considered prophets in Islam, a biblical figure; however, neither Abraham nor Ishmael's existence has been independently corroborated by historians. Modern historians don't take the Family tree as a fact. In the pre-Islamic (and early Islamic) period, genealogical trees were a product of the oral tradition of the Days of the Arabs, shaped according to social needs and the interests of the listeners. Contemporary historiography unveiled the lack of inner coherence of this genealogical system and demonstrated that it finds insufficient matching evidence; the distinction between Qahtanites and Adnanites is believed to be a product of the Umayyad Age, when the war of factions (al-niza al-hizbi) was raging in the young Islamic Empire.

The general Islamic view is that the Quran has been preserved from the beginning by both writing and memorization, and its testimony is considered beyond doubt. The earliest Muslim source of information for the life of Muhammad, the Quran, gives very little personal information and its historicity is debated.

Despite any difficulties with the biographical sources, scholars generally see valuable historical information about Muhammad therein and suggest that what is needed are methods to distinguish the likely information from the unlikely. In practice it has proven difficult determining which parts of the early accounts of Muhammad's life are valuable to modern scholars. However, the majority of classical scholars believe Muhammad existed as a historical figure.