The Seerah of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Seerah means the recorded path of a life. As a science it is older than most Muslim disciplines — the first monographs on the Prophet's campaigns were written within a century of his death — and it is the frame through which the Qur'an becomes intelligible.

The primary sources

• Ibn Ishaq (d. 150 AH), whose Sirah survives in the recension of Ibn Hisham.
• al-Waqidi, Kitab al-Maghazi, and his secretary Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra.
• al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk, preserving chains other works dropped.
• The hadith collections, especially Bukhari's Kitab al-Maghazi and Muslim's campaign reports.
• Shia historiography: al-Ya'qubi, Tarikh; al-Mas'udi, Muruj al-Dhahab; al-Mufid, al-Irshad; and Bihar al-Anwar vols. 15–22.

Salafi scholarship favours seerah filtered through hadith authentication — al-Albani's critiques and al-Mubarakpuri's al-Rahiq al-Makhtum are typical.

The phases

1. Makkah, 570–610 — lineage, orphanhood, trade, marriage to Khadijah, the rebuilding of the Ka'bah.
2. Secret call, 610–613 — the first believers, revelation in fragments.
3. Public call and persecution, 613–622 — boycott, Abyssinia, the Year of Sorrow, Ta'if, Isra and Mi'raj, the pledges of Aqabah.
4. Madinah, 622–630 — constitution, brotherhood, Badr, Uhud, the Trench, Hudaybiyyah.
5. Consolidation, 630–632 — conquest of Makkah, Hunayn, Tabuk, delegations, Farewell Pilgrimage.

Where accounts diverge

Sunni and Shia historians agree on the overwhelming majority of events and dates. Divergence concentrates on the succession — the meaning of Ghadir Khumm, the events at Saqifah — and on the evaluation of individual companions. Reading both traditions side by side, with attention to chains of transmission, is better scholarship than reading either alone.

How to study it

Pair the biography with the Qur'an's occasions of revelation, and read for pattern rather than anecdote: how he negotiated, how he treated opponents after victory, how he delegated, how he handled failure at Uhud.

References across the schools

• Qur'an: 33:21, 8:5–19 (Badr), 3:121–155 (Uhud), 48:1–29 (Hudaybiyyah).
• Sunni: Ibn Hisham; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa'l-Nihayah; Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Maghazi.
• Shia: al-Mufid, al-Irshad; al-Ya'qubi, Tarikh; Ja'far Subhani, The Message.
• Salafi/Wahhabi: al-Mubarakpuri, al-Rahiq al-Makhtum; al-Albani, Difa an al-Hadith al-Nabawi.