| Sīrah | |
| Title Orig: | السيرة |
| Author: | Ibn Ishaq (later edited by Ibn Hisham) |
| Language: | Arabic |
| Subject: | Biography of Prophet Muhammad |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Media Type: | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
Al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, commonly shortened to Sīrah and translated as prophetic biography, are the traditional Muslim biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad from which, in addition to the Quran and Hadiths, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.
The most striking issue about the life of Muhammad and early Islamic history is that the source information emerged as the irregular products of the storytelling culture and the increasing progress of the details over the centuries. Lawrence Conrad examines the biography books written in the early post-oral period and sees that a time period of 85 years is exhibited in these works regarding the date of Muhammad's birth. Conrad defines this as "the fluidity (evolutionary process) is still continuing" in the story.[1]
In the Arabic language the word sīrah or sīrat (Arabic: سيرة) comes from the verb sāra, which means to travel or to be on a journey. A person's sīrah is that person's journey through life, or biography, 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 "seerah", "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.[2]
The phrase, or, refers to the study of the life of Muhammad. The term sīrah was first linked to the biography of Muhammad by Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (124/741–2), and later popularized by the work of Ibn Hisham (833). In the first two centuries of Islamic history, was (literally, 'stories of military expeditions'), which is now considered to be only a subset of —one that concerns the military campaigns of Muhammad.[3]
Early works of sīrah consist of multiple historical reports, or, and each report is called a . Sometimes the word tradition or hadith is used instead.
The sīrah literature includes a variety of heterogeneous materials, containing mainly narratives of military expeditions undertaken by Muhammad and his companions. These stories are intended as historical accounts and are used for veneration. The sīrah also includes a number of written documents, such as political treaties (e.g., Treaty of Hudaybiyyah 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. Some of the sīrah accounts include verses of poetry commemorating certain events and battles.
At later periods, certain type of stories included in sīrah 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 sīrah 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 sīrah were inspired by, or elaborate upon, events mentioned in the Qur'an. These parts were often used by writers of tafsir and asbab al-nuzul to provide background information for events mentioned in certain ayat.
In terms of structure, a hadith 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. 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 sīrah and maghāzī literature to be a subset of Hadith.[4]
During the early centuries of Islam, the sīrah literature was taken less seriously compared to the hadiths. In Umayyad 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 sīrah became more prominent. More recently, Western historical criticism and debate concerning sīrah have elicited a defensive attitude from some Muslims who wrote apologetic literature defending its content.
See also: Historicity of Muhammad.
For centuries, Muslim scholars have recognized the problem of authenticity of hadith. Thus they have developed sophisticated methods (see Hadith studies) 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 sīrah reports also contain isnād information and some of the sīrah compilers (akhbārīs) were themselves practicing jurists and hadīth transmitters (muḥaddiths), it was possible to apply the same methods of hadīth criticism to the sīrah reports.[5] However, some sīrah 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.[6]
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:
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.[8] [9] [7]
Nevertheless, other content of sīra, like the Constitution of Medina, are generally considered to be authentic.
See main article: List of biographies of Muhammad.
The following is a list of some of the early Hadith collectors who specialized in collecting and compiling sīrah and maghāzī reports: