Prophetic biography
As- Siratu 'n Nabawiyya السيرة النبوية as- siratu ' n nabawiyya, DMG as- sīratu ʾ n- nabawiyya, the biography of the Prophet ' is a literary genre of Islamic historiography and deals exclusively with the life of the Prophet Mohammed.
History of Research
The problem of the authenticity of the early Islamic historical tradition, especially the Life of the Prophet, have already been discussed controversially in the research at the beginning of the 20th century. After Henri Lammens the Sira literature is a freely invented interpretation material to specific portions of the Koran, though he admits that the Medinan period of the prophecy in the Sira may well have a historical core in the representation of Muhammad's life. Under H. Lammens also influence Regis Blachère stood with his work Le problème de Mahomet and Joseph Schacht, who tried to transfer in the field of Fiqh Research on the Sira its results.
The source-critical studies on the biography of the Prophet of Frants Buhl, William Montgomery Watt and Rudi Paret joined the moderate attitude in this regard by Theodor Nöldeke, Josef Horovitz and others. Other, more skeptical scholars of Islam of the present, such as Patricia Crone, the Sira rely far less, however, this attitude is also represented among Western scientists only by a minority. After the state of research today, the Sira is considered in its core as a largely authentic historical source; except for a few passages that want to glorify Mohammed, rather than providing historical information, and therefore belong to the devotional literature.
Emergence of the Sira literature
The Sira literature covers a wide range of material, such as political treaties, military lists, appointments of officers, etc., which were recorded by several generations of Muslims. In principle, the Prophet Muhammad Biographies were compiled from reports about what he has done, as well as the reports of what he said were compiled in the Hadith. However, the Sira literature differs in the hadith literature, that it is generally secured not through the chain of tradition ( isnad ), if some reports are accompanied by isnads also in the earliest Sira. There are probably several reasons. First, Muhammad's life story was probably well known and has been often told among the Muslims and re - telling of the early days of Islam. Second, the Sira literature preoccupied with the stories of Muhammad's life, while it is the goal of the hadith literature to collect his statements as authoritative source of Islamic law. The relevance of many hadith statements for litigation made it necessary that they were backed by Isnade.
Together Sira and Hadith form the Sunna, the basis of almost all religious practices and other rules of conduct to be followed by the Muslims.
Major works
Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah is the oldest surviving biography of Muhammad; it was written less than 150 years after Muhammad's death. It is narrated in extensive excerpts in later works and arrangements by Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari, among others. There is between the later edits and reviews some important differences that affect the content of the original text of Ibn Ishaq in part: zBdie controversial episode about the origins of the satanic verses narrated by al -Tabari and other later works and all of them on back the original reporting of Ibn Ishaq and his informants, is not conserved in the processing Ibn Hisham. A student of Ibn Ishaq, Yunus b. Bukair, the one who not only passed on the original text of the first inventory Sira - work, but its contents provided them with additional information that did not return to Ibn Ishaq, but to its contemporaries. The later historiographical literature has clearly recognized this "plug " and spoke of the زيادات المغازي Ziyadat al - Maghazi, DMG ziyādātu ʾ l - MAGAZI, additions to the Maghazi = to the campaigns of the Prophet '.
Another text of the earliest dates Sira of al- Waqidi, which, however, did not provide the Life of the Prophet Muhammad, but the prophecy out during the campaigns in the center of his book. A number of representatives of the early historiography is reported that they had before Ibn Ishaq concerned with the biography of Muhammad, including ' Urwa ibn az- Zubayr ibn al-' Awwam from Medina, the above-mentioned Ibn Ishaq and al - Waqidi as their source mention. The current research into Islam came to the conclusion that ' Urwa ibn az- Zubair as repeatedly cited source was able to pass his information probably already written about the life of Muhammad.