Customer Reviews

The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya (Great Books of Islamic Civilization Series)

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Ibn kathir's the Life of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) is one of the celebrated works in the respective field. As a Muslim theologian, he successfully captures various events unfolding in the Arabian Peninsula that necessitates the advent of a messenger from God. He then goes into sketching the Prophet's life before he is endowed with the mission to establish the religion of God. This volume (which is the first of a four-volume series) comes to an end when the Prophet starts preaching the new faith to the polytheistic Arab and some of them start listening to him.

Even though the book is very informative, ibn kathir, resorting to the practice of his era, provides as many narrations as possible to relate a single anecdote. He even mentions the chain of narrators from whom he related the story. Though his style is an indispensable tool for a Muslim scholar to discern the authentic reports from the false ones, it, however, affects the smooth reading of the material. In addition, ibn Kathir often leaves the reader in the dark, regarding the authenticity of a story being told, and thus, making it accessible to a scholar only.

There are a number of works on the life of the Prophet (PBUH) that relate the authentic stories alone. Ar-Raheeq al-Makhtum and When the Moon Split - both by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri; Muhammad Rasulullah: The Apostle of Mercy by Abul Hasan Nadwi are some good books on this subject.

Anyway, this book is worth having in your library as a reference to the life of a great Prophet!