Researching Muhammad

The main reason for studying the life and actions of Muhammad is that his life is considered an ideal example for believing Muslims, as noted in Quran 33:21. Since his life is quite different from that of Jesus, knowing Muhammad is useful.

One of the repeated themes of the Quran is to fear Allah and obey his messenger. This requires knowledge about Muhammad. Since the Quran is the sayings of Allah, not Muhammad, the primary source for knowing the life and example of Muhammad is the Hadith, which also describes a lot of fundamental concepts of Islam. This example is collectively known as the Sunnah. The Quran and the Hadith are the two legs of Islam. Without either, it would not be a complete religion. We will, for obvious reasons, quote extensively from both. The legends below are how quotes will be presented throughout the site:

The main sources for the life of Muhammad are the hadith collections "Sirat Rasul Allah" by Ibn Ishaq and "Tarikh al-Tabari" by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari. These are the earliest and most precise accounts that exist, and are the only two chronologically ordered accounts of the life of Muhammad written within three centuries of his life. These works form the backbone of this site.

Using this site

This site is a chronological review of the life of Muhammad, with commentary and relevant Quran quote. Each page covers a major event in a level of detail that should be sufficient to understand the roles of Muhammad, the Muslims and his opponents. The intention is to include what is relevant, leave out repetitions and inconsequential material, and to make discreet commentary underway to provide a perspective. The intention is not to pass judgement on Muhammad or Islam. We leave this up to the reader based on the presented material, which is all quoted from original Islamic sources. Where possible, references to both Ibn Ishaq and Tabari will be provided, to make it easy to verify the authenticity of the material.

There is no doubt that this is material of some complexity. There are numerous references to places and persons vanished many centuries ago. The source material sometimes skips interesting parts, and at other times repeats the same event a dozen times over. Much work has gone into distilling the source material into a continous narrative that is loyal to the source material. If you have difficulties or suggestions for improvement, please write to the webmaster.

On a practical level, the navigation bar on the left is all you need. The titles cover central events in the life of Muhammad and the evolution of Islam, organized in chronological sequence. Each page can be quite long, at the level of 20 printed pages. And that's it. There are no subpages, complex navigation structures or difficult to find corners on this site.

Under construction

This site is largely complete, in that almost all major events in the life and prehistory of Muhammad are covered. The missing pages will be filled in as soon as time permits. If you have suggestions for further subjects to cover, please send email to the webmaster. Popular requests will be fulfilled as time permits.