Definition of Seerah

First of all we will start with the definition of Seerah; what does the word Seerah mean? The word Seerah has a linguistic meaning and that is a path, and walking is called Sayr; when you walk from one place to another you would say Sāra Fulān – such and such person is walking. So it is the path that a person takes during their lifetime; that is Seerah. And the Hans Wehr dictionary gives the translation of Seerah as ‘conduct, comportment, demeanour, behaviour, way of life, attitude, position, reaction, way of acting and biography.’ All of these are meanings of the word Seerah. Seerah could be the biography of any person, it is not necessarily Muhammad ﷺ, however we have used the word so much with Muhammad ﷺ that when we say Seerah, we almost all the time are referring to the life of Muhammad ﷺ. But you could also say the Seerah of Abū Bakr, Seerah of ‘Umar, and Seerah of so and so; it is a biography of a person, their life. So that is the meaning of the word Seerah, it is the life of a person, and in this situation we are studying the life of the greatest – Muhammad.

Importance of Studying Seerah

What is the importance of studying Seerah?

History of Islām

The life of Muhammad ﷺ is the history of Islām; you are studying a concise history of Islām by studying the life of Muhammad ﷺ. In his Seerah we would find situations and incidences that would help us in everything that we would need to know in our life of Da’wah. So the life of Muhammad ﷺ is really the history of Islām; we are not just studying the biography of a person, we are studying the history of our religion. Muhammad Ibn Sa’d Bin Waqqās – Sa’d Ibn Waqqās is one of Al-‘Asharah Al-Mubashhirīn Fil Jannah, he is one of the 10 who were given glad-tidings of Paradise, his son Muhammad says, – “Our father would teach us the battles of Rasūlullāh ﷺ, he would teach us the Seerah of Rasūlullāh ﷺ, and he would tell us that these are the traditions of your fathers, so study them.” And they used to refer to Seerah as Maghāzī – Maghāzī means

battles – because the latter part of the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ was spent in Maghāzī, so they would use the word Maghāzī to refer to the whole life of Muhammad ﷺ. And ‘Alï Ibn Husain Ibn ‘Alï Ibn Abī Tālib, the grandson of ‘Alï Ibn Abī Tālib, would say, “We were taught the Seerah of Rasūlullāh ﷺ like we were taught Qur'ān.” That is how important Seerah was for them, they would study it like how they would study Qur'ān. And that makes sense, because if we want to study the life of Mūsā, where do we go? Where do we study it from? From Qur'ān. If we want to study the life of ‘Īsā, we go to Qur'ān. But if we want to study the life of Muhammad ﷺ, even though there are bits and pieces of his life mentioned in Qur'ān, but we do not have as much details about the life of Muhammad ﷺ in Qur'ān as we have about Mūsā, so for us to study the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ we go to Seerah. The lives of all of the Ambiyā' were recorded in Qur'ān with the exception of Muhammad ﷺ, we learn about Muhammad’s life from Seerah. So when we want to learn about the Ambiyā', we go to Qur'ān, but when we want to learn about Muhammad ﷺ we go to his Seerah, again, even though there are some references in Qur'ān made to his life. We will talk about the influence of Seerah and understanding Qur'ān.

Love of Muhammad

The second reason for studying Seerah: It is to develop the proper love of Muhammad in our hearts. Loving Muhammad is ‘Ibādah, it is part of our religion to love Muhammad ﷺ. He says, “One of you does not attain true faith until you love me more than you love your parents, your children, and the whole world.” We do not really become true Believers until we love Muhammad more than anything else, so it is part of Islām to love Muhammad ﷺ.’ Umar Ibn Al-Khattāb was a very honest and straight-forward person, he went to Rasūlullāh ﷺ and said, “O Rasūlullāh ﷺ, I love you more than anyone except myself.” Rasūlullāh ﷺ told him, “Until you love me.” Meaning you do not really attain the complete faith until you love me more than your own self. So ‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattāb came back and said, “O Rasūlullāh ﷺ, now I love you more than my own self.” Rasūlullāh ﷺ said, “Al-Āna Idhan – Now you have attained the complete faith.”

The Ummah today loves Muhammad ﷺ. If you ask any Muslim, ‘Do you love Muhammad ﷺ ‘?They would say yes, but the love cannot be very deep and sincere unless you know the person. If you have shallow information about someone, you cannot really love them a lot. To love a person you need to know them more, and this is especially true with Muhammad ﷺ, because the more you know him the more you would be impressed with his personality, the more you would love him. So even though the Ummah today, with the shallow information that the masses of Muslims have about him, love Muhammad ﷺ, we cannot truly have deep love for Muhammad ﷺ unless we know him. You know, the Sahābah, the more they knew him, the closer they were to him and the more they would love him. ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas for example, he was one of the staunchest enemies of Muhammad ﷺ, he was one of the top plotters against Islām. ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas later became a Muslim, and when he was passing away, ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas started weeping, he was crying on his deathbed. So his son ‘Abdullāh Bin ‘Amr asked him, “O my father, did Rasūlullāh ﷺ not give you the glad-tidings of this? Did he not give you glad-tidings of that?” It is reported in a Hadīth that Rasūlullāh ﷺ said, “Āmana ‘Amr – ‘Amr Ibn Al- ‘Aas has attained faith.” So this was a witness from Rasūlullāh ﷺ that ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas was a Mu'min; not only a Muslim, but he is at the higher level of Mu'min. So his son was trying to give his father the glad-tidings that you are a true Believer, Rasūlullāh ﷺ has given you all of these gladtidings, so how come you are crying now before your death? ‘Amr Ibn Al- ‘Aas turned around and said, “I have gone through three stages in my life; at the first stage, the most despised man to me was Muhammad ﷺ, and my desire was that I could get a hold of him and kill him.” That was my desire, that was my wish, my aspiration; to kill Muhammad ﷺ. He said, “If I had died at that time, I would have definitely been in Hellfire, but then Allāh put the love of Islām in my heart, and I went to Muhammad and I said, ‘O Muhammad, I want to become Muslim. Extend your hand so that I can pledge allegiance to you.’” ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas says, “Muhammad extended his hand forward and I pulled my hand away.” So ‘Amr Ibn Al- ‘Aas had Rasūlullāh ﷺ extend his hand, and when Rasūlullāh ﷺ was

ready to put his hand in his, ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas pulled his hand away. Rasūlullāh ﷺ asked him, “What is wrong?” ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas said, “I have a condition to make.” Rasūlullāh ﷺ asked him, “What is your condition?” He said, “My condition is that you pardon me, you give me clemency.” Because ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas knew that what he had done in the past, the great crimes that he had committed against the Muslims, was sufficient for his execution, so he wanted to make sure that Rasūlullāh ﷺ would not hold him accountable for what he did in the past. Rasūlullāh ﷺ smiled and he said, “O ‘Amr, do you not know that Islām erases everything before it, and Hijrah erases everything before it, and Hajj erases everything before it?” ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas said, “So I became a Muslim.” He said, “At that stage, Muhammad, who was my worst enemy, became the most beloved person to me in the world, and I loved him so much, I respected him so much, that I could not even get a full glimpse of his face; whenever I would see him, I would stare downwards.” He said, “I had so much love and respect for him that I could not even get a full glimpse of his face. And if you would ask me today to describe him to you, I could not. And if I died during that stage, I would have hoped to be in Jannah.” There are other parts of this Hadīth, but what concerns us now is that when ‘Amr Ibn Al-‘Aas got to know Muhammad ﷺ, when he became close to him, Muhammad ﷺ, who was his worst enemy, became his most beloved friend.

Suhayl Bin ‘Amr was sent by Quraish to negotiate with Muhammad before Sulh Al-Hudaybiyyah. Suhayl Ibn ‘Amr was an international negotiator, he had been to the courts of the Persian Emperor, the Roman Emperor, the Emperor of Abyssinia; he was a well-connected man, and now Quraish had sent him to negotiate with Muhammad ﷺ. So he went into Madīnah and he came in, and he had first-hand experience with how the Sahābah treated Muhammad ﷺ. So Suhayl Ibn ‘Amr went back to report to Quraish and he told them, “I have visited the Roman Emperor, I have visited the Persian Emperor, I have visited An-Najāshī of Abyssinia, but I have never in my life seen a leader that is so loved by his followers, so much respected by his followers, like Muhammad. I have seen nothing like it in the world.” The Roman Emperor, the Persian Emperor, An-Najāshī of

Abyssinia, even though they have all of the power and strength and empires, I have never seen a people love their leader so much like how the Sahābah love Muhammad ﷺ. He said, “I saw amazing things; Muhammad would be making Wudū' and the Sahābah would be rushing to grab the water dripping from his body.” So he told them, “Do whatever you want, these are people who will never give up their leader.” The Sahābah would never give him up; they would give their lives first, they would sacrifice everything for him.

So if we want to love Muhammad ﷺ, we need to learn more about him. I have already said that even though among the masses of Muslims we do not have much information about Muhammad ﷺ, we do not know a lot about his Seerah, because it is not part of the curriculum that schools in the Muslim world teach, nevertheless, even though we are ignorant about him and his life, he is still the most beloved figure that ever lived in humanity, his name is the most common name in the world. How many people in the world are named Muhammad? There is no other person that ever lived in history who had so many people name themselves after him like Muhammad ﷺ. When I was in college in the U.S., we had an Imām who was from Nigeria, and he was a Hāfiz and he was our Imām in the small college town in US, and his name was Muhammad Al-‘Aashir. Now, the word ‘Aashir means the tenth, so for a long time I assumed that Al-‘Aashir was his last name – Muhammad Al-‘Aashir. One day I went up to him and I asked, “What is Al-‘Aashir? Is that the name of the tribe or the clan?” He said, “No, my father would name every male child that he had Muhammad; all of his children, he would name them Muhammad. So to distinguish between us he had to number us, so there was Muhammad the first, Muhammad the second, Muhammad the third, and I am Muhammad the tenth!” His father did not want to deal with any other name; all of his children were going to be Muhammad. And in Pākistān and India you would have Muhammad Hārūn, Muhammad Sulaimān, Muhammad Ādam; everyone is Muhammad.

There is no one in history that had an Ummah love him like the Ummah loves Muhammad ﷺ, he is the most beloved figure in history. Now, what will be the situation if we study about his life? How much love will we have

then for Muhammad ﷺ?His name is the most frequently mentioned name. Around the clock, there will be a Mi'zanah – a minaret, that is calling to Prayer and mentioning the name of Muhammad ﷺ – around the clock – because Muslims now are worldwide, so in every time zone you have Muslims. So in every minute of the day there will be a Mi'zanah that is saying, “Ash'hadu Allā Ilāha Illallāh, Ash'hadu Anna Muhammad ArRasūlullāh.” His name is mentioned around the clock. And by the way, the name Muhammad means ‘The Praised One’, and there is no one who is praised like Muhammad ﷺ, his name really fulfilled its meaning. He is the Praised One, he is always praised. Whenever we hear his name, what do we say? Sallallāhu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam - Peace be upon him. So we want to develop love of Muhammad ﷺ, and the way we can do that is by studying his life; we will love him more the more we study about him. Allāh ﷻ says: Say, [O Muhammad], "If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your relatives, wealth which you have obtained, commerce wherein you fear decline, and dwellings with which you are pleased, are more beloved to you than Allāh and His Messenger and Jihād in His cause, then wait until Allāh executes His command. And Allāh does not guide the defiantly disobedient people. So the Āyah is stating that our love for Allāh and His Messenger and striving in the cause of Allāh should be paramount to everything else; our fathers, our sons, our brothers, our mates, our kindred, our wealth – everything. Allāh, His Messenger and Islām should be the dearest thing to every one of us.

Follow the Way of Muhammad

Reason three why we study the Seerah is to follow the way of Muhammad ﷺ. Ibn Hazm says, “Whoever seeks the pre-eminence of the Hereafter, the wisdom of this life, the just purpose, and the embodiment of morality and character, let him follow Muhammad, the Prophet of Allāh.” So Muhammad is the embodiment of Khuluq – the perfect character, and by studying his Seerah we will be more able to follow his way.

Deeper Understanding of Qur'ān There are some Āyāt in Qur'ān that are independent of the circumstances of their revelation, like for example, the Āyāt about Al-Ākhirah, Ar-Raqā'iq – these are independent of the circumstances, but then there are some Āyāt that were dealing with events that were happening in the time of Muhammad ﷺ. So you would have some Āyāt revealed prior to an event, some Āyāt revealed concurrent with an event, and some Āyāt revealed after an event. Seerah would give us the explanation of these Āyāt, like for example Sūrah Al-Ahzāb; many Āyāt in Sūrah Al-Ahzāb were revealed regarding the Battle of Al-Ahzāb; many Āyāt in Sūrah Āl ‘Imrān were relating to events that happened in the time of Rasūlullāh ﷺ, so you have a major section of Sūrah Āl ‘Imrān which was a dialogue between Muslims and Christians based on the Christian delegation that came from Najrān to visit Rasūlullāh ﷺ;these Āyāt were revealed to support Rasūlullāh ﷺ in his dialogue with the Christians. And then you also have the latter part of Āl ‘Imrān dealing with Ghazwat Uhud. Now, the details of the Ghazwah are not mentioned in the Sūrah, so how can we understand these Āyāt? By going to Seerah.

Illustratration of the Methodological Steps of the Islāmic Movement

Rasūlullāh ﷺ went through stages, he went through steps, started by a secret Da’wah, and then it became public, and then later on came Jihād, so it went through stages; these stages are important for Islāmic movements to learn and study. Murī Al-Ghardān says, “And we believe that this methodological progression of the Prophet’s life is divinely directed, for Allāh has guided His Prophet in all of his steps, and it was not a result of a reaction to emerging circumstances.” So these events that happened in the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ were not haphazard, they were planned by Allāh so that they would be a guidance for us in our attempts to establish Islām again. So it is very important that we look at the stages that Rasūlullāh ﷺ went through and the progression of his Da’wah. Rashīd Ridā says: “Were it not for the education and training, verbal direction would not suffice, for the Seerah taught them how to be guided by the Qur'ān and trained them to be

just and moderate in all matters.” So we have Qur'ān and Sunnah which are verbal teachings, but how do we apply these verbal teachings? It is by looking into the application of Rasūlullāh ﷺ and the Sahābah. So they took this verbal teaching into action, and that is something that only the Muslims have; the followers of all the other Ambiyā' have lost trace of the Seerah of their Ambiyā', but with us, we know how the Qur'ān was being practiced, we know how the Sunnah of Rasūlullāh ﷺ was being practiced and applied.

There is an Āyah in Qur'ān that says that you can continue eating and drinking at night time in Ramadan until the white string is distinguished from the black string. One of the Sahābah took this literally; he had a string under his pillow, and he would eat and then he would uncover this string after picking up the pillow but he would not see the string [change in colour], so he would continue eating. He would keep on doing that, and then he went to Rasūlullāh ﷺ and said [that] this is what I have done. Rasūlullāh ﷺ laughed and he said that the Āyah does not mean you take a string in your room and you take a look at it, it means the white string which is the first emergence of light in the horizon, that is what is meant by it. So Rasūlullāh ﷺ taught this Sahābï how to apply that Āyah, because I could be in a dark room with no windows and I have a string with me, and it would be noontime and I still cannot see it and I am continuing to eat. So the application of the Āyāt and the Ahādīth of Rasūlullāh ﷺ are shown to us in the life of Muhammad and the life of the Sahābah, may the blessings and pleasure of Allāh ﷻ be with them all.

Studying Seerah is ‘Ibādah

We are not doing this to entertain ourselves; this is ‘Ibādah, there is Ajr – reward in studying this. We are worshipping Allāh by coming together and studying the life of Muhammad ﷺ. This is the Halaqah of Dhikr – this is a session of Dhikr. When we come together and talk about Muhammad we are worshipping Allāh ﷻ. And we expect that this is a gathering that will be surrounded by angels in which Allāh ﷻ will shower us with His mercy and tranquillity and we be mentioned in a gathering better than this. So it is

‘Ibādah, and Allāh ﷻ says: Say, [O Muhammad], "If you should love Allāh, then follow me, [so] Allāh will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allāh is Forgiving and Merciful."

Developing a Muslim Identity

Brothers and sisters, there is a global culture that is being forced down the throats of everyone on the face of the earth; this global culture is protected and promoted. Thomas Friedman who is a famous writer in the U.S., he writes for the New York Times, he says, “The hidden hand of the market cannot survive without a hidden fist. McDonald’s will never flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F15s.” In other words, we are not really dealing with a global culture that is benign or compassionate, this is a culture that gives you no choice; you either accept McDonald’s otherwise McDonnell Douglas will send their F15s above your head. It is a very intolerant culture that cannot co-exist with anything else; it uproots every other culture on the face of the earth, just cuts the roots of it. And you have a quote here by Alexander Solzhenitsyn who is a famous Russian historian writer, he says, “To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.” So it is really a destruction of the people of the earth, because every other culture is being demolished. So this is not a global culture that will co-exist with others; it will replace others, and the only ideology that is standing up to this global culture is Islām. But still, as Muslims, and especially Muslims living in the West, we are suffering from a serious identity crisis. You would find that even though the brother or the sister would be practicing Islām, but the Islāmic identity itself is lost; the person would have more in common with a rockstar or a soccer player than they would have with a Companion of Rasūlullāh ﷺ. You would find that our youth know more about popstars than they know about the Sahābah of Rasūlullāh ﷺ, in fact, even sometimes more than the Ambiyā'. How many of our youth know the names of all of the Ambiyā' of Allāh? How many of our youth know the names of the Sahābah? But ask the same person to name the soccer players on their favourite team or their best basketball players and they would go down the

list. So there is a serious identity crisis that is going on among Muslims, and the way we can counter that, the way we can develop a Muslim identity, is by doing the following:

Having a Strong Study of Islāmic History

Number One: It is by having a strong study of Islāmic history which is made up of the lives of Prophets of Allāh, the life of Muhammad ﷺ, the life of the Sahābah, and then learning in general the Muslim history after that. So that is number one; you develop an identity by having an attachment with history, because history is our umbilical cord; that is our lifeline. We are an extension of an Ummah, we are not separated, we are not severed from our roots; we are a part of a glorious Ummah that we need to study about.

Being Part of the Worldwide Muslim Ummah

Number Two: By being part of the worldwide Muslim Ummah. Our local identity should not override our Muslim identity. So my identification with Britain or America or Pākistān or Kuwait or any other country should not override my Islāmic identity. See, this “nation/state” concept is something that Islām came to abolish. We have our loyalty to Allāh ﷻ and to our religion, and we are part of a worldwide Ummah, therefore we need to study, we need to learn about our Muslim brethren all over the world. What happens in Falastīn should concern every British Muslim, what happens in Kashmīr should concern every American Muslim, what happens in every corner of the Muslim world should concern me as if it is happening within my own house.

So these are the two important elements in building an identity. Number one: by having a deep understanding of our history, and number two: by being part of the Ummah and caring about the Ummah. And again, the saying of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is, “To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots”. We do not want our roots to be severed, we want our roots to be deep. Studying the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ is the most important ingredient in our history.

The Life of Muhammad ﷺ is a Testimony of his Prophethood

The greatest miracle of Muhammad is Qur'ān, and then Rasūlullāh ﷺ has many other miracles other than that, but by just studying his life in itself is an evidence of his Prophethood. Here you have a man who for 40 years was leading a normal life. The outstanding thing about the life of Muhammad ﷺ in the first 40 years was his morality and character, but Rasūlullāh ﷺ did not show any signs of aspiration to power or influence – none of that at all. Rasūlullāh ﷺ was leading a normal life, and then suddenly after the age of 40, Rasūlullāh ﷺ brings about the greatest change that the world has ever seen; that is an irony, that is a miracle. Rasūlullāh ﷺ was illiterate, he could not read or write, and then he presents the world with the greatest Book that was ever produced. And we could go on and on in a list of ironies of things that are only explained if Muhammad ﷺ is a Messenger from Allāh who has divine help, otherwise it is impossible. There is no way to explain his Seerah except to admit that he was a Nabï from Allāh ﷻ. It is impossible for a person to achieve what Muhammad ﷺ achieved without being assisted by Allāh ﷻ through Revelation. So it is a testimony of his Prophethood, it is one of Dalā'il AnNubuwwah. Then you have Muhammad ﷺ leading a normal life for the first 40 years and then suddenly he becomes a political leader, military leader, religious leader, head of a large household, law-maker, teacher, Imām, and we could go on and on and on in the list of things that Rasūlullāh ﷺ used to do. All of that was done within 23 years – impossible! This would lead us to our next point: We are Studying the Life of the Greatest We are studying the life of the greatest. Right now, we are studying the life of the greatest man that ever set foot on this earth. Muhammad ﷺ is the greatest, and whatever benchmark you want to use for greatness, he will still come out the greatest. Michael Hart, who is a U.S. author, wrote a book called The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. I am sure many of you are familiar with his book. After studying the lives of leaders throughout history, it became clear to him that Muhammad ﷺ is

the undisputable greatest man that ever lived; he is the greatest. And in his introduction he feels compelled to respond to what the readers of the book might think, because he is mostly writing for a Non-Muslim audience, so many people would question his choice of Muhammad ﷺ, therefore in his introduction he writes, “My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history.”

So Michael Hart is compelled by the facts. There is no doubt that Muhammad ﷺ is the greatest, but then he has to apologise to his readers, he has to say that it is out of my hands, there is no way I could put anyone else in front of him; Muhammad ﷺ is the greatest. In fact, if we take Muhammad ﷺ as a military leader, just that aspect of his personality, he would still come out the greatest. In fact, if we would take from Muhammad only the religious aspect of his life, he would still be the greatest. Muhammad ﷺ the political leader; he would still come out the greatest. So even if you would dissect the different aspects of the life of Muhammad and take them piece by piece, by just taking one piece alone, he would still be greater than everyone else that ever lived. So we are studying the life of Al-Mustafā – the one who is chosen; Allāh ﷻ chose him. Al-Mustafā Min Khalqih – he is chosen out of all of the creation of Allāh. And there might be some other reasons why studying Seerah is important.

Sources Used

We will be using two primary sources for this course:

Source One: Seerah of Ibn Kathīr

Ibn Kathīr did not write a book called Seerah, Ibn Kathīr wrote an encyclopaedia of history called Al-Bidāyah Wan-Nihāyah – The Beginning and the End, and it is literally the beginning and the end. He started from the

beginning of creation and went all the way until people enter Jannah and Nār. One of his volumes is about the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ, and another volume is about the Prophets, and then he has a volume about Al-Khalīfah Ar-Rāshidah, and Al-Khalīfah Al-‘Amawiyyah, Al-Khalīfah Al- ‘Abbāsiyyah, and he went all the way up to his time, and then the last volume is about Al-Fitan – The Signs of the Day of Judgement, and then the Day of Judgment, and then Jannah and Nār. So we are going to be taking his part on Seerah as a primary source, and I will talk a little bit on why I have chosen Ibn Kathīr to be our primary source.

Source Two: Sahīh As-Seerah An-Nabawiyyah

The second book that I have used in the compilation of these notes is Sahīh As-Seerah An-Nabawiyyah by Ibrāhīm Al-‘Alï.

Science of Seerah and Science of Hadīth

Traditionally, Seerah was a separate science from Hadīth, even though there are some areas where they cross each other and where there is over-lapping between them, but traditionally Seerah had a different set of rules compared to Hadīth. Scholars of Hadīth were very stringent, very strict in their rules, while the scholars of Seerah were more liberal, more flexible. The reason is, when they were dealing with Hadīth and drawing Ahkām – rulings, they wanted to make sure that they were basing rulings on Ahādīth that are sound; they did not want us to worship Allāh based on weak sources, so that is why they applied very strict rules to Hadīth. However, when it came to Seerah, they were more flexible with the rules, because they saw this as history which does not affect Ahkām, it does not affect rulings; there is no Ahkām based on it. So Imām Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, who is a scholar of Hadīth, says, “When we talk about history, we are more flexible”. So you would find that the writers of Seerah would accept narrations that they would not normally accept if they were dealing with Hadīth. So that is one track that was followed by our early scholars. The Seerah of Ibn Is'hāq was written according to these rules, the Seerah of Ibn Sa’d; all of these early scholars of Seerah followed these flexible rules in narration. Recently, there was a new trend among some of our scholars; they wanted to apply the rules

of Hadīth on Seerah. Why? These scholars said that now we are living in a time when the history of Rasūlullāh ﷺ is Ahkām for us. In the time of Imām Ibn Hanbal, Khilāfah was established, so when they studied the life of Rasūlullāh ﷺ they were studying it to learn general lessons from it, but it was not to guide them in a methodology of a movement because Islām was already established. But now we need to go through the Seerah and learn rules from it on how to do Da’wah and how to establish Islām again, so it is becoming similar to Fiqh where it applies to us, therefore they say we should apply the same rules of Hadīth on Seerah.

The second book, which is Sahīh As-Seerah An-Nabawiyyah, is based on the rules of Hadīth. So what these scholars did was they went into Bukhārī, they went into Muslim, they went into Sunan Abī Dāwūd, they went into these books of Hadīth and they gathered the bits and pieces that were referring to Seerah and they constructed a Seerah of Rasūlullāh ﷺ based on Hadīth. So rather than going to the book of Ibn Is'hāq they would go to Bukhārī, rather than going to Maqrīzī or Ibn Hishām or any other early scholars they would go to Sahīh Muslim. Sa‘īd Hawwā has written a book based on Hadīth, it is called Al-Asās Fi As-Sunnah, then there is this book we mentioned by Ibrāhīm Al-‘Alï which is called Sahīh As-Seerah AnNabawiyyah, and there are few other books that are following this line.

Reason for Choosing Ibn Kathīr as Primary Source

Now, the reason why I chose Ibn Kathīr as our primary source is because Ibn Kathīr combined both in one book, so he would draw information from the books of Seerah and he would also draw information from the books of Hadīth, so you would find him narrating from Bukhārī and narrating from Ibn Is'hāq, and that is what makes the Seerah of Ibn Kathīr unique. There is one drawback with the Seerah of Ibn Kathīr and that is it is a bit complicated and cumbersome to use because he would mention all of the chain of narration; sometimes he would not stick to a chronological order and sometimes he would bring in information that seems to be contradicting, but it is an excellent source, and Alhamdulillāh now it is present in the English language; it has been recently translated by Le Gassick, a professor in the U.S., and it is a very good translation.

Other Sources Used

Other books that we might and we might not be using, and some of them I have got some quotations from, but I just want you to be familiar with these books: we have Al-Minhāj Al-Harakī by Munīr Al-Ghadbān. The thing about this book is that the author tried to draw movement lessons from Seerah, so he would divide Seerah into the secret stage, the public stage, then he would go through the Hijrah and then different stages of Jihād, so he tried to construct a movement curriculum from Seerah; it is a recently written book. And then you have Fiqh As-Seerah by Muhammad Ghazālī. The good thing about his book is that he has some Tarbiyah lessons. And there is also another book by the same name, Fiqh As-Seerah by Muhammad Sa‘īd Ramadān Al-Būtī, and Al-Būtī emphasizes on Fiqh, he draws many Fiqh lessons from Seerah. And then there is a book called AlGhurabā' by Sheikh Salmān Al-‘Awdah, and it is dealing with the Hadīth of Tūbā Al-Ghurabā' – the Hadīth of the Strangers, and he tries to draw correlations between the strangers in the time of Rasūlullāh ﷺ and the strangers now. Al-Asās Fī As-Sunnah; we talked about this by Sa‘īd Hawwā. And then At-Tarīq Ilā Al-Madīnah by Muhammad Al-‘Abdah, which is lessons drawn from Seerah. And Fiqh As-Seerah by Al-Būtī.