Encyclopedia of Islam

biography

A biography is a written account about someone’s 

life story. The author has to make a choice about 

what to include and exclude, how to organize the 

narrative, and exactly how to represent the per-

son to the reader. Some biographies can be very 

detailed; others may provide only a brief sketch 

of a person’s life. In the vast field of Islamic lit-

erature, biography is one of the most enduring 

genres, encompassing a cumulative body of texts 

that span nearly 1,400 years in Arabic, Persian, 

Turkish, and other languages. It was used to 

commemorate important people and to highlight 

their praiseworthy qualities for the instruction of 

others. A special kind of Islamic biography, called 

hagiography in English, was composed to empha-

size the holiness of 

saints

, recount their blessings 

and miracles, and portray their superiority over 

their enemies and rivals.

The most important biographies of Muslim 

religious figures are those written about Islam’s 

foremost prophet,  m

Uhammad

. The prototype 

for this group of biographies is The Way of God’s 

Messenger (Sirat rasul Allah), written by m

Uham

-

mad

  i

bn

  i

shaq

 (d. 767) and later edited by Ibn 

Hisham (d. 833). The purpose of this work was 

to authenticate Muhammad’s status as a true 

prophet. It contains details about his ancestry and 

family life, where he lived, relations with com-

panions and opponents, how he received revela-

tions of the q

Uran

, his alliances and battles, and 

miraculous events in his life, especially his n

ight

j

ourney

 

and

 a

scent

. This book has been the main 

source to which Muslims (and non-Muslims) 

have turned through the centuries for knowledge 

about Muhammad, although many other Muslims 

have written biographies about him, too. His per-

sonal traits and accounts about specific events in 

his life have been celebrated in poetry, song, and 

folklore in all Muslim societies. One of the most 

widely known modern biographies of Muhammad 

by a Muslim is The Life of Muhammad by the Egyp-

tian writer Muhammad Husayn Haykal (d. 1956). 

There have also been film and cartoon versions of 

his life, although he cannot be shown because of 

the formal Islamic prohibition against portraying 

the Prophet in figural form. Since the 19th cen-

tury, many secular scholars in Western countries 

have written biographies about Muhammad, such 

as W. Montgomery Watt, Frants Buhl, Maxime 

Rodinson, and F. E. Peters. Most of the Western 

studies have sought to explain the historical ori-

gins of Islam and critically assess Muhammad’s 

role as a leader, rather than portray him as an 

exemplary prophet or holy man.

Muslim scholars have also excelled in produc-

ing biographical dictionaries, one of the most 

characteristic kinds of Islamic literature. The stan-

dard for such dictionaries was set by Ibn Saad’s 

Book of the Classes (Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir), 

which was written in i

raq

 during the early ninth 

century to help establish the authenticity of the 

hadith

. It contains 4,250 biographies about the 

men and 

Women

 of the early Muslim community, 

including Muhammad, his family, and the first 

caliphs

. Later dictionaries told about the lives and 

accomplishments of hadith specialists, q

Uran

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