Sīrah | Islamic literature | Britannica (original) (raw)

Learn about this topic in these articles:

place in Arabic literature

• 
  In Arabic literature: Belles lettres and narrative prose
  …raids during his lifetime) and sīrah (biographies of the Prophet). Beyond these specific genres, however, the logical structure of the khabar was replicated in a wide variety of other generic contexts. It is even possible to see the maqāmah genre (see below The concept of adab: Narratives of the imagination)…
  Read More

study of Muhammad’s life

• 
  In Muhammad: Biographical sources
  …the Qurʾān, in the so-called sīrah (Arabic: “biography”) literature. Arguably the single most important work in the genre is Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq’s (died 767–768) Kitāb al-maghāzī (“Book of [the Prophet’s] Military Expeditions”). However, this work is extant only in later reworkings and abridgements, of which the best known is ʿAbd…
  Read More