al-Sira al-Nabawiyya: Ard Waqa'i' wa-Tahlil Ahdath

Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya: Ard Waqa'i' wa-Tahlil Ahdath ("The Prophet's Biography: Presenting Events and Analysing Them") is a long contemporary biography written by Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, who signed its preface on 18 Rajab 1421, i.e. 16 October 2000 ¹. Its seventh edition was published by Dar al-Ma'rifa in Beirut in 1429/2008 ².

The author holds that studying the Prophet's way serves several aims, among them following the Prophet's example and knowing the lives of the Companions, and that every reader finds what he needs in it: the preacher the methods and stages of preaching, the educator lessons in upbringing, the commander a system of leading armies, the politician a way of dealing with opponents, and the scholar help in understanding the Qur'an ³. He links the study of the Sira to what he calls the understanding of empowerment (fiqh al-tamkin) and God's patterns in the rise and fall of nations, and criticises — in his own view — those who speak in the name of Islam far from the Qur'an and the Prophet's way and cite statesmen of East and West ⁴.

The author notes that some concise modern studies won wide acceptance — al-Mubarakpuri's al-Raheeq al-Makhtum, al-Ghazali's Fiqh al-Sira, [[work/fiqh-al-sira-al-buti|al-Buti's Fiqh al-Sira al-Nabawiyya]] and Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi's al-Sira al-Nabawiyya — and argues that relying on them alone produces an incomplete picture of the Sira, quoting al-Ghazali's own warning to that effect ⁵. He says he noticed that biographers old and new differ in the lessons and morals they draw, so he gathered them from books of Sira, exegesis, hadith commentary and law and arranged them ⁶. He promises to highlight the Qur'anic dimension of Badr, Uhud, the Confederates, Banu al-Nadir, al-Hudaybiya and Tabuk ⁶.

The book begins with the world before the mission, discussing the Eastern Roman Empire and the other prevailing civilisations ⁷. It then moves through the Meccan period and the Hijra, the building of society in Medina, and the campaigns one by one, usually closing each with a section of "lessons, morals and benefits" ⁸. Examples are the sections on the results of Badr, the results of the conquest of Mecca, the causes of defeat and factors of victory at Hunayn, and the main results of Tabuk ^{9 10 11 12}. At the end is a list of more than three hundred and fifty sources and references, then the table of contents ^{13 14}.

The book relies on classical sources such as Ibn Hisham's Sira, Zad al-Ma'ad and al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, and on modern studies such as Akram Diya' al-Umari's al-Mujtama' al-Madani and al-Sira al-Nabawiyya al-Sahiha and Mahdi Rizq Allah's al-Sira al-Nabawiyya fi Daw' al-Masadir al-Asliyya; for the legal rulings drawn from the conquest of Mecca he states that he relied on what al-Umari and Rizq Allah extracted ^{15 16}.