List of biographies of Muhammad


This is a chronological listing of biographies of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, from the earliest traditional writers to modern times.

Number of biographies

The literature is extensive: in the Urdu language alone, a scholar from Pakistan in 2024 came up with a bibliography of more than 10,000 titles counting multivolume works as a single book and without taking into account articles, short essays or unpublished manuscripts, with the author also precising that the literature in Arabic is even more important.

Earliest biographers

The following is a list of the earliest known Hadith collectors who specialized in collecting Sīra and Maghāzī reports.

1st century of Hijrah (622–719 CE)

2nd century of Hijrah (720–816 CE)

  • Al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr, another grandson of Abu Bakr. His traditions are mainly found in the works of al-Tabari, al-Balathuri, and al-Waqidi.
  • Wahb ibn Munabbih. Several books were ascribed to him but none of them are now existing. Some of his works survive as quotations found in works by Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, and others.
  • Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, a central figure in sīra literature, who collected both ahadith and akhbār. His akhbār also contain chains of transmissions, or isnad. He was sponsored by the Umayyad court and asked to write two books, one on genealogy and another on maghāzī. The first was canceled and the one about maghāzī is either not extant or has never been written.
  • Musa ibn ʿUqba, a student of al-Zuhrī, who wrote Kitab al-Maghazi. It was lost after 14th century, but two-thirds of the book was rediscovered in 1921 after a manuscript was found.
  • Ma'mar Ibn Rashid, another student of al-Zuhri wrote Kitāb al-Maghāzi, one of the earliest surviving prophetic biographies in Islamic literature, alongside that of Ibn Ishaq.
  • Muhammad ibn Ishaq, another student of al-Zuhrī, who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of Muhammad. His work survived through that of his editors, most notably Ibn Hisham and Ibn Jarir al-Tabari.
  • Ibn Jurayj, has been described as a "contemporary" of Ibn Ishaq and "rival authority based in Mecca"
  • Abū Ishāq al-Fazarī wrote Kitāb al-Siyar.
  • Abu Ma'shar Najih Al-Madani
  • Al-Waqidi, whose surviving work Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi has been published..
  • Hisham Ibn Urwah ibn Zubayr, son of Urwah ibn Zubayr, generally quoted traditions from his father but was also a pupil of al-Zuhri.

3rd century of Hijrah (817–913 CE)

4th century of Hijrah (914–1010 CE)

  • Ibn Hibban wrote Kitāb al-sīra al-nabawiyya wa akhbār al-khulafāʾ.

5th century of Hijrah (1011–1108 CE)

6th century of Hijrah (1109–1206 CE)

  • Abu al-Qasim al-Suhayli, a grammarian from Malaga, wrote al-Rawd al-unuf, a commentary on Ibn Hisham's biography explaining the difficult and ambiguous words.

7th century of Hijrah (1207–1303 CE)

  • Al-Kalāʿī of Valencia wrote a three-volume biography called al-Iktifāʾ. It follows the structure of Ibn Ishaq's sira with additional traditions from various other works.
  • Abdul Mu'min al-Dimyati, wrote the book "al-Mukhtasar fi Sirati Sayyid Khair al-Bashar" but is commonly referred to as Sira of Al-Dimyati.

8th century of Hijrah (1304–1400 CE)

Others (710–1100 CE)

  • Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, the husband of Asma bint Abi Bakr.
  • Asim Ibn Umar Ibn Qatada Al-Ansari
  • Abdul Rahman ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Ausi, pupil of al-Zuhri
  • Muhammad ibn Salih ibn Dinar Al-Tammar was a pupil of al-Zuhri and mentor of al-Waqidi.
  • Ya'qub bin Utba Ibn Mughira Ibn Al-Akhnas Ibn Shuraiq al-Thaqafi
  • Ali ibn mujahid Al razi Al kindi.
  • Salama ibn Al-Fadl Al-Abrash Al-Ansari, pupil of Ibn Ishaq.
  • Abu Sa`d al-Naysaburi wrote Sharaf al-Mustafa
  • Faryabi wrote ''Dala'il al-Nubuwwa''

Later writers and biographies (1100–1517 CE)

19th century CE

Modern biographies (1900 CE – present)

Biographies missing date of publication