Fikr Al-Sirah: Contemplating The Prophetic Biography (PUM)

Author : Muhanna Alhubail
Publisher: Muslim Scholars Association of Malaysia
ISBN: 9789832306351
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 369
Weight: 572 g

I always felt that we had failed to understand fully the intellectual wealth contained in the Prophetic Biography and its objectives. This is despite it being the biography of the leader of humanity, Muhammad, ﷺ (peace and blessings of God be upon him), who had delivered his message of salvation to human society. This discovery is not down to me, but contemporary works dealing with the Prophetic Biography - even if in a preliminary sense - have also pointed this out. What I say has been mentioned by the shaykh of present-day scholars, Professor Abdul Salam Haroon in his detailed and critical work: Abridgement of the Prophetic Biography of Ibn Hishām.

Despite his efforts, may God have mercy on him, in refining, correcting and rectifying the Prophetic Biography, his book is read only by academic types. Within the Islamic community as a whole, it has passed largely unnoticed. His fellow scholars Ibn Hishām and Ibn Is-hāq, may God have mercy on them, remain forgotten in modern times.

My attempts at spreading cultural awareness of the Prophetic Biography among Muslims have been inspired by the works of two great scholars of this field: the contemporary reformist Shaykh Muḥammad al-Ghazālī and Shaykh Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī, may God have mercy on them both. I have admired their work and their intellectual instincts since an early time. In addition, I have referred to the books of researchers - early and later - throughout my journey.

I chose the title “Contemplating the Prophetic Biography” (Fikr al-Sīrah) instead of “Understanding the Prophetic Biography” (Fiqh al-Sīrah) as the two shaykhs have done. This was so that I would not be bound by the context of jurisprudential fatwas or legislative provision, for the two shaykhs are well established in that subject while I am not. I have intended this work to be a reflection of my reading of the Prophetic Biography which is a contemporary cultural and intellectual one.

This reading (of the Biography) considers the absolute constants of the sharīʿah as principles of cultural awareness that cut across intellectual and legal conventions so that the messages contained in the Biography can be understood according to the challenge with which the Chosen One, Muṣṭafā ﷺ was sent forth.

This equation is that the message of Islam and his coming forth as a prophet was the final delivery from God to mankind. It was His covenant through which He laid down the principles of law and human life which allows our immense scope of independent reasoning (ijtihād). From this mankind is able to plot its path to survival and reach the “twofold” truth.