{ "id": "muhammad", "title": "Muhammad", "lang": "en", "source_lang": "en", "summary": "Muhammad (c. 570–632 CE) was a Meccan merchant and statesman who, in Islamic belief, received God's revelations and is regarded as the last prophet, with his life reconstructed mainly from Muslim sources.", "category": "philosophy", "subcategory": "religion", "type": "person", "aliases": [ "Muhammad ibn Abdullah", "Mahomet", "穆圣", "先知穆罕默德" ], "generated_at": "2026-10-08", "model": "pro/claude-haiku-5-5", "url": "https://aiwiki.page/en/muhammad/", "translations": { "zh-Hans": { "url": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/muhammad/", "json": "https://aiwiki.page/zh/muhammad.json" } }, "sections": [ { "heading": "", "text": "Muhammad (c. 570–632 CE) was an Arab merchant, religious leader and statesman from Mecca who, in Islamic belief, received the revelations of God and is regarded as the last of the prophets. Muslims hold that the Islamic scripture, the Quran, was revealed to him in Arabic over roughly two decades, and that his words and conduct (the sunna) provide a model for the faith. Outside Islam, scholars reconstruct his life mainly from Muslim sources written generations after his death, supplemented by a smaller body of early non-Muslim texts and by archaeological and manuscript evidence. Their sources and dating remain subjects of active research, and this entry distinguishes between what Muslim tradition reports and what can be assessed historically.\n\nHis importance lies both in religious history and in the political and social history of the Near East. In the Muslim account, he preached monotheism in Mecca, faced opposition from its leading families, and in 622 (the Hijra) moved with his followers to Yathrib, later called Medina. There he built a community bound by a written agreement, led it through conflicts with Meccan forces and local groups, and by 630 had secured the submission of Mecca. When he died in 632, much of the Arabian Peninsula was allied with his community, and the subsequent caliphates drew on his legacy in creating a state and a civilization that spread across much of Asia, Africa and Europe. His family, companions and wives later became central to the divisions within Islam between Sunni and Shia communities.\n\nThis entry first surveys the Arabian setting and his early life, then examines the revelation, the Medinan period and his wars and diplomacy. It next treats the Quran, the hadith literature and the biographical (sira) tradition as sources, and the place of the Prophet in Muslim belief, family and devotion. The final sections address the historical study of his life, the artistic and commemorative traditions that grew around him, and the ways he has been portrayed in non-Muslim writing." }, { "heading": "Names and titles", "text": "The name Muhammad (مُحَمَّد) is an Arabic masculine name built on the triliteral root ḥ-m-d, \"to praise.\" It is a passive participle, so it is usually glossed as \"praised\" or \"praiseworthy,\" though some translators render it \"highly praised.\" Its sister name Ahmad (أَحْمَد) comes from the same root and is commonly read as \"most praiseworthy\" or \"more praiseworthy.\" Muslim commentators tie Ahmad to Quran 61:6, where Jesus is reported to announce a messenger \"whose name is Ahmad.\" Most Muslim scholars take this as a reference to Muhammad. Modern scholars have noted that Ahmad appears only once in the Quran and that its use as a personal name may have developed later, partly in the context of Christian–Muslim polemics. Some Muslim sources also report that Muhammad's grandfather chose the name after a dream. The sources for this story are later sira compilations, so it should be read as tradition rather than as contemporary evidence.\n\nIn Arabic naming conventions, a person's full name is built from several parts. The nasab (lineage) recorded in Muslim tradition runs: Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim ibn Abd Manaf ibn Qusayy ibn Kilab. Hashim gave his name to the Banu Hashim, a clan of the Quraysh tribe, and the Prophet's family belonged to this clan. The kunya (teknonym) Abu al-Qasim, \"father of al-Qasim,\" is traditionally linked to Muhammad's son al-Qasim, who died in childhood. Its use reflects a common Arabian practice of identifying adults through their eldest son. Among the honorific epithets, the best known is Khatam al-Nabiyyin, \"Seal of the Prophets,\" which is discussed in the section on belief and devotion.\n\nMuslims attach set formulas to his name in speech and writing. The most common is ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, \"may God bless him and grant him peace,\" which is often rendered in English as \"peace be upon him\" (PBUH). In printed Arabic the formula is commonly abbreviated as a single ligature (ﷺ) or as ṣ.ʿ.m., and in English as \"SAW\" or \"pbuh.\" Writers may use the abbreviation to save space, while speakers say the full phrase when the name is recited. Muslims use similar but different formulas for other prophets, such as ʿalayhi al-salām, and the difference is treated as a sign of the Prophet's special status.\n\nEuropeans encountered his name through Latin and Romance intermediaries, and the forms they used reflect medieval transmission rather than direct transliteration. The Medieval Latin forms Mahometus and Machometus gave rise to Old French Mahomet, which in turn passed into Middle English as Makomete, Mahumet, and similar spellings, the earliest of which date to around 1200. The modern French form Mahomet and the English archaic Mahomet are direct descendants of this line. Mohammed, Mohamed, and Muhammad are later transliterations made from Arabic, and they became standard in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.\n\nThe medieval forms also carried polemical meanings. In Middle English, Makomete and maumet could mean an idol or pagan image, which reflected a widespread Christian belief that Muslims worshipped Muhammad. Mahound, a shortened form of the name, became a common insult in medieval literature. Derived adjectives such as Mahometan and the later Mohammedan were used for followers of Islam, and many Muslims now regard these terms as misleading because they suggest that the Prophet is worshipped, so the term Muslim is preferred." }, { "heading": "Arabia and Mecca before Islam", "text": "Around 570, the Arabian Peninsula was not a single political unit. Its population was divided among many tribes, each organized around patrilineal descent groups whose members were expected to protect one another. Much of the interior was home to Bedouin pastoralists who moved camels, sheep and goats between seasonal pastures. Oases and towns such as Yathrib (later Medina), Taif and Mecca supported settled populations based on farming, crafts and trade. Without a central authority, disputes were handled through custom. A killing could set off a blood feud (tha'r) that lasted for generations, and compensation (diya, or blood money) was a common way to end one. Alliances (hilf) between clans created networks of mutual obligation that reached beyond a single lineage. Later Muslim sources describe several such pacts. Poetry, recited at markets and gatherings and passed on orally, was a central medium for expressing tribal honour, genealogy and collective identity.\n\nThe peninsula lay between two great powers. The Byzantine Empire lay to the northwest and the Sasanian Empire to the northeast, and both worked through client Arab dynasties. The Ghassanids on the Byzantine side and the Lakhmids at al-Hira in Iraq on the Sasanian side served as buffers and intermediaries. In the southwest, the Yemeni kingdoms had come under Aksumite (Ethiopian) rule in the early sixth century, and Persian forces took control of Yemen around 570. These rivalries reached Arabia through trade routes, through military service, and through religious conflict. The Christian community of Najran, for example, was persecuted around 523 by a Himyarite ruler whose Jewish affiliation is recorded in Christian sources. The episode shows how religious and political loyalties were tied together across the region.\n\nMecca's prosperity rested on its position as a commercial and religious hub. The city sat in a narrow valley in the Hijaz, with little farmland and a limited water supply, so its wealth depended on caravans and visitors. Trading expeditions travelled north to Syria in summer and south to Yemen in winter, a pattern the Quran alludes to in the short surah Quraysh. According to later accounts, the Quraysh, a grouping of clans claiming descent from Fihr, consolidated their control over the city in the fifth century under Qusayy ibn Kilab. They administered the sacred precinct and provided services to pilgrims, including water and hospitality. These roles gave them social prestige as well as economic advantage. The Kaaba was the focal point of this system.\n\nReligious life was plural. The Kaaba housed images of several deities, and Muslim sources name Hubal among them. The Quran also mentions the goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat (53:19–20). Pilgrimage rites centred on circumambulating the Kaaba, standing at Arafat and offering sacrifices. A customary truce during the sacred months allowed travellers to move safely. Judaism and Christianity were present in Yathrib, Khaybar, Najran, Syria and Iraq. Muslim tradition also records hanifs, individuals who rejected idol worship and sought a more austere monotheism. These groups show that religious ideas circulated widely in the region before Islam appeared. Ritual practice and monotheistic claims were not sharply separated in everyday life.\n\nSocial structures shaped the environment in which Muhammad later worked. Kinship obligations determined who could claim protection, and a man without a powerful lineage was vulnerable. Marriage was arranged by guardians and often involved a bride-price, and inheritance rights for women were limited. Women could nonetheless own property and engage in commerce, as the later figure of Khadija shows. The Quran refers to the practice of burying infant daughters (16:58–59; 81:8–9), which indicates a concern about how girls were valued within families. Orphans, who lacked adult male protectors, were especially exposed to exploitation. The later revelation's repeated commands to care for them respond to this condition. These features of kinship, marriage and trade formed the background against which the new community was later organized." }, { "heading": "Early life and family", "text": "Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 CE. Muslim tradition places the birth on the 12th of Rabi al-Awwal in the Year of the Elephant, and some modern sources give the date as 8 June 570. The tradition also says his father, Abdullah, died before the birth, and that his mother, Amina bint Wahb, died when he was about six. Because nearly everything known about his life comes from later Muslim sources, these dates are conventional. Non-Muslim sources of the period say little about him.\n\nOrphanhood and upbringing\n\nAccording to the biographical tradition, the infant was sent to a Bedouin wet nurse, Halima, and spent his first years in the desert among the Banu Sa'd. After Amina's death he was taken in by his paternal grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, the head of the Banu Hashim. The grandfather died about two years later, around 578, and guardianship passed to his son Abu Talib. Abu Talib became the main protector of the boy and, later, of the early Muslim community. The Banu Hashim were a clan of the Quraysh, and the household was of moderate standing rather than wealthy.\n\nWork and trade\n\nMuhammad's youth is described as one of modest work: tending sheep and goats, and then joining caravans. Because he had no fortune, commerce was the most practical path open to him. Abu Talib was a merchant whose caravans traveled to Syria and Yemen each year, and the tradition says that Muhammad, at about twelve, went with one of them to Syria. The most famous episode from this journey is a story in which a Christian monk named Bahira in Busra recognized a future prophet in the boy. Muslim and Western scholars alike regard this account as a later embellishment. Its dating varies between sources (some say he was nine, others twelve), and it belongs to a genre of stories that retrospectively attach prophetic signs to a figure's youth.\n\nThe tradition also gives Muhammad a reputation for honesty, and later sources credit him with the nicknames al-Amin (\"the trustworthy\"). This reputation is repeated in many accounts, but such nicknames are hard to trace to contemporary evidence.\n\nMarriage to Khadija\n\nKhadija bint Khuwaylid was a wealthy widow who ran her own trading business and employed agents for her goods. According to the tradition, she hired Muhammad to take her merchandise to Syria. He returned with a large profit, and she then proposed marriage through an intermediary. The marriage is usually dated to about 595, when Muhammad was about twenty-five and Khadija was around forty. The tradition describes the marriage as a stable and affectionate one that lasted until her death around 619, and that during this time Muhammad took no other wives. They had several children. Most accounts say that their sons died in infancy, while their daughters survived, the best known being Fatima. The household's wealth, together with Khadija's standing, gave Muhammad a secure economic position.\n\nThe cave of Hira and questions of dating\n\nLater sources describe Muhammad as a man troubled by the religious and social conditions of Meccan life. He is said to have gone for periods of retreat to the cave of Hira on Jabal al-Nur, a mountain near Mecca, where he spent time in meditation and reflection. The accounts agree on the general picture of such retreats, but the details differ, and they were transmitted for generations before being written down. The best-known story, in which the angel Gabriel orders him to \"read\" during a retreat in Ramadan around 610, is preserved in hadith and in the biographical literature, and its chain of transmission reaches back to Aisha, who was a child at the time of the events. Scholars therefore treat the timeline as a reconstruction, not a contemporary record. Accounts also disagree on whether the cave experience was the first revelation or a later one, and the dating of these events depends on sources written more than a century after Muhammad's death. Western historians and many Muslim scholars alike see the early biography as a matter of tradition shaped by later theological concerns, and they draw a distinction between the broad outlines of Muhammad's life and the precise dates and anecdotes attached to it." }, { "heading": "Revelation and early preaching", "text": "Muslim tradition places the first revelation around 610, when Muhammad was about forty. According to the accounts in the biographical literature and in hadith, he was meditating in the cave of Hira near Mecca when the angel Gabriel (Jibril) appeared and ordered him to recite. The earliest revealed verses are usually identified with the opening of Surah 96 (al-Alaq). Muhammad returned home frightened and was reassured by his wife Khadija, who is said to have taken him to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a figure described as having knowledge of earlier scriptures. Khadija is widely regarded in the tradition as the first person to accept his message, and she supported him materially and emotionally in the years that followed. Historians note that the detailed narrative of these events was shaped by later transmission, and that the precise chronology of the early revelations is uncertain.\n\nFor roughly the first three years, according to the sira tradition, Muhammad preached mainly in private to a small circle of relatives and close associates. The message that developed during this period was centred on the oneness of God (tawhid), the rejection of the idols that were worshipped at Mecca and its shrines, and the expectation of resurrection and divine judgment. Alongside these theological themes, the early Meccan revelations condemn greed, the mistreatment of orphans and the poor, and the unfair dealings of the wealthy. These social concerns were directed at the commercial elite of Mecca, and they were part of what made the message politically sensitive, since the city's prosperity depended on the religious sanctuary and the pilgrimage it drew. The move to public preaching is traditionally linked to a command to \"proclaim\" what he had been given, and it brought open confrontation with the Quraysh.\n\nThe first converts came largely from Muhammad's family and his immediate circle. Abu Bakr, a respected merchant and friend, is said to have been among the earliest adult men to accept Islam, and he later became the first caliph. Muhammad's cousin Ali, who was still a boy, and his adopted freedman Zayd ibn Haritha are also named in the tradition as early believers. Many of the people who joined in these years were of modest social standing, including slaves and freed persons such as Bilal ibn Rabah, as well as members of weaker clans with few protectors. Their conversion challenged the social hierarchy of Mecca. The leaders of the Quraysh, including figures such as Abu Jahl and Muhammad's own uncle Abu Lahab, opposed the preaching on religious, commercial and political grounds. Abu Talib, who protected his nephew under the customs of tribal kinship, refused to abandon him even though he did not adopt the new faith himself.\n\nAs the opposition hardened, believers faced harassment, economic pressure and physical violence. Those with weak tribal protection suffered most. Sumayya bint Khayyat, an early woman convert, is traditionally regarded as the first martyr of Islam after she was killed under torture. The pressure reached a peak around 615, when a group of Muslims emigrated to the Christian kingdom of Aksum in Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia). The tradition describes the ruler, known as the Negus (al-Najashi), as granting them refuge after Quraysh envoys requested their extradition. A second, larger group followed. The Quraysh also imposed a boycott on the Banu Hashim and their allies, which lasted for some years and placed the clan under severe hardship before it was lifted.\n\nThe period ended with a double bereavement that Muslim sources record as the \"Year of Sorrow\" (Am al-Huzn), usually dated to around 619. Khadija died in that year, and Abu Talib died shortly afterwards. Without their protection, Muhammad lost the two people who had most reliably shielded him from the Quraysh, and his position in Mecca became markedly more precarious. Later sources present the event as a turning point that led him to seek support elsewhere, most notably in the oasis town of Yathrib, a development that led directly to the migration described in the next section. Scholars treat the exact dating of these events with caution, as the chronology in the sira literature was compiled a century or more after the events it describes.\n\nFor the wider context of the monotheistic traditions that Muhammad's preaching engaged, see monotheism, Judaism and Christianity, and for the later religious community that formed around the message, see Islam." }, { "heading": "The Hijra and the community at Medina", "text": "Muslim tradition dates the move from Mecca to Yathrib to 622 CE, and that year is referred to as \"Hijra\" and marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The sira literature presents the migration as the outcome of an invitation rather than a simple flight. Local leaders reportedly asked Muhammad to settle a long feud between the Aws and Khazraj clans, whose rivalry had culminated in a civil war called the Battle of Bu'ath, which left a bitter taste for both clans. Some accounts add that the people of Yathrib had already heard from their Jewish neighbours that a prophet was expected, and that a delegation from the city had met Muhammad in Mecca before the migration (Living in contact with the Jews, the Aws and the Khazraj tribes were not foreign to the idea of the unity of God. They had heard from the Jews that a Prophet was to come.). These details come from devotional and biographical literature and should be read with the source-critical caveats discussed elsewhere in this article.\n\nThe community created in Medina was divided into two named groups. The migrants from Mecca were called the Muhajirun, or \"emigrants,\" while the Medinan converts were called the Ansar, or \"helpers.\" Early sources describe how the Aws and Khazraj, despite their former enmity, were both became known as Ansar (\"The Helpers\") after the Hijra. The Ansar supported the newcomers materially. Accounts report that they were not wealthy, yet they took in the Muhajirun, shared their food and homes with them, and helped to establish them in trade or work. Tradition also records a formal pairing of individuals, in which a Muhajir was made the \"brother\" of an Ansari; one example is Abu al-Darda, who was paired with the Persian companion Salman al-Farisi. Sources disagree on the size of the emigrant group: one account speaks of about seventy of his followers, while another gives a count of forty-five.\n\nThe first mosque was an early focus of the community. According to the sources, Muhammad built the first mosque in the courtyard of his house in Medina in 622. It was a communal space in which Muslims assembled at this house-mosque for prayer and to discuss business matters. The building was constructed collectively. Its open courtyard was made with brick and tree trunks, and rooms on the eastern side were built for the Prophet's household. Tradition also says that the land belonged to two orphans and that Muhammad insisted on paying for it, and that the purchase was financed by Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.\n\nThe Constitution of Medina (Mithaq al-Madina) is the best-known document from this period. Traditional sources attribute to Muhammad a written agreement that bound the Muhajirun, the Ansar, the Jewish clans of Medina and some pagan groups into a single community, or ummah. Its stated aim was to end the fighting between Aws and Khazraj and to set rules for the whole city. Kinship was not to be the main binding tie of the new ummah; for monotheistic religion was of much greater importance. The ummah is the tribe, a supertribe, with God and Muhammad as arbiters and authorities. The terms covered several areas. Jewish groups kept the right to practise their religion, and the text places the Jewish clans in a defined relationship with the believers. Signatories were expected to bear war costs together and to aid one another against enemies. Muhammad was recognised as the final authority in disputes, and the text bars any deal with the Quraysh of Mecca. Scholars disagree about how the document should be read. The clause on Jewish clans has been interpreted in different ways, and some of its provisions were later overtaken by Quranic rulings. Its dating is also debated: one source places its drafting in 622, while another suggests a series of agreements over the following two or three years.\n\nThe internal organisation of the community can be seen in the sira's account of leadership and justice. Muhammad acted as political and judicial head, and the charter asked people to put loyalty to the community ahead of tribal loyalty. Disputes were settled under a single authority rather than through tribal vendettas, and blood money was regulated collectively to limit revenge killings. Trade and economic support were also central. The Muhajirun, who had lost their Meccan kin networks, were integrated into Medinan households and markets, and this integration is one of the main ways the sira explains how the new community became economically viable. The later expulsions and conflicts with the Jewish clans, and the wars with Mecca, are covered in the following sections." }, { "heading": "Warfare, diplomacy and the conquest of Mecca", "text": "Badr, Uhud and the Trench\n\nMuslim accounts treat Badr in 624 as the turning point of the early conflict with Mecca. The Quraysh lost several leaders there, which was a major blow to their prestige. In 624, the Quraysh suffered a major defeat at Badr, during which several of their leaders were killed.\n\nThe Meccans sought revenge the following year. Abu Sufyan ibn Harb led a force of approximately 3,000 men toward Medina to avenge the loss. The two sides met near Mount Uhud, just north of the city. The Muslims initially gained the upper hand, but the outcome turned on a tactical lapse. A group of archers had been posted on a nearby hill to protect the army's rear, but believing the battle was won, many of them left their positions to collect spoils from the Meccan camp. Meccan cavalry under Khalid ibn al-Walid then attacked from the rear, reversing the momentum, and the resulting chaos caused heavy Muslim losses, including the death of Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib. Uhud is generally regarded as a setback for the Muslims, though not a decisive Meccan victory.\n\nIn 627 the Meccans returned with a larger coalition. Muhammad had earlier achieved only partial success in breaking up hostile confederacies, and he could not prevent the Meccan-led alliance from forming. Men from Banu Khuza'a left to warn Medina of the invading army and reached Muhammad within four days, reporting that the confederate forces would arrive within a week. Defensive strategy was then debated. Meeting the enemy in the open, as at Badr, and staying inside the city, as the lesson of Uhud suggested, were both proposed. The Muslims dug a trench around the exposed sections of Medina, a plan credited to Salman al-Farsi. The coalition of roughly 10,000 was repelled, and the failed siege cost Mecca much of its commercial standing and prestige.\n\nThe Jewish tribes of Medina\n\nMedina had several Jewish clans, and the sources name at least three of them. Banu Nadir, Banu Qurayza and Banu Qaynuqa are named among many Jewish tribes in Medina, and the Medina treaty refers to others without naming them. Each clan had its own alliances. The Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza were allied with the Aws, while the Banu Qaynuqa sided with the Khazraj.\n\nThe Qaynuqa were the first to be removed. Muhammad expelled the Banu Qaynuqa in 624 for violating the Constitution of Medina. The tradition ties the rupture to an incident in which a Muslim woman was publicly humiliated, after which revenge killings escalated and the Qaynuqa fortress was besieged. The tribe eventually surrendered, and Muhammad, who had reportedly wanted to kill its members, agreed to expel them after Abdullah ibn Ubayy pressed for leniency. Watt holds that negotiations took place before the surrender, a point that qualifies the traditional picture of a simple unilateral punishment.\n\nThe Nadir were expelled in 625. They were removed from Medina after reportedly being implicated in a plot to assassinate Muhammad. Accounts of the affair differ. One version says the Nadir invited Muhammad to a debate and that a convert warned him of an ambush, while another describes an ultimatum with a ten-day deadline and outside pressure that encouraged resistance. Ibn Ishaq stated that the whole of Surat al-Hashr was revealed about the Banu Nadir. A hadith transmitted through Ibn Umar adds that the date palms of the Nadir were cut down and burned.\n\nThe Qurayza case is the most contested. After the Trench, the Muslim army besieged the Banu Qurayza neighbourhood, leading to their unconditional surrender. Scholars disagree about the terms. Some, including Watt, Peters and Stillman, hold that the Qurayza submitted to Muhammad's judgment, while Khadduri stresses an arbitration arrangement and Muir argues that their allies, the Aws, were to decide their fate. Ibn Ishaq cited no sources, while al-Waqidi referred to Ka'b ibn Malik of Salima and to the son of a Qurayza boy who was later enslaved. The traditional reports of executions and enslavement, and the numbers involved, rest on narratives written long after the events and remain widely debated.\n\nThe Treaty of Hudaybiyyah\n\nIn March 628 (Dhu al-Qa'da, AH 6), Muhammad, representing the state of Medina, and the Quraysh in Mecca reached a pivotal agreement. The Muslims had set out to perform the lesser pilgrimage, but the Quraysh blocked their entry. Among the main provisions, the Muslims were to withdraw without performing the umra that year, peace was to hold for ten years from the date of signing, and the terms were asymmetrical. A Makkan who converted and sought refuge in Medina would be returned to Mecca, but a Muslim fleeing to the pagans of Mecca would not be extradited. Tribes were also allowed to choose sides, with an agreement that aggression against a tribe would give its ally a right of retaliation. The Banu Bakr aligned themselves with the Quraysh, while the Banu Khuza'ah aligned themselves with the Muslims.\n\nHistorians caution about the document itself. The event is secure, but the surviving evidence is not a preserved signed treaty sheet. The clauses instead come through Quranic passages, hadith and sira narratives. Some sources give a nine-year, nine-month and nine-day armistice, which conflicts with the ten-year term. The treaty's practical significance lay in what followed. Muhammad was recognised as an equal negotiating partner, and tribes were free to ally with him. Islamic sources hold that the Quraysh violated the treaty, which led Muhammad to march on Mecca in 630.\n\nConquest of Mecca and the wider expansion\n\nThe breach came when the tribe of Banu Bakr, allied with the Quraysh, attacked the Banu Khuza'ah, who were allied with the Muslims. Muhammad gave the violators four months to reconsider and demanded retributive justice for the victims. After this period expired, he marched with a 10,000-strong army toward Mecca. The city was taken around the turn of 629–630, and the Meccans largely submitted without a decisive battle.\n\nMuslim sources record several further campaigns in the same period. The Battle of Hunayn, against Hawazin and Thaqif, followed the conquest, and the Siege of Ta'if and the Expedition of Tabuk belong to the same sequence. Tabuk, in 630, was a march toward the Byzantine frontier that produced no major battle. Later biographical sources also describe letters sent by Muhammad to rulers in Byzantium, Persia, Egypt and elsewhere, inviting them to Islam. Their wording and transmission are debated, and historians treat them as material that needs careful source criticism." }, { "heading": "The Quran as revelation and text", "text": "For Muslims the Quran is the word of God transmitted to Muhammad, and the way it came into being is central to how it is read. In the Muslim tradition it is divided into 114 surahs (chapters) and into verses (ayat). The surahs are not arranged chronologically. The opening chapter is a short prayer, and most of the remaining chapters run roughly from longer to shorter. Its Arabic is rhythmic and rhymed, and the text is marked by oaths, dramatic address and abrupt shifts of speaker. Classical theology developed the doctrine of i'jaz (inimitability): the claim that no human could produce a text like it. The Quran itself issues this challenge, asking listeners to produce something comparable, and the argument has been central to Muslim discussions of its miraculous status.\n\nRevelation in stages\n\nThe traditional chronology holds that the Quran was revealed in installments over about twenty-three years, from around 610 until the Prophet's death in 632. Thirteen of those years are assigned to Mecca and roughly ten to Medina. Muslim scholars therefore divide the surahs into Meccan and Medinan groups. The criteria are partly historical and partly textual: Meccan chapters are usually shorter, with brief rhythmic verses, warnings about the Last Day, polemics against idolatry and the stories of earlier prophets. Medinan chapters tend to be longer and include legal regulations, discussions of the community and addresses to the believers. These are conventions rather than clean boundaries, and some surahs combine both types. Western scholars such as Theodor Nöldeke produced their own chronologies, which often differ from the traditional order.\n\nThe tradition also developed the genre of asbab al-nuzul, the \"occasions of revelation.\" These reports attach a particular event or question to a verse, so that its meaning can be understood in context. Classical exegetes treated them as guides to interpretation rather than strict history. Modern scholars have debated how far these reports reflect real events, with some arguing that many were built later from the verses themselves or from prophetic biography.\n\nCollection and standardization\n\nMuslim accounts state that the Quran was memorized and written down during Muhammad's lifetime, with companions acting as scribes. After his death, Abu Bakr is said to have ordered a full written collection, prompted by concern about losing reciters in battle, and the work was led by Zayd ibn Thabit. Under Uthman (r. 644–656), a standard codex (mushaf) was prepared, copies were sent to the provinces, and other written versions were reportedly destroyed. The Uthmanic codex is generally regarded as the archetype of the text used today. The traditions also describe an earlier period in which different communities recited the text in different ways, and these tensions are the background of Uthman's decision.\n\nVariant readings (qira'at) are still part of the tradition. Some reports speak of the Quran being revealed \"in seven modes\" (ahruf), and in the tenth century the scholar Ibn Mujahid fixed a canonical set of seven readings, although later scholars expanded the list. The variants are mainly differences in vowels, consonants and word forms that do not change the central message. An example is Q 2:238, where some readings preserve a different wording for \"the middle prayer.\" Muslim scholars regard the canonical readings as transmitted from the Prophet, while the historical question of how far the Uthmanic text fixed one reading is discussed in Western scholarship.\n\nSubject matter and its role in the mission\n\nThe Quran's content covers theology (the unity of God, divine attributes, creation and resurrection), ethics (honesty, care for orphans and the poor, conduct within families), law (rules on inheritance, marriage, worship and commerce), and narratives about earlier prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus. It also addresses earlier scriptures and their communities, confirming some elements and correcting others. In Muslim understanding, these narratives are a form of guidance rather than history in the modern sense.\n\nFor the tradition, the Quran is both the central proof of Muhammad's prophethood and the content of his mission. He is presented in the text as a messenger who recites, warns, and teaches the revelation, and his later biography is read largely through the verses that address his situation. This relationship between text and biography is one reason the Quran and the sira literature are studied together, even though their genres and methods differ." }, { "heading": "Hadith and the sunna", "text": "In Islamic usage, a hadith is a report that records something the Prophet said, did, or tacitly allowed. Muslim scholars treat these reports as the main body of material that explains how the Quran is to be applied in daily life. The sunnah are documented in the hadith, which are the records of Muhammad's teachings, deeds, and sayings, as noted by his companions. Legal theorists (usul al-fiqh) draw a finer line. They use sunna for the Prophet's practice and implicit consent, and reserve hadith for the report of it, while hadith specialists often use the two words interchangeably. In Western scholarship the term is sometimes stretched to cover the reports about the Companions and later figures as well.\n\nIsnad and matn\n\nEach hadith has two components. The isnad is the chain of named transmitters, and the matn is the content itself. Every single tradition begins with a chain of transmitters, called isnad. The first transmitter is often the collector, sometimes even his pupil, and the chain then runs back through each informant until it reaches the original reporter. A typical example concerns repeating the words of the muezzin at the call to prayer. Its chain runs from a collector back through named intermediaries to Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, and the matn is the instruction itself. While the isnad is the chain of narrators, the matn is the substance of what the Prophet said, did, or approved.\n\nEvaluation has always been two-sided. Critics assessed whether the chain was unbroken and whether each transmitter was upright and dependable. A sahih hadith is one with a connected chain of transmission, each narrator being upright in character, exacting, and reliable in his narration and transmission. Critics also tested the text. Scholars evaluate the matn to ensure it does not contradict the Quran, established sunnah, or sound reason. A flawless chain could therefore still be rejected if its content conflicted with more secure evidence.\n\nClassification of reports\n\nLater scholars sorted reports into graded categories. Sunni classification commonly distinguishes (1) sahih (sound); (2) hasan (fair); (3) da'if (weak), with some subcategories of this class; and (4) mawdu' (spurious). Sound and fair reports are accepted, while weak ones are generally set aside. Sahih and hasan hadith, according to the hadith scholars, are \"accepted\" (maqbul), and da'if hadith are \"rejected\" (mardud). The categories also had internal refinements. A report might be sound in itself, or it might rise to the sound grade through other, independently transmitted reports. The first kind is described as sound li-dhatihi, and the second as sound li-ghayrihi. Scholars also acknowledged that different scholars may disagree over the classifications of different hadith.\n\nThe canonical collections\n\nThe most authoritative collections were compiled in the ninth century. Together they form the Kutub al-Sittah, the six most highly regarded collections of hadith in Sunni Islam. Al-Bukhari (d. 870) arranged his work in the musannaf format, grouping reports by legal and devotional topic. He is recorded as having collected over 300,000 hadith and included only 2,602 traditions in his Sahih, a figure that rests on later biographical accounts. Al-Bukhari's collection and that of his student Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj are known together as the Sahihayn. Sunni scholars regard them as the most authentic books after the Quran, and the majority view holds that al-Bukhari's work is the more exacting of the two. Earlier compilations had mixed sound and weak material, which is partly why the later collectors set stricter standards for inclusion.\n\nLaw, theology and practice\n\nHadith supplies much of the detail that the Quran leaves general. Compared with the Qur'an, hadith give far greater detail about the practices which Muslims should adhere to in their daily lives. Because of this, the sunna became after the Qur'an the second fundamental source of the shari'a, the Law of God.\n\nLegal schools nonetheless disagreed about how far weaker reports could be used. Abu Hanifa is recorded as preferring weak reports over analogical reasoning (qiyas), and Ibn Hazm reported that Hanafi scholars held the same view. Hanafis also gave priority to reports that matched the practice of the Iraqi legal tradition. Malik, by contrast, preferred the apparent meaning of a Quranic verse over a single tradition, even a sound one, unless the tradition was supported by consensus or established practice. The Hanbalis accepted weak reports more widely, while the Shafi'is set conditions under which they might be used. Some scholars, such as the Maliki jurist Abu Bakr ibn al-'Arabi, rejected the use of weak reports in law entirely. Because judging authenticity itself requires interpretive effort, the disagreements went beyond the grading of individual reports and extended to the methods of legal reasoning." }, { "heading": "The biographical tradition (sira and maghazi)", "text": "Ibn Ishaq and the Sira\n\nThe earliest comprehensive biography of Muhammad is usually traced to Ibn Ishaq (c. 704–767), a Medinan scholar who gathered oral reports about the Prophet and dictated them to his students. His work, known as the Sirat Rasul Allah (\"Life of the Messenger of God\"), has not survived in its original form. It is known through later recensions. The most important of these was made by his student al-Bakka'i, and the version that survives today is the one edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833). Ibn Hisham explicitly removed material he judged disgraceful, distressing, or unreliable, so his text is an abridgement. Al-Tabari quoted large sections of the fuller version, which allows scholars to partly reconstruct what Ibn Hisham cut. Much of the poetry in the surviving text is regarded by later critics as spurious. Ibn Ishaq's biography became the reference point for almost all subsequent accounts of the Prophet's life, which is why it is often described as the classical biography.\n\nAl-Waqidi and the maghazi literature\n\nThe military history of the Prophet's campaigns (maghazi) is associated above all with al-Waqidi (c. 747–823), a Medinan who later served as a judge under the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun. His Kitab al-Maghazi gives a detailed, often chronological account of the expeditions, from Badr onward. Scholars have long noted his partisan tendencies, inconsistencies, and the difficulty of verifying his chains of transmission, yet his work was widely used as a standard reference by later biographers and historians. Al-Waqidi's material is also preserved in the writings of his secretary and student Ibn Sa'd. Other early maghazi works, such as those of Musa ibn Uqba and Ma'mar ibn Rashid, survive only in fragments or indirectly, which means that the surviving corpus is heavily shaped by a few transmitters.\n\nIbn Sa'd, al-Tabari and later compilations\n\nMuhammad ibn Sa'd (784/785–845) compiled the Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (\"Book of the Major Classes\"), a multi-volume biographical dictionary. Its opening volumes deal with the Prophet's life and campaigns, drawing heavily on al-Waqidi, while later volumes cover companions, successors, and scholars. Ibn Sa'd's arrangement is more systematic than that of Ibn Ishaq, and it preserves many variant reports side by side. A generation later, al-Tabari (d. 923) wrote his universal History of the Prophets and Kings. Its early sections on Muhammad cite Ibn Ishaq extensively and are therefore one of the main witnesses to his lost text. Alongside these historians, the Shamaʾil literature of compilers such as al-Tirmidhi described the Prophet's character and bodily features, creating a parallel devotional strand of biography.\n\nChronology, transmission and the boundary between genres\n\nThe sira literature poses serious problems. The sources were written more than a century after the events they describe, and their chronologies sometimes conflict. Many reports circulate without full chains of transmission, and the same episode may appear in several versions with different dates, participants, or motives. Muslim scholars had developed sophisticated methods for judging hadith by their isnad (chain) and matn (text), but these criteria were applied to sira material less consistently. Early scholars distinguished between narratives about the Prophet that were relevant to law (which required strict verification, because they could establish legal precedent) and historical or edifying stories, which were often accepted with more latitude. This distinction was never fully systematic, and the boundary between history, law, and devotional literature remained porous.\n\nHow the sira shaped the image of the Prophet\n\nBecause the sira narrated the Prophet's conduct in war, diplomacy, governance and daily life, it became a primary source for portraying him as a model of character, leadership and piety. Later readers drew from these texts examples for ethics, political conduct and personal devotion. The selection, arrangement and emphasis of episodes, such as the treatment of defeated enemies or the handling of disputes, therefore carried normative weight. Modern historians approach these same texts as literary and historiographical constructions shaped by the concerns of the Abbasid period in which they were compiled, while Muslim tradition has generally treated them as a record of the Prophet's life and example." }, { "heading": "Status in Islamic belief and devotion", "text": "The final prophet\n\nMuslims call Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets (khatam al-nabiyyin), a title the Quran gives him once, in 33:40, alongside the description \"Messenger of God.\" Readers differ on the vowelling of the word, but the two readings are recognised as giving the same sense, namely \"the last of the prophets\". Commentators tie the sense of \"seal\" to closure: the seal is applied to something when it is meant to be closed, and the process of sending new prophets was ended by his coming. Classical exegetes such as Ibn Kathir read the verse as a clear statement that no prophet will come after him.\n\nFor Muslims, this finality is what gives the message its scope. Revelation to Moses and Jesus is treated as genuine but incomplete, and the Quran and the Prophet's example are understood to supersede earlier scriptures and to address all of humanity. This is the doctrinal basis for the Muslim claim that Islam does not replace an old religion with a new one but completes a single line of guidance that Jews and Christians have partly received.\n\nShahada, prayer and blessings\n\nThe Shahada, the basic profession of faith, joins belief in one God with recognition of Muhammad. In its common form, a believer testifies that there is no deity but God and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger. The word \"servant\" (ʿabd) is significant: it places Muhammad within the category of created humans while affirming his mission.\n\nHis name is part of daily ritual. It appears in the call to prayer (adhan), where the testimony to his messengership is made publicly five times a day, and in the tashahhud recited in every prayer. Whenever his name is spoken or written, Muslims commonly add a blessing (ṣalawat) and a formula of honour such as \"peace be upon him.\" These phrases are discussed in more detail in the section on honorifics.\n\nThe Night Journey and Ascension\n\nThe Isra and Mi'raj, the Night Journey and Ascension, rest on a brief Quranic basis. Surah 17:1 speaks of a servant being carried by night from the Holy Mosque to the Further Mosque, whose surroundings God has blessed. Muslim scholars generally identify the Further Mosque with Jerusalem, although the city is not named in the verse. The ascent is usually linked to Surah al-Najm (53), and most traditions, especially the authentic ones, place the event about one year before the hijra. The detailed narrative, including the ascent through the heavens and the imposition of the five daily prayers, comes from hadith and sira literature rather than from the Quran itself.\n\nTheological readings differ. The majority of scholars hold that the journey was both physical and spiritual, and that the body travelled along with the soul. Some Sufi writers instead treat the ascent as a spiritual experience, and some mystical currents describe it as an out-of-body event. Classical commentators such as al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir read the Quranic term for the vision as referring to sight with the eyes rather than to a dream, which strengthens the physical interpretation.\n\nHonour and worship\n\nIslamic doctrine draws a firm line between honouring the Prophet and worshipping him. Shirk, the association of partners with God, is treated as the gravest sin; the Quran states that God does not forgive partners being joined with Him, though lesser sins He may forgive for whomever He wills. Because worship belongs to God alone, any act of devotion directed to a creature, including a prophet, is regarded by mainstream scholars as a violation of tawhid.\n\nWithin this framework, the Prophet himself is recorded as restraining excessive reverence. A hadith tradition has him warn his community not to exaggerate his praise as some Christians had done with Jesus. Ibn Taymiyya cites the case of a companion who prostrated before him as a greeting and was forbidden to do so, which is used as evidence that even respectful prostration is inappropriate. Other scholars distinguish between prostration of worship, reserved for God, and gestures of honour, which they consider permissible in certain contexts.\n\nDisagreement persists over practices connected with the Prophet's intercession and with visiting his grave or invoking him. Most Muslims affirm that he will intercede on the Day of Judgment, but they differ on whether asking for his intercession counts as legitimate supplication or as a form of shirk. Reformist and Salafi writers usually stress strict separation of worship from veneration, while other traditions regard respectful invocation and visitation as acceptable." }, { "heading": "Family, wives and descendants", "text": "Muhammad's household became a central reference point for later Muslim debates about authority, law and genealogy. Muslim tradition credits him with eleven wives in total. The Qur'an (33:6) describes the believers' relationship to them in maternal terms, and Muslims refer to them as Mothers of the Believers (Arabic: Ummu l-Mu'minīn). Some scholars drew a legal consequence from the title: no Muslim may marry any of the Prophet's wives after him.\n\nThe first and most revered of these wives was Khadija. She was a Meccan merchant who had hired Muhammad to run her caravans, and she later proposed to him. She was a wealthy Quraysh widow who employed Muḥammad in her trading business and proposed marriage when he was 25. The marriage lasted until her death in 619, and Muhammad had no other wives while she was alive and had no children by any of his later wives. Most of his children were born to her. Her relationship to the early revelation is discussed elsewhere in this article, but her standing as a model of devotion is central to the tradition.\n\nAfter Khadija's death, Muhammad married several women, and the reasons given for these marriages vary. Some were widows of companions who had died in the early community, and others were tied to political alliances. When he was banished to Medina he married again, mostly for political reasons, to forge ties with tribal leaders. His marriage to Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, was the most significant of these. Tradition holds that after her death, ʿĀʾishah was the most beloved of his subsequent wives, by his own statement (Bukhārī). Aisha later became one of the most important transmitters of hadith, and her political role after 656 made her a figure of lasting controversy. Traditional accounts give her a very young age at marriage, and modern scholars often discuss the chronology of these reports critically.\n\nHis daughter Fatima, Khadija's child, married his cousin and adopted son Ali ibn Abi Talib. Muhammad is said to have regarded Fatima as the best of women and the dearest person to him. Their children were Hasan and Husayn, and sources also name Zaynab and Umm Kulthum as their daughters. Hasan and Husayn are recognized as the second and third Imams in Shia Islam, their descendants being known as the Hasanids and the Husaynids, respectively. Ali also had children by other wives, and the lineage of Ali continued through Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya, Abbas ibn Ali, and Umar al-Atraf, which shows that Ali's descendants did not come only through Fatima.\n\nThe question of succession began in 632, when Muhammad died. Abu Bakr was chosen as his successor at Saqifah by a group of the prophet's companions, while Ali was attending to the prophet's funeral and was therefore absent from the gathering. The assembly, known as the Saqifa, became the focal point of the later split. Sunni Muslims hold that Muhammad left the choice of his successor to the community, and therefore regard Abu Bakr's selection by companions as legitimate. By contrast, Shia Muslims hold that Abu Bakr's appointment bypassed Ali's rightful claim to the succession, since Muhammad had already designated Ali as his successor at Ghadir Khumm. Some accounts also describe Fatima appealing to Medinan supporters for backing after the assembly, though the reliability of these reports is debated. The modern historiography treats these events as contested, and the debate over the sources remains active.\n\nMuhammad's descendants also gave rise to a genealogical vocabulary that is still in use. The title sayyid is an honorific title used by Muslims to denote descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, particularly those descended through his daughter Fatima and Ali's sons Hasan and Husayn. Usage has varied over time: 'Sharif' is reserved for descendants of Hassan while 'Sayyid' is used for descendants of Husayn. Several dynasties claimed Muhammad's kinship to gain legitimacy. The Abbasids, for example, traced their claim to descendants of Muhammad's uncle, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. Many later families, including various Alid and Hashemite lines, rely on family records to establish these links. Such genealogies are significant for the political and religious identity of the communities that preserve them, but they are often difficult to verify independently." }, { "heading": "Historical study and source criticism", "text": "Early non-Muslim witnesses\n\nThe evidence for Muhammad from outside the Muslim tradition is sparse and indirect. Greek, Syriac and Armenian texts written within a few decades of the conquests, such as the Doctrina Jacobi (c. 634) and the chronicle attributed to Sebeos (7th century), refer to Arab armies, a prophet-like leader and a new monotheist movement, but none of them offers a biography. Scholars still disagree about whether such passages preserve independent knowledge of Muhammad or reflect Christian rumours about the Arabs, and about how reliably they can be dated.\n\nPatricia Crone and Michael Cook's Hagarism (1977) pushed this approach furthest. It built its account of Islam's beginnings largely from documents written by witnesses in Armenian, Greek, Aramaic and Syriac, and it treated the Muslim narratives as later constructions. Doubt about the Muslim accounts formed the basis of their method. Reportedly, the authors later withdrew some of their arguments, which shows how contested the book's conclusions remained.\n\nRevisionist scholarship in the twentieth century\n\nJohn Wansbrough's Quranic Studies (1977) applied form analysis to the Quran and read the early community as an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity. Noting the persistent use of monotheistic imagery stemming from Judeo-Christian sources, he interpreted the rise of Islam as the development of what was originally a Judeo-Christian sect. His most provocative claim concerned the text's fixation. Wansbrough held that the canonization of the text that we today call the Quran, and even the emergence of the concept of \"Islam,\" probably did not occur till the end of the eighth century, more than 150 years after the death of Muhammad. His argument that the Quran was not written down until the third century AH has generated extensive debate, and his method has been widely criticised as well as praised. Fazlur Rahman, for example, criticized Wansbrough's theories, defending traditional views.\n\nManuscript evidence for the early Quranic text\n\nThe Sanaa palimpsest offers the most concrete material evidence. Its discovery followed a 1972 restoration: part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text. The lower layer is generally dated to the seventh century, and the upper text is thought to date from the second century of Islam (eighth century CE). Radiocarbon results carry their own caveats, since they record only when the sheep whose skin became the parchment died instead of when the original text was copied by the scribes.\n\nThe lower text is the key point of interest. Its partly deciphered wording includes previously unknown textual variants of the Quran. By contrast, the upper text entirely conforms to the standard text. Gerd Puin's team and Elisabeth Puin's later analysis argued that the text was still in flux in the time span between the scriptio inferior and the scriptio superior of the palimpsest. Scholars differ on how much these variants reveal about the period before the standardisation attributed to Uthman. Other fragments show the canonical text, and the wider find is large: almost 1,000 unique copies of the Qur'an comprising approximately 15,000 parchment fragments were recorded, though the cataloguing was never completed.\n\nMethodological debates\n\nThe central question is how to combine Muslim narratives with archaeological, papyrological and documentary evidence. Critics of Hagarism argued that it relies on non-Muslim sources while disregarding Islamic traditions, while its defenders pointed to the value of sources written by contemporaries. Wansbrough's work has been received in the same divided way: some scholars support Wansbrough's critical approach and view his contributions as a paradigm shift in the study of the Quran. However, this perspective is also contested by several scholars who criticize Wansbrough's methodology and assumptions.\n\nMuch current work tries to test Muslim reports against inscriptions, coins, papyri and material remains, and to assess the isnad-based transmission of early texts on its own terms rather than dismissing it outright. The debate turns less on whether early Muslim sources contain legend than on which parts of them can be checked against independent evidence, and how much weight the non-Muslim witnesses can bear." }, { "heading": "Art, commemoration and devotional literature", "text": "Aniconism and the depiction of the Prophet\n\nImages of Muhammad are among the most sensitive questions in Islamic art. Most Muslim artistic traditions avoid figurative representation of prophets, a stance usually linked to the concern that images could slide into idolatry and to hadith warnings against image-makers. Some scholars also connect the restraint to the aim of protecting the oneness of God. Yet the rule has never been applied uniformly. From the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Persian and later Ottoman illustrators included Muhammad in narrative scenes, often in manuscripts of universal history and prophetic biography. These images were usually meant to clarify a text and were produced in courtly workshops, not for devotional use.\n\nArtists developed several ways to show him while limiting the likeness. A large flaming halo, borrowed from a wider East Asian and Persian visual vocabulary, could surround his head or whole body, and in some pictures only the flames are visible. When his figure is shown, his face is often left blank or covered with a white veil. The veiling became more common over time. The best-known example is the six-volume Siyer-i Nebi (a biography of the Prophet) completed for the Ottoman court in the 1590s, which contains 814 miniatures, and in which Muhammad is always veiled. Some Shia traditions have been more permissive about respectful images, although many Shia artists today also avoid showing his face. For many Muslims, any depiction remains forbidden, and the existence of manuscript exceptions does not change that view.\n\nMawlid: the celebration of the Prophet's birth\n\nThe Mawlid al-Nabi marks Muhammad's birthday. Its date is disputed: Sunni tradition generally puts it on 12 Rabi al-Awwal, whereas Shia tradition places it on 17 Rabi al-Awwal, a gap that some communities have marked as a week of unity. The origins of the festival are also uncertain. Most scholars point to Fatimid Egypt, with the earliest detailed record coming from a Mamluk-era historian who describes a 1122 gathering of scholars and religious figures, with sermons, sweets and alms for the poor. Scholars disagree on whether the festival was new in that period or already established, and Marion Katz has argued that Sunni rulers celebrated it alongside the Fatimids rather than only after them.\n\nLegitimacy has been debated since at least the fifteenth century, when jurists answered questions about the practice in fatwas. Supporters, including many Sufi-oriented Sunni scholars and most Shia scholars, present it as an expression of love for the Prophet, which the Quran implicitly encourages, and as a reminder of divine blessings. Critics, especially Salafi and Wahhabi authorities, call it an innovation (bid'a) because neither the Prophet nor the early caliphs are recorded as observing it. Mawlid is therefore discouraged or banned in Saudi Arabia, while in many other countries it is a public holiday with processions, recitations and gatherings. The debate sometimes becomes political: large celebrations in Hyderabad in 2010 were linked to communal violence.\n\nDevotional literature: shama'il, hilya and praise poetry\n\nDevotional writing about the Prophet grew out of the shama'il genre, which collected hadith on his physical appearance and moral character. Its most influential work is al-Tirmidhi's Shama'il al-Muhammadiyya, and the most widely cited description comes from a report attributed to his cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Scholars such as al-Suyuti later expanded the field with works on the Prophet's special attributes. From this background emerged the hilya, a word meaning \"ornament\" and applied both to a literary genre and to a calligraphic panel. The Ottoman calligrapher Hafiz Osman (d. 1698) is credited with the classic layout in which a central circular panel, often set inside a crescent, carries the text, with the names of the first four caliphs in the corners. Hilyas were prized as objects of devotion, offering a verbal image of the Prophet in place of a painted one.\n\nPraise poetry (madih nabawi) forms another major strand. Poems glorifying Muhammad, his birth, his night journey and his intercession were recited at gatherings, Sufi assemblies and Mawlid celebrations, and they became a standard part of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and Malay literary cultures. The Qasida al-Burda, attributed to the thirteenth-century Egyptian poet al-Busiri, is among the most widely recited examples and has been commented on for centuries.\n\nSites associated with the Prophet\n\nThe two most important sites are in the Hijaz. The Prophet's Mosque in Medina was built after his migration to the city and became the centre of his community; it later grew through successive expansions and contains his tomb. The Kaaba stands within the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, and Muslims worldwide face it in prayer. Circling it is a central rite of the hajj and umrah pilgrimages, and non-Muslims are barred from entering Mecca. Both cities have been reshaped by modern expansion, and some early structures near the Prophet's mosque and in Mecca have been demolished, a process that has produced ongoing debate about heritage preservation versus religious purity. Pilgrimage thus links sacred geography, ritual and the management of cultural heritage in Saudi Arabia." }, { "heading": "Reception in non-Muslim writing", "text": "Medieval Christian polemic\n\nLatin Christian writing about Muhammad began early and was mostly hostile. The Storia de Mahometh, an anonymous Latin life written from a negative Christian standpoint, probably in al-Andalus between about 750 and 850. It is also notable for containing the earliest known translation into Latin of any portion of the Qur'an. Medieval European popular literature often misread Muslim devotion, picturing Muslims as worshipping Muhammad as though he were worshipped by Muslims, similar to an idol or a heathen god.\n\nLater writers shifted the charge from paganism to schism. Brunetto Latini's 13th century Li livres dou tresor represents him as a former monk and cardinal, and Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto 28), written in the early 1300s, puts Muhammad and his son-in-law, Ali, in Hell among those who sowed discord. Dante's placement has been studied closely. Scholars have debated how far Dante drew on Islamic sources, a question first raised by Miguel Asín Palacios in 1919 as first suggested by Miguel Asín Palacios in 1919. Earlier Latin material also circulated at court. A Castilian life of Muhammad was translated from Castilian into Latin (Liber scale Machometi) and Old French (Livre de l'eschiele Mahomet) between 1260 and 1264.\n\nLatin Qur'an and the institutional study of Islam\n\nThe most consequential medieval project was the first Latin translation of the Qur'an. Around 1141, Peter the Venerable, one of the most prominent Christian leaders in Europe, commissioned Robert of Ketton, an otherwise undistinguished astronomer from Rutland, to translate the Qur'an into Latin for the first time. The work was finished in 1143 and titled Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete. It was meant as a tool for aiding the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Its inaccuracies did not prevent it from being used: in spite of its inaccuracies, Ketton's translation remained the standard Latin translation for four centuries. It was printed in 1543 at Basel, and its Latin wording shaped European refutations of Islam for centuries.\n\nEarly modern and Enlightenment writing\n\nFrom the sixteenth century, Muhammad became a recurring figure in European drama, poetry and philosophical argument, often used as a symbol of religious fanaticism or of the dangers of unchecked prophetic authority. Voltaire's 1741 tragedy Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophète is the best-known example, using Muhammad to attack intolerance in Christian Europe as well as in Islam. Goethe and Thomas Carlyle, in The Hero as Prophet (1840), treated him more sympathetically, as a figure of historical greatness. Translation also advanced in the eighteenth century. The English translator George Sale produced a version that replaced the medieval Latin text as a reference, though he criticized the translation for containing \"numberless faults\" and \"leaving scarce any resemblance\" of the Quran. Sale's own version was not free of bias either.\n\nOrientalist scholarship and its critics\n\nModern academic study of Muhammad grew from nineteenth-century philology and history, carried out largely in German, French and English. Scholars such as Theodor Nöldeke, who published his history of the Qur'an in 1860, and Aloys Sprenger, who wrote a major biography in the 1860s, established methods of source criticism that remain in use. Later Western scholars, including W. Montgomery Watt and Maxime Rodinson, combined historical and sociological approaches. The field has also been criticised from within. Said's best-known work, Orientalism (1978), analyzed Western scholarship on the Arab Islamic world, arguing that it was biased and presented a stereotyped vision that supported Western colonial policy. Said's critique made scholars reexamine how earlier studies of the Prophet had been shaped by imperial and missionary aims.\n\nContemporary public debate\n\nIn the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Muhammad has become a focus of public controversy in Europe and North America. Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses (1988) and the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet in a Danish newspaper (2005) led to protests across the Muslim world and to legal and diplomatic disputes. The 2015 attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo renewed debate over blasphemy, free expression and the depiction of religious figures. Muslim commentators have generally presented such depictions as offensive to the Prophet's honour, while many Western critics present them as protected expression or as legitimate criticism of religion. Academic and popular writing continues to be divided along religious, political and cultural lines, with the same events often interpreted in opposite ways." } ], "links": [ "islam", "byzantine-empire", "kaaba", "kinship", "marriage", "trade", "judaism", "christianity" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Muhammad (name)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)" }, { "title": "Ahmad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad" }, { "title": "Muhammad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad" }, { "title": "Abu al-Qasim", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_al-Qasim" }, { "title": "Banu Hashim", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Hashim" }, { "title": "Mahomet - Wiktionary, the free dictionary", "url": "https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mahomet" }, { "title": "Mahomet", "url": "https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/islam-biographies/mahomet" }, { "title": "Muhammad - Etymology, Origin & Meaning of the Name", "url": "https://www.etymonline.com/word/Muhammad" }, { "title": "Mahound", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahound" }, { "title": "Mohammedan", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammedan" }, { "title": "Caitlin Green: Macamathehou in Lincolnshire and the evidence for people named Muhammad in medieval England", "url": "https://www.caitlingreen.org/2021/01/macamathehou-in-lincolnshire.html" }, { "title": "Ahmad Name Meaning and Description", "url": "https://hawramani.com/ahmad-name/" }, { "title": "Meaning, origin and history of the name Muhammad - Behind the Name", "url": "https://www.behindthename.com/name/muhammad" }, { "title": "The Prophet’s Life in Brief - IslamOnline", "url": "https://islamonline.net/en/the-prophets-life-in-brief/" }, { "title": "Early Life of Muhammad", "url": "https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldcivilization/chapter/early-life-of-muhammad/" }, { "title": "The Birth of Muhammad and the Early Years of his Life — Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, New York", "url": "https://www.al-khoei.org/the-birth-of-muhammad-and-the-early-years-of-his-life/" }, { "title": "Muhammad’s Early Life and Family", "url": "https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-244.html" }, { "title": "Chapter 3: Muhammad Mustafa (S)", "url": "https://al-islam.org/khadijatul-kubra-short-story-her-life-sayyid-ali-asghar-razwy/chapter-3-muhammad-mustafa-s" }, { "title": "Muhammad Before Prophethood: The Orphan Who Changed the World", "url": "https://qissahapp.com/stories/muhammad-before-prophethood" }, { "title": "Muhammad%27s first revelation", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_first_revelation" }, { "title": "Al-Alaq", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Alaq" }, { "title": "Mount Jabal al-Nour: A journey to the Cave of Revelation - Pilgrimaps", "url": "https://www.pilgrimaps.com/mount-hira-a-journey-to-the-cave-of-revelation/" }, { "title": "Ghar-e-Hira (Cave of Hira) in Makkah", "url": "https://hajjumrahplanner.com/ghar-e-hira-cave/" }, { "title": "Aws and Khazraj", "url": "https://webhelper.brown.edu/joukowsky/courses/islamicarch2011/14180.html" }, { "title": "Abbad ibn Bishr", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbad_ibn_Bishr" }, { "title": "The Prophet in Madina (622 A.D.)", "url": "https://al-islam.org/muhammad-yasin-t-al-jibouri/prophet-madina-622-ad" }, { "title": "Banu Aws", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Aws" }, { "title": "The Beginning of the Beginning .. Hijrah - IslamOnline", "url": "https://islamonline.net/en/the-beginning-of-the-beginning-hijrah/" }, { "title": "Constitution of Medina", "url": "https://webhelper.brown.edu/joukowsky/courses/islamiccivilizations/7967.html" }, { "title": "Medina [Al Madinah, Yathrib]", "url": "https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/medina-prophets-mosque.htm" }, { "title": "Muhammad's Constitution Of Medina - OpEd - Eurasia Review", "url": "https://www.eurasiareview.com/17102018-muhammads-constitution-of-medina-oped/" }, { "title": "Constitution of Medina", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Medina" }, { "title": "(PDF) The Medina Constitution", "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228245045_The_Medina_Constitution" }, { "title": "Early social changes under Islam", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_social_changes_under_Islam" }, { "title": "What Made The Charter of Medina Unique? - Our Prophet 6 - 104/127", "url": "https://al-islam.org/media/what-made-charter-medina-unique-our-prophet-6-104127" }, { "title": "The \"Constitution\" of Medina: Translation, Commentary, and Meaning Today", "url": "https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-constitution-of-medina-translation-commentary-and-meaning-today" }, { "title": "Conjuring Sovereignty: How the “Constitution” of Medina ...", "url": "https://journalofislamiclaw.com/current/article/download/anjum/176?inline=1" }, { "title": "Abu al-Darda", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_al-Darda" }, { "title": "Medina - WikiIslam", "url": "https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Medina" }, { "title": "Prophet's Mosque", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophet's_Mosque" }, { "title": "Masjid an-Nabawi at the time of Prophet Muhammad - Madain Project (en)", "url": "https://madainproject.com/masjid_al_nabawi_at_the_time_of_prophet_muhammad" }, { "title": "Battle of Uhud", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Uhud" }, { "title": "Battle of the Trench", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench" }, { "title": "Military career of Muhammad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Muhammad" }, { "title": "The Banu Quraizah: بنو قريظة - Wajibad - WordPress.com", "url": "https://wajibad.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/the-banu-quraizah-%D8%A8%D9%86%D9%88-%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B8%D8%A9/" }, { "title": "Invasion of Banu Qaynuqa", "url": "https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Invasion_of_Banu_Qaynuqa" }, { "title": "Invasion of Banu Nadir", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Banu_Nadir" }, { "title": "Expulsion of Jewish Tribe Bani An-Nadir from Mandina : Tafseer Ibn Katheer", "url": "https://abdurrahman.org/2014/01/27/expulsionofbaninadir/" }, { "title": "Battle of the Trench", "url": "https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench" }, { "title": "Treaty of al-Hudaybiya", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_al-Hudaybiya" }, { "title": "The Treaty of Hudaybiyya", "url": "https://al-islam.org/restatement-history-islam-and-muslims-sayyid-ali-asghar-razwy/treaty-hudaybiyya" }, { "title": "Conquest of Mecca", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca" }, { "title": "What the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah Agreed in 628 - Features & Perspectives", "url": "https://themuslimpost.org/features-perspectives/treaty-of-hudaybiyyah-terms-timeline-outcomes" }, { "title": "Muhammad after the occupation of Mecca", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_after_the_occupation_of_Mecca" }, { "title": "Banu Nadir", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Nadir" }, { "title": "Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ubayda_ibn_al-Jarrah" }, { "title": "Quran", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran" }, { "title": "Uthman", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uthman" }, { "title": "Abu Bakr Ibn Muj%C4%81hid", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_Ibn_Muj%C4%81hid" }, { "title": "Asbab al-Nuzul", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbab_al-Nuzul" }, { "title": "The Chronology and Background of Quranic Revelation", "url": "https://www.ilmgate.org/the-chronology-and-background-of-quranic-revelation/" }, { "title": "The ʿUthmānic Codex: Understanding how the Qur’an was Preserved", "url": "https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-uthmanic-codex-understanding-how-the-quran-was-preserved" }, { "title": "The First Codex: Abu Bakr's Compilation of the Qur’an", "url": "https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-first-codex-abu-bakrs-compilation-of-the-quran" }, { "title": "From Oral Tradition to Written Codex: The ʿUthmānic Standardisation of the Qur'an - 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Surah Al Isra (The Night Journey), also known as Surah Bani Israil (The Children of Israel) - Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi - Tafhim al-Qur'an - The Meaning of the Qur'an", "url": "http://www.englishtafsir.com/Quran/17/index.html" }, { "title": "Does prostrating or bowing by way of greeting come under the heading of shirk? - Islam Question & Answer", "url": "https://islamqa.info/en/answers/229780" }, { "title": "Prohibition of Shirk in Social Customs", "url": "https://islambasics.com/chapter/prohibition-of-shirk-in-social-customs/" }, { "title": "Is it Shirk? A Practical Guide to Identifying and Avoiding Shirk in Islam", "url": "https://iqs.org.in/is-it-shirk/" }, { "title": "Muhammad's wives", "url": "https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Muhammad's_wives" }, { "title": "When the Quran states that the wives of the Prophet (s) are the mothers of the believers, is it referring only to Khadija (a) or all his wives? What is the significance of that statement?", "url": "https://al-islam.org/ask/when-the-quran-states-that-the-wives-of-the-prophet-s-are-the-mothers-of-the-believers-is-it-referring-only-to-khadija-a-or-all-his-wives-what-is-the-significance-of-that-statement" }, { "title": "The Wives of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: The Complete Guide", "url": "https://eaalim.com/blogs/islamic/the-wives-of-prophet-muhammad" }, { "title": "Khadijah", "url": "https://www.britannica.com/biography/Khadijah" }, { "title": "Muhammad, His Wives and Women", "url": "https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-245.html" }, { "title": "Fatima", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatima" }, { "title": "Alids", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_Ali" }, { "title": "Succession to Muhammad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_Muhammad" }, { "title": "Sayyid", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid" }, { "title": "Sayyid", "url": "https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Sayyid" }, { "title": "Ali al-Sajjad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_ibn_Husayn_Zayn_al-Abidin" }, { "title": "Mothers of Faithful Believers", "url": "https://www.iqra.net/articles/muslims/family4.html" }, { "title": "Saqifa", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saqifa" }, { "title": "Al-Imama wa al-siyasa", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Imama_wa_al-siyasa" }, { "title": "Patricia Crone", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Crone" }, { "title": "Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation: Wansbrough, John, Rippin, Andrew, Rippin, Andrew: 9781591022015: Amazon.com: Books", "url": "https://www.amazon.com/Quranic-Studies-Sources-Scriptural-Interpretation/dp/1591022010" }, { "title": "Quranic Studies : Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation by John Wansbrough (2004, Hardcover)", "url": "https://www.ebay.com/p/5946343" }, { "title": "(PDF) A STUDY OF JOHN WANSBROUGH THOUGHTS ON QUR’ANIC STUDIES: SOURCE AND METHODS OF SCRIPTURAL INTERPRETATION", "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374865578_A_STUDY_OF_JOHN_WANSBROUGH_THOUGHTS_ON_QUR'ANIC_STUDIES_SOURCE_AND_METHODS_OF_SCRIPTURAL_INTERPRETATION" }, { "title": "Sanaa manuscript", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_manuscript" }, { "title": "The Sanaa Palimpsest - Asma Hilali - Oxford University Press", "url": "https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-sanaa-palimpsest-9780198793793" }, { "title": "The Sanaa Palimpsest: A truly fascinating Quranic manuscript", "url": "https://www.newarab.com/features/sanaa-palimpsest-truly-fascinating-quranic-manuscript" }, { "title": "Gerd R. Puin", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_R._Puin" }, { "title": "Codex Sana‘a I - A Qur'anic Manuscript From Mid-1st Century Of Hijra", "url": "https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/soth" }, { "title": "THE HAGARISM THEORY OF MICHAEL COOK: THE QUR' ...", "url": "https://journal.tebuireng.ac.id/index.php/nabawi/article/download/259/105" }, { "title": "Volume 6 Number 1, October 2023 Pages 71–84 TANZIL: JURNAL STUDI AL-QUR’AN", "url": "https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9a26/10ed7b774f958cf5b70c5cab3529e1cd341f.pdf" }, { "title": "Sana'a Palimpsest and the Early Manuscripts of the Qur'an", "url": "https://www.iis.ac.uk/multimedia/sanaa-palimpsest-and-the-early-manuscripts-of-the-quran/" }, { "title": "Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation by John Wansbrough", "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/706789.Quranic_Studies" }, { "title": "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World by Patricia Crone", "url": "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1565126.Hagarism" }, { "title": "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World", "url": "https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Hagarism:_The_Making_of_the_Islamic_World" }, { "title": "Michael Cook (historian)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cook_(historian)" }, { "title": "Aniconism in Islam", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam" }, { "title": "Depictions of Muhammad", "url": "https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad" }, { "title": "(PDF) The Islamic View of Artistic Portrayals and Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad", "url": "https://www.academia.edu/6754570/The_Islamic_View_of_Artistic_Portrayals_and_Depictions_of_the_Prophet_Muhammad" }, { "title": "Publication Data: Ali, Wijdan, ' From the Literal to the Spiritual", "url": "https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/islam/downloads/ejos_4_7.pdf" }, { "title": "Siyer-i Nebi", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyer-i_Nebi" }, { "title": "The Extremely Strange History of Artistic Depictions of Muhammad - Tales of Times Forgotten", "url": "https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/06/02/the-extremely-strange-history-of-artistic-depictions-of-muhammad/" }, { "title": "(PDF) The Contested Mawlid un-Nabi: Its History and Polemical Arguments For and Against it from Premodern Times to the 21st Century", "url": "https://www.academia.edu/9321153/The_Contested_Mawlid_un_Nabi_Its_History_and_Polemical_Arguments_For_and_Against_it_from_Premodern_Times_to_the_21st_Century" }, { "title": "Mawlid al-Nabi - wikishia", "url": "https://en.wikishia.net/view/Mawlid_al-Nabi" }, { "title": "The Celebration of the Birth of the Prophet (al-mawlid al-nabawī): Introduction to the special issue", "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382092814_The_Celebration_of_the_Birth_of_the_Prophet_al-mawlid_al-nabawi_Introduction_to_the_special_issue" }, { "title": "Mawlid", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawlid" }, { "title": "Hilya", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilya" }, { "title": "Shama%27il al-Muhammadiyya", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shama%27il_al-Muhammadiyya" }, { "title": "Description of the Prophet (Hilya al-nabi) - Hafiz Osman — Google Arts & Culture", "url": "https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/description-of-the-prophet-hilya-al-nabi-hafiz-osman/SgGY7S7Pb6ObrA?hl=en" }, { "title": "The Genre of Love and Beauty: al-Shama'il", "url": "https://masud.co.uk/tag/hilye/" }, { "title": "Storia de Mahometh", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storia_de_Mahometh" }, { "title": "Criticism of Muhammad", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Muhammad" }, { "title": "(PDF) Prophet Muhammad in Dante's Divine Comedy: An Anxiety of Influence", "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364955913_Prophet_Muhammad_in_Dante's_Divine_Comedy_An_Anxiety_of_Influence" }, { "title": "(PDF) The Latin Qur'an, 1143-1500: Translation, Transition, Interpretation - The European Qur'an", "url": "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355481381_The_Latin_Qur'an_1143-1500_Translation_Transition_Interpretation_-_The_European_Qur'an" }, { "title": "Robert of Ketton Prepares the First Translation of the Qur'an from Arabic into Latin : History of Information", "url": "https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=1942" }, { "title": "Peter the Venerable", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Venerable" }, { "title": "Edward Said", "url": "https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Said" }, { "title": "Quran translations", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran_translations" } ], "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" }