Sirah Rasul Allah

The SÄ«rat RasÅ«l AllÄh (Life of the Messenger of God; Arabic: Ø³ÙŠØ±Ø© Ø±Ø³ÙˆÙ„ Ø§Ù„Ù„Ù‡â€Ž) or Al-sÄ«ra al-Nabawiyya (The Life of the Prophet; Arabic: Ø§Ù„Ø³ÙŠØ±Ø© Ø§Ù„Ù†Ø¨ÙˆÙŠØ©â€Ž) or just Al-sÄ«ra, is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad from which, in addition to the Quran and Hadith, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.

Etymology

In the Arabic language the word sÄ«ra or sÄ«rat (Arabic: Ø³ÙŠØ±Ø©â€Ž) comes from the verb sÄra (Present tense: yasÄ«ru), which means to travel or to be on a journey. A person's sÄ«ra is that personâ€™s journey through life, or biography, encompassing their birth, events in their life, manners and characteristics, and their death. In modern usage it may also refer to a person's resume. It is sometimes written as "seera", "sirah" or "sirat", all meaning "life" or "journey". In Islamic literature, the plural form, siyar, could also refer to the rules of war and dealing with non-Muslims.

The phrase sÄ«rat rasÅ«l allÄh, or al-sÄ«ra al-nabawiyya, refers to the study of the life of Muhammad. The term sÄ«ra was first linked to the biography of Muhammad by Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, and later popularized by the work of Ibn Hisham. In the first two centuries of Islamic history, sÄ«ra was more commonly known as maghÄzÄ« (literally, stories of military expeditions), which is now considered to be only a subset of sÄ«ra.

Early works of sÄ«ra consist of multiple historical reports, or akhbÄr, and each report is called a khabar. Sometimes the word tradition or hadith is used instead.

Content

The sÄ«ra literature includes a variety of heterogeneous materials, containing mainly stories of military expeditions undertaken by Muhammad and his companions. These stories are intended as historical accounts and used for veneration. The sÄ«ra also includes a number of written documents, such as political treaties (e.g., Treaty of Hudaybiyyah or Constitution of Medina), military enlistments, assignments of officials, letters to foreign rulers, and so forth. It also records some of the speeches and sermons made by Muhammad, like his speech at the Farewell Pilgrimage. The sÄ«ra literature also includes verses of poetry commemorating certain events and battles. While some of which are considered to be of a lesser quality and lacking authenticity, the most serious of those are the ones by Hassan ibn Thabit.

At later periods, certain type of stories included in sÄ«ra developed into their own separate genres. One genre is concerned with stories of prophetic miracles, called aÊ¿lÄm al-nubuwa (literally, proofs of prophethoodâ€"the first word is sometimes substituted for amÄrÄt or dalÄÊ¾il). Another genre, called faá¸ÄÊ¾il wa mathÄlib, is concerned with tales that show the merits and faults of individual companions, enemies, and other notable contemporaries of Muhammad. Some works of sÄ«ra also positioned the story of Muhammad as part of a narrative that includes stories of earlier prophets, Persian Kings, pre-Islamic Arab tribes, and the Rashidun.

Parts of sÄ«ra were inspired by, or elaborate upon, events mentioned in the Qur'an. These parts were often used by writers of tafsir and asbab al-nuzul to provide background information for events mentioned in certain ayat.

Comparison to hadith

The main difference between a hadith and a historical report (khabar) is that a hadith is not concerned with an event as such, and normally does not specify a time or place. Rather the purpose of hadith is to record a religious doctrine as an authoritative source of Islamic law. By contrast, while a khabar may carry some legal or theological implications, its main aim is to convey information about a certain event.

In terms of structure, a hadith and a khabar are very similar. They both contain isnads (chains of transmission). Thus starting from the 8th and 9th century, many scholars have devoted their efforts to both kinds of texts equally. Also some historians consider the sÄ«ra and maghÄzÄ« literature to be a subset of Hadith.

Reception

During the early centuries of Islam, the sÄ«ra literature was taken less seriously compared to the hadiths. In Umayyad times, storytellers (qaaá¹£á¹£, or pl. qoá¹£á¹£aaá¹£) used to tell stories of Muhammad and earlier prophets in private gatherings and mosques, given they obtain permission from the authorities. Many of these storytellers are now unknown. After the Umayyad period, their reputation deteriorated because of their inclination to exaggerate and fantasize, and for relying on the Isra'iliyat. Thus they were banned from preaching at mosques. In later periods, however, works of sÄ«ra became more prominent. More recently, western historical criticism and debate concerning sÄ«ra have elicited a defensive attitude from some Muslims who wrote apologetic literature defending its content.

Authenticity

For centuries, Muslim scholars have recognized the problem of authenticity of hadith. Thus they have developed sophisticated methods (see Hadith studies) of evaluating isnÄds (chains of transmission). This was done in order to classify each hadith into "sound" (á¹£aá¸¥Ä«á¸¥) for authentic reports, as opposed to "weak" (á¸aÊ¿Ä«f) for ones that are probably fabricated, in addition to other categories. Since many sÄ«ra reports also contain isnÄd information and some of the sÄ«ra compilers (akhbÄrÄ«s) were themselves practicing jurists and hadÄ«th transmitters (muá¸¥addiths), it was possible to apply the same methods of hadÄ«th criticism to the sÄ«ra reports. However, some sÄ«ra reports were written using an imprecise form of isnÄd, or what modern historians call the "collective isnÄd" or "combined reports". The use of collective isnÄd meant that a report may be related on the authority of multiple persons without distinguishing the words of one person from another. This lack of precision led some hadith scholars to take any report that used a collective isnÄd to be lacking in authenticity.

According to Wim Raven, it is often noted that a coherent image of Muhammad cannot be formed from the literature of sÄ«ra, whose authenticity and factual value have been questioned on a number of different grounds. He lists the following arguments against the authenticity of sÄ«ra, followed here by counter arguments:

Hardly any sÄ«ra work was compiled during the first century of Islam. However, Fred Donner points out that the earliest historical writings about the origins of Islam first emerged in 60-70 AH, well within the first century of Hijra (see also List of biographies of Muhammad). Furthermore, the sources now extant, dating from the second, third, and fourth centuries AH, are mostly compilations of material derived from earlier sources.
The many discrepancies exhibited in different narrations found in sÄ«ra works. Yet, despite the lack of a single orthodoxy in Islam, there is still a marked agreement on the most general features of the traditional origins story.
Later sources claiming to know more about the time of Muhammad than earlier ones.
Discrepancies compared to non-Muslim sources. But there are also similarities and agreements both in information specific to Muhammad, and concerning Muslim tradition at large.
Some parts or genres of sÄ«ra, namely those dealing with miracles, are not fit as sources for scientific historiographical information about Muhammad, except for showing the beliefs and doctrines of his community.

Nevertheless, other content of sÄ«ra, like the Constitution of Medina, are generally considered to be authentic.

Early compilations of sÄ«ra

The following is a list of some of the early Hadith collectors who specialized in collecting and compiling sÄ«ra and maghÄzÄ« reports:

Ê¿Urwa ibn al-Zubayr (d. 713). He wrote letters replying to inquiries of the Umayyad caliphs, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and al-Walid I, involving questions about certain events that happened in the time of the Prophet. Since Abd al-Malik did not appreciate the maghÄzÄ« literature, these letters were not written in story form. He is not known to have written any books on the subject.

Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. during 725 to 737). Several books were ascribed to him but none of them are now extant. Some of his works survive as quotations found in works by Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, and AbÅ« NuÊ¿aym al-Iá¹£fahÄnÄ«.

Ibn ShihÄb al-ZuhrÄ« (d. c. 737), a central figure in sÄ«ra literature, who collected both ahadith and akhbÄr. His akhbÄr 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 maghÄzÄ«. The first was canceled and the one about maghÄzÄ« is either not extant or has never been written.

Musa ibn Ê¿Uqba, a student of al-ZuhrÄ«, and wrote KitÄb al-MaghÄzÄ«, a notebook used to teach his students; now lost. Some of his traditions have been preserved, although their attribution to him is disputed.

Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 767 or 761), another student of al-ZuhrÄ«, who collected oral traditions that formed the basis of an important biography of the Prophet. His traditions survived through a number of sources, most notably Ibn Hisham and Ibn Jarir al-Tabari.

Notes

References

Humphreys, R. Stephen (1991). Islamic History: A framework for Inquiry (Revised ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBNÂ 0-691-00856-6.Â
Donner, Fred McGraw (May 1998). Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Darwin Press, Incorporated. ISBNÂ 0878501274.Â

Sirah Rasul Allah

Sabtu, 21 Februari 2015