Seerah – The Greatest Life Story Ever Told
What is Seerah?
Seerah, in the Arabic language, means to travel or to be on a journey. A person's Seerah is his journey through life. It entails the person's biography from their birth, events in their life, their characters, and manners, and lastly their demise. The term Seerah predominantly refers to the body of literature dedicated to the life of the Prophet Muhammad. The sources for Seerah are the Qur'an, Authentic Hadiths and the books explicitly written for Seerah. We can also conclude that the most authenticated biography of a great personality is that of Prophet Muhammad. Each and every aspect of his life comes down to us from thousands of chains of narrators who have the robust methodology of scrutiny to test which aspect of his life was true or not.
Why do we need Seerah?
Seerah is one of the earliest types of literature in the Islamic
tradition and a comprehensive account on the life of Prophet Muhammad. It is
studied as a major source for the life story of Prophet Muhammad. It continues to be used for the purposes of
historical accounts on the life of Prophet Muhammad and the early history of
Islam. Seerah helps us understand the Qur'an. The incidents related to
Prophet's life mentioned in Quran is not in chronological order, therefore
Seerah helps to grasp the context of those incidents more appropriately.
The books of Seerah are not written only for the followers of the
Prophet but for everyone. It gives an insight into what he achieved in just a
small span of 23 years that changed the course of human history. The seerah is
not just a book of the Prophets life and his time but it represents the
psychology of the Prophet on how to deal with multifaceted dimensions of one's
life.
Prophet's teachings and trainings was successful in eradicating all the evils from the Arabian Peninsula. He abolished racial discrimination, thievery, usury, misogyny, slavery, alcoholism, tribalism, murder, adultery, fornication, rape, paganism, superstitions, and what not. He had all the practical solutions for every human problem. This transformation was not limited only to the people of his own time and place, for this process continues today wherever his message spreads. His universal call encompasses, in addition to the rules of good conduct and spirituality, all principles of economics, finance, administration, education, justice, and international law.
To put it in the words of Said Nursi:
"We present the Arabian Peninsula as a challenge to those who refuse to see the testimony of the blessed age of the Prophet. Let them each take a hundred philosophers, go there, and strive for a hundred years; would they be able to carry out in that time one-hundredth of what he achieved in a year?
As stated in the Qur'anic verse that, “The Messenger of God is
an excellent model” (33:21) and for that reason his methodologies are
eternal. Alphonse de Lamartine frames his exemplary personality in following
words:
“Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator,
warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without
images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire,
that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be
measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?”
Muhammad ibn Abdullah is the only person in history on whom many
biographies are written if not most. Biographers, both Muslim and Non-Muslims
have written extensively about him. Karen Armstrong gives the following insight
about him:
“He is an example of huge courage and
commitment, an example of what one person can do with the help of the sacred,
with the help of the divine, but with your own human inspiration too. Above all
that he remained kind, human, warm, loving. He did not allow himself to become
a daunting human being of daunting achievements. He must be one of the greatest
geniuses the world has ever known, both spiritually and politically, yet he was
also a genius at humanity. I think of his kindness to his wives, his kindness
to children, his loving care of animals, his devotion to his companions, and
the fact that he was constantly moved to tears when he saw suffering. Never in
any moment of his life did he cease to be less than a human being. As a
paradigmatic personality, Muhammad has important lessons, not only for Muslims,
but also for Western people.”
William Montgomery Watt, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at
the University of Edinburgh, admonishes the western academia and orientalists
in doing injustice in portraying the true image of the Prophet:
“His readiness to undergo persecutions for his
beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up
to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his
fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems
than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly
appreciated in the West as Muhammad.”
After knowing what a seerah is, one can ask which is the best
seerah book to look up to. We do not have to go very far to fetch that book. It
is with all of us and most probably we have already read it many times. It is
none other than the book revealed on him i.e. The Qur'an. The Prophet was the
living embodiment of the Qur'an and its injunctions therefore the first book to
understand the Prophet is the Qur'an itself.
There are a plethora of classical biographers of the Prophet like
Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq, Al Waqidi, and many more, who wrote corpora on his life.
To suffice the need of contemporary seekers of the Prophet's biography there
are many good books written especially in the English language for the benefit
of English readers. Some of them are the Sealed Nectar by Safiur Rahman
Mubarakpuri, Muhammad: His Life Based On The Earliest Sources by Martin
Lings (a.k.a Abu Bakr Sirajuddin) and The Noble Life of the Prophet by Dr.
Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi. All these Seerah books are conscientious works and
cover the Prophet's life in factual manner for normal readers. Every incident
from seerah is worth pondering as it contains multitudes of teachings and
lessons for all times. It helps us understand the mind and methodology of the
Prophet. A simple contemplation on any incident of the Prophet's life can
reveal insights about the multi-dimensional approach to solving problems.
Today fourteen centuries after his death, his influence is still
ubiquitous and powerful.
Aligarh Muslim University
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