The Lives of Muhammad

The biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, or the Sirah, has been the subject of serious studies by scholars, journalists, Orientalists and others. Sirah accounts, by both Muslims and non-Muslims are neither uniform nor static. There are three stages of Sirah writing, as mentioned by Tarif Khalidi in his book Images of Muhammad (2009). The first stage, as referred by Kecia Ali, is the ‘sira of primitive devotion’; the second stage represents the Sirah that is ‘canonical’, ‘moral’, ‘exclusivist’, and ‘rationalizing’; and the third stage (dating from the late nineteenth century) is ‘the polemical sira’ (pp. 1920). This polemical Sirah has been largely written to defend the image of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) against the attacks of Orientalists and others. The Lives of Muhammad by Kecia Ali (Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University) is predominantly concerned with the third type of Sirah writing.