A Portrait of the Prophet: As seen by his contemporaries (Ash-Shama'il Al-Muhammadiyya)

This book belongs to the traditional genre of Islamic 'sacred history' sources known as sira (biography). It contains a famous and a most indispensable collection of authentic traditions (ahadith), listing the main texts from which to glean the beautiful attributes, both moral and physical, of the Holy Prophet – Peace and Blessings be upon Him; attributes to which Muslims in all ages referred over and over, for the purposes of both meditation and edification. At no time is this sacred collection of traditions more needed, as an object of knowledge and as food for thought, than in ours, when the excesses of worldly concerns and the superfluity of material distractions seem to make people forget that the greatest fruit of life, and thus of religious faith, is beauty of soul. The hadith of the Prophet provide the role model for all Muslims and give an example of how Qur'anic doctrine was actually to be lived in daily life. Therefore, this huge corpus of 10 volumes is central. Here the rea