*Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador (member of the Royal Asiatic Society): A Series of Essays on the
Life of Mohammed. London (Trübner & Co.), 1870. He wrote also a "Mohammedan
Commentary on the Holy Bible." He begins with the sentence: "In nomine Dei Misericordis
Miseratoris. Of all the innumerable wonders of the universe, the most marvellous is religion."
Syed Ameer Ali, Moulvé (a Mohammedan lawyer, and brother of the former): A Critical Examination
of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed. London 1873. A defense of Moh. chiefly drawn from
Ibn-Hishâm (and Ibn-al Athîr (1160–1223).
- Christian Biographies.
Dean Prideaux (d. 1724): Life of Mahomet, 1697, 7th ed. Lond., 1718. Very unfavorable.
Count Boulinvilliers: The Life of Mahomet. Transl. from the French. Lond., 1731.
Jean Gagnier (d. 1740): La vie de Mahomet, 1732, 2 vols., etc. Amsterd. 1748, 3 vols. Chiefly from
Abulfeda and the Sonna. He also translated Abulfeda.
Gibbon: Decline and Fall, etc. (1788), chs. 50–52. Although not an Arabic scholar, Gibbon made
the best use of the sources then accessible in Latin, French, and English, and gives a brilliant
and, upon the whole, impartial picture.
Gustav Weil: Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stuttgart, 1843. Comp. also
his translation of Ibn Ishâc, and Ibn Hishâm, Stuttgart, 1864, 2 vols.; and his Biblische Legenden
der Muselmänner aus arabischen Quellen und mit jüd. Sagen verglichen. Frcf., 1845. The last
is also transl. into English.
Th. Carlyle: The Hero as Prophet, in his Heroes Hero- Worship and the Heroic in History. London,
1840. A mere sketch, but full of genius and stimulating hints. He says: "We have chosen
Mahomet not as the most eminent prophet, but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no
means the truest of prophets, but I esteem him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our
becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way
to get at his secret."
Washington Irving: Mahomet and His Followers. N. Y., 1850. 2 vols.
George Bush: The Life of Mohammed. New York (Harpers).
SIR William MUIR (of the Bengal Civil Service): The Life of Mahomet. With introductory
chapters on the original sources for the biography of Mahomet, and on the pre-Islamite history
of Arabia. Lond., 1858–1861, 4 vols. Learned, able, and fair. Abridgement in 1 vol. Lond.,
1877.
A. Sprenger: First an English biography printed at Allahabad, 1851, and then a more complete
one in German, Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad. Nach bisher grösstentheils
unbenutzten Quellen. Berlin, 1861–’65, 2d ed. 1869, 3 vols. This work is based on original and
Arabic sources, and long personal intercourse with Mohammedans in India, but is not a well
digested philosophical biography.
*Theod. Nöldeke: Das Leben Muhammeds. Hanover, 1863. Comp. his elaborate art. in Vol. XVIII.
of Herzog’s Real-Encycl., first ed.
E. Renan: Mahomet, et les origines de l’islamisme, in his "Etudes de l’histoire relig.," 7th ed. Par.,
1864.
Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire: Mahomet et le Oran. Paris, 1865. Based on Sprenger and Muir.
Ch. Scholl: L’Islam et son Fondateur. Paris, 1874.
R. Bosworth Smith (Assistant Master in Harrow School): Mohammed and Mohammedanism. Lond.
1874, reprinted New York, 1875.