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The Community Divided: The Caliphate of Ali, tr. and annotated Adrian
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The First Civil War: From the Battle of Siɽn to the Death of Ali, tr. and
annotated G. R. Hawting, Vol. XVII. Albany: State University of New
York Press,1996.
Between Civil Wars: The Caliphate of Muawiyah, tr. and annotated
Michael G. Morony, Vol. XVIII. Albany: State University of New York
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The Caliphate of Yazid b. Muawiyah, tr. and annotated I. K. A. Howard,
Vol. XIX. Albany: State University of New York Press,1990.
The earliest biography of Muhammad is that of Ibn
Ishaq, whose Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of
God) is the basis of all subsequent biographies of the
Prophet. Like al-Tabari’s work, it is regarded as
authoritative throughout the Muslim world, and al-
Tabari drew on it heavily for his own account of
Muhammad’s life.
Muhammad ibn Ishaq was born in Medina around the
year 704 and died in Baghdad in 767. His original
manuscript no longer exists, since it was superseded by
an expanded and annotated version by the Basra-born
historian Ibn Hisham, who lived and worked in Egypt.
Ibn Hisham’s version of Ibn Ishaq’s biography has been
translated into English as The Life of Muhammad: A
Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, tr. Alfred
Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955).