Juhud al-Ulama fi Tasnif al-Sira al-Nabawiya fi al-Qarnayn al-Thamin wa al-Tasi al-Hijriyyayn
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Juhud al-Ulama fi Tasnif al-Sira al-Nabawiya fi al-Qarnayn al-Thamin wa al-Tasi al-Hijriyyayn (Scholars' Contributions to the Authorship of the Prophetic Biography in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries AH) is a bibliographic and historiographical study by Abd al-Hamid ibn Ali Faqihi dedicated to surveying, classifying, and analyzing works on the Sira (Prophetic biography) composed during the 8th and 9th centuries AH (14th–15th centuries CE) .
Purpose and Scope
The book surveys and documents the literary output in Sira studies during the 8th and 9th centuries AH, evaluating both its quantity and thematic diversity . It categorizes works by subject matter and compositional methodology while comparing this era to earlier stages of Sira writing to determine the extent of their influence and the specific contributions made by later scholars . The author observes that Sira authorship in these two centuries encompassed both rigorous academic contributions as well as texts driven by heightened emotion, particularly in poetic eulogies and verses .
Sources and Methodology
The author relies primarily on a descriptive approach (al-uslub al-wasfi), supplemented by critical analysis and comparative examination to trace the development of Sira literature . To compile and authenticate the catalog of works from the period, the study utilized several sources:
- Compiling authors from Mu'jam ma ullifa 'an al-Nabi by Salah al-Din al-Munajjid .
- Consulting Arabic and international library catalogs and manuscript collections .
- Reviewing historical and biographical literature that chronicles the scholarly movement of the period—such as works by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Sakhawi, Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi, and Ibn al-Jazari—to verify the attribution of titles to their authors and document scholarly evaluations of each work .
Structure
The study is arranged into an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion :
- Introduction: Explains the rationale, aims, scope, and methodology of the research .
- Thematic Chapters (Chapters 1–4): Classify and examine prose compositions according to their specific subjects, including a preliminary discussion on the developmental stages of Sira writing .
- Chapter 5: Focuses on poetic and versified works, including narrative poems (qasa'id) and rhetorical panegyrics (badi'iyyat) .
- Conclusion: Summarizes the intellectual significance of the 8th and 9th centuries AH, presents scholarly observations, and highlights the need to edit and publish the unprinted Sira manuscripts preserved from that era .
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