Abstract
M.A.
This study is a critical evaluation of William Muir’s biography Life of Mohammad – From
Original Sources (1923). Muir (d. 1905) was an Oriental scholar and an evangelical
Christian from Scotland whose vocation in India as a civil servant of the British and
experience with the people of India, Muslims in particular, induced him to write a biography
of Muhammad. He was one of the first modern scholars to categorise the source materials
from the traditional pioneering biographies to write a modern biography on the life of
Muhammad. In so doing, he combined post-Enlightenment methodology with Christian
Romantic sensibilities and evangelical missionary purposes to construct his biography.
Muir’s biographical work contributed significantly to a genre of European literature that
makes exclusive use of the original Muslim sources. This study will critically evaluate how
Muir used the Qur’an as the primary source for his biography. It will also provide a brief
overview of Western biographies of Muhammad that appeared after Muir’s work,
highlighting the changes in the methodologies, approaches and tools Western biographies of
Muhammad used after Muir.