Abstract
The renowned Scottish scholar Sir William Muir is considered to be
the one of the famous orientalists who worked on the life of Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) in nineteenth century. His work raised uproar in
Muslim societies generally and in scholarly (Muslim) circles
particularly which caused some scholars to rejoin his work and
thoughts about holy prophet. Those who were in first row in this
regard; Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was one of them. Later, a number of
scholars came forward to work on this aspect.
It is obvious that Sir William Muir was convinced by his missionary
friend Karl Gottlieb Pfander to produce something on Islam and
Muslim in favoure of Christian missionaries. So William Muir
fulfilling his desire wrote this book. Unfortunately, William Muir
could not apply the modern standards of criticism on textual contents
for historic narratives as he claimed in the preface of book. His
biasness and partiality emerges explicitly when we throw a glance at
his work. He was right in his statement that he will consult the only
core original principal references of the biography of Holy Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) for the citation and quotation of material in his
book. But the problem creates when an author tries to prove what is in
his mind before from speculations and assumptions irrespective of
what is actual and factual and what does appear from exploration and
evidences. The same problem occurred here with the respectable
author. He tried utmost his capability to prove what western mindset
assumes and thinks about Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
Abdul-Samad Sheikh, Bashir Ahmad Dars. (2019) William Muir and His Book “The life of Prophet (PBUH)”: An analytical study, Hazara Islamicus, Volume 8, Issue 2.
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