نحو منهج لتدوين السيرة يستوعب الوظائف والأحوال النبوية

Towards a Method for Documenting the Prophet’s Biography that Encompasses the Functions and Situations of the Prophet

Abstract

This article examines two foundational methodological challenges that have historically shaped, and in many respects distorted, the study and documentation of the Prophetic Biography (Sīrah). The first concerns the disproportionate emphasis placed on military campaigns (al-Maghāzī) within the dominant historiographical narrative—an imbalance that has resulted in the marginalization of the Prophet’s intellectual, cultural, civilizational, developmental, and ethical contributions. Despite continued scholarly efforts toward comprehensive documentation, this reductionist focus persists, thereby obscuring the breadth and multidimensionality of the Prophetic mission. The second methodological problem lies in the persistent inclination to conflate the Prophet’s circumstantial and context-specific actions—those undertaken to address immediate social, economic, and political contingencies—with timeless religious injunctions possessing universal normative force. Such conflation has led to the elevation of historically contingent policies and administrative measures to the level of permanent legal prescriptions, often without due attention to context, purpose, or function. To address these methodological deficiencies, the article proposes a restructured framework grounded in the imperative of functional differentiation within the Sīrah. It calls for a systematic distinction between the Prophet’s actions undertaken in his divinely mandated role of conveying, explicating, and legislating the religion—which constitute binding Sunnah and command normative adherence—and those motivated by his human, administrative, and procedural functions in managing the temporal affairs of the nascent community. The latter, which constitute the majority of recorded events in the Sīrah, should be interpreted primarily as historically specific human decisions rather than as perpetual religious legislation. The article further advocates a broadening of the scope of Sīrah documentation beyond martial engagements to encompass the Prophet’s comprehensive nation-building policies: the establishment of internal and external security, the organization of markets and commercial activity, the regulation of agriculture and environmental stewardship, the institutionalization of social solidarity, and the management of intercommunal relations and intra-Muslim diversity. Such an expanded methodological horizon would facilitate a more accurate and holistic reconstruction of the Prophetic model—one that foregrounds its overarching values of peace, development, coexistence, and civilizational upliftment.