Ḥadīth Scholars and Sīrah Scholars

Traditionally, sīrah was a separate science from ḥadīth. Even though there are some areas where they cross each other, where there is some overlap between them, traditionally sīrah had a different set of rules compared to ḥadīth. Scholars of ḥadīth were very stringent, very strict in their rules, while the scholars of sīrah were more liberal, more flexible. The reason is that when they were dealing with ḥadīth and drawing rulings, they wanted to make sure they were basing rulings on ḥadīth that were sound — they did not want worship of Allah to rest on weak sources. So that's why they applied very strict rules to ḥadīth. However, when it came to sīrah, they were more flexible in their rules, because they saw this as history that doesn't affect rulings — there is no aḥkām based on it. So Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, a scholar of ḥadīth, says, idhā jāʾa al-tārīkh tasāhalnā: when it comes to history, we are more lenient. So it is found that the writers of sīrah would accept narrations that they wouldn't normally accept if they were dealing with ḥadīth.

That was one track that was followed by the early scholars. The sīrah of Ibn Isḥāq was written according to these rules; the sīrah of al-Maqdisī, and Ibn Saʿd, all of these early scholars of sīrah followed these flexible rules of narration. Recently, there was a new trend among some scholars: applying the rules of ḥadīth to sīrah. Why? Because, as this scholar held, the present time is one in which the history of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) carries aḥkām. In the time of Imam Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, the khilāfah was established, so when the earlier scholars studied the life of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), they were studying it to learn general lessons from it, but it was not to guide the methodology of a movement, because Islam was already established. But now this era needs to be gone through, and rules need to be learned from it on how to do daʿwah and how to establish Islam again. So it becomes similar to fiqh when it comes to its application — therefore, it was said, the same rules of ḥadīth should apply to sīrah.

The second book, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, is based on the rules of ḥadīth. So what these scholars did is go into Bukhārī, go into Muslim, go into Sunan Abī Dāwūd, go into these books of ḥadīth, and gather the bits and pieces that referred to sīrah, and construct a sīrah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) based on ḥadīth. So rather than going to the book of Ibn Isḥāq, they would go to Bukhārī; rather than going to al-Maqdisī, or other earlier scholars, or Ibn Hishām, they would go to Muslim. Saʿīd Ḥawwā has written a book based on ḥadīth, called al-Asās fī al-Sunnah. There is the book already mentioned by Ibrāhīm al-ʿAlī, called Ṣaḥīḥ al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, and there are a few other books following this line.

Now, the reason Ibn Kathīr is chosen as the primary source is that Ibn Kathīr combined both in one book: he'd draw information from the books of sīrah, and he would also draw information from the books of ḥadīth. So he is found narrating from Bukhārī and narrating from Ibn al-Mubārak, and that is what makes the sīrah of Ibn Kathīr unique. There's one drawback with Ibn Kathīr's sīrah, and that is it's a bit complicated and cumbersome to use, because he mentions the whole chain of narration; sometimes he doesn't stick to a chronological order, and sometimes he brings in information that seems to be contradicting. But it is an excellent source, and al-ḥamdu lillāh it is now present in the English language — it has recently been translated by Le Gassick, a professor in the US, and it's a very good translation.