سيرة
Sīra
The biography of the Prophet Muhammad, as written by early Muslim historians.
What it means
The earliest full life is that of Ibn Ishaq (d. about 767), which survives through the edition of Ibn Hisham (d. 833). Others include al-Waqidi and Ibn Sa’d. These are narrative histories, which draw on hadith but are not collected to the same standard.
Often misunderstood as
That every story in the biography has the same authority as the Quran or a sound hadith.
What the sources say
Classical scholars distinguished between what they accepted in law and creed, where the standard was strict, and what they accepted in historical narrative, where it was looser. A claim about the Prophet that rests on a weak or late report should be weighed as such. This is a method Muslim scholars used, and one that readers on this site are invited to apply.