The first thing to note about these narratives is their close relationship to the Quran. For although in theological terms it is conceivable that there may once have been a divine discourse that no prophet communicated to humanity, in historical terms these two, Scripture and Prophet, arrive together at the same moment and are utterly inseparable. An example is the question of credentials. How were people expected to know that these words of Revelation were indeed of divine origin? One answer to the question was that the Prophet Muhammad, through whom the words came into the world, was a trustworthy man whose life and behavior conformed to established patterns of monotheist prophecy. The books of Sira and Maghazi provided what one needed to know about this exemplary life and behavior.
Then what if someone wished to put Muhammad's credentials as a prophet to the test? In that case, one proof came in the Quran itself (the famous “challenge verses”): the doubters were challenged to produce Arabic words of similar quality and beauty; their failure to do this confirmed the authenticity of both the Messenger and the Message.
Within the literary genres of Sira, Maghazi, and hadith, jihad and fighting constitute themes of high importance. Contention and controversy also characterize the modern discussions around these genres.
Sira and Maghazi: Sacred History
In the early years of Islam, many men of learning devoted themselves to research on the Prophet and the earliest Muslim community. They collected, shared and transmitted reports, combining techniques of oral and written transmission in ways that are not entirely clear to us now. One of these men, Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 CE), seems to have been the first to produce a lengthy, chronologically ordered account of Muhammad's life, in Arabic prose, which we usually call al-Sira (the Way). As often happened in medieval Islamic book production, Ibn Ishaq's Sira went through further editing; what we have now is the recension of a later scholar named Ibn Hisham (d. 834).
