Maulana Shibli Nomani’s Seerat-un-Nabi written in Urdu holds the distinction among all other books written on the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), including those written in Arabic, that it offers a detailed discussion on the principles one should follow while writing on Seerat.
Religious scholar and expert on the Seerat literature Syed Aziz-ur-Rahman made this point while discussing the corpus of Seerat in the Urdu language at an Off The School podcast with the host Najam Soharwardi and co-host Rana Asif.
It was the second podcast by the guest on the topic of Seerat. In the first podcast, Aziz Sahab touched upon the importance of knowing Seerat for understanding Quran and Hadith, and related topics.
The second podcast was dedicated to the history of Seerat literature in the Urdu language. The scholar explained that Urdu had a rich corpus of books and scholarly articles on the life and times of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and this tradition started with the Deccani period in which we find a book titled Karbal Katha.
Aziz Sahab explained that although Karbal Katha was primarily a book on the tragedy of Karbala but a portion of the book also dealt with Seerat.
He then mentioned books on Seerat written by Mulla Baqir Aagah and Sibghatullah Badar-ud-Daulah.
By the middle of 1800s, he said, a significant portion of the literature about Seerat in Urdu comprised booklets that were recited in Milad gatherings called Miladnama or those that had details of some specific event of the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) such as his birth or the event of Mairaj.
The scholar mentioned that as some inauthentic content found way in such books, some learned people of that time felt the need for writing such Miladnama that did not have inaccurate information. He added that Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was among such people and one of his earlier books, Jila-ul-Quloob, was a Miladnama. However, later, Sir Syed disowned that work.
Another noteworthy book on Seerat in Urdu written during this time, Aziz Sahab said, was Tawareekh-e-Habeeb-e-Ilah by Maulana Inayat Ahmad Kakorvi who penned it when he was imprisoned in the Andaman Islands under the sentence of Kala Pani during the British rule.
He said Kakorvi wrote the book entirely on the basis of his memory as he did not have access to the source books of Seerat during his imprisonment. However, when he was released, he verified the contents of his book through source books and found that he had not erred.
The speaker also informed the podcast about an interesting point of Tawareekh-e-Habeeb-e-Ilah, which was the numbers of the letters of the book’s title summed to the year of its publication.
Aziz Sahab then discussed the outstanding contribution of Sir Syed to the tradition of writing on Seerat. He explained that as the British rule was established, European missionaries started coming to South Asia in large numbers under the government support to spread Christianity. This sparked debates between the Muslims and Christian orientalists who started raising questions on Seerat.
When William Muir questioned the life of Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) in his book, Sir Syed undertook writing its response. For this purpose, he decided to use references of books written on Seerat in European languages such as English, French and Latin. As Sir Syed did not know those languages, he hired translators who translated such books into Urdu so that he could go through them. He then wrote a response to Muir’s book in Urdu and got it translated into English. That book was first published in English and later it was published in Urdu.
This entire exercise demanded huge finances as Sir Syed had to go to Europe to find the relevant books and hire translators. He sold his personal belongings and library to fund the project as he deemed it extremely important to defend the Seerat from unjustified allegations levelled by Muir, Aziz Sahab said.
The scholar, however, added that Sir Syed’s response had serious flaws but despite such flaws, his commitment to the cause of defending the life of Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was exemplary for all of us.
Aziz sb then discussed Shibli’s great work Seerat-un-Nabi stating that all books on Seerat that followed it owed heavily to it. He also commended Syed Sulaiman Nadvi for completing Shibli’s project after his death. He explained that although Shibli did not live long to complete the entire book, Nadvi completed it according to the structure Shibli had envisioned for it.
When the scholar was asked about his favourite books on Seerat in Urdu, he named Shibli’s Seerat-un-Nabi, Sulaiman Nadvi’s Khutbat-e-Madras and Manazir Ahsan Gilani’s An-Nabi-ul-Khatim.
The podcast also discussed the valuable contributions of scholars such as Qazi Sulaiman Mansoorpuri, Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi and Yasin Mazhar Siddiqui to the Seerat literature in Urdu.