The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and Their Authors

Josef Horovitz (1874-1931) wrote this classic monograph a century ago in two parts in German.

The translation was prepared by Marmaduke Pickthall (d. 1936). Lawrence I. Conrad, who has re-edited the text for this edition, presents a slightly corrected textual version, expanding and updating the notes and bibliography and adding a new introduction dealing with Horovitz's and other orientalists' work on early Islam in the early 20th century.

Horovitz deals with thirteen early scholars who transmitted traditions or compiled sira or maghazi works, such as Urwa b. al-Zubayr (d. ca. 713), Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) and al-Waqidi (d. 823).