The first biography, Sirat Rasul Allah, was written by a man named Ibn Ishaq, but the book itself has actually been lost. Ibn Ishaq taught a man named al-Bakkai, who made his own edition of Ibn Ishaq’s book, and al-Bakkai taught a man named Ibn Hisham, who edited al-Bakkai’s edition, and it is this edition that we have today. Why did these men each make their own editions? Ibn Hisham tells us in his introductory remarks: “Things which it is disgraceful to discuss, matters which would distress certain people, and such reports as al-Bakkai told me he could not accept as trustworthy—all these
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