The Merchant of Mecca
A modern narrative biography of Muhammad ibn Abdullah, written for this site rather than translated from an ancient source, drawing on the Qur'an, the early sira and hadith sources, and current historical scholarship to reconstruct a human life -- the orphan, the merchant, the persecuted preacher, the statesman, the general, and the man who died in his wife's room -- for readers without religious or academic background. Weighs what the sources claim rather than presenting one traditional account as settled fact, and illustrated throughout with historical maps and an early Qur'anic manuscript folio rather than any depiction of the Prophet, in keeping with Islamic aniconic practice.