What is the first auto biography of Prophet Muhammad?

Answer 1

Mohammed never wrote an autobiography because he could barely write.

The only real primary source for Mohammed's life is the Qur'an. However, the Qur'an was not intended to tell Mohammed's own story, and most of the events it mentions can only be understood if the Qur'an is read alongside the hadiths.

The first full biography was the Sirat Rasoolallah("Story of God's Messenger") by Muhammad ibn Ishaq, who worked 100-130 years after the death of Mohammed. While this is not an eyewitness acount, the time-lag is not too bad from the historiological point of view. Ibn Ishaq collected information from people who had known the eyewitnesses.

In fact it is not certain that Ibn Ishaq's biography was ever written. Since, unfortunately, the original text does not survive, it is possible that he only collected and transcribed oral traditions for a biography that he intended to write but never did.

However, Ibn Ishaq's work was much quoted by later historians such as Ibn Hisham, Ibn Saad and Al-Tabari, so it is possible to reconstruct much of Ibn Ishaq's book (or planned book). One such reconstruction was made by Alfred Guillaume, who then translated it into English.

Alfred Guillaume's edition/translation, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford, 1955), is now out of copyright and readily available for free online.

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The sources are:

1. Quran

2. Hadith (prophet Muhammad sayings and practices)

3. Early biographies

4. Non Muslim and Non Arab sources

The early biographies are the historical works by writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Muslim era (A.H. -- 8th and 9th century C.E.). These include the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad (the sira literature), which provide further information on Muhammad's life. The earliest surviving written sira (biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him) is Ibn Ishaq's Life of God's Messenger written ca. 767 CE (150 AH). The work is lost, but was used verbatim at great length by Ibn Hisham and Al-Tabari. Another early source is the history of Muhammad's campaigns by al-Waqidi (death 207 of Muslim era), and the work of his secretary Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi (death 230 of Muslim era). Many scholars accept the accuracy of the earliest biographies, though their accuracy is unascertainable. Recent studies have led scholars to distinguish between the traditions touching legal matters and the purely historical ones. In the former sphere, traditions could have been subject to invention while in the latter sphere, aside from exceptional cases, the material may have been only subject to "tendential shaping"

Refer to link below.