Seerah (Prophetic Biography)
The Seerah paper tests the Prophetic biography as a dated, causally connected narrative: what happened, in which year, and what it changed. Questions commonly ask for the significance of an event or the reconciliation of two dates, so memorising a list of names is not enough.
Core rules and concepts
- Chronology in the Meccan period: birth about 570 CE, the Year of the Elephant; marriage to Khadijah at about 25; revelation in the cave of Hira' at 40 (610 CE) with the first five verses of Surah al-'Alaq; three years of secret preaching, then public preaching; the first migration to Abyssinia (about 615); the boycott of Banu Hashim; the journey to Ta'if; the Isra' and Mi'raj; the pledges of al-'Aqabah; the Hijrah in 622 CE.
- The Medinan decade: building of the mosque, the constitution of Madinah, the change of qiblah, Badr (2 AH), Uhud (3), the trench (5), Hudaybiyyah (6), Khaybar (7), the conquest of Mecca (8), Tabuk (9), the farewell pilgrimage and the sermon at 'Arafah (10), death in Rabi' al-Awwal 11 AH (632 CE).
- Significance questions recur: Hudaybiyyah is a seeming concession that produced a treaty and the opening to conquest; the treaty's terms are examined in detail.
Worked example
Reconcile the dates: born 570 CE, revelation at 40 in 610 CE, Hijrah at 53 in 622 CE, death at 63 in 632 CE. If a question gives the age at death as 63 and asks for the year of the Hijrah, subtract: 632 minus 63 gives 569/570 for birth, add 40 gives 610 for revelation, add 13 years of Meccan mission gives 622/623 for the Hijrah. The trap is the lunar versus solar year: the Meccan period is counted as 13 years and the Medinan as 10, giving 23 years of revelation.
Traps that cost marks
- Placing the Isra' and Mi'raj in the Medinan period; it belongs to the late Meccan period.
- Confusing the first pledge of al-'Aqabah with the second, and the number of participants.
- Dating the farewell pilgrimage (10 AH) to the final year instead of the year before death.
- Treating the Hijri calendar as beginning in Rabi' al-Awwal; the epoch is Muharram, though the migration itself occurred in Rabi' al-Awwal.