The Prophet ﷺ said, “None of you truly believes until I’m more beloved to them than their father, son and all of mankind.” An essential part of one’s faith is to have deep love, admiration, honor and respect for the Prophet ﷺ. We’re supposed to love him more than our own flesh and blood. But how can we love him when we’ve never seen him, never ate with him, never spoke to him, never sat with him nor interacted with him? Although we don’t have the opportunity to meet the Prophet ﷺ in the life of this world, we can still build an intimate relationship with him through learning about his noble life and character. Amazingly, every single detail, big and small, public and private, has been preserved for us by those who loved him most; his Companions and the great scholars of ḥadīth who came after them.

One of the greatest works produced to capture a complete portrait of the person of the Prophet ﷺ is al-Shamā’l al-Muḥammadiyyahī. It was compiled by the great scholar of ḥadīth Abū ʿĪsa Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsa al-Tirmidhī, the compiler of one of the six canonical books of ḥadīth, Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī. It is a collection of 397 aḥādīth divided into 55 chapters that capture the physical description and character of our beloved Prophet ﷺ. In this course we will survey the text and explore a detailed study of the physical appearance of the Prophet ﷺ and his noble character.