Portal: Islam and the Judeo-Christian Tradition

The battle of Badr was the prophet's first battle and one of his most successful; Muhammad's success here gave faith, both to himself and the movement, and the tradition sees proof of divine aide both in the Qur'an and the sira account of the battle.

The massacre of the Jewsih tribe of Banu Qurayzah remains one of the most controversial events of the sira to this day; a great victory for Muhammad and the Muslims, the mercilessness with which he dealt with his Jewish enemies leaves many questions about the character of the prophet.

Sunni orthodoxy claims that the Qur'an is infallible when it speaks of matters of science, but a close comparison to the scientific undestanding of the text of the Qur'an to modern science shows many revealing mistakes

Muhammad ordered many people who oppossed him or the Muslim movement to be killed.

The original title of the works of the sira were the maghaazi مغازي or raids; the career of the prophet from the earliest times was defined by his military adventures.

Dihya was a Berber queen who fiercely resisted the expanding caliphate to her death.

The caliphate, or success state to the prophet, in orthodox Sunni Islam is seen as the continuation of the rule of the prophet of Allah by his viceroy on earth, and is a divinely ordained institution.

The Qur'an was never put down to writing during the prophet's lifetime, according to the Islamic sources the impetus to put the Qur'an to writing came from the death of many of the Muslims who had memorized it.

Many of the chapters of the Qur'an begin with mysterious combinations of letters whose function remains unclear to this day.