Muhammad ﷺ: A Portrait of Perfection

Sayyiduna Muhammad, sallAllahu alayhi waSallam, A Portrait of Perfection' being an abridgement and commentary of Imam al-Tirmidhi's, Al-Shamail al-Muhammadiyyah, by Shaykh 'Abd al-Majid al-Sharnubi al-Misri, rahmatullahi ta'ala 'alayhi.

The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and give him peace, is both the moral exemplar for mankind—sent by Allah as a mercy to the worlds (Qur’an 21:107)—and the ultimate possessor of physical beauty. His Companion 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him, said—as did many others—that ‘Never have I seen the like of him; not before or since’. Naturally, Muslims, beginning first and foremost with his contemporaries (i.e. the Companions), have meticulously conveyed the fine details of his beauty and character, including his physical form, seal of Prophethood, clothing, and his manner of walking, reclining, eating, drinking, speaking and laughter, sleeping and devotion and so forth.

The earliest and most famous work of this genre was the Shamail of the great Hadith master Imam al-Tirmidhi, may Allah be pleased with him. This latter work was later abridged and annotated by Shaykh al-Sharnubi, of which this is the English translation.