Title:

La vie de Mahomet, traduite et compilée de l’Alcoran, des traditions authentiques de la Sonna, et des meilleurs auteurs arabes

Short title

La vie de Mahomet

Title variations

Title in English

The Life of Muhammad, translated and compiled from the Qur’an, from the authentic traditions of the Sunna, and from the best Arabic authors

Section

Language

French

Creation date

1732

Genre

Biography

Content

Content table

Formal Expression

Prose

Qur'an quotations

Yes

Original

Source

Use (macro-category)

Use (micro-category)

Bibliographical references

Descriptive card

The work is a landmark early-modern biography that marks a turning point in European writing on Islam. Instead of relying on medieval polemics, Gagnier reconstructs Muhammad’s life from Muslim sources—the Qurʾān, selected ḥadīth, and classical Arabic historians (Abū l-Fidāʾ) —using short translated quotations and frequent paraphrase to anchor events historically. The work remains critical and non-devotional, but its method is new: it treats Islamic texts as primary historical evidence, not targets of refutation. For that reason, it stands between confessional polemic and modern scholarship, paving the way for later Enlightenment historians and the emergence of source-based Islamic studies in Europe. The work itself is based on Boulainvilliers' La vie de Mahomed to which Gagnier supplied direct Arabic sources. He reshaped it into a scholarly, source-based book.

Entry author

Gyöngyi Oroszi