This book, Shama’il An-Nabi or Shama’il of the Prophet, is a compilation of hadith reports of the sayings or actions of the Prophet Muhammad together with their traditional chains of transmission. The word shama’il means a description of a person’s beauty on all levels, elaborating the details of their physical appearance, moral character, day-to-day behavior, spiritual manner and so on. Shama’il is that which characterizes or encompasses a person. The book is intended for both a scholarly audience and a general Arabic-reading Muslim audience, and is compiled and fully indexed in accordance with the strict requirements of hadith scholarship, making it a valuable reference work for experts in the field. Hadith compilations of this kind are also traditionally read as devotional texts by nonspecialists as a way of becoming more intimately familiar with the person of the Prophet. An example of the hadith contained in the text is, “According to the authority of Abu Hurayra it was said, ‘Oh Messenger of God! Make supplication against the polytheists.’ He (the Prophet) said, ‘Certainly, I was not sent to bring down curses, but I was sent as a mercy.’” (hadith 281, page 85).

For a book that we are entirely unable to read, the layout, scale and color convey elegance—typography that’s purely graphic.