When the Moon Split (PB)

The same author. A different book, for a different reader.

Shaykh Safi-ur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri wrote Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) as a work of history, with the sourcing and detail that won it first prize in the Muslim World League's worldwide Seerah contest. It is the reference. It is also, for a good many readers, heavy going — and a book that defeats its reader has not conveyed the Seerah at all.

When the Moon Split is the same life told for reading rather than for reference: narrated in a flowing, almost novelistic style, clear and unhurried, so that the story carries you through it. It took over six months of editing to get to that, and the result is a book people finish.

What It Covers

The whole life. How Islam rose, how the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was chosen to receive revelation, what he and his Companions endured through the Makkan years, the migration to Madinah, the years of struggle that followed, and how, with Allah's help, they finally prevailed. The narration is drawn throughout from authentic Ahadith and the Qur'an — the readability comes from the telling, not from loosening the sourcing.

Which One Should You Read?

If you want extensive detail, chronology and references — the historian's Seerah — read The Sealed Nectar. If you want the life of the Prophet ﷺ conveyed as a story you will actually complete, start here. Many readers do both, in that order, and find the second easier for having read the first.

It is also the edition to give to a teenager, a new Muslim, or an adult who has started a Seerah twice and stopped twice.

Available Editions

Related Reading

• The Sealed Nectar, Full Colour Deluxe — the award-winning Seerah with maps, diagrams and timelines
• Q&A on the Rightly Guided Caliphs — the four caliphs who led after him
• Q&A on the Mothers of the Believers — the Mothers of the Believers