During his sojourn in Egypt, he learned Arabic and got immersed in the study of Sufism. He came to be attracted to the perennial philosophy of Rene Guenon and became a Muslim under the influence of Frithjof Schuon, a Swiss-German mystic. In 1940 he came to Cairo and became a lecturer in Cairo University. He spent his higher studies in the US, where he befriended writer and Christian theologian CS Levis. He was born in England on 24th January, 1909. In other words, he was a Sufi in both the senses he outlines in his What is Sufism? (A Sufi combines the particularism of Islam, while he strives to stem the particularisation of its spiritual essence and values)

He belonged to perannialist stream of mystical philosophy. In 1990, after the book had attracted the attention of Azhar University, the author received a decoration from president Mubarak.Martin Lings, formerly Keeper of Oriental Manuscript in the British Museum and the British Library, is the author of three works on Islamic mysticism, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, What is Sufism? and The Book of Certainty.Martin Lings, who once stated his wish to be known by his adopted name Abubakar Sirajuddin, needs no introduction to discerning readers while his prolific profile stands above the introductory epithets, classifications and chronological subdivisions possible. This book was given an award by the government of Pakistan, and selected as the best biography of the Prophet in English at the National Seerat Conference in Islamabad in 1983.

The result is a book which will be read with equal enjoyment by those already familiar with Muhammad's life and those coming to it for the first time. He has adopted a style which is at once extremely readable and reflects both the simplicity and grandeur of the story. Martin Lings has an unusual gift for narrative. Based on Arabic sources of the eighth and ninth centuries, of which some important passages are translated here for the first time, it owes the freshness and directness of its approach to the words of men and women who heard Muhammad speak and witnessed the events of his life. Martin Lings' life of Muhammad is unlike any other. Acclaimed worldwide as the definitive biography of the Prophet in the English language.

Book muhammad by martin lings