The first (German) edition of this book was published in 2008 by The Darwin Press in Princeton, New Jersey, as No. 24 of the prestigious series “Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam” (SLAEI). Since the work was written in German and published in the United States, it somewhat “fell between chair and bench”: Not being written in English, it did not find wide circulation in English-speaking countries; and in Germanspeaking countries, and not only there, it was often difficult to obtain. Moreover, there was no effective advertising on the part of the publisher. We are therefore very pleased that the book can now be published in a second edition by Gerlach Press as part of the reprint of the entire SLAEI series.

The most important revision of this new edition is the addition of the 11th and 12th chapters. The 11th chapter “The earliest non-Muslim writings on Muḥammad” is intended to address the criticism raised by one critic, namely that the book did not live up to its title (“The earliest reports on the life of Muḥammad”) which in the opinion of this critic was not fulfilled. It should be noted that a small inaccuracy remains: of all the six non-Muslim sources discussed, only one gives an actual account of Muḥammad's life, while the others just mention his name, allude to, or briefly report on, his emergence as a prophet, his character, his conquests, and the like. The 12th chapter “Hagarism revisited” contains a refutation of the Hagarism hypothesis. This refutation is based on the new revised editions and improved translations of the non- Muslim sources presented and dealt with in the previous chapter. The 13th chapter comprises comments on and responses to criticisms that were raised in reviews of the book. Longer additions, corrections and further discussions form the 14th chapter.

The newly added parts were written by Gregor Schoeler.

In terms of content, the text of the first edition has been mostly unchanged in this new edition. Obvious errors have been corrected, minor deletions and additions, such as references to recently discovered sources and new literature, have been made.

Quotations from the Koran are based on the translation of The Study Quran, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The scholarly transcription follows to the rules of the Journal Arabica.