Ash-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyya (Arabic: الشمائل المحمدية, romanized: Ash-Shamāʾil al-Muḥammadiyya, lit. 'Virtues of Muhammad') is a collection of hadiths compiled by the 9th-century scholar al-Tirmidhi regarding the intricate details of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's life including his appearance, his belongings, his manners, and much more. The book contains 399 narrations from the successors of Muhammad which are divided into 56 chapters.
The best known and accepted of these hadith are attributed to Ali, cousin and son-in-law to Muhammad. Another well-known description is attributed to a woman named Umm Ma'bad.Other descriptions are attributed to Aisha, `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas, Abu Hurairah and Hasan ibn Ali. While shama'il lists the physical and spiritual characteristics of Muhammad in simple prose, in hilya these are written about in a literary style.Among other descriptive Shama'il text are the Dala'il al-Nubuwwah of Al-Bayhaqi, Tarih-i Isfahan of Abu Naeem Isfahani, Al-Wafa bi Fadha'il al-Mustafa of Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi and Al-Shifa of Qadi Ayyad are the main shemaa-il and hilya books.
