Detailed examination of traditions about Muhammad which illustrate particular themes thought to be part of the biblical prophetic paradigm: attestation, preparation, the experience of revelation, persecution, and "salvation," this last meaning the hijra. The author analyzes the ways in which Muhammad's early biographers sought to shape the Prophet's biography through biblically based, and later Qur'anic, modes of authentication.

The author has abandoned the quest for the historical Muhammad because of the impossibility of separating the "real" Muhammad from legends about him. He challenges the notion that earlier traditions about Muhammad are more authentic than later ones, arguing that the moulding of accounts of Muhammad's life according to what were perceived as standard criteria of prophethood began at the outset, as Muslims sought to prove themselves worthy successors to the civilizations of the Jews and the Christians..