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50 free Seerah trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The seerah is the life of the Prophet Muhammad as Muslim tradition has told it for fourteen centuries: his early years in Mecca, the first followers and the pressure they faced, the migration to Medina, the treaties and expeditions, the embassies he sent across the known world, and the pilgrimage and sermon that closed his mission. Most people know the headline events. This quiz goes one layer further, to the people and details behind them. The fifty questions follow the story in rough order, from the meaning of the word seerah itself to the scholars who first wrote it down, and they ask about the clauses of a treaty, the carriers of a letter, the name a mosque was given, and the companions whose single act changed a chapter. Every question carries a hint inside it, so a player who knows the period can reason toward an answer, and every explanation adds something worth keeping. It suits students revising the seerah, weekend Islamic-school teachers looking for a ready round, and anyone who has read a biography of the Prophet and wants to see how much stayed with them. Play it online, or print it for a halaqa or a family evening.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Arabic word sirah, used for the Prophet's biography, comes from a verb with what meaning?
To travel
To travel is the root sense: sirah comes from the verb sara, so a person's sirah is their journey through life, from birth to death.
Q 02Which ruler, by Muslim accounts, tore up the Prophet's letter and told his Yemeni vassal to seize its sender?
Khosrow II of Persia
Khosrow II of Persia, furious that a subject had written his name first, tore the letter to pieces; the Prophet answered, 'May God tear apart his kingdom.'
Q 03Of what metal was the seal ring the Prophet had made for his letters, engraved 'Muhammad, Messenger of God'?
Silver
Silver was the metal, and Muhammad ordered that no duplicate of the seal ever be made; the ring was later lost down a well in Medina.
Q 04On the Mi'raj, which prophet kept sending Muhammad back to plead for fewer daily prayers until fifty became five?
Moses
Moses, met in the sixth heaven, warned that fifty prayers a day were too many, and Muhammad went back and forth nine times.
Q 05What, by the seerah, finally broke the confederates' siege of Medina after the trench had stalled their cavalry?
A violent wind
A violent wind blew out the besiegers' campfires and stripped them of warmth, while the Muslim camp lay sheltered from it.
Q 06From where did Bilal give the call to prayer on the day Mecca surrendered, to the dismay of some Quraysh watching?
From the Kaaba's roof
From the Kaaba's roof: a Quraysh man asked al-Harith ibn Hisham, 'Do you not see where this slave has ascended?'
Q 07What did the Prophet's daughter Zaynab send to ransom her husband after Badr, moving her father to waive the payment?
An onyx necklace
An onyx necklace that Khadijah had given her as a wedding present was among the ransom, and on seeing it the Prophet refused any cash for his son-in-law.
Q 08What does the opening verse of Surah 48 call the Hudaybiyyah truce, which many companions first took for a humiliation?
A clear triumph
A clear triumph is the verdict of 48:1, for the truce let Muslims and Meccans mix in safety, and Islam spread faster than it had by arms.
Q 09The 629 clash at Mu'tah, the Muslims' first against Byzantine forces, took place in which present-day country?
Jordan
Jordan holds the site, near modern Karak east of the Jordan River, where the army's commanders fell in turn and Khalid ibn al-Walid drew it off.
Q 10Which title did the Prophet give Khalid ibn al-Walid, the convert who drew the army out of Mu'tah?
Sword of God
Sword of God, Sayf Allah, is the title, bestowed after he took command at Mu'tah when the three appointed leaders had fallen and brought the army home.
Q 11Which Byzantine emperor received the Prophet's letter, carried by Dihya al-Kalbi by way of Bosra?
Heraclius
Heraclius, fresh from retaking Jerusalem from the Persians, was the addressee, though some scholars doubt the letter ever reached him.
Q 12Which valley battle of 630 against the Hawazin and Thaqif is named outright in the Quran, in Surat at-Tawbah?
Hunayn
Hunayn is one of the few battles the Quran names, verse 9:25 recalling how the Muslims' great numbers at first availed them nothing.
Q 13With what words, echoing Joseph's to his brothers, did the Prophet release the Meccans gathered before him in 630?
Go your way, you are freed
Q 21Which Abyssinian woman, a slave in the household of the Prophet's parents, later married his adopted son?
Umm Ayman
Umm Ayman, Barakah, was freed when the Prophet married Khadijah, and he himself arranged her marriages, first to Ubayd ibn Zayd and later to Zayd ibn Harithah.
Q 22Which young commander did the Prophet set over the last army he raised, sent toward Byzantine Balqa to answer Mu'tah?
Usama ibn Zayd
Usama ibn Zayd, son of the adopted son killed at Mu'tah, led the force Abu Bakr insisted on dispatching after the Prophet's death.
Q 23What name did the oath take that the companions swore at Hudaybiyyah when their envoy Uthman was rumoured killed?
Go your way, you are freed, he told them, after quoting Joseph's 'No reproach on you this day' (Quran 12:92) to a city that had fought him for years.
Q 14Which surah holds the verse 'Today I have perfected for you your religion', said to have come down at Arafat?
Al-Ma'idah
Al-Ma'idah carries it as verse 3, and a Jew told Umar that had it been revealed to them they would have made that day a festival.
Q 15Whose usury did the Prophet cancel first in the Farewell Sermon, ahead of every other claim in Arabia?
Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib
Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, his uncle, held the first usury claim abolished, and the first blood-feud he cancelled was likewise a Hashimite one.
Q 16Roughly how many companions does tradition say gathered in Medina to make the Farewell Pilgrimage with the Prophet?
About 100,000
About 100,000 companions converged on Medina to go with him, and heard the sermon at Arafat on the ninth of Dhu al-Hijjah.
Q 17What title, drawn from Quran 33:6, do Muslims give each wife of the Prophet, none of whom could remarry after him?
Mothers of the Believers
Mothers of the Believers, Umm al-Mu'minin, is the title, and the Quran calls any wish to marry his widows a major offence.
Q 18Which daughter of the Prophet died of illness in Medina on the very day news of the victory at Badr arrived?
Ruqayyah
Ruqayyah, wife of Uthman and mother of his son Abdullah, died on 17 Ramadan 2 AH as the rider bringing word of Badr reached Medina.
Q 19Whom did the Prophet marry soon after Khadijah's death, a widow whose husband had died after returning from Abyssinia?
Sawdah bint Zam'ah
Sawdah bint Zam'ah became his second wife in the Ramadan of the tenth year of his mission, having migrated to Abyssinia with her first husband, As-Sakran ibn Amr.
Q 20Which wife of the Prophet married him by proxy while in Abyssinia, the Negus paying her dower of 400 dinars?
Umm Habiba
Umm Habiba, Ramla bint Abi Sufyan, wed him in exile after her first husband turned Christian there, and the Negus hosted the wedding feast.
Pledge of the Tree
Pledge of the Tree, Bay'at al-Shajara, is its name, sworn under a tree by nearly 1,400 companions and praised in Quran 48:18.
Q 24Under the Hudaybiyyah terms, how many days could the Muslims stay in Mecca at the next year's pilgrimage?
Three
Three days was the limit, the Quraysh agreeing to vacate the city, and in 629 the Muslims duly made the pilgrimage they had been denied.
Q 25Which convert, sent back under the treaty, escaped to the coast and raided Meccan caravans bound for Syria?
Abu Basir
Abu Basir was joined on the shore by some seventy others, and by tradition Quraysh themselves soon asked to be rid of the return clause.
Q 26Banu Bakr's attack on which tribe, newly allied to the Muslims, broke the truce and led to the march on Mecca?
Khuza'a
Khuza'a's people, attacked at al-Wateer and pursued even into the sanctuary, sent forty riders to Medina to seek the Prophet's help.
Q 27To whom did the Prophet return the Kaaba's key after the conquest, decreeing that his descendants keep it for ever?
Uthman ibn Talha
Uthman ibn Talha received it back as custodian of the Kaaba, and the decree kept the key with his descendants, the Banu Shayba, for the centuries that followed.
Q 28Which Badr veteran's secret letter warning Quraysh of the march was seized, yet the Prophet forbade Umar to kill him?
Hatib ibn Abi Balta'a
Hatib ibn Abi Balta'a was spared because, the Prophet said, God may have looked upon the people of Badr and forgiven them whatever they did.
Q 29Which Ghatafan convert, his faith still secret, set the Banu Qurayza and Quraysh at odds during the siege of Medina?
Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud
Nu'aym ibn Mas'ud told the Qurayza to demand Quraysh hostages, then told Abu Sufyan the Qurayza had defected, and the alliance cracked.
Q 30Which mosque, raised beside Quba by men who shunned it, did the Prophet have destroyed on his return from Tabuk?
Masjid al-Dirar
Masjid al-Dirar, the 'mosque of dissent' of Quran 9:107, was burned after a revelation stopped the Prophet from leading prayer there.