This is an interpretive study of the life of the Prophet Muhammad as it is artistically depicted in the repertoire (especially the narrative ballads) of fifty-one contemporary Egyptian maddahin (singers of eulogies in honour of the Prophet Muhammad, sing. maddah). The elements of this repertoire, as diverse as narrative ballads, classical odes, Qur'an chanting, and the melodies of the secular songs of well-known Egyptian singers, do not exist as discrete units but rather as a lively tawlifa (blend)--to use a common term in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic (CEA). This study is about blends where discrete units lose their borderlines and leak into one another, about phenomena which are "betwixt and between" the perceived scholarly categories which confidently delineate boundaries between elite and popular Islam, the historical and the legendary Muhammad, the sacred and the profane, orality and writing, standard and colloquial Arabic. / In order to understand the process which marks the making of the people's Muhammad, the study deals with the sources and the contents of the repertoire of the Egyptian maddahin. The performance of these singers as well as their interaction with the audience are also considered. The "legendary" material in this repertoire is attested as historical by many authoritative and well-recognized "orthodox" authors of the past. Classical Arabic, classical poetic forms, philosophical notions, long believed to be the exclusive possessions of the learned, are freely utilized in the ballads and popular songs under study. The people's Muhammad appears as both a commanding figure, empowered by the supernatural, and a touchingly vulnerable human being; God's ascetic messenger and a man who savours life's lawful pleasures; an eloquent speaker who utters Qur'an-like terse Arabic and a lovingly familiar figure who also uses local patois. Bipolarity, beloved of many scholars, is seriously challenged by the art of the Egyptian maddahin. A renewed effort has to be made to discover more valid categories which will take into account the intermediary combinations (Mischbildungen) characteristic of that art.

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