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The compiler and translator of these sayings, Allama Sir Abdullah al-Mamun al-Suhrawardy, Barrister-at-Law, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt., LL.D., Iftakhar-ul-Milla, Kt., Commander of the Order of Medjedie, was born at Dacca in 1882, and died at Calcutta on the 13th January, 1935. The obituary notice in the London Times of 14th January, 1935, gives many details of his life and work, but it does not mention this little book The Sayings of Muhammad, than which none of his works was nearer his heart. There is also no reference to the fact that Abdullah was an extraordinarily brilliant student, winning a number of stipends and scholarships throughout his school and college career. He graduated with honours in Arabic, English and Philosophy, obtaining a first class in his special subjects and standing first of his year both in the B.A. and M.A. examinations of Calcutta University. He was also the first to obtain the Ph.D. degree of the Calcutta University. While studying for the Bar, he took his M.A. degree from the London University, and used to add to his slender allowance from India by lecturing on Arabic letters and jurisprudence, subjects to which he contributed in his later writings and teachings much of value and freshness.

In February 1905, when his Sayings of Muhammad was first published, Abdullah was a young man burning with zeal for Pan-Islamism and dedicating his extraordinary energy and talent to a vision he had of uniting into one cultural and economic, if not political, whole lands which were under Muslim rule, or had a large Muslim population. The Pan-Islamic Society of London, of which he was the founder and first secretary, was at that time an extremely active and vigorous body preaching Islam, converting British and continental Christians, and carrying on intense propaganda for Pan-Islamic unity. The Sayings of Muhammad was one of the Society's publications.

Containing as it does some of the finest Sayings of the Prophet, it attracted the attention of minds widely removed from the ranks of right Islam. It was quoted from in many books and journals, and parts of it were translated into several European languages. An interesting testimony to its success was the correspondence which was initiated after its publication between my late brother and Leo Tolstoy and which continued till the Count's death. He had come to appraise the real personality of the Prophet through this volume, and I am told by a nephew of mine on the authority of one of his daughters whom he had met in Russia that a copy of this book was found in the large overcoat in which he had wrapped himself before setting out on that last walk of his to die in the fields he used to till.