What did the Prophet look like?

What did the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ look like? According to Anas ibn Malik, he was of medium height, neither very tall nor short. His colour was fair with a rosy tone, neither glaringly white nor dark, and his hair was neither very curly nor very straight. He had hardly twenty white hairs in his head and beard when he died.

The Companions who knew him best said something more: they could not describe him fully, because they could not look at him for long. This page gathers what they did say.

Muslims do not draw the Prophet ﷺ, and this site shows no faces of any prophet or Companion. What we have instead are the descriptions of those who saw him, which were remembered and passed on with great care.

Anas ibn Malik, who served the Prophet ﷺ for years, described him in these words: of medium height among people, neither tall nor short; a fair colour with a rosy tone, neither glaringly white nor deep brown; and hair that was neither fully curly nor quite straight. He added that revelation came to him at forty, that he stayed ten years in Makkah and ten in Madinah, and that when he died there were scarcely twenty white hairs in his head and beard. Bukhari 3547, sahih (al-Bukhari); also Muslim 2347a, sahih (Muslim)

Anas also said that he never touched silk softer than the palm of the Prophet’s ﷺ hand, and never smelled a perfume sweeter than his scent. Bukhari 3561, sahih (al-Bukhari) In the report of Muslim, he says he never smelled ambergris or musk as fragrant as the Prophet’s ﷺ body, and never touched brocade or silk as soft. Muslim 2330a, sahih (Muslim)

This is not how people usually talk about another man. It shows how deeply the Companions loved and honoured him.

Before he accepted Islam, Amr ibn al-As disliked the Prophet ﷺ more than anyone and wished to overpower him. On his deathbed he told his son how that changed. After he accepted Islam, no one was dearer to him, and no one was greater in his eyes. Yet he could never look at the Prophet’s ﷺ face fully, out of awe. If he were asked to describe him, he said, he could not, because he had never looked at him fully. Muslim 121, sahih (Muslim)

There were two pulls at once: something that drew the eye, and an awe that made a person lower it.

One of the most famous people to believe on seeing him was Abdullah ibn Salam, a learned man of the Jewish community of Madinah. He went to see the Prophet ﷺ on the day he arrived. He reported that when he looked at his face, he knew it was not the face of a liar. The first thing he heard him say was to spread the greeting of peace, feed people, and pray at night while others sleep, and then enter Paradise in peace. Tirmidhi 2485, sahih (al-Albani); also Ibn Majah 1334, sahih (al-Albani)

The day itself is told in Arrival in Madinah. Those first words are still the Sunnah of greeting and feeding people, which you can read on the Sunnah in daily life.

A longer description of the Prophet ﷺ, narrated from Ali ibn Abi Talib, is often quoted. Its chain is graded weak by al-Albani, Ahmad Shakir and Zubair Ali Zai, so this page does not use it. Tirmidhi 3638, da’if (al-Albani)