He collected much material on the life of Prophet of Islam,
Muhammad but could write only first two volumes of the planned work the
Sirat-un-Nabi. His disciple,
Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, made use of this material and added his own and wrote remaining five volumes of the work, the
Sirat-un-Nabi after the death of his mentor.
He was born to Shaikh Habibullah and Moqeema Khatoon. Although his younger brothers went to London for education and later returned as barristers,employed at Allahabad High Court, Shibli received a traditional Islamic education. His teacher was Maulana Muhammad Farooq Chirayakoti, a rationalist scholar. He went to
Mecca for the
Hajj and there he devoted his time to furthering his studies in Islamic
theology,
history,
philosophy and
Sufism from different scholars in
Arabia