The first aim of my paper is to discuss and analyse how the Prophet Muhammad is portrayed in two contemporary novels. The Swedish author Torbjörn Säfve wrote the first novel (De sanna och falska), and Kader Abdolah, who currently is living in the Netherlands, wrote the second novel (De boodscapper). Contrary to the so-called “classical” and “pre-modern” Sira-books that were produced by Ibn Ishaq and Muhammad Haykal in the 20th century, the two novels are mainly written for a non-Muslim audience. To what extent does this fact influence the content of the books, and is the history of the Prophet Muhammad presented in a different way in these two books, compared with the traditional Sira books produced by Muslim writers? A second aim of this paper is to highlight the reception of the books by Torbjörn Säfve and Kader Abdolah on the Prophet Muhammad in Western media. To what extent do the reviewers highlight that Säfve and Abdolah have chosen to write about the Prophet of Islam? The last and overall aim of the paper is to seek possible explanations for why there seems to be a growing interest in the historical Muhammad in contemporary Western. The presentation of the Prophet Muhammad in non-Muslim fictional work always has been closely related to the question of how Islam and Muslims are represented in the public sphere and how Islam is portrayed as friend or foe. When it comes to theoretical and methodological issues, the two novels will be analysed and compared with the help of content analysis. Here, one aim is to try to see if the story of the life of the Prophet Muhammad in the novels differs from that in so-called Islamic sources. The paper also will try to situate the discussion about the Prophet Muhammad within the larger discussion about Islam and Muslims in the public sphere in the West.