Sir William Muir was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819. He was the brother of the eminent Sanskrit scholar John Muir and both brothers served in the British East India Company's Bengal Civil Service. William Muir became the Foreign Secretary to the Indian Government in 1865 and held several other high posts in India between 1885-1902 including Lieutenant Governor of the Northwestern Provinces. He survived the Sepoy Mutiny at Fort Agra, where he wrote much of his monumental work - The Life of Mahomet.

William Muir returned to his native Scotland in 1902 and served as the Principal of Edinburgh University. Sir William Muir was both a great scholar and a great statesman.