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Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet in Islam Across the Centuries

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If you're curious about world religions, and you're not Muslim yourself, you've probably looked into the Quran and you may have read about the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad. This book is not a new biography of the Prophet.
It's a book, written by a scholar of Islam for general readers, explaining how writers have shaped--and reshaped--biographies of the Prophet down through history since the time of the revelation of the Quran well over a thousand years ago. It's probably not the best "first book" to read about Islam. Works by John Esposito generally are good starting points for American readers.
But "Images of Muhammad" artfully explores the many different stresses and shadings that writers have brought to accounts of Prophet Muhammad's life down through the centuries: He was a figure meant to reconcile an entire people to God. He was a figure who helped to connect the individual believer to God. He was a great innovator. He was a man who corrected and preserved a pure religious tradition. He had personal likes and dislikes he wished to pass along. He was a religious figure who transcended cultural preferences.
Perhaps you get the idea.
Dr. Khalidi takes us through more than a millennium of reflections on the Prophet's life and we come away with a larger, richer portrait of this figure than any single writer's account could paint.
Dr. Khalidi's interest is in the literary form known as "Sira," the short-hand term for a Life of the Prophet Muhammad. So, his book is not a survey of all literature that includes the Prophet, nor does he cover various contemporary books about the Prophet. He's interested here in how Muslims have shifted their emphasis in remembering their beloved founding figure down through the years.
I write this review as a non-Muslim. Before he's finished, Dr. Khalidi takes us through a wide range of literature, including Sunni, Sufi and Shia literature. Muslim readers are likely to debate some of the conclusions he draws along the way. As a non-Muslim interested in Islam, I welcomed the whole book as complex meditation on what this great figure in world history has meant in many times and places and to the billion people who now call themselves Muslim.