Mohammed: The Man and His Faith [Paperback]

Tor Andrae (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2000

Excellent survey of origins, tenets, and substance of Islam explores Mohammed's influence on religion, history, politics, and society. Comprehensive, even-handed; one of the finest volumes available in English about Islam. "should be studied by every generation of students in courses on religion." — The Moslem World.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (March 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486411362
• ISBN-13: 978-0486411361
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,656,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mohammed Unveiled., December 18, 2005

By 

An Avid Reader (Sausalito, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (Paperback)

At last, a book that lovingly describes the life of Mohammed and his great contribution to mankind. Just excellent!

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fundamental nonografía, July 24, 2002

By 

"jisa39" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mohammed the Man and His Faith (Hardcover)

Dentro de la literatura existente respecto de Mahoma, la monografía de Tor Andrae es fundamental, pues es, junto con la de Dermenghem, particularmente interesante para estudiar la religiosidad inherente a la evocación del Profeta por los musulmanes. Un libro que permite el acercamiento del lector a la vida y obra del profeta del islamismo.

6 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Let's not get bewitched by our language., January 28, 2005

By 

Grand Sen~or - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (Paperback)

This book is a typical Orientalist account of the Life the Messenger and the Revealed Message of the God. Orientalists still cannot comprehend that without the previously revealed Messages of the God we wouldn't understand the Quran at all. As long as they cannot see the Quran in the context of other revealed strciptures and base their accounts on the assumption that the Quran is composed by Muhammed (pinching ideas from Christians and Jews jumbling them with some of his own as the time goes by according to the needs of his society and his sexual desires), I don't think they can understand the importance of this message. therefore their efforts amounts to naught and waste of time.

After this prelude I am not going to criticize every single paragraph of Tor Andrae but I will criticize his account of the concept "will" in the Quran, because;

L.Wittgenstein said: "If you understand the workings of will in a

language, then you understand the language."

Tor quotes three verses from the Quran where the word "will" is used and on one of them he replaces this word with "pleased" to prepare it for his coming criticism, here it is:

"Had we pleased, we had certainly given to every soul his guidance." (32,13)

However the true wording of the sentence is:

"Had we willed, we had certainly given to every soul his guidance."

Then Tor jumps from this to a capricious God reflected on the character of Muhammed;-)

Also with his quotation "...No soul shall believe but by the permission of Allah..." he confuses the will of Allah to work out a contradiction with his predestination concept. If some issue is left to permission then how can one reduce it to predestination?

Before attempting to look for contradictions in the revealed words of the God one should have good grip of those concepts how they are employed in the Quran - namely concept `will" and "permission".

Those words are employed within hundreds of verses in the Quran to give us a solid understanding of their use.

Tor wrote this book in late 1920s, today we know more philosophy not to confuse concepts like "will", "permission" and "pleased" so that we don't get bewitched by our language not to be able to distinguish the revealed words of the God from the words of human-beings and Satan. If we are incapable to make this distinction then we have a serious problem with our language.