Customer Reviews

Muhammad

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book that a devout Muslim, if he bothered to read it, would rail against, because it treats the founder of Islam as nothing more than a mortal, although a very complicated one. I read it during the years I lived in Morocco and I found it an invaluable tool for understanding Islam from the inside, and also understanding how Muslims view people of other religions. I don't think it is the most balanced account of the prophet's life you'll find, but it's one of the best researched ones and it doesn't pull any punches.

This is one of the two best books on Muhammad, the other one being Montgomery Watt's two-volume Muhammad in Mecca and Muhammad in Medina. The difference between Watt's and Rodinson's works is that while the first focuses on presenting a chronological history of the life of the prophet of Islam, the second offers a more detailed view of the character of Muhammad taking into account his psychological setting and putting the character into the context of its seventh century Arabian society. Rodinson's book was written after those of Watt and in some parts of his book, Rodinson offers critical discussion of what Watt had to say on the historicity of some aspects in the life of Muhammad.
Rodinson skillfully uses all the methodology that scholarship has to offer as he critically constructs the story of the prophet of Islam and often draws history parallels for instance when he compares Muhammad's inspiration with medieval accounts of Christian ascetics.
The book's two last chapters are its conclusion. In an objective manner, the French author frankly expresses his disbelief in the divinity of Muhammad saying that - unlike other Western scholars - he does not want to guise his opinion with vocal tricks so that to hide his true opinion or soften it.
Rodinson died a few years ago and his absence has been a serious loss for this discipline in humanities studies. His book will certainly stand for a longtime as a reference work after his death. On a last note, it is seriously sad to see Westerners more at liberty when studying and writing on the history of Islam and Muhammad while Muslim scholars being repressed when doing a similar job for the fear of being declared anathema and probably risking their lives.

Rodinson's book is not a scholarly biographical based upon critical examination the early literature and sources, but it is nonetheless an educated and sophisticated look at the events, peoples, and places surrounding Islam's earliest origins and the personality which spawned it.
For such an accessible, non-technical perspective, Rodinson's book is perhaps the most user-friendly for anyone who may not consider themselves to be particularly religious. Rodinson is himself an atheist and a Marxist, and he, therefore, often frames the events of Muhammad's life within naturalistic explanations. For this reason, it is not generally regarded highly by Muslims and banned from libraries in the conservative countries. Reading the book, however, one finds little so scandalous as to merit such a melodramatic reaction,
The two rival books aimed at this market are those by K. Armstrong and M. Watt. The former is sympathetic in a vaguely religions sense, and the other is a severely abridged version of a larger, well-respected biography--peerless really. One would likely choose between the three if one had to based upon which the authors' background you found more appealing.

I've actually read the italian version of this book (edited by Einaudi). I found it incredibly interesting to help to understand how a religion and culture is born. The author is atheist, and I think that it is a good precondition for the book's objectivity.

This book was written much before 9/11. It is a great advantage as it is not tainted by a reinterpretation of what we know about the life and teaching of Prophet Muhammad in light of what 19 moslems did in 2001.
The book provides a good background on the culture of Arabia at the time of Muhammad and why the teaching of the prophet became so attractive to his many followers. Rodinson write as a fair minded agnostic, and try to be as objective as possible when writing about religions. Rodinson shows also that Islam, like most religions, contain a lot of concepts and ideas, often contradictory. Evolving cultures reinterpret and selectively focus on some aspects of the original teaching to adapt to their surroundings.
A good scholarly book, recommended to all who want to have a fair but not faith based view of the origin of Islam.

I recently tried to find a good bio on Mohammad. Interestingly, what I found was that anything written after 9/11 was either a litany of Mohammad--all bad or Mohammand--all good. Of course this makes perfect sense considering what post-modernism's professors have done to intellectual integrity--but I digress.

I had to go back to the 1970's and 1980's to find a fair and balance (objective) study of Mohammad. Rodison is certainly in that category (written 1979). If one wants a chronological history of the life of Mohammad--with some attempts at psychological history--this is the book. (it also uses other methods--such as cultural history.) It is full of the names, places, persons and events that were Mohammad and the birth of Islam. It explains the success of Mohammmad and Islam in the context of the era in which it was born.

The only critique I can make of the book is its inability to adequately explain the words (or literature) of the Koran--what makes them special to its faitful? What makes them beautiful? The book falls very short here. But, again, Rodison is an historian--not a doyen of literature.

In sum, as a complete collection of the 5 w's to the life and world of Mohammad--this is a great source. As a literary commentary on the Koran--it falls short. This book is a great start for one who strives to be informed on Mohammad and Islam.

One problem that faces readers (and writers) of history are the cultural assumptions used in both comparing and explaining the events from the past. This book is a case in point. The writer is clearly a sound scholar on Islam and Muhammad. However, his French communist and atheist worldview permeate his discussions of the rise of Muhammad and Islam. It doesn't matter if the writer or reader is a Freudian, capitalist, communist, atheist, agnostic, or a true believer. Your way of viewing the world has to have an influence on how you tell your story, what metaphors and terms you use in your explanations, and much of what you consider normal and well known is actually less than clear to those unfamiliar with your view of things.

Those readers not clearly aware of social assumptions of communism and the rather arrogant superiority of French socialism will find some of the text bewildering even in this fine English translation. This is unfortunate because much of the author's writing does help non-believers understand the life of this world religious figure. It isn't that the social-political stuff turns the facts into lies, it is simply that a reader uninitiated in these increasingly antiquated ways of viewing the world will find the author's points somewhat opaque because of the language the points are couched in rather than any complexity in the underlying point.

For those of us who completely reject the socialist communist version of the world it is also quite irritating to read.

So, beware.

This book was dogmatically lazy in its approach. I mean, he slips in a few lines about the unconsious, the Qura'n being a slightly self-serving stream of consiousness recorded on collar bones and camel hide. Was that all it took when he wrote this book? Did you just have to resign big questions of prophecy to the labrynth of the unconscious and all of a sudden it's secular histriography? I understand his attempt to be unbiased with such a subject so profoundly prone to bias, but he makes too big a point of it. He spends the last chapter quoting hysterical hyperboles about the prophet and then goes, "see, I didn't call him Satan or a saint, I have achieved non-partiality". Was he trained as journalist? They too cling to woosy and naive notions of impartiality by subtraction, never addition. His only conclusion is that the prophet was human, all too human. I of course am partial to an ideological prism that I would have liked to see the prophets life to be shown through, but at the very least this book offers a credible chronology. I think it's the best part of the book, and he should have cut out any pretentions at analysis, his freudian guessing games. I guess what I really should have done was cut out the disciplish watered-down middle man and read Montgomery Watt instead.

I've owned this book for more than 20 years. It has always been useful in understanding Muhammed and Islam from a scientfic Marxist view. For fun, I would recommend reading the book together with the passages on Muhammed in Rhushdie's Satanic verses.

I detest the condescension that some people have about Muhammed and this book. Unlike Christ or the Jewish Prophets and most other founds of religions, Muhammed was a person who lived in recorded history, left a mark by real records of his life, and had a recorded life and achievemensts even before he became a religious leader. We know little about him, but almost all of that is known from real history, not hagiagraphy.

Christians are only lucky that no such book exists about Christ, because Christ--if he existed--left much less of a real trace in records than Muhammed. Christians also benefit from the rigorous censorship and recrafting the Christian texts received when Christianity was transformed from being an underground religion of the oppressed and socially alienated, to the religion of the Roman state and ruling class.

Rodison is not a pro imperialist, but a Marxist who defends the Arab revolution against imperialism. He is an objective scholar. If you aren't ready for the theoritical complexity and terse theory of Islam and Capital, please investigate his Israel, A settler colonial state. Recent reader reviews here on Amazon have pointed out how this book written decades ago accurately predicts the present future of Zionist crimes and Palestinian resistance!

I only give this book 2 stars because it does not give the true account of Mohommad's life. He had sex with children - that is a fact. Read the Hadith, it plainly states that mohammed had sex with girls at least 7-8 years old. If he were alive today he would be arrested and put in jail. I would then call mohammed a pedophile pervert.

Why dont we hear the truth about islam and not this watered down version?