Customer Reviews

Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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I would disagree with the prior posting depicting this read as scrubbed depiction of Muhammad's life. The West is so inundated with images of the "scary" Muslim that any other depiction of Muslims would naturally seem out of line to them. Therefore if it doesn't fit their preconceived notions of who and what Muslims are, then certainly, it must be deemed false. Its unclear where there are justified "rapes" and "pillages" that some are wont to include in the biography of Muhammad. Another very interesting point here is that Arabs are Semitic people as well, so labeling anyone who is Arab as "anti-Semitic" is actually a misnomer. Evidence again of people's preconceived biases and stereotypes based on simple ignorance.

The subject of Muhammad can be really touchy, something that we are unfortunately often reminded in the media these days. So before I continue with my review, I want to make a few things very clear: I am here stating my honest opinion about this book, and this book only. I have read over hundred and seventy of these Very Short Introduction books, and have reviewed about half of those here on Amazon. I've read Islam: A Very Short Introduction, Islamic History: A Very Short Introduction, and The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. I found those books to be very informative, scholarly, fascinating and accessible - something that I've come to expect from most of the VSI books.

The biggest problem with this book is that it tries to be two things at the same time: a scholarly presentation of the historic, religious and cultural figure on the one hand, as wall as a biography of Muhammad based on the legendary sources. The author justifies this approach by stating that in the minds of most Muslims it is impossible to separate the two accounts. However, this rationale could be used for almost any figure that existed in pre-modern era, and yet none of the other VSI books take this approach.

The legendary biography comprises full first half of the book. The narrative is somewhat modified for the modern audience, but the style, the characterizations, the themes, the fantastic events that are described are all squarely medieval. This is indeed hagiography, plain and simple. It is self-serving, mind-bogglingly naïve, and extremely condescending to the members of other religions, especially Jews and Christians. This part of the book was extremely painful to read, and I could not get through more than a few pages at a time. This kind of material is completely out of place in one of these very short introductions.

The second half of the book was much better. In fact, it is as good in terms of objective scholarship and informative insights as any of the best book in this series. It managed to present various scholarly and historical views of Muhammad without being condescending to Muslim faith. If you do end up buying this book, I'd recommend just skipping the first half and going straight to this part. You will miss almost nothing.

Overall, I am extremely bewildered that the editors at Oxford University Press decided to publish something like this. If I had based my opinion of VSI books on this volume I probably would not have gone to read any of the other ones. Fortunately, there are still many other excellent books in this series that make me look forward to reading more of them.

I found the author's organization of this book to be fairly good. Part 1 is a summary of the Prophet's life and character from Ibn Ishaq's book, the standard source of Prophetic biography, written in the 700s. Part 2 offers a scholarly critique of this narrative (mainly from the western perspective). Part 3 covers how Muslims have traditionally seen the Prophet over the centuries.

Part 1 was impressive in that the author managed to squeeze quite a bit of detail in a limited space. For whatever reason, it does include some of the less common material that doesn't usually come up in the Prophetic biography (like the correspondence between Heraclius and the priest of Constantinople).

I found Part 2 to be the most interesting, taking us into the world of late antiquity to explain some aspects of the Prophet's biography that might seem strange to modern readers(i.e. the ubiquitous presence of jinn, the immense reverence that his companions had for his physical person, his marriages etc. ). The section also introduces us to the modern western critique of the traditional biography- which allegedly finds elements of the later Sunni-Shia struggle or disputes between Muslims and Christians reflected in it(while still accepting the broad outlines of the narrative). The author convincingly refutes some of the more sweeping, fringe critiques- such as Michael Cook's thesis that first century of Muslim history is simply a massive forgery by later Muslims. Part 3, although full of interesting tidbits (dalail khayrat was the most widely read book in 18th century Egypt, after the Quran) was the least impressive; I thought it was too short and some of the points, especially regarding the punishments for blasphemy should have been developed much further. However this could easily be made up by reading Annemarie Schimmel's "And Muhammad is his Messenger."

Over all a good book. The only drawback is it's small size and the necessary limitations this imposes. Like the author's book on Hadith, it is sympathetic but not apologetic. We need more books like these.

Reader beware! This is a hagiography not a historical look at the man Muhammad. Missing are the murders, the rapes, the virulent anti-Semitic rants and actions, the child molestation, the barbaric and gruesome raids on neighboring tribes. This is the Disney version of the Marquis De Sade's fantasy life, scrubbed clean and viewed as the Muslims would wish you to see the man. There is little or nothing here for anyone interested in an open and unbiased explication of the man and his life. If you are actually interested in Muhammad, his character, his ideas, and his life, as well as possible reasons for his oft recorded afflictions, you would do well to see Understanding Muhammad by Ali Sina.