Customer Reviews

Origins and Early Development in Shi'a Islam (Arab Background Series)

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This is a well documented book on the early years of Islam and development of the Shia Islam (Ja'fari School), one of the major schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam.

It describes in detail the last years of Prophet Muhammad's life and the events that followed in the 50+ years after his death.

The descriptions of the events that led to sucessions of the Khalifs after Prophet's death, and the insurgencies challenging Imam 'Ali's leadership are well written and fill a void in scholarly books on these events.

Finally, this book provides one of very few worthwhile writeups in the Western literature on (the why's and how's) of Imam Hussayn's (Prophet's grandson and designate) martyrdom and on his successful drive to cleans the first Islamic nation of its corruption.

The book is well written and provides a balanced view of isalm from a scholar who is very open minded and does not follow the usual mullah style religion practices or thoughts

I am just finishing reading the book published recently by Oxford University Press (Pakistan). The book is highly readable. Written in a very dispassionate tone, the book covers the events mainly from the death of the Prophet of Islam to about the time of birth of five major schools of Islamic jurisprudence. For every key event, incident, interpretation, the author takes care of presenting the major viewpoints quoting the earliest and most well known sources and then giving reasons for his own conclusions. Finally, it fills an important void about the period of the Caliphate of Imam Hasan which most historians have tended to gloss over. The book is very important in understanding and explaining the current Islamic thoughts.

The sources which Dr Jafri has used to write this book are predominantly Sunni. That goes very well to support his argument.

The analyses that he has made of the Ghadir Khumm episode is thorough.

Dr Jafri also does well to explain the influence of the Ghulat in mainstream Shia thought.

This book is probably the most comprehensive book on early Shia history in English.

The most disturbing argument brought forth by Shia sect is the event of "Ghadir" when Prophet gives his lecture on supposedly passing authority to Ali. When I first heard this from one of my Shia friend, I flatly denied it and considered it a typical Shia fabrication. But to my personal embarrassment I later found out that this was written by our own ulema and great scholars. I was deeply disturbed. Why would Prophet say something like this, especially the way he approaches the whole thing. I don't blame some people having interpreted that event as prophet giving authority to Ali, certainly that event if not conclusive is very suggestive of that notion. It seems as though, and God know best, that Prophet wanted to create a dispute among his people after his death.

And yet another question comes to mind about Prophet's intention when I consider the fact that he wished to send all the great companions,with the exception of Ali, to a battle. He planned this course of action at a time when his death was at hand. Apparently companions of the prophet realized that something fishy is going on here and didn't go along with prophet's plan and inspite of Prophet's insistence they decided to stay and not leave town. Now I neither care much about Shiism nor about Sunnism, but if you ask me I think Prophet was definitely up to something. It is unlikely that all these events are just random events without any meaning. My guess is that he was planning something, though I am not sure what. But as history shows he did not succeed., and maybe that is why Islamic history, like many other major religions, is nothing but a big mess and a killing field. Needless to say that Prophet's own immediate family was first to fall victim to this unfortunate reality. Was he trying to prevent this by his careful maneuvering? I don't know the answer to this question. Oh well, there were other prophets before him who didn't succeed in what they had in mind as well, I guess such is life.