Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

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I just want to make sure I’m reading something that has good information in it and I don’t really want to ask an everyday Muslim. The prophet was supposedly a good orator whose incising criticism so rattled the Quraysh that they exclaimed that ‘our fathers insulted, our ways scoffed at, and our gods reviled’. Do not forget how he freed some enslaved people and do not forget the mercy he showed towards some of his bitter rivals, after he had conquered Mecca. He tells the stories and the incidences in such beautiful manner that you hardly feel it is being said about a prophet. He begins with the story of Abraham, quoting from the Book of Genesis, and follows the fortunes of Hagar, his second wife, from the expulsion from Canaan with her son Ishmael, to the finding of Zamzam and the establishment of the holy centre in the Valley of Becca (later to become known the world over as Mecca).

Each chapter deals with an important event in the history of Islam and provides chronological context for the advent of the religion, as well as detailed information about Muhammad. Also Ibn Sa’ad (the references are to John Leyden's edition of Kitab al-Tabaqat al Kabir by Muhammad ibn Sa’d).

Those rivals included Hind, a woman who was a stern critic of Islam and who had eaten the liver of a dead companion of Muhammad. I swear by God, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left on condition that I abandon this course before He halth made it victorious, or I have perished therein, I would not abandon it. Contrary to what some of its apologists say, this was so even during the prophet’s lifetime, as seen in this book.

Asma Asfaruddin said the book is a rare example of "a gift of narration wedded to impeccable scholarship". Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources" is a great start for understanding the narratives that have inspired Muslims since the eighth century. Then he asked the tribal elders of all clans to carry the cloth together and that settled the issue amicably. Yea, that indeed I do,” said ‘Uthman, for he had heard him speak again and again of the merits of fasting and of night prayer.Topics including Islamic origins and early Islam, pre-Islamic Arabia, and late antiquity are also discussed in a friendly yet engaging way. I can remind you of more and more things: how he had an Egyptian enslaved girl whom he would visit everyday and for whom he had a Quranic revelation saying that it was okay for him to have sexual intercourse with her. He went on to become an influential member of Western Muslim society, participating in several international Islamic councils and conferences, including acting as consultant to the World of Islam Festival Trust.

Past all the religious externalities that have accumulated over centuries, Submission is nothing more than unity with the only reality there is or ever was. One of his disciples, Abu Dharr of the Bani Ghifar tribe organized highwaymen to waylay the caravans of Mecca but would offer to give back what he had taken on condition that the traders would testify to the oneness of god and the prophethood of Muhammad – in other words, accept Islam (p. Or perhaps, people were fascinated by the miraculous nature of Muhammad and his numerous "miracles" presented in this book. His kindness is not only for humanity but for birds, animals and even for the entire creatures of God as well. Although one can argue that the author's interpretation is more of a work of piety than historical work, it is still a historical work in its own way (Like its accurate and detail description about the lifestyle of the Bedouins, their tradition, their ethics and their culture among others).This comes close to The Sealed Nectar by Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri, which is a personal favourite of mine. While he certainly had a positive reputation amongst his people, due to his manners and his tribe affiliation, people began to seriously take note of him at the age of 40. Based on Arabic sources of the eighth and ninth centuries, of which some important passages are translated here for the first time, it owes the freshness and directness of its approach to the words of men and women who heard Muhammad speak and witnessed the events of his life. He points out that the book was based on the earliest Islamic sources, and where there is a difference of opinion in those sources, the book takes the most widely accepted view; and that Lings simply accepts the early Islamic sources without discussing their value.