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(More customer reviews)This biography of Prophet Muhammad can be called a "spiritual biography" that tells the story of a life but emphasizes decisions, revelations, and the spiritual and emotional lessons therein. Emerick's biography of the Prophet and that by Karen Armstrong are good, this is better. Incidentally, it hints at the paranoia of those in government who cancelled the author's visa while he was en route to teach at Notre Dame University. (I taught there briefly and can assure you that it is not a hot bed of radicalism.)
The position of women, place of jihad, role of law, and relations with non-Muslims are totally different than the media caricatures and also different from some Fundamentalist politicization and corruptions.
Under duress and attack we see un Islamic practices claiming to be Fundamental (the Western media is more than happy to second that claim). One needs to know that the Shari'a is partly a product, close to two centuries later, that evolved to empower scholarly elite promoting its own interests by which time patriarchal elements had also degraded practice regarding women some - although women had right of inheritance not much available in the West until the 19th and 20th centuries except for royalty.. Also, the most infamous practices predated Islam in much of the Mediterranean - the stoning of adulterers was now much harder to prove that before.
It is reading for those who have an open mind and would learn more, for those who aren't quite sure what to believe after the pervasive toxic climate of criticism. Christians and Jews are very much at a disadvantage in that Muslims know far more about their faiths naturally from reading the Qur'an than they would know without significant effort. Moses, Noah, Jesus and Mary are Prophets of Islam (Mary appears in the Qur'an more times than the Bible).
It should be reading for the many shamefully ignorant critics like Robertson, Graham, Hagee, Falwell who do not have the least basis for their declarations. Their ignorance is itself a measure of disrespect and narrowness that spreads widely among their followers. Equally it could begin to educate those who should know better and who make decisions based on fear and hate - including those who seem superficially have some knowledge when talking about "abrogation" of versus in the Qu'ran etc. Bashing Islam is a profitable cottage industry and so much easier than a small measure of understanding or empathy.
Prophet Muhammad lived ihsan (beauty appreciated and demonstrated) with charisma even before the first revelation. His role is not like that of Jesus in important ways: neither he nor his followers claimed Divinity: he had immense practical worldly family and political responsibilities that Jesus never had; he provided no redemption or way of evading personal responsibility.
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