Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time

Being a person very familiar with the life of Muhammad, both through personal study, and from the interactions with learned Muslims, I was at first a little ambivalent as to whether there was much for me to learn in this study. I am happy to be proved wrong in this case, as Karen Armstrong's work provides a realistic and healthy rebuttal to the many detractions against Islam's Prophet. Even the most stubborn skeptic of the supernatural would find it hard to disagree that Muhammad was a much better man than the times he lived in. He was, as Karen Armstrong demonstrates, a benevolent social reformer who tried to provide a better path forward than the eclectic paganism of his time, and the lawless, dog eat dog system of tribal honor. Armstrong's study does not concern itself greatly with the supernatural aspects of the prophet's life. Revelations are mentioned, but only in passing, and the main bulk of the text concerns the intentions and deeds of the prophet's life. Contrary to the claims of his detractors, Muhammad was a man who abhorred violence, and took to it only as a last resort, and even then did so with a system of rules, far more noble and lenient than the other tribes of his time. Muhammad is presented as a man with a great degree of respect and reverance for the people of the book, and one struggles to imagine as to why the three holy faiths are at loggerheads today. Very little attention is given to the supernatural, rather the biography simply focuses on the man, and presents a positive, yet wholly human, portrait of the prophet. On the whole, a much needed study, and one that can be recommended to all, regardless of one's familiarity with the subject matter.

Currently reading this book. So far it is very insightful and teaches you about our Prophet Muhammad (SAW) way of life and the challenges he faced. It's teaches you lessons on dealing with challenges in life - it's actually similar to what we face today except it is 1500 years later. Enjoying the book and looking forward to learning more.

For better and worse, I now know more about Muhammad. Enthralling read!! I would recommend everybody to read books like this, about figures like this. To cultivate a broader perspective of such an important individual.

This is an excellent, comprehensive overview of Mohammed by a thoughtful and well researched writer. The book is as good as any on the prophet

I enjoyed this book. It was informative and objective. Peace and blessing of the all mighty be upon his prophet.

I was expecting more details, but still a good book if you want to know about Muhamed . It reveals the good the bad and the ugly about his time.

Easy to read and incredibly detailed. Immense respect for the prophet is evident as well as a common-sense explanation for all the ‘issues’ with Islam. A must read!

This is a poor book, a wretched book, and my criticism of it is written in the light of the ghastly events that are unfolding in Iraq and Syria as members of the so-called `Islamic State' dispense their foul `justice', beheading, crucifying, raping, dispossessing, and generally spreading ideologically mandated terror among all who do not share their hellish vision of the caliphate. Armstrong's life of the prophet is hardly history because it uses only the Islamic sources - and those very selectively - and has no appreciable modern scholarship in it. It's more of a novel, a boring, anodyne novel, in fact. It is a book that is designed to appeal to would-be Western consumers of Islam and Muslim readers of a particular ilk - the so-called `moderates'. It is book that appears to have its genesis and raison d'être in the Western dread of `islamophobia', i.e. the boneheaded confusion of any criticism of Islam with racism, because it is clearly apologetic in every sense. But I don't believe that thinking Muslims will be duped. If given the opportunity to think for themselves, they are no worse at that than any people anywhere, and certainly no less intelligent. Let's say this right away: calling someone who criticises Islam a racist is about as intelligent as accusing a critic of Communism of anti-Chinese sentiment. True, the two can be confused by feeble wits, but they shouldn't be, and pandering to that confusion by avoiding all negative criticism of a political doctrine which - Lord knows! - badly needs it, is simply foolish. Karen Armstrong is guilty of this foolishness. She has written a revisionist hagiography of Islam's prophet in the hope of making him palatable to Western minds. She fails to realise that the reason existing believers in the prophet are so touchy and petulant is precisely that they are ashamed of the guilty secrets of their moral paragon. Islam is Mohammed and it stands or falls with him. Armstrong is one of the foremost avoiders of any suggestion that Islam might not be much of a religion, and her tarting up its prophet does no-one a favour. `A prophet for our Time'? Let's hope not, for then we would be in deep, illiberal, barbaric, benighted trouble. Where modern jihadists glory in such things, Armstrong draws a veil over the prophet's voracious sexual appetite, his lechery and paedophilia; she pussyfoots around his murderous barbarity and delight in bloodletting; she glosses over his predilection for trumpeting convenient `revelations' from his god when his desires came into conflict with contemporary morality; she is silent about his paranoid and vengeful anti-Jewish feeling, and so on and so on... In short she ignores the fact that according to Islamic texts themselves, Mohammed was definitely no saint, to put it mildly. But these are not the main reasons for which her book is a wretched and misbegotten travesty. The principal reason for this is that it lacks all authority. It is a fantasy, held together by nothing more substantial than pious wish-fulfilment. If it had drawn on contemporary research and portrayed an Islam that was in its beginnings little more than a Christian heresy with Jewish borrowings, but that owed its stunning successes to the coinciding of expansionist ambitions with the collapse of every competing power, it might have been a useful contribution to knowledge. If it had dealt with the whole range of Islamic texts, Quran, Hadiths and Sirat Rasul Allah, without varnish or editing for western consumption and shown the bloodthirsty supremacism that lies at the heart of the faith that is essentially a totalitarian political creed, it might have done both Western readers and Muslims a service. But it does none of these things. In failing to do any of these things, Armstrong's rosy, revisionist picture of the prophet's life fails completely to have any useful purpose at all. It is a dismal PR job whose sole justification is to hide the deep-dyed nastiness of Islam's putative founder, who may well be fictional, but whose character exercises a baleful influence on the world nonetheless. Where genuine, constructive criticism might have helped Muslims and non-Muslims alike to achieve some understanding of why core Islamic beliefs are among the greatest sources of social conflict on the planet today, what she actually achieves is just more obscurantism and obfuscation - a high-profile contribution to the widespread practice of studious avoidance of the issues. It is no accident that the Middle East is being torn apart by murderous thugs shouting 'Allahu Akhbar' while the two bastion-states of Islam, Iran and Saudi Arabia both have the name of their god on their flags (Saudi adds a sword!) and are among the most oppressive regimes in the world. These things derive directly from essential Islamic teachings. But this propagandist for the prophet is too cowardly to say so. Armstrong and her kind should wake up: Islam is the main political problem in the modern world, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and to pretend that Mohammed's influence could be anything other than malign is to be deluded.

Very objectively written with facts backgrounded.

Our concept of Islam is tainted with superstition and ignorance , but this book will enlighten the reality of Muhammad.

Easy to read and eloquent, I thought the author focussed on some arbitrary topics meddled by the anti islam crowd. A succinct conclusion, thought the book ended too quick after reading. I would recommend not as a first book for those interested in islam but as furthur reading. Good effort by the author but i believe she was forced to speak about topics based on mainstream media.

The mark of a good biography is always contextual awareness coupled with historical accuracy. And Karen Armstrong has managed to do both with equal tenacity and vigour. The Prophet has always been subject of immense controversy in popular media, particularly among the non-Arab historians - and while it is easy to dismiss them as racially prejudiced, it’s important to understand how complex and nuanced history really is. Karen Armstrong has managed to make this work though - and she’s done it using references that are often irrefutable - both from Muslim as well as western scholars and historians. This balanced approach, while understandably controversial from orthodox perspectives, is a refreshing read for anyone who’s academically inclined about a man who’s personal life is the subject of much reverence as well as ridicule by different groups today. All in all - it’s a beautifully written book - and I’d argue a must read for anyone who’s interested in understanding Muslims, or Arab culture in the 6th and seventh century. It’s written objectively, yet kindly and respectfully and is a very heartening read indeed.

Das buch ist sehr interessant, hat meine meinung und eindruck über den Islam positive geändert, klar ist weiter zu empfehlen