The Prophet Muhammad: A Biography

http://nhw.livejournal.com/932939.html

A breezily written, enthusiastic book about the early decades of Islam. Rogerson spends a good third of the book getting to the starting point, giving us a detailed description of Arabia's geographical and political surroundings in the sixth century, before we get onto the meat of the Prophet's life.

Rogerson is clearly a sympathiser, and this means that the book cannot be considered particularly neutral. But that's perhaps not such a bad thing; I am more interested in finding out what the Prophet's followers believe than in getting the historical "facts", whatever they are. His narrative is complete enough that I did find myself taken aback at some points. Rogerson appears to expect us to be shocked show more that one of Muhammad's wives had previously been married to the Prophet's adopted son, but in fact while the circumstances are a bit murky this is a process that appears to have been consensual on both sides; I was much more taken aback by the fact that his marriage to Aisha took place when the latter was only nine. And whatever the record of later Muslim regimes for inter-religious tolerance (generally not bad, at least, alas, compared to many of their Christian contemporaries) the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Medina was surely not a good start.

My biggest disappointment, however, is that we don't really get under Muhammad's skin; Rogerson is too much in awe of him to make him seem like a human being. This may be unfair of me. The thing Muhammad is best known for, his experience of divine revelation, is a long way outside the range of experience for most of us, and it may well be impossible for a biographer - especially, I suspect, a sympathetic biographer - to make it comprehensible for the general reader. But I actually I felt I had got a better idea of his character from Gibbon.

However. This was a very interesting read for me, filling in a significant gap in my knowledge which I had previously only really read in much detail in chapters L and LI of Gibbon; who is also entertaining and partisan, of course (and truth be told somewhat better written). show less