BOOK REVIEW

Memories of Muhammad
A Biography-
Why the Prophet Matters
Omid Safi
Harper Collins Publishers,
10 East 53rd Street,
New York, NY-10022
$ 24.99

Who was the historical Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and how do Muslims remember him… as a holy Prophet, a cultural revolutionary, a military leader or a spiritual mystic?
Unending media coverage of extremist fanatics, the controversy over offensive depiction of the holiest personality of Islam and fatwas against journalists and authors are all hard to ignore and have prejudiced Western perceptions of Muslims.

This definitive biography of the Prophet by a leading Muslim American scholar, Omid Safi will reveal invaluable new insights, providing a fully three dimensional portrait of Prophet Muhammad and the one billion people who follow him today.

Omid Safi is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he specializes in Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. He is the Chair for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion and a member of the advisory board of the Pluralism project at Harvard University. He is also the author of The Politics of Knowledge in Pre-modern Islam, and the editor of Progressive Muslims which contains a diverse collection of essays by and about Muslims who are seeking reform within their tradition. Safi is at the forefront of the debate to engage the spiritual legacy of Islam with a progressive commitment to social justice and pluralism.

Memories of Muhammad presents the Prophet as a lens through which to view both the genesis of Islamic religion and the grand sweep of Islamic history… right up to the hot issues of the day, such as the spread of Islam, holy wars, the status of women, the significance of Jerusalem and current tensions with Jews, Hindus and Christians. It also provides a rare glimpse into how Muslims spiritually connect to God through their Prophet in the mosque and even in cyberspace.

This ground-breaking book offers the opportunity to move from telling Prophet's story to talking about how different Muslims throughout Islamic history have honoured his legacy.

Omid Safi has classified the book into very clear chapters starting with the 'The World Before Muhammad', 'The Muhammadi Revolution', 'The Ascension of Muhammad' (face to face with God), 'Islam as an Abrahamic Tradition', 'Life after the Prophet' and 'Echoes of Muhammadi Grace'.
We keep talking past when it comes to the Prophet and this seems to have resulted in a cognitive dissonance. Try this out the next time you are in your local book store. Walk over to the Islam shelf and have a look at all the volumes about the Prophet. Even a cursory look indicates that our public discourse about the Prophet seems to suffer from a split personality: on one hand we see books by pious Muslims and sympathetic non-Muslims, proclaiming Muhammad as one of the greatest teachers of humanity and one of the great divinely sent Prophets. Then there are other titles that present Islam either as a demonic heresy designed to mock Christianity or as an aggressive ideology intent on world domination or destruction. Many of these books are composed by writers who have no expertise in Islam, no familiarity with Islamic history and no command of the languages necessary to acquire such understanding such as Arabic and Persian. For that matter, many of them also seem woefully unaware of the problematic aspects of the history of Judaism and Christianity, not to speak of the racism and other ills of western societies. Yet their lack of qualifications has not prevented these authors from engaging in a great deal of Islam bashing.

Prof. Safi's book is intended to probe the most authentic and historical sources about Prophet Muhammad, to situate him historically and to provide important details about his life, the revelation of the Quran and the fundamental teachings of Islam. It is intended to engage the memory of Muhammad and to explore how he has been remembered, commemorated and contested by his followers throughout the centuries. It is also intended to provide an account of how Muhammad has been received in the hearts of his community and how he should be received today and tomorrow.