Muhammad, Prophet of God Book

I was hoping that this book might give me some clarity about Islam and Muhammad. Daniel Peterson is one of my author heroes and I generally enjoy his writing. He also has a reputation that he can be acerbic in his writing, especially in the defense of the LDS faith. He is also an Professor of Islamic Studies and the editor-in-chief of the BYU Islamic Translation Series, which is a series of translations of philosophical works by Islamic scholars to make them more accessible to the West. They are printed with the Arabic text on one side of the page and the English on the other side. From what I've been able to determine they are well accepted. So he's got to know a lot about Islam.

Dr. Peterson's writing in this book is as always good and I actually learned some things about Muhammad that I didn't know. I've read a couple of different accounts of Muhammad. In some he seems to be a really nice guy. In the other he seems to be a blood thirsty tyrant. I'm not sure where the truth lies, probably somewhere in the middle. My first reaction after reading this book by Dr. Peterson was that he was taking the apologist track, but then I started thinking about it a little more and realized that he really didn't take that track at all. He may not have talked about some of the more grizzly aspects of Muhammad's life, like Robert Spencer does, but he doesn't sugar coat them either.

The fact is that Muhammad really did accomplish something that is amazing. He started an Empire that rivaled any other great empire builder such as Alexander, and he did something that Alexander didn't do, his Empire stayed together and grew after he died. Alexander's didn't even survive the what would have been his life span had he lived. I think he did this by being a really good leader, and he was probably a pretty good religious leader as well for his time. And I think this is what Dr. Peterson shows in this book.

First off Muhammad would get 1/5 of all the booty from the raids and battles that the muslims had, and all indications are that he used this to support the people who came to Medina as emigrants. He didn't live in a lavish lifestyle. That's certainly different than most despots.

The Battle of Uhud which was a route of the Muslims. One of the main reasons was because of the calvary led by Khalid ibn al-Walid. Later he converted to Islam and became a great general in the rise of the Islamic caliphate both during Muhammad's life and after. This shows remarkable leadership. Another thing that I didn't know is somewhat ironic that Dr. Peterson pointed out.

"Less than three decades after Muhammad's death, the Ummayads, the descendants of Abu Sufyan, ruled the empire from Damascus. The strongest leader of that house was Mu'awiya, the son of Abu Sufyan and of Hind, who had torn out and eaten the liver of Muhammad's uncle following the Battle of Uhud."

After the defeat of Mecca many of Mohammad's former opponents converted to Islam and were allowed to, despite calls for revenge. If people were willing to follow Allah and his Messenger, the Messenger was willing to let them, and in the end, in many cases that turned out to work well for Islam.

Mohammad was probably not any more ruthless than any other great empire builder. Many people have talked about how Constantine was not a very good Christian and did what was necessary to hold his empire. And his lasted quite a while. Charlemagne was the same way. He could be ruthless when it was called for. His Empire didn't last to long after his death. The difference between these men and Muhammad is that a billion people don't look to them as the "perfect" example and they do to Muhammad. So while Charlemagne might have killed 2000 pagans in a day, no Christian thinks that should be emulated as a good thing to do. But when Muhammad did anything, like marry the wife of a man he had defeated and decapitated on the same day, or consummate a marriage with a nine year old wife, or kept slaves or etc. There are a lot of people in the world today who think it's perfectly fine to act that way today because Muhammad did it. Dr. Peterson doesn't point any of these things out, but they happened.

So I would recommend this book. It's well written and you can learn some things about Muhammad. I don't think he tells the whole story about Muhammad, but he does tell an important part of it.