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From the bestselling writer of ‘The History of God’ and the widely acclaimed ‘Islam – A Short History’ comes Karen Armstrong’s ‘Muhammad’.
Karen Armstrong has become one of our most important and relevant commentators on religious world affairs today, consistently providing a scholarly but accessible approach to humanity’s relationships with God and religion.
To date, there have been very few books written on the Islamic prophet of the religion that is followed by over the 1.2 billion Muslims who make up a fifth of the world’s population.
Muhammad’s staggering achievements as a human being quite simply altered the course of history as we know it and continue to this day to inspire humanity.
Muslims claim that in 650 AD, at the age of forty, Muhammad had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel telling him that he had been chosen to learn, recite and spread the words of God to man in verses that would later make up the Qu’ran. He slowly developed into a prophet, preaching monotheism to the masses.
He was initially mocked and rejected by many and risked numerous assassination attempts throughout his life. At a critical time, he also made the revolutionary decision to break all ties with his Muslim tribe thereby proclaiming that the bonds of Islam took precedence over anything else. The Islamic empire thus expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.
Karen Armstrong has written a fascinating account of this figure whose life and influence has determined the course of the spiritual life of human kind.
From the Publisher
Description
Muhammad was born in 570 C.E., and over the following sixty years built a thriving spiritual community, laying the foundations of a religion that changed the course of world history. There is more historical data on his life than on that of the founder of any other major faith, and yet his story is consistently misunderstood, and subject to much distortion and error. This story is more relevant now than ever, offering crucial insight into the true origins of an increasingly radicalized Islam.
An acclaimed authority on religious and spiritual issues, Karen Armstrong offers a balanced portrait of this revered figure. Through comparison with other prophets and mystics, she illuminates Muhammad’s spiritual ideas; she uses the facts of his life, from which Muslims have drawn instruction for centuries, to make the tenets of Islam clear and accessible for modern readers of all faiths.
This is an immaculately researched new biography of Muhammad that dismantles centuries of misconceptions to reveal the man at the heart of Islam.
Publisher : HarperPerennial; Reprint edition (5 March 2007)
Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages
ISBN-10 : 000725606X
ISBN-13 : 978-0007256068
Dimensions : 12.9 x 1.6 x 19.8 cm
Midia –
Nice read
Very objectively written with facts backgrounded.
Midia –
Sara –
Dieses Werk von Karen Armstrong hat mich aufgrund der wunderbaren Erzählung und emphatischen darstellungsweise mehrfach zur Trännen gerührt. Eine wunderbare Tribute an einen der einflussreichsten Persönlichkeiten der Weltgeschichte. Für Anfänger super verständlich aufgearbeitet.
Sara –
Moderate1 –
“Islamic Sex Laws Are Easy to Break, Impossible to Enforce”Los Angeles Daily JournalAugust 5, 1999By Khaled Abou El FadlLaws endeavor to resolve conflicts and regulate human behavior. However, often the real force of law is in making moral points, educating and indoctrinating. Some legal systems moralize explicitly, while other legal systems indulge in the fiction of moral neutrality. But all legal systems say something about the morality of right and wrong.For example, in Islamic law, one of the world’s oldest and perhaps most significant legal systems, sometimes morality is the only point – which is hardly surprising considering that Islamic law is also a religious system. But what is fascinating about Islamic law is the way it balances competing moralities at the expense of the possibility of enforcement.For instance, Islamic law is reputed to be a rather strict, puritan legal system. This is both true and false. Consider the way Islamic law punishes illicit sexual relations. The punishment for fornication or adultery in Islam is rather harsh. A fornicator is flogged 100 lashes, and an adulterer is stoned to death. However, adultery or fornication can only be proven in two ways.First, it can be proven by a free, uncoerced confession that is repeated three times on three separate occasions. If the alleged perpetrator confesses twice but recants on the third time, he or she cannot be punished.The second way fornication or adultery can be proven is by the testimony of four adult males who witness the actual act of penetration. It is not sufficient for the witnesses to catch the couple naked in bed. Likewise, if the witnesses see an act of oral copulation, that is not sufficient. A videotape or pregnancy is also inadequate to prove fornication or adultery. Furthermore, the evidence is excluded if the witnesses violate the defendant’s privacy. In other words, spying will not do.A false accusation of adultery or fornication will result in punishment for sexual slander, which is 60 hard lashes. For example, if three witnesses say they saw the act of penetration while the fourth witness changes his mind at the last minute saying, “I am not sure I saw the penetration,” then the first three witnesses are punished for slander.Obviously, in Islamic law the crime of fornication or adultery is hard, if not impossible, to prove. So why have the punishment at all? There are two competing values here.Illicit sexual relations must be condemned. At the same time, people should mind their own business, and spying or slandering cannot be tolerated. The solution was to make the moral point that fornication and adultery are terrible crimes, and only if they could be proven would they be punished severely. Nevertheless, the issue is generally between a person and God. Societal interests are implicated when these crimes are committed openly and publicly.At the same time, an accusatory culture in which people spy and slander is reprehensible, and that will be punished as well. Unlike our legal system, making the moral point is a sufficient justification for the law, even with practically no chance of enforcement.
Moderate1 –
Raf –
Sehr zu empfehlen
Raf –
Skeep –
Karen did a great job of this one. She’s a known writer in spirituality. This helps the reader to situate Mohammed in a spiritual sense and help the reader grasp the setting in which he came to be such a leader in his time. If nothing else it might help to demythologize Mohammed too as most of the talk of the day seems to do just the opposite. Karen does a great job of enhancing the history to reveal how Mohammed might have traveled his spiritual journey and found his way. Sometimes we of other faiths would do well to read the spiritual journey of others. This way we can measure our own faith and sense of spirituality and see that we are not the only ones who seek to know God in a special way. She does not get political nor endorse or reject any of what is occurring today within the Muslim world–that is another place and another book, not here.
Skeep –
Love Books –
When I first picked up this book I did not think that such a small volume would do justice to the subject. I was pleasantly surprised at the breath of coverage provided. Karen Armstrong has succeeded in bringING Muhammad, the man to life in this very human picture that she has painted. When reading the book one gets a true perspective of how difficult his mission was and what an impossible feat he accomplished in uniting the diverse and warring factions that was Arabia in his day.When I started reading this book I had just finished reading a translation of the Koran and I got an interesting perspective on the timing and contextual significance of some of the important verses of the scripture. Ms. Armstrong has also brought out the details of the genuine efforts made by the prophet in his mission to achieve gender equality even though it was completely opposite to the prevailing ideas bout the role of women in society.Ms. Armstrong has succeeded in producing a short but excellent historical work and made it so remarkably easy to read. I really enjoyed it!
Love Books –