Customer Reviews

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time

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Armstrong writes with her usual scholarly expertise. This book, written after 9/11, explains the prophet Muhammad for those whose impression of him has been sullied by the perverted and degenerate version of Islam presented by Islamic terrorism and Al-Quaeda. This is a very sympathetic account, that locates the prophet and his message within the problems that he was dealing with in his lifetime. But Armstrong also shows that these problems still exist within contemporary Islam, and to some extent within the wider world today. There is much food for thought here, and it is timely a book that will contribute to a greater understanding of Islam by those whose impressions are more negative.

Armstrong's brief biography quite impartially records both accomplishments Westerners can easily admire, and events which seem utterly foreign to Western society. She helps us sense how Muhammad's visions could electrify Arabian society, and shows how much they evolved over the course of his career. But some aspects of the story are as difficult to explain as anything found in the Old Testament, and Armstrong does not second guess the sources from that age. For example, I was simply astonished by the reasoning given for rejecting the traditional goddesses of Arabia: "Why did they attribute daughters to Allah, when they themselves preferred sons?" Yet the archangel Gabriel was deemed the messenger of the Quran, and this was considered perfectly godly. Armstrong leaves us to ponder the paradoxes of a man who seemed to combine the roles of Moses, David, and Amos, within a different social world.

If we assumed we knew what kind of community Muhammad tried to build, this book raises many reasons to look again. Concerning the peaceful victory over Muhammad's deadly enemies in Mecca, Armstrong explains: "It was a strange conquest, and an impartial observer might have wondered why the Muslims and the Quraysh had fought at all. Muhammad kept his word and returned to Medina with the Emigrants and the Helpers. He did not attempt to rule Mecca himself; nor did he replace the Qurayshan officials with his own companions; nor did he establish a purist Islamic regime."

--author of Correcting Jesus

It is one of most authenticated book available on the history and life of Muhammad founder of the religion of Islam. In the present environment where the muslims and and the western world are at odds, this book may help most of the western people in changing their distorted perception about religion of islam, which is being misrepresented by the Western Media and writers to an extent that today Islam and West is standing at the crossroad of clash of civilization.

I have recently bought and read the book. The book provides, in a lucid language, life of Prophet Muhammad that is factual and unbiased. It is must a read for those who are interested in learning about the history of Islam, and life and character of Muhammad.

In response to Pieter Toypom I will just say that when you don't know something do not write about it. In Arabic the word Islam means submission so far you are correct but the submission leads to peace. From this root one meaning drived is also peace.
If by dimitute you are alluding that this is a taboo in Islam. But if one looks at dhimi system in Islam it is much good system. How much America got to give protection to Kuwait is first gulf war, compare to that the protection money Muslims took from its non Muslim subject was nothing, and at one point they gave this money back to them in Syria when Muslims felt that they have to leave and can not give protection to its subjects, further the history of Muslim conquests were not bloody like crusades you can check out history. It is not that that Muslims closets has no skeletons but relatively speaking they are not as gruesome.
Read history, Jews always preferred Muslim rule over Christine rules as they were always brutalized by christens

I can go on an on but this should be enough.

Hats off to Ms Armstrong who is not a Muslim, there is no reason she will be unduly tilt to give Muslims brighter side. All she has done is honestly put everthing in right prespective and truthfully reproduced history

Thanks a lot for speaking out the truth.

Well written, balanced, and presented with just enough detail to engage
the reader. An enjoyable read!

A very nice book and a must to read. It shows a true image of Prophet Muhammad.

Mohammed: A Prophet for Our Times is just more pro-Islamic propaganda, out of context half-truths and contradictory gibberish than truthful well researched scholarship. Her book is just on more of the usual "Islam is a peaceful religion" canard while those more in touch with reality and history can directly correlate the acts of inhumanity and terrorism to the actions and sayings of Mohammed.

If Mohammed was alive today he would have been thrown in jail for a whole host of criminal activity including having intercourse with a preteen, conspiracy to murder, murder, armed robbery and banditry etc. Karen Armstrong does not address these well documented flaws in the character of the prophet.

This book does not have any redeeming qualities and should be passed on by those wishing to understand prophet Mohammed.

Karen Armstrong, some of whose other books I've found illuminating, really fails here in a big way. This book presents a whitewashed picture, a romanticized history of the founder of Islam. She carries on about "Islam phobia" and the crusades but is silent about the Islamic incursions into Europe centuries before the crusades. There was the early attempted conquest of Constantinople, the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula & Sicily, raids and attacks on the Italian peninsula and piracy in the Mediterranean. In other words, she ignores Islamic Imperialism. Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that the entire book is a compendium of half-truths, distortions, omissions and wishful thinking.

The chapters are titled Mecca, Jahilliyah, Hijrah, Jihad and Salam. There are 2 maps, notes, and a glossary without the word Dhimmitude, which is very telling. The book lacks an index. The author paints Islam as a religion of peace and reconciliation and incorrectly states that the word itself means "peace." The real meaning of Islam is "submission", as I'm sure Ms Armstrong must know very well. She also insists on interpreting the word Jihad in the sense of personal struggle, ignoring the numerous sayings preserved in the Hadith that indicate the opposite. Further proof may be found in The Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini.

What I found most astonishing was Armstrong's attempts to whitewash the murder of the men of the Jewish Qurayzah tribe and the selling of the children and women into slavery. She ignores Islamic Antisemitism and the inferior status and sometimes active persecution of Non-Muslims -- as noted before, you won't easily find the word Dhimmi in this book. Her defense of polygamy is unconvincing and comprises many pages painful to read. The tone of the book is quite touchy-feely, supported by highly selective quotes from the Qur'an.

One wonders whether Karen Armstrong deliberately engages in intellectual dishonesty or if she just lives in a make-believe world where the frame of reference is multiculturalism, relativism and Postmodernism. Her book is filled with distortions and romantic delusions; it should be considered a work of fiction. To get a more balanced perspective, I highly recommend the work of Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Nonie Darwish, The Force Of Reason by Oriana Fallaci and the fascinating psychobiography by Ali Sina.