Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

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This is my second read of Lings’ classic biography, and after reading several other works from the same author, it becomes obvious how the universal essence which he sees also shines through in how he views the life of the Prophet (s. The biography has gone through many reprints in English and it has been translated and published into many languages [4] including French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, Malay and Tamil.

When he satirized Muhammad to a point when he could not bear it anymore, Muhammad asked his companions who would like to put Ka'b to death.Nevertheless, you kept on reading while generally taking the information to be true, unless something supernatural or some extraordinary acts were described, for which you thought the sources were not enough to be taken as evidences. ParabolaMartin Lings's biography of Muhammad is an internationally acclaimed, comprehensive, and authoritative account of the life of the Prophet. Topics including Islamic origins and early Islam, pre-Islamic Arabia, and late antiquity are also discussed in a friendly yet engaging way.

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources is a 1983 biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad by Martin Lings. That would be to then overlook the massive amount of false recordings of Muhammad that emerged during and after his death.for the revealed book itself was the central miracle of the Divine intervention now taking place, just as Christ had been the central miracle of the preceding intervention”. In comparison, Martin Ling's book is a book of miracles and fantasies that will confuse a Western reader and have them dismiss Muhammad altogether. Just before his death he gave an interview on this topic, which was posthumously made into the film Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective. In another instance of short temper, we see the antecedents of the attack on the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the prophet. Martin Lings cleverly describes the social, economic and political aspects of Makkah in the pre-islamic times before narrating the life of Prophet Muhammed(PBUH).

RELIGION / ISLAM"This work is widely recognized as the most readable account of the life of the Prophet to date. A distinctive element of the biography is the vivid, approachable narrative style, [5] which is fast moving and flows fluently. I swear by God, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left on condition that I abandon this course before He halth made it victorious, or I have perished therein, I would not abandon it.

Each chapter deals with an important event in the history of Islam and provides chronological context for the advent of the religion, as well as detailed information about Muhammad. He tells the stories and the incidences in such beautiful manner that you hardly feel it is being said about a prophet. If Allah can let these many people be massacred, then he should immediately revoke his title of Ar-Rahman, the most merciful. This revised edition includes new sections detailing the prophet’s expanding influence and his spreading of the message of Islam into Syria and its neighboring states. Lings illustrates these examples from the start of Islam, which he states to be founded “on the basis of the ritual purification and prayer” (47) through the establishment of the ideal community at Medina.

Similarly in Yathrib, to where he was forced to migrate, the tribes of Aws and Khasraj were always in a state of civil war. Muhammad exiled two Jewish tribes named Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir while splitting their wealth among his followers and taking one-fifth for himself. This biography of Muhammad was written in 1983 and received prizes from governments in Pakistan and Egypt, as well as international acclaim from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. I can't really complain, though, since the book is still very well-written and provides a good summary of the events that occurred during his lifetime. Lings remains faithful to the classic biographies of the Prophet, dating back to the times of the companions, and incorporates Qur’an verses and Hadith seamlessly into his narrative.His contribution to Shakespeare scholarship was to point out the deeper esoteric meanings found in Shakespeare's plays, and the spirituality of Shakespeare himself. Some of them kept the collected hair until they died and some reverently pressed his hair against their eyes and face. The reading by Sean Barrett, although it loses some of the intricate detail, as one would expect from an abridged version, is fluent, lucid and retains one's attention throughout.