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Muslim Pertama (2013)

by Lesley Hazleton(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Alvabet

review 1: The reason I got this book was because I wanted to read something unbiased and objective with regards to Muhammads life. We've all read about him, what he has done, what he has conquered - his hadeeths, about his actions - but despite knowing all this, I felt I still knew very little of him. What I really wanted was a fresh vantage point - to be honest I wasnt very interested in dates of conquests and battles, I was more interested in the man, his thoughts and behavior, his character - his character as a man, not as the last prophet. But unfortunately his prophetic role was such that it was almost impossible to separate the prophet from the man. Every word, every action every comment of his was under such scrutiny, its very unlikely he ever acted on a whim.Hazelton por... moretrays him adeptly, with unbiased objectivity - mentioning aspects on which there are disagreements/debates and why so. None of the sugar coated-ness, it almost seems a bit harsh at times, nearly depicting Muhammad as power hungry in some instances, but she also gives viable reasons of why this could be. Its almost tragic, the weight of the last message burdened on this man, knowing that it ends with him and he has to give up everything to ensure Gods message is delivered to his followers. Its heartbreaking - in the sense, that Muhammad really had no life of his own. His life was his people's, ours. The prophetic role being thrust upon him, the hardships he had to endure, decisions he had to make, was he fearful? confident? happy? And whats even more tragic is, the different versions of crucial events in his life are debated. But thats history I suppose, you can never have a 100% accurate account of what happened some 400 years ago.This book makes a good addition to the various biographies of Muhammad, but what I appreciate was how Hazelton tries to dig deeper and decipher what Muhammad may have been feeling and why. This is not a detailed history text, but more of a character analysis of Muhammad - why he was chosen and how he went about delivering Gods final message.--
review 2: I had my doubts as to whether I should review a book on such a sensitive topic, but seeing as how the author wrote an entire volume on it, I thought I owed the attempt at least this much. The book is, in a nutshell, an admirable effort notwithstanding its few shortcomings.Good things first. It’s a very sympathetic and non-condescending account of Muhammed’s life. It’s obviously very informative especially to most non-Muslims who might have, at best, a very sketchy idea about the life and times of the founder of Islam. The author chooses, rightly in my opinion, to focus on the man that was Muhammed, not on the legend that the Prophet became.Like a true biographer, she tries to get into the mind of the object of her study and tries to both understand and explain his actions and his motives. The author doesn’t try to portray Muhammed as infallible, something she repeatedly says he himself never claimed to be, but still portrays him in a positive light, faults and all.Both the miraculous and the mundane are presented with equal weight accorded to them. Little, it seems, has been omitted. The humanization of Muhammed, as opposed to his deification, makes him all the more appealing and accessible, again something she claims he himself wanted as a part of his legacy.But, at the same time, the author tries to gloss over and doesn’t focus on the supernatural aspects of Muhammed’s story. While she does recount many of them, she doesn’t seek to go into them events and at major, supernatural turning points refuses to even discuss whether they actually occurred or not.She, likewise, refuses to be drawn into the question of many, rather suspiciously well timed prophecies. She also fails to criticise or at least leave open to question some rather unflattering incidents. All this makes this a rather biased account which becomes at times self-contradictory and at others apologist.That said, the book is still a very commendable attempt at humanizing and making more accessible a man whose life has had, and continues to have, such a profound impact on pretty much every human life on the surface of this planet. She manages to present the man, the First Muslim, separate from Islam, from the Sunna, from the Hadith. For this alone, the book deserves to be read. less

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