Currently I am reading another interesting book titled, “Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman” by W. Montgomery Watt. Here the author gives a pessimistic view of Muhammad’s life. Major focus of this book on Historical background of born of new religion-Islam, Historical background of Muhammad as Prophet, Influence of Jews and Christians on Islam and few other things still I didn’t explore.
Besides this it is good source of few historic phenomenons. Author analyzes the Hijrah and the first constitution of Medina on the basis of post war disturbed situation on Medina. Here he comes up with few pessimistic repercussions. I guess they might provide few good sources of thoughts.
Writer makes few guess about the profession of Muhammad on Medina. He is not sure about all of them I guess; at least there is no clear indication, evidence or background for his proclaim. Here he shows Muhammad as an aggressor. Sometime he becomes more offensive, like “In our peace-conscious age it is difficult to understand how a religious leader could thus engage in offensive war and become almost an aggressor.” Interestingly in the following paragraph he tries to mediate with “the raid or razzia was a normal feature of Arab desert life.”
Writer use “Strive” as the synonym of “Jihad”. I am not pretty sure about the transformation but he mentioned few verse of Quran those encourage for “Aggression” with the help this word. And finally he criticizes the expansion of Muslim Empire within one century. According to him this is only possible because of “Jihad”. Pretty interesting remarks indeed.
I have not completed this book yet. These are few things I have shared with you because I found them most noticeable. No other intensions…
I finished this one and by the way I like it. I like the different view.
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