The Heirs of Muhammad: Islam's First Century and the Origins of the Sunni-Shia Split

by Barnaby Rogerson

Hardcover, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

297.09

Genres

Academic: History

Religion & Spirituality

Collection

Gifts

Publication

The Overlook Press/Peter Mayer Publishers (2007), 432 pages

Description

[In this book, the author] recounts the lives of the handful of individuals - the first four Caliphs, the Prophet's widows and the conquering generals - who led and influenced Islam after the death of Muhammad. Within this fifty-year span of conquest and empire-building, [the author] identifies the seeds of discord and civil war that destroyed the unity of Islam and traces the roots of the schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims to the rivalry of the two people who best knew and loved the Prophet: his cousin and son-in-law Ali and his wife Aisha. -Dust jacket.

User reviews

LibraryThing member nabeelar

This is one of the few biographies of Prophet Muhammad and the Rightly Caliphs that I found to be a real page-turner. It is the first bio that I have ever read that starts out with a physical description of Medina (rural garden-oasis) to Mecca (barren desert city) and how the geographic

circumstances contributed to tribal world views.

The bios of Abu Bakr, Omer, Uthman, Ali, Muawiya, Hasan, wives of the Prophet, and many others are eye-opening. I'm not sure how accurate all of it is, and Rogerson himself acknowledges the historical vagaries, but it paints a very human portrait of everyone. I had a completely different idea of Ali and his sons (much more positive) after reading this book. It also clarified, for me, why the Medina clans invited Muhammad to come to their city in the first place.

I also like Rogerson's method of dispelling myths. At one point he says the image of a Muslim soldier with a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other is completely false. First of all, Qurans would have been too expensive for the average soldier. Second of all, a Muslim would never hold a Quran in his left hand (unclean), so that would mean he would be holding his sword in his left hand and how can you fight properly? OR was there a special squad of left-handed proselytizing warriors? Heh he.

An excellent book for anyone interested in the fifty years following the death of Prophet Muhammad.

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LibraryThing member Devil_llama

An informative but rather one-sided book; this is more a hagiography than a history. The author admits up front that the records from that period are created by partisans and likely to be exaggerated, but he chooses only one side to report, leaving this as a warm and fuzzy extremely pro-Islam

piece. It is difficult to believe that people were so incredibly noble as the ones portrayed here, and often laid up against villains. Still, there is a lot of information as long as you are willing to maintain a somewhat skeptical frame of mind. It is also true that what he represents as integrity and nobility may not appear that way to many readers. His frequent snarking at Westerners who don't understand is unneeded. And he loses half a star for his constant phrasing of sentence fragments that stand out like a sore thumb. This is also probably at least partially the fault of the editor, but an author should be able to proofread their own work and see those fragments. Overall, a decent work but with some serious flaws.

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