A classic, secular history of the prophet Muhammad that vividly recreates the fascinating time in which Islam was born.
Maxime Rodinson (1915-2004) was a Marxist historian and sociologist
who specialized in Islam and the Arab world. He was for many years
a professor at the cole Pratique des Hautes tudes at the Sorbonne
and, after working several years in Syria and Lebanon, supervised
the Muslim section of the Biblioth que Nationale in Paris.Among his
works are Islam and Capitalism; Marxism and the Muslim World; and
Cult, Ghetto, and State- The Persistence of the Jewish
Question.
Anne Carter has translated various books from the French, including
works by Michel Tournier, Charles Perrault, Zoe Oldenbourg, Pierre
Mend s-France, Juliette Benzoni, Philippe Jullian, Pierre Goubert,
and Fran ois Mauriac.
Robert Irwin is the Middle East editor of The Times Literary
Supplement and the author of many books.His tenth novel, The Runes
Have Been Cast, will be published in 2021.
“There can be no doubt that Professor Rodinson’s book is the major
contemporary Occidental work on the Prophet, and is essential
reading.” —Edward W. Said, author of Orientalism and Out of
Place
“An absorbing biography . . . Rodinson sensitively portrays a more
than plausible Muhammad.” —The New Yorker
“In the best Voltairean tradition Rodinson delights in exposing his
subject’s all too human amorous, acquisitive, vengeful nature. . .
. [A] trenchant and (of course) timely piece of scholarship.”
—Kirkus
“Maxime Rodinson, the distinguished scholar of the Arab and Muslim
world. . . wrote to unveil the secrets of a world dimly understood
by Europeans . . . Rodinson published some of the seminal texts in
Middle Eastern studies, including Mohammed (1961), a biography
still banned in parts of the Arab world for approaching the
Prophet’s life from a sociological perspective . . . Although he
remained an independent (or, as he quipped, ‘agnostic’) Marxist, he
appreciated the powerful role that religion played in the Arab
world at a time when many European leftist observers of the region
preferred to see it as a form of false consciousness that would
melt into air once the Arab masses awakened to their ‘true’ class
interests.” —Adam Shatz, The Nation
“The most stimulating, balanced and sympathetic secular biography
of the Prophet of Islam. . . the first real attempt to come to
terms with a culture that could not be understood through sacred
texts or works of exegesis alone.” —Tariq Ali, London Review of
Books
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