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Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time
By
Karen Armstrong
From the bestselling writer of "The History of God" and the widely acclaimed "Islam - A Short History" comes another valuable addition to the "Eminent Lives series", Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad". Muhammad recognized and seeked to transform a period in seventh-century Arabia, a spirit of the time he named jahilliyah. Usually understood to mean a pre-Islamic period and a 'Time of Ignorance', it refers to a state of mind that caused violence and terror in seventh century Arabia. Quite simply, his life was a jihad, which does not mean holy war, but a 'struggle', to guide his people through this testing period in his history. He was a tireless campaigner against greed, injustice and arrogance and he seeked, not to change religious orthodoxy, but people's hearts and minds. Uniquely, he recognized that Arabia was at a turning point and that the old way of thinking would no longer suffice. Throughout his life he wore himself out in the creative effort to evolve a different outlook and to bring peace to a war-torn Arabia. We cannot appreciate the full measure of Muhammad's achievements until we realize what he was up against during his life. In "Muhammad", Karen Armstrong shows how the events that took place in seventh century Arabia have huge lessons to teach us about the events of our time and how this remarkable man and his life can significantly help us to better understand and face the numerous predicaments we face in our world today. Karen Armstrong has written a fascinating account of this figure whose life and influence continues to determine the spiritual course of humankind as part of a ground-breaking new series that pairs great biographers, historians and novelists with iconic subjects, building a biographical tradition that can be traced back to Aubrey's "Brief Lives", Dr Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" and Lytton Strachey's "Emiment Victorians".
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