Memories of Muhammad

Starred review from May 1, 2014

This tribute to the life of Muhammad offers a graceful corrective to misapprehensions about Islam. Safi balances his own faith with a compelling portrait of a dynamic and powerful religion.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2009
Safi recognizes that in painting a portrait of the prophet Muhammad, he does not begin with a blank canvas. Indeed, he begins by confronting the negative images of Muhammad within the Western traditionfrom Dantes horrifying portrayal of the prophets damned soul to the mocking caricatures proffered by twenty-first-century Danish cartoonists. Safi invites his readers to lay aside the prejudices fostered by such images as they join in a fresh investigation of Islams Prophet. That investigationbased on the Quran and on Ibn Ishaqs eighth-century biography, supplemented by other ancient and modern sourcesuncovers a complex personality: a towering spiritual leader who dramatically challenged traditional Arab polytheism and a resourceful political strategist who appealed to the socially marginal while outmaneuvering the powerful elite. As he fills in the historical picture with accounts of important figures close to MuhammadKhadijn, Ali, HosseinSafi must delve into the tensions that developed among Muhammads followers, pitting the Shia against the Sunni, radical against moderate. Because of the persistence of these tensions, Safi despairs of delivering a single definitive understanding of the prophet. However, his depiction of a profoundly humane and compassionate visionary offers a much-needed corrective to the darker perspective promulgated by some Islamic extremists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)