Muhammad and the Course of Islam by H.M. Balyuzi

To my cousin, Abul-Qasim Afnan, I am particularly grateful for having kept me provided, over the years, with a wide variety of books. There are other works, scholarly and otherwise, from which I have gained much knowledge and understanding, but the cramming of a bibliography can be as tedious for the reader as filling footnotes with too many references.

I have consulted all the books detailed in my bibliography. There is an earlier edition of this book, in fourteen volumes, published in Leyden and Upsala. Again, the excellent history by 'Izzi'd-Din Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi't-Tarikh, on which I have relied to a great extent, I own in a six-volume edition printed in Cairo. That earliest biography of the Prophet does not exist and Siratu Rasuli'llah is its recension by Ibn-Hisham. 833) which, unfortunately, some Western authors still refer to as the book by Ibn-Ishaq (d. Such was the case with my edition of the life of the Prophet by Ibn-Hisham (d. Secondly, of some books more than one edition exists, and in a number of cases the edition which I owned or had access to is rare and unobtainable. Firstly, the general reader finds it boring and cumbersome, as I do myself, when I encounter miles of print containing just numbers of pages. I have studiously avoided giving copious references to my sources for two good reasons. My sources have in the first place been works in Arabic and Persian, and secondly books written in the West on the Founder of Islam and the course of His Faith. It took the best part of 1974 to complete it. This book has been about a decade in writing, not continuously but at intervals. 344ģ2 The Changing Face of Islamic Society. 7ġ The Homeland of Muhammad and His Early Years. Revelation sent down to thee and what has been sentĭown before thee, who believe in the life hereafter.įOREWORD. What We have bestowed upon them, who believe in the Who render the prayer ordained, who give alms from The God-fearing, who believe in the world unseen, This is the Book, undoubtedly, a guidance to

Muhammad and the Course of Islam by H.M. Balyuzi