Karen Armstrong: A Quite Good Writer on Muhammad and Islam

Among many books on Islam and Muhammad written by western people, ‘Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet’ is – in my opinion – quite good. Written by Karen Armstrong, this book looks more fair. The writer wrote the book’s content based on his quite deep knowledge on Muhammad and Islam, with no significant distortion.

Different from some other western writers, Armstrong accepted the idea of divine revelation. He stated that rejecting the idea of revelation is not reasonable because it is one of the principal ideas in Islam, as well as in Judaism and Christianity. She described Muhammad as not only a human, but also a God Messenger who accepted God’s holy messages through the revelation.

I think the book will give western people a more better image on Islam and Muhammad. So far, they may know Islam and Muhammad from distorted information. This result in their misunderstanding about Islam and Muhammad.

What many of them know about Islam is that it suggests terrorism in the name of jihad, promotes polygamy, and gives unreasonable restriction to women. In her book, Armstrong told us that Islam is a religion promoting realistic peace. Jihad is just one of moslem’s tools to assure the justice in human life. Polygamy (having more than one wife) also must be understood proportionally. Implemented under some requirements, it is actually a social solution rather than a sexual exploitation. And we should know that in Muhammad’s era, Arabian men usually had more than four wives: it may be eight, twelve, fifteen, or even more. Muhammad in this case gave a restriction. He prohibited having more than four wives.

And it is not true to say that Islam gives unreasonable restriction to women. In Muhammad’s era, women were treated unjustly. On the other hand, Islam gives better life to women. Some women in Muhammad’s era such as Aisha, Ummu Salamah, and Hafshah even become important authority in Islamic teachings later. Moreover, Islam gives better rights to women which are not recognized before. Comparatively, let’s take a look at women in western culture. They are exploited sexually through porn photos and films. Is this freedom or exploitation?

On Muhammad’s life, Armstrong gave a very clear and interesting description. She told us quite good answers of what, how, and why questions. Her answers give us intelectual satisfaction. She described some facts of Muhammad’s life about which many western people have wrong perception, and then she gave us a very reasonable explanation: why it should happened, why Muhammad made his decision, and many other explanations.

Her knowledge about sosiology and psychology of early Arabs is sometimes very helpful to find out good answers of some historical facts. For example, she told us how wilayah (protection) of a clan is very important for each person in Early Arab to survive. One can be murdered with no punishment to the murderer if he is not under his clan’s protection.

She is also quite good in her ability to counter wrong western people’s perception about Muhammad. For instance, many western people so far have a perception that Muhammad is a sex-mania man, proved by polygamy. Armstrong then counter this perception by giving a very reasonable expalanation. He told us a fact that Muhammad didn’t marry more than one wife along his marriage with Khadijah for many years. Besides, many of his wives are not young and physically beautiful anymore. Many of them are widows of the jihad’s martyrs, so they need life support.

Chronologically, Armstrong made a good narration about Muhammad’s life. She told us in a good time-line Muhammad’s private life as well as his social, political life. Sometimes she told us how Muhammad had a very romantic, humanly interaction with his wives. In other place of her book, she told us how Muhammad made his political decision wisely. She gave us a quite good image about Muhammad with his two sides: a man and a God’s Messenger.

Briefly, I want to say that this book is quite good to read, especially by western people who so far have many wrong perception about Islam and Muhammad.