Book Review

The First Muslim by Lesley Hazleton

Although its been a few months since I started reading this book, I recently finished it; Its very good! The author gathers her research by the most credible biographies on Holy Prophet(PBUH) written by Ibn Ishaq and Al Tabari.

The introduction is brief but the author outlines some features of the Holy Prophet(PBUH) such as his appearance, physical traits as reported by sources. The author then begins with an analogy that I had never heard before, nor it crossed my mind. She stated that when Holy Prophet(PBUH) had his first encounter with the Angel Jibrael(AS), he did not run away shouting 'Hallelujah' nor was his face radiating with joy, instead his face was filled with absolute horror and his body was trembling under intense fear. And this is right, even if you stand a person next to a baby who has never seen the person, the baby will start crying which is natural. And this statement confirms that the event did indeed occur.

She also describes another analogy that is before the Prophethood of Holy Prophet(PBUH), the Quraish, which was alliance of many clans, controlled the monopoly of trade, business and pilgrimage and was the leading tribe in pre-Islamic Arabia. The Quraish followed the religion of their forefathers, which was that they believed in Allah, the Supreme God but they also believed that besides Allah, there were also other lesser gods. And the Quraish mostly benefitted by the pilgrimage, an event when people from all over Arabia came to Makkah and worshipped idols. There were also in Arabia, many people claiming themselves to be prophet but that did not worry the Quraish and the Quraish did not take any action against them. In case when Holy Prophet(PBUH) recieved the prophethood and started preaching Islam, the Quraish became furious and laid out an intense propaganda against him for several years even reaching to the conclusion to kill him. This event further validates the prophethood of Holy Prophet (PBUH) and shows that the Quraish knew that he indeed was the final Messenger but they refused to believe it and instead started opposing him.

The author seems to appreciate the works of Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher, and also justifies some of the actions of the Holy Prophet(PBUH) by Machiavelli's quotes and thought. Regarding the man slaughter of Banu Qurayza, a jewish tribe in Madinah, she reports that Holy Prophet(PBUH) allegedly ordered one of his followers to raise a judgement on the fate of Banu Qurayza. She does not place the blame of the slaughter of all men of the tribe, on Holy Prophet(PBUH) but then she describes a work of Machiavelli that being a political leader, if one had reasonable doubts on the allegiance of a tribe, one would rather eliminate the tribe now rather than seeing a snake rise from amongst them later. This also has another analogy that if a murderer murders a person then the murderer has to be puished by death rather than forgiving him and and seeing another innocent person being killed by the murderer.

She highights that looking at the whole worldview objectively is immensely important for the properity of any society. Objectivity is, being open to different, mainly opposing opinions and not favoring any opinion on the basis of a bias. She indeed maintains her objectivity throughout the book and has laid out the entire facts after which she writes her analysis of the given facts.

The writer has written meticulously all of the events in the life of Holy Prophet(PBUH) and ends it on an important, curious note. She describes that in the final years of the Holy Prophet(PBUH), he had no free time to take a sigh of relief and eventually retire. Everywhere he went, his followers went behind him and he would not disperse them away from him because this was all he had worked for in the later years of his life. He was adamant on the unity of the believers and throughout his remaining years, strived for the spread of Islam. He also suffered migraine-like headaches after the injury to his head and face in the Battle of Uhud. In other words, he did not find peace in his life. This peace meaning forgetting everything and just rest... She symbolizes the departure of Holy Prophet(PBUH) from this world, with him finding peace at last. This indeed makes sense, that in this world, one should keep struggling in every way, in order to achieve something in this life. Genghis Khan did not conquer the world by just resting. He struggled from being a nobody in a poor tribe to the king of many regions. I recently also saw a photo which showed the living quarters of the Mongolian people. They did not build huge palaces and towers like the Mughals, just to lie in the bed and do nothing. Instead they built removable tents, maybe due to the nomadic way of life but they also knew that this world is not a resting place.

The fact remains that the way of life is to live out of the comfort zone which we have acquired for ourselves by being lazy and not struggling. Stepping out of this confort zone makes us cross the self-made boundaries of our mind, helps us overcome the bias, hate that allows us to leap forward and come ever close to the opening of an infinite deep well. Peace does not exist in this life, mind you. For one indeed finds it after one breaths its last.