Muhammad (23 page)

51.
Ibn Ishaq,
Sirat Rasul Allah,
1013, in Guillaume,
Life of Muhammad
.

52.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith,
Islam in Modern History
(Princeton and London, 1957), 305.

About the Author

Karen Armstrong is the author of nearly twenty books, including
The Great Transformation, A History of God
, and
The Spiral Staircase
, a spiritual memoir, among other bestsellers. An internationally renowned expert on religion, Armstrong is a powerful voice for interfaith understanding. She lives in England.

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GENERAL EDITOR: JAMES ATLAS

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Copyright

MUHAMMAD
. Copyright © 2006 by Karen Armstrong. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Armstrong, Karen.

    Muhammad : a prophet for our time / Karen Armstrong. — 1st ed.

    p. cm.—(Eminent lives)

ISBN
-10: 0-06-059897-2

ISBN
-13: 978-0-06-059897-6

1. Muhammad, Prophet, d. 632—Biography. 2. Islam—21st Century. I. Title. II. Series.

BP75.A764 2006

297.6'3—dc22

[B]

2006045864

EPUB Edition AUGUST 2013 ISBN 9780062316837

06 07 08 09 10    
ID
/
RRD
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

^*
In Arabic, the word
Allah
simply means “God.”

^*
The terms “clan” and “tribe” are not easy to distinguish from one another, but here “clan” refers to a family group
within
the tribe.

^*
After the birth of their first son, Arabs customarily take an honorary title known as the
kunya.
Abu Bakr means “the father of Bakr.” His wife would have been known as Umm Bakr, “the mother of Bakr.” Muhammad was often known as Abu al-Qasim.

^*
The Sabians are thought to be a monotheistic sect in southern Arabia (modern Yemen), though some commentators believe that the Qur’an refers here to the Zoroastrians of the Persian empire.