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Muslim Views . February 2011
BOOK-REVIEW
The Study of Islam @ UJ Book Review
MEMORIES of Muhammad –
Why the Prophet Matters. Omid
Safi. HarperOne, 2009.
Hardcover.
God.
While Safi offers a defence of
the Prophet against the defamation meted out against the
founder of Islam – such as the
recent Danish cartoons – and discusses issues of gender and religious pluralism vis-à-vis the
Prophet and the Sunni/ Shi’i
schism with sensitivity and understanding, he largely seeks to preserve and offer a romantic rendition of the Prophet.
The Prophet (SAW) is presented as a person who when offered
the opportunity for retribution,
proffered amnesty, when defamed
he displayed patience and forgiveness.
He was a man of gentle words,
civil conduct and a kind disposition.
The book contains most of the
hallmarks of a usual biography of
the Prophet: Muhammad (SAW)
was a deeply spiritual man who
ascended Mount Hira, in
Makkah, and was chosen by
Allah to receive a revelation to
deliver to humanity.
He was invited by Allah to
heaven for an intimate encounter
and returned compassionately to
the realm of human existence,
and he migrated from Makkah to
the city of Yathrib (Madinah) to
establish a community of believers which included other tribes,
including Jews.
However, there is something
refreshingly pre-modern and
F
OR Muslims, the Prophet
Muhammad (SAW) is the
Seal of the Prophets, a
Mercy to the Worlds and the
Beloved of Allah.
The Prophet’s way and memory illuminate the life of every
Muslim.
Omid Safi offers an enchanting
and enriching biographical narrative of the Prophet Muhammad
(SAW), interspersing personal
memories of the Prophet into the
traditional historical account of
the Prophet’s life.
For Safi, “Muslims’ perceptions of the Prophet have
remained no more static over the
centuries than have Christians’
emotions of Christ or the Buddhists’ engagement with Gautama
Buddha”.
It is through the avenue of
memory that Safi primarily presents the personality of Muhammad (SAW) to the reader by rendering the traditional narrative
which generations of Muslims
have memorialised.
This narrative coalesces with
the hagiographical qualities
attributed to the Prophet that
developed over the centuries and
particular memories of the author
together with devotional expressions of love for the Messenger of
innocent in Safi’s rendition.
The reader is transported into
a world where a napkin which the
Prophet touched could not be set
alight due to the holiness of his
physical connection to the material object; a world where odes celebrating the Prophet as the master
of both the material and supernatural realms are treasured for
their truth, and relics are respected for the blessed connection to
the Prophet.
The light of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is expressed not only
in the way that Muslims should
act and conduct themselves but
also via the medium of art and literature.
In this regard, the book contains numerous miniature Persian
and Ottoman images of the
Prophet and discusses the poems
which were written, memorised
and adorned the walls of masajid
and the chambers of Islam’s imperial rulers, such as the Ottomans.
The reader is presented with a
devotional homage to the Prophet
Muhammad (SAW).
Some will accuse Safi of apologetic pietism and many modern
Muslims who have acquired a
Protestant ethic may decry the
depiction of the Prophet as a
metaphysically
extraordinary
man.
Such judgments are important
in considering the legacy and the
memory of the Prophet but,
nonetheless, Safi presents an
equally important lens to view the
pre-modern tradition of ‘Islamic
piety, learning, and spiritual practice which grew up around the
memory of the Prophet’.
In this sense, even though the
Prophet was a man among men, a
human among humans, in Safi’s
memory, and the memory of the
Prophet passed down through
generations of Muslims, the
Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is
‘like a ruby among stones’.
Review by
NADEEM MAHOMED
Nadeem Mahomed is a Masters
Student in the Study of Islam at
University of Johannesburg
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