Finished! "The Life of Mahomet"

I finished reading Sir William Muir's "Life of Mahomet" this week. The book was originally introduced in four volumes in 1861 with many references to source material. I bought the one volume version in paperback from Amazon.com, without all of the references. But the original is still available for the serious researcher.

There are so many people out there who are honestly ignorant about Islam and Muhammad, and I strongly advise them to educate themselves, since our lives and our civilization could well depend on it.

Muir's text is not an easy or fast read, but it is very interesting. Every time I finished a chapter I almost felt like brushing the desert sand off of my shirt and looking for a cold well of water, being careful not to step in a pile of camel dung as I did so.

I also read the appendix, which told of the difficulties of compiling the Coran and the Traditions of the Prophet, which were oral histories handed down for more than a century after the death of Muhammad before being written down. Sifting the massive number of histories for the most reliably authentic ones was a huge task. Muir describes the Muslim archivists and authors who strived to accomplish it, and which are the most reliable and complete.

Understanding of a complex subject does not come easy and requires work, but it can be rewarding and help you better understand what is going on in the world today.