Why I Wrote a Book on Muhammad

In my studies about Islam across the years, I have read various biographies of Muhammad, and the most ancient, authoritative and extant biography is that of Ibn Isḥāq, written in the second century A.H. (eighth century A.D.), about 100 years after Muhammad's death.

Ibn Isḥāq is an honest historian, but also working with various sources, some trustworthy, and some he questions. But in recording the primary sources that come from a known chain of custody back to Muhammad and his companions, Ibn Isḥāq gives us the profile of Muhammad that Muslims have patterned themselves after for some 1400 years.

My priority as a minister of the Gospel is to serve religious, political and economic liberty for all people equally. And such freedom is only possible -- for all people -- if first rooted in a true definition of terms. In the Garden of Eden, Yahweh Elohim gives us the choice between the fruit that is good and serves life and freedom, and the fruit that is evil and leads to death and slavery.

My purpose in this new book, The Real Muhammad: In the Eyes of Ibn Isḥāq, is to let this candid profile of Muhammad become accessible, and thus serve people's freedom of informed choice. It is profile of a violent and imposed religion according to Ibn Isḥāq, but too, this he believes, in the eighth century, is how it should be.

But does such a religion truly satisfy the human soul -- Muslim or otherwise?

###