The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad: And the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism

Description

A wonderfully vivid history of Islam after Muhammad’s death – and the sequel to Rogerson’s acclaimed THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

The Prophet Muhammad taught the word of God to the Arabs. Within a generation of his death, his followers – as vivid a cast of heroic individuals as history has known – had exploded out of Arabia to confront the two great superpowers of the seventh-century and establish Islam and a new civilization. That the protagonists originated from the small oasis communities of central Arabia gives their adventures, their rivalries, their loves and their achievements an additional vivacity and intimacy.

So that on one hand, THE HEIRS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD is a swaggering saga of ambition, immense achievement, self-sacrificing nobility and blood rivalry, while on the other it allows us to understand some of the complexities of our modern world. For within this fifty-year span of conquest and empire-building, Barnaby Rogerson also identifies the seeds of discord that destroyed the unity of Islam, and traces the roots of the schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims to the rivalry of the two individuals who best knew and loved the Prophet: his cousin and son-in-law Ali and his wife Aisha.

Reviews

‘A dramatic tale of political intriguing and theological wrangling– and of love and jealousy and family feuding’ — Scotsman

‘An absorbing narrative that captures the epic quality of an era to which Muslims of all persuasions look for inspiration’ — SUNDAY TIMES, January 2006

‘Vividly illustrates how… sometimes bloody conflicts ultimately gave birth to the varied and wonderful traditions of the Muslim faith’ — GUARDIAN, January 2006

Author Biography

Barnaby Rogerson is the author of the prestigious Cadogan Travel Guides to Cyprus, Morocco and (with Rose Baring) of Tunisia, as well as a history of North Africa. He is author of THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD and, forthcoming from Little, Brown in 2007, THE LAST