The First Muslim by Lesley Hazleton / A Review

When I saw the email that Lesley Hazleton is to appear at our Islamic Center of Long Island for a book reading the next week, I knew I had to go. Two years back she was at our fundraiser when I heard her for the first time. It was a compelling talk. It compelled me to read her book ‘After the Prophet: The Shia Sunni Divide”. I loved the book and mentioned it to all those I communicate with. Those who took my advice and read it, were divided in their opinions. Those more sympathetic to Bibi Fatima thought the author did not do justice to her. On the other hand, hard core Sunni friends did not like the author’s treatment of Bibi Aisha. This affirmed to me that book is good and objective.

Compelled by her success of the book and increasing interest in the history of Islam, she decided to write about the Prophet. She brought her skills of a skillful story teller to this book. Written like a novel, it tries to go into the minds of the characters. What they would be thinking, what would be the surroundings, the sounds, the thoughts, the feelings, the hesitations and the determinations of individuals who are part of the life of the Prophet. It is the story of the time which has be eternalized by the Muslims for all times to come. The interest in his life has pulled many faithful and otherwise into it.

What I liked about the book was the through objectivity of the facts. She mentioned, rather warned it upfront, that it is not a devotional biography. She is not a believer, in fact an agnostic Jewish New Zealander who lived a large part of her journalistic life in Beirut.

In preparation of the book, she spend much time in reading the jist of Ibn Ishaq and al Tabari, read the Quran and many secondary sources. She is attracted to the narrative of Islam and Muslims and has overall a positive attitude towards the Prophet.

I needed to hear that. How an outsider, not influenced by faith or passion, who looks into the mind of the Prophet and tells the story. It may not go well with many who do not want to hear anything short of divine about the Prophet. For others it is a very powerful story of the man we all love to know about more and more.

With time many of the stories we heard growing up about the life of the Prophet are going out of main narrations. It seems that if the whole seerat books are being revised and rewritten. Whatever people think is a bit uncomfortable, people tend to doubt that or outright reject that.

I think of myself as someone who has a decent knowledge of the life of the Prophet and like to collect books about him. I have not seem a book like this which tries to explain, no matter how subjective and flawed her assessment may be, what would have been the reason of what happened at various points of Prophet’s life

For example, she builds this narrative that Prophet grew up as an ultimate outsider and had spend all his life in attempts to be an insider. Orphaned before birth, had no inheritance and taken up by the equally unfortunate Halima as a wet nurse, stayed on for an extra two years with her instead of the usual two and when he came back to his mother, she took on a long and arduous journey to Yathrib, only to get sick on the way back and die. He is raised by his grandfather who had almost killed his father (Abdullah) and that relationship may not have been that congenial. Then Abd Mattalib dies and Prophet's uncle Abu Talib, takes him and put him to work right away as a camel boy. When the Prophet becomes smart enough to ask for marriage, Abu Talib refuses the hand of his daughter.

This is just an example of the early life of a young boy turning into a man, who has to struggle to find a place in the society much harder than an average man of his age. What goes in the mind of that person, is very intriguing and Lesley Hazleton has dared to take on that challenge.

The followings are a few of the points from her book, I feel like sharing.

She refutes many of the events as folk lores and is circumspect of many beliefs we have of the life story.

• The cleaning of the heart and mind of the Prophet as a child. It must be a dream, and many he had in his life.
• 360 idols is perhaps written back in history. It is a ninth century myth. Moreover, they were not Idols,, mostly stones and totem poles.
• Story of Isra and Miraj is probably a spiritual experience. Strangely the whole episode is not mentioned in the Tarikh of Tibri
• The last sermon ie khutba hajjul wida  was perhaps not one sermon but a collection of small speeches to the congregants. (perhaps no public address system for the more than hundred thousand pilgrims to hear all at once) 

I learnt a few new things through her book. If I had known them before, I must have forgotten them. Some of these are as follows.

• Quresh move to Mecca only five generations before the Prophet. They lived in Yemen around Marib Dam, which was destroyed in time due to bad maintenance. Several clans led by Prophet’s ancestor Qusayy adopted the name Quresh, ie those who gather together. They moved north, left agriculture and adopted the Kaaba Sanctuary.
• Story behind the name of Abdul Muttalib. His uncle al-Muttalib abducted him from his widowed mother in Yasrib. He had to hide the identity of his nephew and made him a camel boy on the way back to Mecca. Thereby dubbing him as Adblul Muttalib, the slave of Al Muttalib. The name stuck.
• His father Hashim died in Gaza and is buried there.  
• The pagan chant of Hajj was labbaik allahuman labbaik, lasharikalaka illa sharikun huaw laka (No partner except such partner as you have)
• Hijaz means barrier
• As the head of the Hashim clan, Abu Talib protected the Prophet. After his death, the elderly al Mutim was the interim chief and continued the protection of the Prophet. Then he died and Prophet was left without protection. That was the time, the Quresh plotted to kill him collectively.
• The three tribes of Jews were the part of Palestinian Jews who had fled after the failed rebellion against the Romans in the second century. They were the first settlers of Medina before Aws and Khizraj arrived. Aws and Khizraj arrived from the south at the same time when Quresh migrated north to Mecca
• On the death of Abu Jahl in Badr, the Prophet took two things of his. His dagger and his camel. It was the same camel he brought with him on the abortive trip of Umra which ended in the Truce of Hudaibia. The camel was slaughtered there. 

• There were at least three poets in Medina who were very critical of the Prophet and some zealots killed them and somehow were able to get away with that.
• Two of his wives were Jewish. Zianab and Rayhana (his seventh) from the massacred Qureza Tribe
• Banu Qaynuqa, the first tribe to be expelled, was in fact ordered to have the same fate, which fell on Banu Qureza the last one ie men to be killed, property divided and women and children made captives. There lives were spared when Abdulla bin Obay pleaded on their behalf. That pleading established the principle to which Obay conceded. The decision will be the Prophets alone.
• In the Conquest of Mecca, ten persons were ordered to be killed unless they repent. It included poets and poetesses. Half of them repented and were spared.

She raises a few questions which I find intriguing and do not have a good answer to them.

• Why his mother, Amina Bibi, took a long and difficult journey to Yasrib soon after getting her son back from Halima. The author raises the question that she might be looking for a relative who could take the guardianship of the child, but there is no record. She returns and dies on the way back.
• As a young trader he had made several trips to Damascus and would have been exposed to the cultures and belief systems of the Christians, Jews and Zorastrians.
• Treatment of the Jews at the hands of Prophet was partly because he felt the need to show strength. It sent a strong message to other potential enemies. 
• The same way as Renaissance scholars have a very negative opinion of the 'Dark Ages' and may tend to make them look a lot darker than they were, a similar attitude existed in the late 8th and 9th century  Damascus and Baghdad. That was the time of Muslim peak and the past was reinterpreted as the time of Jahilia, great ignorance, much more of a dark age then perhaps the pagans were before the advent of Islam.

Not everyone will agree with me in my assessment. NY Times have a rather harsh review on the book. click here. Those who look at the personality of the Prophet with a biased prism, whether it is positive or negative, will find faults in the book. For those who wish to blame his name will see too much of a praise and latitude given to him. On the other hand, many of my friends who wouldn't accept anything less than a devotional biography will find it blasphemous.

If for once one is willing to read the life of the Prophet as a man, with all human strengths and potential weaknesses, this book offers a very possible version of his life, thoughts, aspirations, concerns, potential shortcomings and accomplishment.

I think that someone unaware of the person of the Prophet reads this book as the first introduction of him, will come out of the book with a positive opinion of the person who is one of the most misunderstood; by people on either side of the Mohammedan debate.

I highly recommend the book to those who are open to read critical review of their loved ones.