The Best Book You've Probably Never Read!

Muhammad: His Life Based On The Earliest Sources

By Martin Lings

Now, I'm not encouraging any of my Orthodox brethren or sistren to read about Islam if they don't want to, but if they do want to, this is the best book I have read on it. I think it might be helpful for a Christian approaching Islam to start with the figure of Muhammad, though he is not the center of their religion: the Quran is. As Christians, we think of religion as centered around a person, so it might be helpful for us to see Islam's most central person from an Islamic perspective. This book is good if you are looking not so much for information, as for meaning, though it has a lot of important information in it too. If you would like to get an idea of why Muslims revere Muhammad, I wouldn't know where better to tell you to turn. Martin Lings, the author of this book, spoke approvingly of Karen Armstrong's book on Muhammad, but she is coming from a mindset which is concerned with maintaining (in my view) a false kind of objectivity, whereas Lings writes from the perspective of a practicing Muslim (albeit a strange kind of Muslim-that's another post in itself).

This book is not easy to get into, because there are a lot of Arabic names and a lot of people to keep track of, but once you get into the story, it becomes easier. The book it most resembles to me is Lord of The Rings, because it tells something of an adventure story, and it has an air of nobility and holiness about it. I wouldn't recommend reading it if you feel weak in faith, because, if it affects you like it did me, it will raise questions about being religious in general and make you think deeply about why you are a Christian and not something else. I read it before I became Orthodox, so I had a lot of convert zeal, some rational, some irrational, to get me through it. I came out of it with a greater appreciation for the holiness of Christ. This book made me want to pray.