Muhammad (Hardcover)

From the Publisher: A luminous portrait of the Prophet, in the Islamic tradition. Muhammad is a shimmering, lyrical biography of the Prophet, composed from the words of Muslims throughout the centuries. Drawing on a variety of Islamic sources, from the hadith, or sayings of Muhammad and his companions, to Abbasid and Persian texts, Weinberger weaves a subtle, mystical prose poem, spanning Muhammad's birth and childhood; his adolescence, miracles and marriages; to the isra and miraj, his journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and ascent into heaven, with the angel Jibril (Gabriel) as his guide. The result is a vivid triptych that presents the final prophet of Islam with extraordinary clarity. From Muhammad: "On the night Muhammad was born, every idol toppled over. The palaces of Kesry, emperor of Persia, trembled, its dome split in two, and fourteen towers collapsed. Lake Sawwa, which had been worshiped as a god, disappeared, and became a salt plain. The sacred fires of Fars, which had burned for a thousand years, went out. Seventy columns of light appeared between heaven and earth, each a different color, and the Kaaba lifted up and hovered over Mecca. The next morning, all the kings of the world found their thrones facing backwards."