Who Is Muhammad? | Michael Muhammad Knight | University of North Carolina Press

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198 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, notes, bibl., index

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-7726-2
Published: November 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-7541-1
Published: November 2023
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-7542-8
Published: October 2023

Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks

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Combining insights from the best published historical and religious studies scholarship, original research, and rich first-person perspective, this highly readable book offers a comprehensive yet concise introduction to the founder and central figure of the Islamic tradition: the prophet Muhammad. Narrating Muhammad's life story, teachings, and daily practices, and assessing how his legacy is received, interpreted, and applied around the world, Michael Muhammad Knight reveals how the prophet has become simultaneously one of the most beloved historical figures in the world and also one of the most contested, challenged, and disparaged.

Knight argues that there was never a singular Muslim vision of Muhammad but rather always multiple perspectives. While Muslims defend Muhammad's legacy against Islamophobic polemics, they also challenge each other regarding the proper authorities through which Muhammad's life and message become comprehensible and applicable in our world. Thinking across time and place, Knight argues that Muhammad is always contextual and contemporary.

About the Author

Michael Muhammad Knight is assistant professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida and the author of seventeen books, including Muhammad’s Body: Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage.
For more information about Michael Muhammad Knight, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Combining excellent scholarship with a creative, narrative-driven style, Michael Knight presents a skillfully balanced understanding of Muhammad as a stable historical figure and as a changing persona and symbol. Knight writes as an insider to the study and practice of Islam but also maintains an outside perspective to the approaches and methods of both. The book will be valuable for scholars of religion and for general readers interested in a major historical figure like Muhammad."—Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, University of Vermont

"If someone asks you for a concise, lively, and smart introduction to the Prophet Muhammad, this is the book you must recommend. Michael Knight has achieved something extraordinary by digesting and analyzing not only the religious and secular literature about the Prophet himself but also how Muslims have interpreted, experienced, and loved their Messenger."--Edward E. Curtis IV, Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts, Indiana University, Indianapolis

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Islamic Studies

Biography & Autobiography

Cultural Studies

Religion: World

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