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Title: Great Primary Resource
Review: This book is a translation Ibn Ishaq's SIRAT RASUL ALLAH, the original version of which has been lost to history. A. Guillaume translated an abridged edition by Ibn Hisham for his translation. THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD is the result.The book is not in the form of an integrated narrative. Instead it's a series of stories, poems, accounts, recollections and other scraps of information collected by Ibn Ishaq bearing on the Prophet and his life and times.Don't plan on sitting down and reading this cover to cover. It's a scrapbook of information. To his credit, Ibn Ishaq attributes the bits and pieces of information he collects. In that sense, he's trying to do what professional historians still try to do, reconstruct the past and preserve it as best he can.And, he did a good job. There's a huge amount of information preserved in THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD. If you're interested in learning more about Muhammad, you'll appreciate this book. I like it and gave it five stars.
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