Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy

A much needed and timely work on the contentious issues of Islamic thought in the modern world

AN INDEPENDENT RELIGION BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Lucid, learned and engaging.' The Sunday Times

Few things provoke controversy in the modern world like the religion brought by Prophet Muhammad. Modern media are replete with alarm over jihad, underage marriage and the threat of amputation or stoning under Shariah law. Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion’s founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars.

Misquoting Muhammad takes the reader back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape. From the protests of the Arab Spring to Istanbul at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and from the ochre red walls of Delhi’s great mosques to the trade routes of the Indian Ocean world, Misquoting Muhammad lays out how Muslim intellectuals have sought to balance reason and revelation, weigh science and religion, and negotiate the eternal truths of scripture amid shifting values.

***

'Brown possesses formidable knowledge of premodern Muslim scholars… Misquoting Muhammad sheds light on the considerable dynamism and sophistication within the Sunni tradition.' Washington Post

'Exhilarating... Brown is among the most talented and productive scholars in the field of Islamic Studies today.' Los Angeles Review of Books

‘Erudite and provocative… compelling.' Literary Review

Jonathan A.C. Brown is Professor and Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of Slavery & Islam, Misquoting Muhammad and Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World.