INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MUHAMMAD

The purpose of this lesson:

1.The story of Muhammad is portrayed purely from an Islamic viewpoint. This should help you to understand the mindset of the Muslim, their view of Muhammad and his history.

2. It also introduces you to the major issues in Islam. It will give you a framework to hang many facts on.

3. It has also the purpose to introduce discussions with Muslims, as you can refer to different events and ask them questions about these events.

4. Islam is based on submission to Allah. The perfect example for all Muslims to follow is Muhammad. He received the revelations, he walked the walk, and he is seen as the final and greatest prophet, who supersedes all others.

Islamic writings or their translations often contain a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. There are often factual errors (giving of false references, etc.). In our quotations we did not correct these errors. The noted errors we marked with: ‘*’

Also, their writings are mixed with mystical experiences and encounters. We could accredit this to the works of the Evil one, or to the high view Muslims have of Muhammad. In Islam, fables are often generated around people who are held in high esteem, in order to elevate the person in the eyes of readers.

We want the reader to be aware of the following:
Some portions of the writings were underlined for the purpose of emphasis. Some of these areas will be discussed in the classroom situation.

Certain sections were paraphrased to maintain the Islamic viewpoint, but to remove excessive facts, which do not assist further understanding of the Story of Muhammad.

All paraphrased sections and quotes from ‘Stories of the holy prophets’ are printed with the font ‘Times New Roman’
The paraphrased sections begin and end with a ‘#’
References for quotes are footnotes
References for the paraphrased sections are endnotes
All reference brackets will look like: [pg]

All paraphrased sections and quotes from ‘The History of Islam’ are printed with the font ‘Arial’
The paraphrased sections begin and end with a ‘~’
References for quotes are footnotes
References for the paraphrased sections are endnotes
All reference brackets will look like: {pg}

Names are written and spelt differently depending on the whims of the different Islamic authors. They are only listed in brackets with no references.