After the Prophet: the Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

was another Adam, the one whose coming Jesus had prophesied. Indeed, they accepted Islam on the spot. But Muhamm ...

Aisha. All we know for certain is that while the advice he gave Muhammad might be seen by some as r ...

Abu Bakr’s house to question Aisha himself. There, even as she swore her innocence yet again, he went int ...

ones to be punished. For a wronged woman, there could have been no better outcome, yet the f ...

Nevertheless, she paid a price. The days of her freedom to join Muhammad’s campaigns were over. With ...

a mark of distinction—but as an attempt to force her into the background? The girl so used to high visi ...

chapter 4 THE SEEDS OF DIVISION HAD BEEN SOWN. MUHAMMAD’S WIVES, fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, cousins, da ...

There was the time when he called for Ali, who spent most of those days studying and praying in the mo ...

custom. In seventh-century Arabia, widows were remarried almost immediately, often to a relative of th ...

one would ever marry again. None of them could have been more anxious about her future than Aisha ...

In that small sickroom, he must have been an overwhelming presence. So tall that Aisha would ...

believe was one ɹnal attempt to make his wishes known. But even this came laden with ambiguity. “Bring m ...

feared: a will. Was the dying Prophet about to definitively name his heir? The only way to know ...

Yet it is also an altogether human scene. Everyone so concerned, everyone crowded around, trying to protect M ...

In the meantime, Omar’s argument prevailed. His words had their intended eʃect, and the sickro ...

separate from each other until they come to me by the pool of Paradise.” Sunni scholars dispute t ...

a force returning from a mission to the Yemen. He had been successful: Yemenite opposition to Muhammad ...

every believing man and woman,” he said. Surely this meant that Omar had taken Muhammad’s declaration to mea ...

allegiance or friendship throughout the Middle East of the time—“God be the friend of he who is your friend, t ...

As always, the question is what Muhammad was thinking—a question that will be asked in turn ...