502 ••• Bibliographie Essay- is an engaging book on domesticating the camel. Translations of early Ara¬
bic poetry, traditionally called "pre-Islamic," include Arthur J. Arberry's The Seven
Odes (New York: Macmillan, 1957).
Surveys of early Arab history include Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age
of the Caliphates, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Pearson Longman, 2004);
Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History (London: Hutchinson, 1950; 6th éd., 2002);
John J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam (New York: Routledge, 1978); and
W. Montgomery Watt, The Majesty That Was Islam (New York: Praeger Publish¬
ers, 1974). Start with Saunders.
CHAPTER 3On the life of the Prophet, start with W. Montgomery Watt's Muhammad: Prophet
and Statesman (London: Oxford University Press, 1961) and then try Maxime
Rodinson's Mohammed (New York: Pantheon, 1974). Closer to the Muslim spirit
are Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (New York:
Inner Tradition International, 1983); and Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: Biogra¬
phy of the Prophet (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992). Of the many biographies
by Muslim writers, those easiest for non-Muslims to read are Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, Muhammad: Man of Allah (London: Muhammadi Trust, 1982); and Rafiq
Zakaria, Muhammad and the Quran (New York and London: Penguin, 1991).
Although the Quran cannot really be translated, English versions help the reader
who knows no Arabic. The most literary one is Arthur J. Arberry, The Koran Inter¬
preted, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1955); the most technically accurate is Bell's
Introduction to the Qur'an, revised by W. Montgomery Watt (Chicago: Aldine,
1970). The authors encourage students to hear a recitation from the Quran. For
native speakers of English who are not Muslims, this can most easily be done by
listening to the compact disk included in Michael Sells, Approaching the Quran:
The Early Revelations (Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 1999).
CHAPTER 4Books by Western writers about Islamic beliefs and practices often betray as¬
sumptions that offend Muslims, whereas those written by Muslims may confuse
instruction about their faith with religious indoctrination. Exceptions in the for¬
mer group include Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam (Maiden, MA:
Blackwell, 2004); Frederick M. Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 2nd ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1994); John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, 3rd ed., revised
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Richard C. Martin, Islamic Stud¬
ies: A History of Religions Approach, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-