Kecia Ali, The Lives of Muhammad

Öz

Lives of Muhammad is not the life story of Prophet Muhammad. Rather than tracing the true facts of Muhammad’s life, Kecia Ali examines the prophet’s biographies written by both Muslims and non-Muslims in the centuries after his death. As she states, “it is a book not about the life of Muhammad but about the ways in which his life has been told” (p. 1) According to her, the perception of Muhammad has dramatically changed over centuries. This diverse, multifaceted and changeable nature of Sira literature is widely known. However, less wellknown is that since the nineteenth century, as Ali points out, “they [Muhammad’s biographies] have become increasingly interdependent. In the twenty first century, it makes no sense to speak of the Muslim views of Muhammad in opposition to Western or Christian views” (p. 2).

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Kecia Ali,The Lives of Muhammad

Kaynakça

1. Kecia Ali, The Lives of Muhammad, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014, 352 pp, ISBN 978-067-4050-60-0.