Lesley hazleton the first muslim the story of muhammad

rode low in the water under all the weight; and to the online readers of The Accidental Theologist for their patience, encouragement, and good wishes during my extended writing hermitry.

At Riverhead Books, it’s been both a pleasure and a privilege to work with editorial director Rebecca Saletan, who “got” what I was doing instantly, and with her executive assistant, Elaine Trevorrow, who kept me gently but firmly on track with regard to time. And last but as far as it’s possible to get from least, my love and heartfelt thanks to my longtime friend and agent Gloria Loomis of the Watkins/Loomis Agency, and to her executive assistant, Julia Maznik. No writer could dream of better.

Unless otherwise indicated, all direct speech and dialogue in this book is from either ibn-Ishaq’s eighth-century biography of Muhammad, Sirat Rasul Allah, or alTabari’s ninth- and tenth-century history of early Islam, Tarikh al-Rasul wa’al-Muluk (see Bibliography under “Primary Sources”).

Citations of Quranic verses are numbered according to Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation (again, see Bibliography under “Primary Sources”). It should be noted that since early Quran manuscripts often omitted verse breaks, some translators, like A. J. Arberry, use a slightly different numbering system in the interest of poetic and thematic integrity. epigraphs Page 00 “Muhammad, say”: Quran 6:14, 6:163, 39:12.

Page 00 “The inner meaning of history”: Ibn-Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. Page 00 “I do not accept”: Desai, Day -to-Day with Gandhi.