The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad.

• Author: Hagen, Gottfried
• Position: Book review

The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad. Edited by JONATHAN E. BROCKOPP. Cambridge Companions to Religion. New York: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2010. Pp. xvii + 325. $90 (cloth); $25.99 (paper).

Henry Corbin once formulated a "paradox of monotheism" which Carl Ernst in the volume under review summarizes like this: "[I]f the God of Revelation is indeed beyond intellect and explanation, the need of humanity decrees that there must be an intermediary to provide a connection to that transcendent source" (p. 132). Muslims have found different ways to perpetuate this connection via the persona of the Prophet Muhammad, be it through legal codification of authoritative actions, through various channels of charisma such as the descendants of the Prophet, or through ascetic and spiritual virtuosi who claim to share in one form or another some of his "special ontological status" (p. 129). In the words of Marion Holmes Katz in the same volume: "For most Muslims of the medieval period (and for many still today), the Prophet Muhammad was not a historical figure who lay dead and unresponsive in his grave" (p. 147).

Corbin's words remind the student of Islam of the very basic fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslim religious practices and beliefs can only be understood through their constant referencing of the Prophet. The modern study of Islam has far too long attempted to understand Islam as a whole through its origins, and has thus made extraordinary efforts to bring to light wie es eigentlich gewesen in the early days of Islam. Ernst suggests that "the Protestant inclinations that characterize much of the contemporary climate of opinion on religion" and "reinforce the notion that Islam is a faith that lacks the supernatural baggage" are colluding with Western biases to focus on Muhammad as political and military leader (p. 123). As a result the later dynamics, evidenced by the spiritual, ritual, mystical, and cosmic significance with which the person of the Prophet has been endowed by his followers, have been very much neglected.

The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad, part of a series that aims to provide "an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for new readers and non-specialists alike" and is "ideal for use by students on relevant courses, and by general interested readers," is a much-needed collection that attempts to at least partially fill this gap. In the footsteps of Tor Andrae's Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre und Glauben seiner Gemeinde (1918) and Annemarie Schimmel's rich but unsystematic And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (1985), it puts front and center the fact that, in the words of Shahzad Bashir, "we must see the Prophet as a rhetorical figure forever under construction in keeping with the changing histories, ideas, and life circumstances of Muslims who think and...