muhammad 目录

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Illustrations

Map

Preface

CHAPTER 1 Sanctuary

CHAPTER 2 Peace It Is

CHAPTER 3 Repel Evil with Good

CHAPTER 4 City of the Prophet

CHAPTER 5 Just War

CHAPTER 6 The Heart of Mecca

CHAPTER 7 Into the Way of Peace

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Appendix

Notes

Index

muhammad 精彩文摘

MUHAMMAD, THE SON OF ABDULLAH, HAVING BEEN CALLED TO THE audition of a lifetime, hurried through the filigree of Mecca’s palm-leaf huts and humble mud-brick homes to the opulent coral stone mansion of Khadija bint Khuwaylid. The small town’s wealthiest merchant, and its most eligible widow, was deciding whether to appoint the twenty-five-year-old to lead her next trading mission up to Damascus. If he received the commission, it would change his life, but many traders with more experience than he were likely in the running.

Muhammad had been born in the West Arabian sanctuary city of Mecca, a zone of peace among feuding tribes. Muhammad’s clan, the Hashim, served as caretakers and ministers of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped shrine to God the Most High, where they maintained concord throughout the year. The tribe of which it formed a part, the Quraysh, depended for their livelihood on the shrine to God and the penumbra of peace it cast over the Red Sea coastal region of the Tihama, in which Mecca was nestled. They traveled for commerce and held their own trade fairs that attracted merchants from all over the region. This rough neighborhood was bounded by the Roman Empire to the north and the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE) of Iran to the south and east.