Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Muhammed at Mecca is a remarkable volume that covers the first part of the prophet of Islam and the early days of his young nation prior to 622 CE, the year of Hijra when Muhammed left Mecca to Medina which also marks the first year of the Muslim calander. With much skill and ability to retrodict events and put them in their historical context, Watt offers this book as one of the most authentic works on the subject.
The volume is an academic work and might not appeal to all kinds of readers save for academics and those who are very interested in the subject. Watt employs the modern methodology in classifying, crediting and discrediting almost all of the primary sources of the time. Watt then objectively treats these sources and draws conclusions that a reader can rarely find in other places.
His gifted style helped a great deal in making a lengthy volume full of details entertaining for the reader and rather catchy. Those who are interested in reading about the whole story of Muhammed and his mission should also buy Watt's second volume, Mohammed at Medina, which covers his post Hijra years until his death in 632.
Too bad the book is out-of-print. Publishers should consider marketing a second edition since it would certainly deserve the attention and interest of many scholars and readers today.
By Randall Koehlmoos (Honolulu, Hawaii)

W. Montgomery Watt wrote Muhammad at Mecca in response to his perceived need for a new look at the life of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) set in a fuller historical context. He states that part of this need arose from the broader desire of twentieth century historians to see historical events in relation to the economic, social, and political background prevalent at that particular time. The author asserts that the special feature of this biography of Muhammad is thus not that it combs available sources more minutely than others have done previously, but that it pays fuller attention to these material factors, and attempts to answer many questions that have hardly been raised in the past. When this work is juxtaposed with Watt's other work Muhammad at Medina, the two together constitute a comprehensive history of the life of Muhammad and the origins of the Islamic community. The author declares in the introduction of this work that it is first and foremost written for the historian. He warns though that there is inherently the human inclination of 'tendential shaping' by early historians to make allowances for distortions or even to make it more acceptable within the shadow of other religions such as Christianity or Judaism. Though many bibliographic sources used for this work are based on earlier primary sources, one must remember that there are no known written sources other than the Qur'an about the life of the Prophet written prior to about 150 years after his death.