Arabic Authors

Suzanne Mohammed Nasr Abdel Aziz Farg Abdel rao2of

Readers should know from the start: this book is inaccurate in many (really, many) places. The amount of misinformation is shocking for a book that claims to be informative. One blatant example? The author claims that Prophet Muhammad had only one daughter. This is completely false — he had four daughters: Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah. It’s basic knowledge, yet the author didn’t bother to get it right.

It doesn’t stop there. The book butchers the names of the Sahaba (the Prophet’s companions), and misquotes or misrepresents Qur’anic verses. References to Ayats are either incorrect, irrelevant, or just thrown in without context or accuracy. That alone should disqualify this book as a credible source on anything related to Islam or Arabic history.

But the deeper problem is the mentality behind the writing. Arbuthnot clearly adopts the typical Victorian-era lens — the same lens through which the West viewed Arabs and Muslims as nothing more than bloodthirsty sword-wielders. He actually says that Islam spread by “fanaticism and the sword” while contrasting it with Christianity, which he claims spread by “preaching and the pen.” This isn’t history. It’s colonial propaganda dressed up as scholarship.

And if that’s not enough, he repeatedly refers to Muslims as “Muhammadans”, and literally calls Islam “the Muhammadan religion” — a term that is deeply offensive to Muslims. If he had done even the bare minimum of research, he would have known that Muslims do not worship Muhammad. They worship God (Allah). Islam is not centered around a person, and calling it the “Muhammadan religion” completely misrepresents the faith.

This book might be useful if you’re studying outdated Western views on Islam, but if you’re looking for real knowledge about Muslim culture, do yourself a favor and stay away from it.

Not accurate regarding prophetand sahaba