This is no dry history, but an absorbing narrative, full of action and intrigue, with historical figures so complex in their motivations and compelling in their characterization that they leap off the page.
Rogerson's principal profession is as a writer of guidebooks, an experience he puts to use in The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad. It is clear that this is a writer who has trekked through the landscapes he describes, who has tasted the hot winds as they sweep off the sand dunes and witnessed for himself the otherworldly glow of the desert sun as it hovers just above the horizon.
Unfortunately, the same attention to detail that brings the
Arabian landscape to life becomes tedious as Rogerson's focus switches from the internal tensions of the Muslim community to the external threats faced during its expansion into the previously impenetrable borders of central Asia and western Europe.
Empires often rise and fall on the field of battle, but Rogerson's exhaustive depiction of nearly every skirmish fought by the Muslim armies in their first 50 years slows the narrative to a crawl. He would have better served his narrative if he had painted Islam's wars of expansion with broad strokes rather than such a fine brush.
On the other hand, he could have paid more attention to what the book's subtitle promises will be a discussion of "the roots of the Sunni-Shia [Shiite] schism."
Much has been written about this topic since the occupation of Iraq launched a civil war between the two sects the like of which has not been seen in 1,400 years.
But neither the theological nor, for that matter, the political origins of this conflict are very deeply mined in Rogerson's text. Instead, he simply recounts the stories he has culled from the traditional histories of this tumultuous period and allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions as to how and why the unified Muslim community so suddenly split upon the death of Mohammed into Sunni and Shiite sects.
RSS