The Life of the Prophet Muhammad

by Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, Kalamullah (Contributor)

This 16 CD set is an outstanding collection of inspirational talks that introduces the life of Prophet Muhammad, the greatest human being to walk the face of the earth.
In these talks, Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, author of the best selling series, The Lives of the Prophets, eloquently presents the Makkan period of the Prophet's life in a detailed manner, deriving valuable lessons from it and thus making it relevant to our modern times. The series is primarily based on Ibn Kathir's book on the Sirah. Some of the topics discussed include: The History of the Kabah, Muhammad in the Bible, The Call to Near Kin, The Islam of Hamzah, The Year of Grief, Lessons from the Trip to al-Taif and much more

https://ia600703.us.archive.org/19/it...

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Anwar al-Awlaki is a Muslim scholar of Yemeni heritage born in New Mexico. He served as an Imam in California, and later in the Washington, D.C. area where he headed the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center and was also the Muslim Chaplain at George Washington University. In 2004 he returned to his native Yemen where he taught at Eman university until his arrest in mid 2006. Imam Anwar was released from custody on the 12th of December 2007 having spent a year and a half behind bars. In his first interview since his release, conducted by former Guantanamo Detainee and cageprisoners spokesman Moazzam Begg, he spoke about the conditions of his detention and shared his reflections on his time in prison.

Reviews

[Mohammad Ali Abedi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am on a constant search of answers. Although, I’m not sure answer to which question exactly, but I figure even answers can guide you in asking the correct questions, like an episode of “Jeopardy”.

Religion is one of the best sources of such answers, whether you have faith or not, and usually I do not, but I turn to it again and again, digger deeper and deeper, looking for SOMETHING.

Out of all of them, Islam fascinates me the most. True, I’m probably biased towards it because I’ve been born into it, but I think it is more than that. The Prophet of Islam is fascinating, regardless of one’s personal belief.

Prophet Mohammad is the most complete all-around-person, in comparison to the other Prophets. I am sure I did not explain that well, so let me try again. What I mean is that Mohammad was a husband, father, businessman, fighter, politician, leader, and so on. And most important of all, he was a success at what he set out to do. It is possible to disbelief in certain things in Islam, but I do not see how one can deny that Mohammad was an exceptional person. And unlike, any other religion, Islam has a wealth of first generation information in regards to it. The large work, comprising of the Quran and the Hadiths, is unparallel in other religions.

So, he was a success at what he did, and there is a lot of information about him. Compared that to say Bhudda or Jesus. The material on them is far less. And also, compare Jesus to Mohammad. Jesus was never a father or a husband, and Jesus was unsuccessful in being able to directly make change. The movement started after his death, while Mohammad started it, energized it, grew it, advanced, and then passed away. There is so much to learn in this journey of his.

The audiobook has three volumes. It is a series of lectures by Anwar Al Awlaki. The first volume deals with Mohammad’s life in Makka, then the other two deals with his Madinat period. Each volume has around 16-18 hours of material, so it is a DETAILED work. Anwar tells the biography of Mohammad, with lots of lessons and commentary on them, so it is not a pure A happened, then B, and so forth. And the lecture is done by a devout Imam for Muslim listeners, and also of interest to me, Anwar does not try to sugarcoat the material to make it more PC.

Which actually might not me comfortable listening material to some modern, wanna-make-everyone-happy, Muslims. He does not shy away from the gruesome parts (such as, a follower cutting off a head of an enemy, and take it to Mohammad! You can make a movie out of it!) and neither does he shy away from trying to tone down what some may take out of it. Anwar believes in Jihad, and I would not be surprised if certain audience members would be pumped up by some of his statements, and wishing to fight for Islam.

It seems Anwar Al Awlaki, according to Wikipedia, has some controversy surrounding him, linking him with 9/11. There will be a lot of Muslims that will be surprised by some of the events that occurred in life of Mohammad, and will even be uncomfortable with Anwar’s insisting on linking it to a Muslim’s need to continue the Jihad, but I personally found it very emulating, making Islam again more complex than it appears to be.

To a religious Muslim listener, they will be at awe of the stories in here and to the anti-Islamic listener, he will find stories add to his reason for distaste of the religion. So you take out of the CD based on your initial agenda. However, if you listen to it from a historic perspective, I think you will enjoy it much more.

The three volumes are divided as follows:

Mekkan Period: This is when Prophet Muhammad was just starting out and was residing in Mekka, and was not yet controlling an army. Not much action here, but things are building up slowly...

Madinan Period - Part 1: Here the action starts! The three main battles are the Battle of Badr, Battle of Uhud, and Battle of the Trenches, and frankly, if you like historical battles, they are exciting!

Madinan Period - Part 2: Picks off after Battle of Trenches. Builds up towards entering into Mekkah. I thought it would end with Mohammad’s death, but it didn’t, meaning that the story has not ended, but Anwar Al Awlaki has not made any more audiobooks to continue the biography.

The full 3 volume is around 53 CDs, and with each CD approx. 1 hour, that means the biography is more than 50 hours. So if you are looking for a brief intro in Muhammad's life, this is not it. This is detailed, with lots of stories surrounding the events, and Anwar's commentary on the events. It should be made into a LoTR trilogy, but gorier. I’ll even give it LoTR names for the Volumes. The Companions of the Prophet, The Two Battles, and The Return of the Prophet.

[Nazia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an awesome book!