Title: After the Prophet
Subtitle: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam
First published: 2009
Description: Narrative history at its most compelling, After the Prophet relates the dramatic tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between Shia and Sunni Islam.Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over his successor had begun. Pitting the family of his favorite wife, the controversial Aisha, against supporters of his son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, the struggle would reach its breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, when soldiers of the first Sunni dynasty massacred seventy-two warriors led by Muhammad's grandson Hussein at Karbala. Hussein's agonizing ordeal at Karbala was soon to become the Passion story at the core of Shia Islam.Hazleton's vivid, gripping prose provides extraordinary insight into the origins of the world's most volatile blend of politics and religion. Balancing past and present, she shows how these seventh-century events are as alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today as though they had just happened, shaping modern headlines from Iran's Islamic Revolution to the civil war in Iraq. After the Prophet is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and an emotional and political revelation for Western readers.From the Hardcover edition.
Subjects: Sunnites, Shīʻah, History, Relations, Death and burial, Caliphate, Islam, Nonfiction, Interfaith relations, Glaubensspaltung, Schiiten, Sunniten, Islam, history, Muhammad, prophet, -632, Shiites
People: ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib Caliph (600 (ca.)-661), Muḥammad Prophet (d. 632), ʻĀʼishah (ca. 614-678)
LC classification: BP55 H42 2009