It's All About Muhammad: A Biography of the World's Most Notorious Prophet Paperback – October 11, 2014

This is probably the most candid, no-holds-barred biography of the prophet Muhammad you will find. I'm glad someone had the guts to write this. If I had not read Alfred Guillaume's translation of Ibn Ishaq's eighth century, Sirat Rasul Allah, I would have dismissed this book as biased and mean-spirited. The author has his own conjectures about Muhammad's visions being the result of epileptic seizures which are plausible but cannot be proven. However, the actual events he describes are not embellished and coincide with how they are chronicled in the earliest sources. These sources have been edited over the years to delete things which are scandalous to modern sensibilities.. The claims that this book is poorly researched are bogus. The author has done his homework. He has passed over modern whitewashed accounts and has dug into the earliest source materials to give us an accurate portrayal of one of the most toxic human beings in history.Those who criticize Muhammad are attacked on two fronts. The politically correct crowd will label them as right-wing haters and Muslim extremists will threaten them with violence. The author states that Muslims are defensive about how Muhammad is portrayed because it would open up a Pandora's box filled with headless bodies.The author states that Muhammad is the hero of an epic tale he scripted about himself. The myths he created have become firmly entrenched over the last 1,400 years. As the author states, "if you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth." According to the author, the word Islam, submission to God's will, is a false idea because Muslims do not really worship God. They worship a "god" concept created by Muhammad. In other words, Muhammad's "god/allah" was Muhammad's altar ego. "Muhammad had a magma chamber of hate inside of him and when it erupted, "allah" erupted with it." In that sense, Islam is essentially a Muhammad cult.The author describes how Muhammad created his religion by heisting traditions and legends from Judaism and Christianity, reworking them, and making them his own. He exploited the Jewish belief in an end-time Messiah and placed himself in that role. By doing this, he was able to shore up his status as a prophet along with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, with Muhammad as the greatest among them. Muhammad heaped curses upon Jews who refused to accept him as a prophet and accused them of falsifying their own scriptures. Muhammad could not allow Jesus to outrank him as a prophet and thus declared the exalted status which Christians gave to Jesus as heresy and idolatry. When Muhammad took his famous night journey to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem from whence he ascended into the heavens, he never left his bed in Mecca. Muhammad transformed a pagan shrine in Mecca into a temple which Abraham and Ishmael built.The audience which bought into Muhammad's fantasies in Mecca would later follow him to Yathrib (Medina) to become plunderers, enslavers, and mass murderers. It was in Yathrib that Muhammad gained a large following, wealth through plunder, and power to conquer his enemies. As the author writes, "with the murder of his critics, the expulsion of the Jewish tribes and the theft of their property, Muhammad transformed Yathrib into a Twilight Zone where the moral compass no longer worked." The author adroitly notes that if it had not been for their phenomenal success in gaining wealth and power through plunder, Muhammad would not have been able to seduce his Meccan followers and his hosts in Medina with his fantasies. Of course Muhammad got to keep a fifth of the spoils as sanctioned by "allah" through divinely ordained violence and would often share some of his spoils with those in need to demonstrate his compassion and generosity.Muhammad's rage, fueled by his rejection and ill treatment in Mecca, came out in his revelations recorded in the Koran which reveal the mind of someone seething with resentment. The victims of his rage were Meccan trade caravans which had to pass by Medina. The Meccans were forced to go to war with Muhammad to protect their trade routes. This was a war which they ultimately lost and which made Mecca the centerpiece of Islam based upon Muhammad's Abraham/Ishmael myths which he foisted upon a pagan shrine. The other victims of Muhammad's wrath were the Jewish settlements in and around Medina who refused to accept his authority and sided with the Meccans. They were dispossessed of their lands and property, and forced to emigrate. One of the most egregious examples of Muhammad's depravity was the fate of the Qurayza Jews who surrendered to him resulting in a mass murder of the adult males and the enslavement of their women and children.Muhammad had a brilliant but diabolical way of manipulating people with fear. He described the gruesome and horrifying details of hell and the last judgement and held that over their heads. Then, like the master salesman that he was, he gave them the only prescription for relief which was unconditional obedience and loyalty to him. War against the enemies of Islam became a divine commandment which included Muhammad's personal enemies and critics. To disobey Muhammad was to earn Muhammad's wrath in this life and "allah's" wrath in the next life. The spoils of war were a huge incentive to participate in these wars as well as the promise of an eternal sensual paradise reserved for martyrs.During his conversations with "allah" through the angel, Gabriel, "allah" told Muhammad what Muhammad wanted to hear and allowed him to change the rules when it suited him. After taking the wife of his adopted son, Zayd, as his own, one of his other wives had the temerity to tell him, "I see that your Lord hastens to confirm your desires." Muhammad ordered an adulterous couple to be stoned to death yet declared the marriages of captured infidel women to be null and void so that they could become sex slaves for Muhammad and his gang. Of course, to question Muhammad was to question "allah" and whatever upset Muhammad upset "allah" as well.After he had subdued most of the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad needed a source of labor to work his captured lands. In his compassion and mercy, he allowed the remaining Jews and Christians who he had not completely despoiled to remain on their lands provided that they paid a poll tax and gave him a portion of their livestock and harvests. They essentially became serfs on their own land. The majority of non believers who did convert did so out of fear of losing their property, having their women and children sold into slavery, and having their men killed. According to the author, "terror was a convincing missionary." I would add that what ISIS is doing today in Iraq and Syria is no different than what Muhammad and his followers did in seventh century Arabia.The author feels that unveiling the truth about Muhammad can be accomplished today because of the universality of the New Media, which I assume means the internet. By this means, Muhammad's actions can be held up in the court of humanity and his myths will go the way of the Greek and Roman gods.My own hope is that some day archaeoligists will unearth the mass graves of Muhammad's victims and make them open to the public just as the concentration camps at Buchenwald, Dachau, and Auschwitz were exposed. They should be memorialized as shrines to Muhammad's victims.I don't completely disagree with Muhammad's claims that he was foretold in the Bible. One verse fits him to a tee. "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?" (Matthew 5:15-16)

What really hooked me about this book was how the author cut through all the myths about Muhammad and his religion. Line by line the origins of this megalomanic and his unlikely rise to power are meticulously described. Surprisingly, a life-long seizure disorder played an important role in convincing him he was God’s messenger. Even stranger, when he started formulating his teachings, everyone around him knew he was a dangerous crackpot. Nonetheless by chance, luck, and force of will, he succeeded in creating a religion based on submission to his version of God—or be destroyed if you don’t. As shown in the book, from day one, violence and crime have been the way of Muhammadism. Now those of us living today are left to contend with what this sociopath created.The writing is succinct, easy to read, and unbiased. Muhammad’s family background is described, as is everything about his life, from birth to death. If you’re interested in learning the truth about Islam and its founder, this is the book to read.

This is a useful book that could be much better. It needs professional editing. I didn't count but there were at least a dozen typos. It is also repetitive, with some ideas coming up again and again. For example, the author, trying to describe Muhammad's sadistic, angry nature, says that inside him was a "magma chamber of hate." That's pretty expressive, although I would guess that only a small percentage of general readers even know what magma is. But then the author repeats the magma idea five more times in the book, and each repetition dilutes the image. There are problems with tone of voice. Though mostly written in standard academic/historical prose, there are occasional lapses, such as "Muhammad was in a totally pissed mood." I read a lot of crime fiction/noir where words like 'pissed' are common, but they are jarring in this kind of book, which suggests that the author is unsure of his audience. There is too much amateur psychoanalysis, always given away by phrases such as, "surely Muhammad must have been thinking," or "Muhammad must have felt..." The facts of Muhammad's life, recorded by his own followers, are stark enough, and disgraceful enough, that it is not necessary to attempt mindreading. His words and actions are enough for an indictment. A good editor could shrink this book at least 10%.Even as it is, though, the book is a powerful biography of Muhammad and there are passages of very fine writing. Robert Spencer's "The Truth About Muhammad," covers much of the same material in one third the length, but I'm glad that I read Burleigh's version. Muhammad is more alive, more memorable in this book and he is even more distasteful, which I wouldn't have thought possible. And Burleigh deserves one further kudo; he had the guts to commission more than a dozen drawings, many of which show Muhammad. That alone is enough to put him on the death list of the jihadists. More authors should have that kind of courage. I've read at least 50 books about Islam, Muhammad, terrorism, Arab culture, etc. and this is one of the better ones. I'm glad I read it. Four stars.