Iran publishes Iranologist Schimmel’s “Muhammad (S)” in Arabic

The book has come out by the Al-Hoda Publications affiliated to the Iran’s Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO).

Using original sources in the various Islamic languages, Schimmel explains the central place of Muhammad (S) in Muslim life, mystical thought, and poetry.

She sees the veneration of Muhammad (S) as having many parallels in other major religions.

To understand Muslims’ piety, it is necessary to take into account the long history of the veneration of the Prophet (S), the author says.

Schimmel discusses aspects of his life, birth, marriage, miracles, and heavenly journey, all of which became subjects for religious devotions.

The Islam expert shows the readers the gentler side of Islamic religious culture, providing a much-needed understanding of religion as it is experienced and practiced in the Islamic world by using poetic texts and artistic expressions and by examining daily Muslim religious practices.

The important role of the Prophet Muhammad (S) in the everyday lives of Muslims is usually overlooked by Western scholars and has consequently never been understood by the Western world.

This is the first book in English to deal with all aspects of the veneration of the Prophet Muhammad (S). It is an expanded version of Schimmel's “Und Muhammad Ist Sein Prophet”, originally published in German in 1981.

Schimmel (1922-2003) was a well known and very influential German Iranologist and scholar who wrote extensively on Islam and Sufism.

She received a doctorate in Islamic languages and civilization from the University of Berlin at the age of nineteen.

At twenty-three, she became a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Marburg (Germany), where she earned a second doctorate in the history of religions.

NM/KK

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MNA