'Muhammad: Forty Introductions' Isn't Setting Out To Satisfy
Michael Muhammad Knight's new book on the religious figure is designed to seduce, educate, and irritate its audience into curiosity about Islam and Muhammad — and on all three fronts it succeeds.
Michael Muhammad Knight's Muhammad: Forty Introductions asks two questions at the same time — or asks the same two questions 40 times.
One is explicit: How should we think about the prophet Muhammad? The other is implicit, but barely. How, Knight asks in each chapter, should I write an introduction? Or how do I decide where to start? How do I decide who to be?
That question is key to Knight's work. A convert to Islam, he has long written from — and for — the social and scholarly margins. His literary debut, a self-published punk, has become a cult classic. He's now a scholar and professor, and has written nonfiction about the Five-Percent Nation, Salafism, and meeting Muhammad's daughter while tripping on ayahuasca.
