Boreal

From Merchant to Messenger

The Prophet Muhammad's struggle for legitimacy as revealed in the Koran

Introduction to the Second Edition

The Second Edition improves on the presentation and corrects a few non-earth-shattering typos, as can be expected from any manual transcription of thousands of revelations (including verses in the other five books in this series). Majid Fakhry’s ground-breaking translation, from which The Koran Six is derived, was not available in electronic format when the legacy edition of Pain Pleasure and Prejudice was first published.

In this addition, I have included a chapter of only hadiths, with some references to Koranic text about the Prophet’s passing, which some may consider out of place in a book about “Muhammad's struggle for legitimacy as revealed in the Koran.”

Also, since the last edition, new evidence has been published surrounding the death of Muhammad. I have summarised some of the findings of Tunisian University Professor Hela Ouardi, author of Les Derniers Jours de Muhammad (The Last Days of Muhammad), Albin Michel, 2016, and that of Professor of Religious Studies at Oregon State University, Stephen J. Shoemaker, author of The Death of a Prophet - The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) in a closing chapter.

Finally, the Afterword aims to sum it all up and asks my Muslim readers to believe their own eyes.