BOOK LAUNCH REVIEW DISCUSSION: THE WARRIOR PROPHET – MUHAMMAD ﷺ & WAR
244 Acklam Road, London W10 5YG, United Kingdom
Description
Book launch review discussion on ‘The Warrior Prophet – Muhammad ﷺ & War’ with author Professor Joel Hayward
About this event
Organised by Islamic Courses with the Al Manaar | The Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre
BOOK REVIEW AND DISCUSSION: THE WARRIOR PROPHET: MUHAMMAD ﷺ AND WAR
with author : Professor Joel Hayward [Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College, UK]*
Host Chair : Paul Williams [Blogging Theology, UK]*
Given the Prophet Muhammad’sﷺ immense impact on history, surprisingly few books specifically analyze his understanding and employment of warfare as an economically, politically and socially transformational process, even though he was continuously at war for a decade and initiated around eighty armed missions, twenty-seven of which he led himself. Most Islamic biographies deal with this issue by using an understandable but insufficient logic: that because Muhammadﷺ, as the Messenger of Allah, was the ideal and paradigmatic human, he must have been an ideal and paradigmatic military commander. His successes flowed from his prophetic status and his moral perfection. Following this logic and wanting Muhammad’sﷺ behavior to conform to very modern ethical concepts and widespread (but not necessarily accurate) beliefs about the nature and conduct of war, the writers have inadvertently created a narrative which, in significant ways, departs from the account clearly and consistently revealed in the earliest extant Arabic sources. The writers’ narrative also removes the Prophetﷺ from his historical and cultural context and the realities of the harsh and competitive tribal society in which he lived.
Professor Joel Hayward sees this as an unhelpful explanatory tendency and believes that the modern depiction of the Prophet’sﷺ relationship with warfare — which presents him as being rather antipathetic to war, indeed as virtually a pacifist who only fought reluctantly in self-defense — cannot actually be sustained by an even-handed analysis of the early Islamic sources. A committed Muslim himself, Hayward agrees that Muhammadﷺ was a moral and decent man who saw peace as a highly desirable state in which humans should live and as a goal worth pursuing. Yet Hayward has approached the Prophet’sﷺ understanding and employment of warfare from a different vantage point. He has painstakingly scrutinized the earliest Arabic sources impartially according to the strict standards of historical inquiry in order to ascertain whether Muhammad’sﷺ actions, habits and methods can — when understood within their original seventh-century stateless Arabian context — provide any substantial and meaningful insights into the way that he understood and undertook warfare.
Hayward concludes that Muhammadﷺ was an astute, situationally aware and self-reflective man who created and communicated a believable strategic vision of a necessary and desirable future. That vision persuaded increasing numbers of people to follow him and risk everything willingly in the struggle to create the optimal conditions for their survival, security, and prosperity. In a competitive and conflictual environment with ubiquitous threats, warfare was necessary to make real the bold new world that he foresaw. Through original, meticulously researched and rigorous analysis, Haywardﷺ covers all the raids and campaigns and demonstrates that Muhammadﷺ correctly understood the necessity and utility of force and duly developed into an intuitive, effective and victorious military practitioner who developed and enforced a strict moral code so as to attain his goals whilst safeguarding the innocent. This engaging, accessible yet deeply scholarly book makes a major contribution to strategic and military analysis and to the Prophet’sﷺ biography.
About the author: Professor Joel Hayward is Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College. The daily newspaper Al Khaleej called him “a world authority on international conflict and strategy”. The National newspaper called him a “distinguished historian of warfare and military strategy”. Kirkus Reviews said that he “is undeniably one of academia’s most visible Islamic thinkers”. He is listed in the 2023 edition of The Muslim 500 as one of “the world’s five hundred most influential Muslims”. Hayward has earned ijazāt (teaching authorizations) in several Islamic sciences. ʿAqīdah (Islamic theology) and Sīrah (the Prophet’s biography) are his main interests. He has held various academic leadership posts, including Director of the Institute for International and Civil Security at Khalifa University (UAE), Chair of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (also at Khalifa University), Head of Air Power Studies at King’s College London, and Dean of the Royal Air Force College (both UK). He is the author or editor of eighteen books and major monographs and dozens of peer-reviewed articles, mainly in the fields of strategic studies, the Islamic ethics of war and conflict, and both Islamic and western history. His recent books include Warfare in the Qurʾān (2012), War is Deceit: An Analysis of a Contentious Hadith on the Morality of Military Deception (2017), Civilian Immunity in Foundational Islamic Strategic Thought: A Historical Enquiry (2019), and The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction. The latter won the prestigious prize of “Best International Non-Fiction Book” at the 2021 Sharjah International Book Awards. His newest book is The Warrior Prophet: Muhammad and War (2022), which has received widespread praise from reviewers. Professor Hayward has given strategic advice to political and military leaders in several countries, has given policy advice to prominent sheikhs, and was tutor to His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales, the heir apparent to the British throne. In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and in 2012 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 2016, he was named as the “Best Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences” at the Middle East Education Leadership Awards. Professor Hayward is also active in the literary arts and has published three books of fiction and four collections of Islamic poetry.
About chair: Paul Williams [Blogging Theology – bloggingtheology.com ] is host of the Blogging Theology channel, one of the world’s most popular YouTube channels discussing comparative religion by introducing some academic and scholarly content to the subject matter, especially concerning the Abrahamic faiths Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is a blogger and bibliophile based in London and the South of France and now teaches at the Ebrahim College.
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ALL WELCOME – FREE ENTRANCE! PRE-REGISTRATION ONLY!
Copies of the book will be available for sale for purchase and book signing by author.
PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE from Claritas Books:
https://www.claritasbooks.com/books/the-warrior-prophet-muhammad-war
DEADLINE FOR BOOKINGs APPLY after which registrations will close!
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Friday, November 3, 2023