British-born and of Jewish origin, renowned author Lesley Hazleton traces history through exceptionally empathetic biographies of religious figures.
She has worked as a veteran Middle East journalist and authored books such as After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split, which was the finalist of the 2010 PEN-USA book award, The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad , (New York Times Editors’ Choice) and a range of other books such as Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography which won the 2005 Washington Book Award and Jerusalem, Jerusalem: A Memoir of War and Peace, Passion and Politics which was honoured with the 1987 American Jewish Committee/Present Tense Book Award)
This article is inspired and based on a talk given by her in 2017 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI) on the topic‘Getting Muhammad Right and Wrong,’where she spoke of her research on the life of Muhammad for her book ‘The first Muslim’ which was published in 2013.
Having then written extensively locally and internationally on her lecture and the book itself, I nevertheless thought that it would be apt to look once again at the relevance of such wisdom as spoken by Hazleton, at a time when Islam remains misunderstood across the world. The threat of terrorism that justifies killing fellow humans, as well as Islamophobia, is both based on the intensely misinterpreted version of Islam. To use Islam for terrorism under the ruse of pleasing the Almighty *(Allah) or attaining Firdous(paradise) is blasphemy by itself as the very word ‘Islam’ can be translated as‘peace.’
It is indeed a pity that in our polarised world that few read books by religious historians such as Lesley Hazleton and Karen Armstrong who bring to life the origins of religions, prophets, and sages, researched from various dimensions such as culture, politics, history, anthropology and psychology, doing away with prejudice and narrow agendas.
The dominant objective of writers such as these is contributing to world peace by creating a reading, thinking, understanding adult public.
A psychologist by training Hazleton attempts to understand the historical backdrop and how the events and circumstances shaped historical religious figures.
“I do not believe. I do not disbelieve,” she said after her lecture ‘Getting Muhammad right and wrong’ when questioned as to her belief on the revelations of Prophet Muhammad. Her response is the same when it comes to all forms of dogmatic faith.
Story of Muhammad
In her talk, she shared the trepidation she felt when sitting down to write a biography of Prophet Muhammad, The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad. The book was published in 2013 after she finally achieved the feat of not listening to well meaning friends who were dumping buckets of fear on her.
There was the fear of fatwas that came from her non-Muslim circle who warned her against the project. The fear from her Muslim friends was that she might inadvertently offend the Islamic sentiments in her writings.
Ten years after, the book is still a bestseller and except for a handful of fundamentalists from all spheres, it has offended none. Instead, the book has greatly contributed to both Muslim and non Muslims understanding holistically a man who is seen mostly as an enigma.
“I could understand the concern of my friends for me as I planned to delve deep into the life of the revered prophet of Islam, but I reassured them that my intentions were in good faith. I also told them that I could not start the project with them breathing over my neck,” Hazleton said.
The book was written in Seattle in a houseboat.
“As I sat down to read all that was written before on the life of the Prophet I was fascinated,” she said, adding that she was also surprised that much of the earlier writings on the life of Prophet were dry and academic.
She emphasised the point that Muhammad was an orphan.
The following as quoted is Hazelton’s narration on how she understood Prophet Muhammad.
“Here is a boy whose father died before he was born, who was adopted for five years by a Bedouin woman and who was so poor that he worked as a camel boy in a caravan.”
“He was an orphan after his mother died when he was still at a young age. He resolutely worked hard up the social mobility ladder till he was a reputed member of society as existed at the time”.
Hazelton said that she was fascinated by the love that existed between Prophet Muhammad and his first wife, an older woman who proposed to him. “It was she who he came to when he had the first spiritual revelation.”
Core teaching
The most important point made by Hazleton was on how Muhammad is grossly misunderstood so as to completely ignore the fact that he attempted at all times to avoid violence.
“He was opposed soon after he began sharing his teachings and left Mecca to Medina and remained in exile for 12 years. When he returned on a negotiated settlement he had to face opposition, from the same kind of people who are going about acts of terror today in the name of Islam.”
It was explained that the teachings of Muhammad were mostly in response to the questions that were put to him by those who wanted clarification on tribal customs of the time, such as stoning for offences.
Prophet Muhammad as projected by Hazleton is of one who attempted progressive social reform to discourage taking another’s life as far as possible.
“When asked if disbelievers could be killed, his response was: “Only if they attack first and only if there is no other way to solve the issue.” As pointed out by Hazleton, there were in fact so many conditions put by Prophet Muhammad that in the end it boils down to ‘don’t,’ because realistically it would be impossible to fulfill all the prescribed conditions.
A strong factor of Hazleton’s writings is the explanations of the tribal socio cultural backdrop that existed at the time, taking her reader with consummate skill, to the mind of the man who would have struggled with opposition as he attempted to dissuade killing, revenge and violence by proposing so many possibilities of peace before counter attack could be carried out, as a very last resort.
As Hazleton highlighted, ‘Ponder’ and ‘Consider’ are two key words that appear consistently in his teachings.
Human goodness
Given the fact that being born into a religion and having a self-pontificating ‘belief’ in ‘God’, ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ or whatever creed makes a mockery of religion unless we attempt to ponder, consider and practise the actions in reaching a higher aspect of our human goodness as preached by Prophet Muhammad and other religious founders, the need for correct interpretation of scriptures in general is a dire need.
Writers such as Hazleton, by distancing themselves from adhering to any religious doctrine in particular, including the one into which they accidentally fell into, through the chance of birth, hold hope for a thinking world, where those who want to follow a particular faith would do so in peace and others who wish to be non-labelled, learn from all faiths to achieve the objective of living a compassionate and fruitful life.
Her public discussion of 2017 in Colombo, was facilitated by the Compassionate Initiative founded by philanthropist Hanif Yusoof.
Given the fact that sensible comprehension of the philosophy given by great men such as Muhammad require stamina of the mind, broad reading, wisdom in unravelling and tolerance in acknowledging and growing in acceptance of dissent and opposing views, it is thereby hoped that initiatives such as the Compassionate Initiative will continue not only in Sri Lanka and South Asia but also globally to kill the disease of ignorance and wrong understanding that is the widest sweeping pandemic in the world.