Book explores the life of Islam's founder

As director of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative at Brigham Young University, Daniel Peterson has overseen the translation of many documents from Arabic to English, providing Western scholars with a rich new library of research materials that were previously inaccessible.

Now he's written a book designed to help Western laymen understand the founder of Islam, free from the cynical characterizations that have grown up around Muhammad among some in Christianity and Judaism. That is according to Muslim scholars who have praised the book as "the best scholarly text on the prophet Muhammad written by a Christian."

"Muhammad: Prophet of God," published earlier this year by Eerdmans Publishing, provides a narrative of Muhammad's life that weaves his revelations, his inspiration and his personal relationships together in "a clear, fluid style that makes it suitable for both scholars and nonscholars," according to Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University.

Discussion about the book is particularly fitting this weekend, which is the Muslim holiday of Lailat Isra and Miraj, marking Muhammad's journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and his ascension into heaven.

Peterson said he decided the book was necessary because "the level of ignorance of people in the West about Islam is stunning." In his public lectures — particularly since 9/11 — he frequently asks whether Muhammad lived before or after Christ, and few are able to tell him.

Yet he finds the recent interest in Islam encouraging, as long as it's responsible. After 9/11, he said he visited Christian bookstores to see what kinds of books were being published about Islam and was largely dismayed at what he found, much of it the same type of hateful rhetoric that has traditionally been directed toward the LDS Church.

"Sometimes it was those same anti-Mormon people doing the writing, and it's just horrible stuff," he said, noting such books often outsell the reputable academic books on the subject.

For scholars who know anything about Islam, such books are "beneath their dignity to even respond to," he said. But such avoidance leads to acceptance, and that was something Peterson said he wasn't comfortable staying silent about. "I think it's a moral responsibility" to correct mischaracterizations. "If you deal in a field where there are public issues and you are silent when the misinformation is permeating the culture," that's irresponsible, he said.

He's collected from 30-40 books that provide blatant misinterpretation of Islam and is looking to counter those characterizations at every turn, he said.