Muhammad at Medina


Muhammad at Medina is a book about early Islam written by the non-Muslim Islamic scholar W. Montgomery Watt. Published at 418 pages by Oxford University Press in 1956, it is the sequel to Watt's 1953 volume, Muhammad at Mecca.
Together these two scholarly books form "a history of the life of Muhammad and the origins of the Islamic community," specifically his life in Medina. Watt also states in the 1955 "Preface" that his fourth and fifth chapters here are a pioneering effort, and therefore required greater length than otherwise warranted. The work is the fruit of his examination of the early Arabic sources, and a vast mass of scholarly discussion. To these Watt brought a new perspective, and attempted to answer many questions that had hardly been raised before.
Several years later, Oxford University published another, third book by Watt about the life of Muhammad, an abridgement which was intended for a more general readership, Muhammad Prophet and Statesman.

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