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AFTER THE PROPHET

The epic story of the shia-sunni split in islam.

by Lesley Hazleton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2009

A literate, evenhanded account of a long-ago religious conflict that continues to play out—and shape history—today.

A just-so story about the profound—often fatally so—differences between the two chief divisions of Islam.

The Sunni-Shia divide is wider than the gulf between Catholicism and Protestantism. Its origins, writes Middle East journalist Hazleton ( Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen , 2007, etc.), lie in the unfortunate fact that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was mortal. At 63 years of age, after many battles and grievous wounds, he died of fever. “It might all have been simple enough if Muhammad had had sons,” writes Hazleton. He did not, however, and a rift soon divided the Islamic world. Who would succeed him? Some believed that the job should fall to the family of his favorite wife, Aisha, others to his son-in-law, Ali. The argument, on a scholarly front, took on angels-on-pinheads dimensions, as imams pondered whether Muhammad, had he chosen Ali, would have ushered in a “form of hereditary monarchy.” Many asserted that Muhammad intended some sort of democracy, or at least meritocracy, in the governance of Islam. All the disputations came to a head with the assassination of Ali, who had claimed the caliphate, and subsequent Battle of Karbala, in Iraq, where Ali’s son Hussein was killed. The supporters of Ali, or Shiat Ali, thereafter were ever more a minority party within the larger sphere of Islam, though dominant in countries such as Iran and, at times, Iraq. This story is well known to readers with any background at all in Islam, for whom the book will be superfluous. However, given that few Western readers, it seems, have much of that background, Hazleton’s storytelling approach to the schism will be welcome. She writes fluidly, sometimes in prose reminiscent of Charles Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta : “The air was dense and moist instead of bracingly dry, the blue of the sky pale with humidity. They had followed Aisha only to find themselves out of place, disoriented.”

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-385-52393-6

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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BOOK REVIEW

by Lesley Hazleton

THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

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by Robert Greene

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BOOK TO SCREEN

THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

And other essays.

by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955

This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955

ISBN: 0679733736

Page Count: 228

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955

More by Albert Camus

by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith

by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien

by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan

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After the Prophet – Book Review and Critique

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After the Prophet – Book Review

Lesley Hazelton’s After the Prophet has amassed incredible readership and admiration due to its ambitious attempt to encapsulate the Shia-Sunni rift, its reasons, and implications. While some may find her work impressive, a deeper critique reveals how history was not treated as history in the book.

About the Writer

Lesley Hazleton, famous for her work “After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia‑Sunni Split in Islam” is a British-American writer. Hazelton specializes in the realm of politics, religion, and the connection between the two. Born in England, 1945, Hazleton is an award-winner author who has a range of well-known books under her name, one of which is The First Muslim. 

Her works regarding Islam have gained popularity and have also aroused curiosity regarding her own faith. While writing on the mother of Jesus (AS), she questions herself how dare she imagine Mary’s life. And she described herself in a reply saying: “Perhaps my own biography is what gives me license: as a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion.” On one occasion, she put it in the following words: “Everything is a paradox. The danger is one-dimensional thinking.”

After the Prophet – More of a Novel Than a Narrative History

The book seems more like a novel than a historic document, or even a narrative history. Hazelton treated historic characters as they came out from the “Epic”. In Epic, the characters have no historic background and the writer creates them the way they want. 

She seems very certain about the thoughts of people who lived 1400 years ago. The very beginning of chapter one is:

“If there was a single moment it all began, it was that of Muhammad’s death. Even the Prophet was mortal. That was the problem. It was as though nobody had considered the possibility that he might die, not even Muhammad himself.”

Saying that Muhammad (PBUH) didn’t see his death coming is a personal opinion and a catchy statement contradicting the Quran; the one book on which all factions of Islam agree. 

Quran [3:185]: “Every soul will taste death.”

Quran [3:144]: “Muhammad is but a messenger, there have been messengers before him. So, if he dies or is killed, would you turn back on your heels?”

Where Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said in the same year of his death: “I am leaving behind two things: the Book of Allah and the Sunnat.” (Mustadrak Hakim) [“Ahl e Bait” instead of “Sunnat” in some versions]

And few pages later, contradicting her above stance; she writes: “It is clear that Muhammad knew he would die, if not quite yet.” The beginning of the book dramatically addresses the 2004 Karbala blasts and then the story jumps 1400 years back. Such a shift of timeline also suggests that the book is written in a Novel-like format. 

The book covers the death of Muhammad (PBUH) in detail and conveys the behavior of his family and companions during his illness. Hadith of pen and paper scenario is discussed. She states the tale of the necklace and how it caused stigma between the Shia and Sunni factions.

Hazelton shared her view that if there was a single person who seemed destined to be Muhammad’s successor then he would be Ali (AS). The book discusses the era of Caliphs, especially the era of Ali (AS). The barking of dogs at Hawa’b and the aftermath of “Battle of Camel” along with the battle of Siffin, Nahrawan, and its implications are discussed. And lastly, the heart-wrenching event of Karbala and Imam Hussein (AS) is discussed. 

A Symbolic Work – Reviews and Opinions

“A remarkable and respectful telling of the story of Islam–a tale of power, intrigue, rivalry, jealousy, assassination, manipulation, greed, and faith that would have made Machiavelli shudder (had he read it), but above all it is a very human story, told in a wonderfully novelistic style that puts most other, often dreary, explanations of the Shia-Sunni divide to shame.”  – Hooman Majd

“A page-turner that reads like an incredible cross between a suspense thriller and a fairy tale. All the elements of a fantastic story are here: intense spirituality; murder, violence, and bloodshed; dynastic power struggles, poison, and atrocities; wife murdering husband; slave killing caliph; inspiring heroes; dastardly villains; heresy and apostasy. The implications of [After the Prophet] are huge. – The Free Lance-Star

“Hazleton succeeds in bringing out the truly epic character of the Shia-Sunni split, telling the story with great empathy.” – Madelung

“Hazleton not only recounts the facts behind the split but also expertly uses centuries-old accounts to convey the depth of emotional and spiritual associations bundled within a simple word like ‘Karbala. – The Seattle Times

Was the writer biased?

There is no question of the writer being biased or not. In its essence, the book is still technically recognized as a narrative history. The story is the writer’s point of view and a venture to understand the long-going conflict between the Shias and the Sunnis. 

Is the storyline credible?

The biggest flaw of the book is its novel-like treatment. In a novel, a story is usually intense where the case is not the same for history. History often has multiple versions, and a novel with a strong timeline can’t grasp every aspect. 

While praising Tabari , Hazelton wrote:

“Al-Tabari understood that human truth is always flawed – that realities are multiple and that everyone has some degree of bias. The closest one might come to objectivity would be in the aggregate, which is why he so often concludes a disputed episode with that time-honored phrase, Only God knows for sure.”

Ironically, Hazelton forgot that the “realities are multiple” while narrating and setting one-timeline. She has also cited multiple sources but most major events are narrated without multiple references. 

Other Books like “After the Prophet”

• The Succession to Muhammad (Wilferd Madelung)
• Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Martin Lings)
• The First Muslim: The story of Muhammad (Lesley Hazleton)
• Islam: A Short History (Karen Armstrong)
• The crisis of the early caliphate (Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari)

Hussain Saeed

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Book Review: After The Prophet – The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split by Lesley Hazleton

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Editor’s note: all pull quotes are directly from the book

Before it was just plain ‘Muslim’, but we now live in era where the words ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’ are bombarded at us from every direction, whether we belong to the religion of Islam or not. The lay person is now asking what the difference is and why they seem to be at war with each other. Those of us who have grown up in the faith or are a part of the faith are well aware of the differences between both sects. However, when explaining these issues to the people asking the questions, many just don’t understand how events in the past could lead to what is going on today.

They told different versions of the same story, disagreeing not on what had taken place in the seventh century but on what it meant. Advertise on TMV

Enter Lesley Hazleton’s book, which aims to provide a purely historical context, sprinkled with some theology, on the root cause of the schism between Sunni and Shia and how it permeates the whole world. It is imperative for the readers of this book to remember this isn’t a polemical discussion attempting to persuade you one side is correct. Whether you are a Muslim or not, the book is a pure historical narrative of what happened after the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Hazleton empathises with how muddy this topic can be due to the fact that both schools of thought affirm/deny certain historical events but does her best to bring both sides together. Predominantly though, these are her conclusions on this part of history.

Let us first get one thing straight – if you are a Sunni or Shia Muslim, there will be plenty of parts of the book you will not agree with, be it the claims it makes about the Islamic history or theology of each group (e.g. the Sunni reader may not welcome how Hazleton narrates the ‘Incident of the Door’; the Shia reader may not take kindly to how Hazleton claims Imam Hassan (peace be upon him) could not forgive Imam Ali (peace be upon him) for betraying his principles by warring at Siffin). That said, Hazleton has clearly done her research, as the bibliography indicates, and uses a breadth of credible sources in her writing. One should not have any qualms in using this book as an academic source because it is excellently referenced.

The book is split into three chapters named simply after the three primary figures the Shia-Sunni split revolves around:

1. Muhammad 2. Ali 3. Hussein

Interestingly, and maybe controversially, the common theme running through each of the chapters is Ayesha, one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), who Hazleton seems to be completely fascinated with. Hazleton is able to really explore the psychology of Ayesha and gives an excellent insight into her character and her controversial actions. The same in-depth analysis is also given to Muawiyah where the reader is able to really understand his cunning nature and ongoing feud with Imam Ali (peace be upon him).

“Charming she must have been, and sassy she definitely was. Sometimes, though, the charm wears thin, at least to the modern ear. The stories Aisha later told of her marriage were intended to show her influence and spiritedness, but there is often a definite edge to them, a sense of a young woman not to be crossed or denied” Advertise on TMV

The beauty of the book lies in how Hazleton is able to transport the reader to this epoch of Islam. She writes in such a way where you feel you are standing in the middle of each pivotal event of Islam and experiencing them using all five senses. The way she describes the ‘Pen & Paper Incident’, the reader feels they are standing next to the bed of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) witnessing the heated argument. When she describes the ‘Battle of the Camel’, one feels they are on the battlefield witnessing the turmoil of Muslims at war with each other.

The strongest aspect of the book may be seen as its downfall by some (Shia Muslims in particular). Many traditional Shia Muslims have been raised to believe the family of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them all) were these celestial beings on earth who always performed miracles and were ‘superhuman’. Although this may not be entirely inaccurate, such people may find it uncomfortable reading to see the family of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them all) portrayed simply as human beings with emotions, desires and feelings like us, rather than on a lofty pedestal. Yes, they are acknowledged as having excellent morals and principles but are ultimately flawed heroes. Although Shias should reject such a take on the family of the Prophet (peace be upon them) it is still absolutely fascinating to see them portrayed as ‘humans’ as it is a perspective that is neglected in Muslim circles.

“Yet it is also an altogether human scene. Everyone so concerned, everyone crowded around, trying to protect Muhammad from the importuning of others, to ease life for a mortally ill man. They were all, it seemed, doing their best. But as their voices rose in debate over the pros and cons of calling for pen and paper, the terrible sensitivity to noise overtook Muhammad again.”

Lesley Hazleton may not be a Muslim but she is well qualified to write this book when looking at her credentials and her wonderful talks on various platforms where she discusses Islam ; in the book she mentions narrations and traditions that Muslims may not have heard of before, so even those who think they know all there is to know about the Shia-Sunni split will learn something new. One really hopes that Muslims who read this book do not reduce its validity because it was written by a non-Muslim; she demonstrates more knowledge than many Muslims.

“If Ali was the foundation figure of Shia Islam, Hussein was to become its sacrificial icon. The story of what happened to him once he reached Iraq would become the Passion story of Shiism—its emotional and spiritual core.”

What is amazing is how she ‘gets’ it. She ‘gets’ why events 1400 years ago are still shaping the actions of people today. She ‘gets’ the emotion underpinning the Shia-Sunni split whereas others brush it off as merely ‘history’ or ‘politics’. Perhaps, most importantly, she ‘gets’ Karbala. Her discussion on how Imam Hussain’s tragedy is used for internal and external revolution will have resonance with Shia readers; the book even opens with a narrative of the bomb-blast in Karbala in 2004 on the day of Ashura and later on she details the events of Ashura itself which will bring tears to the eyes of those who hold Imam Hussain dear to their hearts.

If you are a Muslim who is bored of the Shia-Sunni debate, it may refresh you after reading this from a unique perspective. If you are not a Muslim, it is an excellent starting point to understand the context of why certain events are taking place in the world today. However, it may be beneficial to then speak to members of the Sunni and Shia community to further expand on what is in the book. Excellently written with some striking quotables and vivid imagery, perhaps the book is not a ‘must-read’ but it certainly is one you should read.

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After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

"After the Prophet" links the personalities and events of the early days of Islam to the recent history of the Muslim world. Hazleton deftly spins a narrative that transported me back to in time to the Arabian peninsula in the 600's and introduced me to the main cast of characters in the story of Islam. She does a terrific job of rounding out each historical figure's personality and putting them in the context of their time. Hazleton also explains the ramifications of these ancient events on the dynamics of the Middle East in our own time. I particularly appreciated her explanation of why "The Satanic Verses" provoked such an acrimonious reaction in the Arab world.

The Islamic faith has a gripping origin story - one that isn't nearly well known enough in the West. Hazleton writes for a lay Western audience and I'd highly recommend "After the Prophet" to anyone seeking an intro to the history of Islam and the Middle East.

My highlights below:

Part One - Muhammad

It might all have been simple enough if Muhammad had had sons. Even one son. Though there was no strict custom of a leader’s power passing on to his firstborn son at death — he could always decide on a younger son or another close relative instead — the eldest son was traditionally the successor if there was no clear statement to the contrary. Muhammad, however, had neither sons nor a designated heir. He was dying intestate — abtar, in the Arabic, meaning literally curtailed, cut off, severed. Without male offspring.

If a son had existed, perhaps the whole history of Islam would have been different. The discord, the civil war, the rival caliphates, the split between Sunni and Shia — all might have been averted. But though Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, had given birth to two sons alongside four daughters, both had died in infancy, and though Muhammad had married nine more wives after her death, not one had become pregnant .

Most of Muhammad’s wives after Khadija did indeed have children, but not by him. With the sole exception of the youngest, Aisha, they were divorcées or widows, and their children were by previous husbands. There was nothing unusual in this. Wealthy men could have up to four wives at the same time, with Muhammad allowed more in order to meet that need for political alliance, but women also often had two, three, or even four husbands. The difference was that where the men had many wives simultaneously, the women married serially, either because of divorce — women divorced as easily as men at the time — or because their previous husbands had died, often in battle.

The Quraysh were merchant traders, their city a central point on the north-south trade route that ran the length of western Arabia. It had become so central less because of any geographical advantage — if anything, it involved a slight detour—than because it was home to the Kaaba. This cube-shaped shrine housed numerous regional deities, many of them said to be offspring of a higher, more remote deity known simply as Allah, “the God.” Mecca was thus a major pilgrimage center, and since intertribal rivalries were suspended within its walls during pilgrimage months, it also provided a safe venue for large trading fairs.

The poor, the orphaned, the enslaved — all were equal in the eyes of God, Muhammad taught. What tribe you were born to, what clan within that tribe, what household within that clan — none of this mattered. No one group had the right to raise itself up above others. To be Muslim — literally to submit yourself to God’s will — was to forsake all the old divisiveness. It meant no more tribe against tribe or rich against poor. They were one people, one community, bound together in the simple but stunning acknowledgment that there was no god but God. It was an egalitarian message, as revolutionary in its time and place as that of an earlier prophet in first-century Palestine. And to those who controlled the city’s wealth, it was downright subversive, a direct challenge to the status quo of power.

The year of his nighttime flight for refuge — the hijra, or emigration — would become the foundation year of the Islamic calendar: 622 A.D., or the year One A.H., After the Hijra.

As the old Arabic saying has it, “Only God knows for sure.”

Sunni scholars would argue in centuries to come that Muhammad had such faith in the goodwill and integrity of all Muslims that he trusted to them, and to God, to ensure that the right decision be made. He saw the community itself as sacred, these scholars would argue, meaning that any decision it made would be the correct one. But Shia scholars would maintain that Muhammad had long before made the divinely guided choice of his closest male relative — his son-in-law Ali — as his successor. He had done so many times, in public, they would say, and if Ali’s enemies had not thwarted the Prophet’s will, he would certainly have done so again, one last time, as he lay dying in that small chamber alongside the mosque.

Perhaps she was right, and it’s enough to know that it was the kind of necklace a young girl would wear, and treasure more than if it had been made of diamonds because it had been Muhammad’s gift to her on her wedding day. Its loss and the ensuing scandal would be known as the Affair of the Necklace, the kind of folksy title that speaks of oral history, which is how all history began before the age of the printing press and mass literacy. The People of the Cloak, the Episode of Pen and Paper, the Battle of the Camel, the Secret Letter, the Night of Shrieking — all these and more would be the building blocks of early Islamic history.

This was the raw material of the early Islamic historians, who would travel throughout the Middle East to gather these memories, taking great care to record the source of each one by detailing the chain of communication. The isnad, they called it — the provenance of each memory — given up front by prefacing each speaker’s account in the manner of “I was told this by C, who was told it by B, who was told it by A, who was there when it happened.”

Al-Tabari was Sunni, but his vast history is acknowledged as authoritative by Sunni and Shia alike. Its length and detail are part and parcel of his method. He visits the same events again and again, almost obsessively, as different people tell their versions, and the differing versions overlap and diverge in what now seems astonishingly postmodern fashion. Al-Tabari understood that human truth is always flawed — that realities are multiple and that everyone has some degree of bias. The closest one might come to objectivity would be in the aggregate, which is why he so often concludes a disputed episode with that time-honored phrase “Only God knows for sure."

Muhammad had been placed in a double bind. If he divorced Aisha, he would by implication be acknowledging that he had been deceived. If he took her back, he risked being seen as a doting old man bamboozled by a mere slip of a girl. Either way, it would erode not only his own authority as the leader of Medina but the authority of Islam itself. Incredible as it seemed, the future of the new faith seemed to hang on a teenage girl’s reputation.

Ali had been the first man to accept the new faith of Islam. He’d been only thirteen years old at the time, yet he’d remember it with the kind of absolute clarity that marks the most momentous points of one’s life. It had happened just after Muhammad’s first soul-shaking encounter with the angel Gabriel. Still caught up in the utter terror of a human who had come face-to-face with the divine, he had sought refuge in Khadija’s arms, and once she had reassured him — “This truly is an angel and not a devil, and you will be the prophet of this people” — he had called together his closest kinsmen and asked for their support. “Which of you will assist me in this cause?” he asked.

There is the sword for one thing. Sometimes slung over his back, sometimes laid across his lap, this sword was destined to become more famed throughout the Islamic world than King Arthur’s sword Excalibur ever would be in Christendom. Like Excalibur, it came with supernatural qualities, and it too had a name: Dhu’l Fikar, the “Split One,” which is why it is shown with a forked point, like a snake’s tongue. In fact it wasn’t the sword that was split but the flesh it came in contact with, so that the name more vividly translates as the Cleaver or the Splitter.

It had been Muhammad’s own sword, given by him to Ali — bequeathed, you might say. And after he had fought valiantly in battle with this sword, despite multiple wounds, Ali earned the best known of the many titles Muhammad would confer on him: Assad Allah, Lion of God . That is why he is often shown with a magnificently maned lion crouched at his feet, staring out at the viewer with the calm gaze of implacable strength.

It seems clear enough when told this way: not only the designation of Ali as Muhammad’s successor but also the first sign of what Islam would mean — the revolutionary upending of the traditional authority of father over son and by implication of the whole of the old established order.

For a wronged woman, there could have been no better outcome, yet the form of it would be cruelly turned around and used by conservative clerics in centuries to come to do the opposite of what Muhammad had originally intended: not to exonerate a woman but to blame her. The wording of his revelation would apply not only when adultery was suspected but also when there had been an accusation of rape. Unless a woman could produce four witnesses to her rape — a virtual impossibility — she would be considered guilty of slander and adultery, and punished accordingly. Aisha’s exoneration was destined to become the basis for the silencing, humiliation, and even execution of countless women after her.

There was another price too, though again, Aisha had no way of knowing the full extent of it. The sight of her riding into Medina on Safwan’s camel had branded itself into the collective memory of the oasis, and that was the last thing Muhammad needed. In due course, another Quranic revelation dictated that from now on, his wives were to be protected by a thin muslin curtain from the prying eyes of any men not their kin. And since curtains could work only indoors, they would soon shrink into a kind of minicurtain for outdoors: the veil.

They were about to be widowed, and widowed forever. They were fated, that is, to become professional widows. It was right there in the revelation that would be part of Sura 33 of the Quran. “The Prophet is closer to the Faithful than their own selves, and his wives are their mothers,” it said. “You must not speak ill of the Messenger of God, nor shall you ever wed his wives after him. This would surely be a great offense in the eyes of God.”

The Quran would be supplemented by the practice of Muhammad, his example in everything from the greatest events to the smallest details of everyday life, as related by those closest to him. The sunna, it would be called — the traditional Arabian word for the custom or tradition of one’s forefathers — and this was the word from which the Sunnis would eventually take their name, though the Shia would follow nearly all the same traditions.

They would quote a later tradition in which Muhammad said, “My community will never agree in error.” The Islamic community was sacred, that is, and thus by definition free of error. But in centuries to come, this statement came to serve as a self-fulfilling argument against the Shia. It would be taken to mean that any Muslims who disagreed with the Sunni majority could only be in error; the Shia, by force of their disagreement, were not part of the true community of Islam as defined by Sunnis.

For the Shia, it was not the community but the leadership that was sacred. The Sunnis had abrogated divinely ordained power by determining it among themselves, they would argue, and this usurpation of the divine had begun right there, in the first Islamic shura. The Prophet’s will had been clear: Ali was the only true, legitimate successor to the Prophet. To acclaim anyone else as Caliph was a betrayal not only of Muhammad but of Islam itself.

To choose Ali, another Hashimi, would be to risk turning the leadership of Islam into a form of hereditary monarchy, and that was the opposite of everything Muhammad had stood for. Leadership was not something to be inherited, like property. It had to be decided by merit, not by blood. This was what Muhammad had intended all along. This was why he had never formally declared an heir. He had faith in the people’s ability to decide for themselves, in the sanctity of the decision of the whole community.

Part Two - Ali

They had been disinherited, deprived of what they saw as their rightful place, the leadership of Islam. And this sense of disinheritance would sear deep into Shia hearts and minds, a wound that would fester through to the twentieth century, there to feed off opposition to Western colonialism and erupt first in the Iranian Revolution, then in civil war in Lebanon, and then, as the twenty-first century began, in the war in Iraq.

To add insult to the injury that had already been done her, Fatima would now lose the property she considered hers. Soon after her miscarriage, she sent a message to Abu Bakr asking for her share of her father’s estate — date palm orchards in the huge oases of Khaybar and Fadak to the north of Medina. His response left her dumbfounded. The Prophet’s estate belonged to the community, not to any individual, Abu Bakr replied. It was part of the Muslim charitable trust, to be administered by him as Caliph. He was not at liberty to give it away to individuals. “We do not have heirs,” he said Muhammad had told him. “Whatever we leave is alms.” Fatima had no alternative but to accept his word for it. Abu Bakr’s reputation for probity was beyond question, whatever her suspicions. Sunnis would later hail his stand as affirming the supremacy of the community over individual hereditary rights. “You are not the People of the House,” Abu Bakr seemed to be saying. “We are all the People of the House.” But the Shia would be convinced that Muhammad’s closest family had now been doubly disinherited, or cheated, as the poet would have it: Ali out of his inheritance of leadership, and Fatima out of her inheritance of property.

Yet no matter how many hadith would be attributed to Aisha — and there were thousands — the future would not be kind to her. As long as she lived, she was honored as the leading Mother of the Faithful, but in memory she was destined to remain an embattled symbol of slandered virtue. In later centuries, conservative clerics would point to her as an example of the division they claimed ensues when women enter public life, as Aisha would so disastrously when Ali finally became Caliph. Everything that makes her so interesting to the secular mind — her ambition, her outspokenness, her assertiveness — would work against her in the Islamic mind, even among Sunnis.

Abu Bakr declared that since the taxes belonged to Islam, to refuse them was an act of apostasy. And where grace could be extended to a nonbeliever, none could be offered an apostate, someone who had first accepted and then turned against the faith. Such a person was no longer protected by the Quranic ban on Muslims shedding the blood of Muslims. That was haram, taboo, in Islam. But since an apostate was to be considered an active enemy of Islam, to shed his blood was no longer taboo. It was now halal — permitted under Islamic law. This was to become a familiar argument, one made over time by Sunnis against Shia, by Shia against Sunnis, by extremists against moderates, by legalist clerics against Sufi mystics, and most notoriously perhaps, at least in the West, by the Ayatollah Khomeini against novelist Salman Rushdie . Declare your opponent an apostate, and as the Arabic phrasing goes, “his blood is halal.”

Hereditary monarchy lasted so long through history because it established a clear line of succession, avoiding the messy business of negotiation, the political maneuvering, the difficult, wearing process of the fragile thing we now know as democracy. But Islam was essentially egalitarian. As Abu Bakr himself had argued when he prevailed over the proponents of Ali, leadership, like prophecy, was not to be inherited. He was thus faced with the questions that still dog even the best intentions in the Middle East: How does one impose democracy? How can it work when there is no prior acceptance of the process, when there is no framework already in place?

In a move destined to be seen by the Shia as further evidence of collusion, the dying Abu Bakr appointed Omar the second Caliph.

The vast vine of marital alliance now reached across generations as well as political differences. Omar was the same generation as Muhammad yet had married his granddaughter. Ali, thirteen years younger than Omar, was now his father-in-law. And if Fatima turned in her modest grave at the idea of any daughter of hers being married to the man who had burst into her house and slammed her to the floor, that was the price of unity — that, and Omar’s settlement of a large part of Muhammad’s estates on Ali, exactly as Fatima had wanted.

The Arab conquest now began in earnest. Omar had taken Abu Bakr’s title of Deputy to Muhammad but added another one: Commander of the Faithful. And a superb commander he was. He lived rough and ready with his troops on campaign, sleeping wrapped in his cloak on the desert floor and leading his men into battle instead of ordering them from the rear, thus earning their absolute loyalty and respect. If he had a reputation for strictness and discipline, it was balanced by his insistence on justice. As part of his commitment to Islam, he would tolerate no favoritism, least of all for his own family. When one of his own sons appeared drunk in public, Omar ordered that the young man be given eighty lashes of the whip, and refused to mourn when he died as a result of the punishment.

And the timing was perfect. Just as Islam had come into being, a vast vacuum of power had been created. The two great empires that had controlled the Middle East — the Byzantines to the west and the Persians to the east — were fading fast, having worn each other out with constant warfare. The Persians could no longer even afford the upkeep on the vast irrigation systems fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. The Byzantines’ hold on Damascus and Jerusalem was tenuous at best. Both empires were collapsing from within, their power waning just as the Muslim nation was born, opening its eyes to what was practically an open invitation to enter and take over.

But there was another strong incentive to keep conversion to a minimum. Omar had set up the diwan, a system by which every Muslim received an annual stipend, much as citizens of the oil-rich Gulf state of Dubai do today. It followed that the fewer Muslims there were, the larger the stipends, and since the taxes that provided these stipends were no greater than those previously paid to the Byzantines and the Persians, there was at first little resistance to them. As in any change of regime today, when photographs of the old ruler suddenly come down off the walls and ones of the new ruler go up, most people made their accommodations with Arab rule. But not everyone.

How bitter must it have been to see the leadership withheld from him yet again? How patient could he be? How noble in the name of unity? In the blinding light of hindsight, Ali should surely have been more assertive and insisted on his right to rule. But then he would not have been the man he was, the man famed for his nobility, his grace and integrity — a man too honorable, it seemed, for the rough-and-tumble of politics.

His predecessor, Omar, had certainly foreseen it. When the spoils from the Persian court were sent to Medina, Omar had not smiled with satisfaction as all had hoped. Instead, he looked gravely at the piles of gold regalia, at the jewel - encrusted swords and the lavishly embroidered silks, and tears began to roll down his cheeks. “I weep,” he’d said, “because riches beget enmity and mutual bitterness.”

Muhammad had wrested control of Mecca from Othman’s Umayyad clan, but with one of their own now in the leadership of Islam, the Umayyads seized the chance to reassert themselves as the aristocracy, men of title and entitlement, and Othman seemed unable — or unwilling — to resist them. Nobody doubted his piety and devotion to Islam, but neither could anyone doubt his devotion to family. Top military positions, governorships, senior offices — all now went to Umayyads.

Under Abu Bakr and Omar, Muhammad’s ethic of simplicity and egalitarianism had prevailed, but now conspicuous consumption became the order of the day, exemplified in the extravagant new palace Othman had built in Medina, with enclosed gardens, marble columns, even imported food and chefs. Where both Abu Bakr and Omar had taken the relatively modest title of Deputy of Muhammad, Othman took a far more grandiose one. He insisted on being called the Deputy of God — the representative of God on earth — thus paving the way for the many future leaders all too eager to claim divine sanction for worldly power.

The ruling class of Mecca was back in control, and with a vengeance. There was no doubt as to who was drawing the milk, and the ones left holding the horns became increasingly outspoken as nepotism and corruption devolved into their inevitable correlates: wrongful expropriation, deportation, imprisonment, even execution. The most respected early companions of Muhammad began to speak out in protest, as did all five of the other men who had sat in caucus and elected Othman, and none more clearly than Ali.

One particular goat’s fart, however, would reach all the way to Medina when Walid appeared in the Kufa mosque flagrantly drunk and, in front of the assembled worshipers, vomited over the side of the pulpit. The Kufans sent a delegation to Medina to demand that he be recalled and publicly flogged, but Othman refused them point-blank. Worse, he threatened to punish them for daring to make such a demand, and when they then appealed to the leading Mother of the Faithful for support, he was heard to sneer in disdain: “Can the rebels and scoundrels of Iraq find no other refuge than the home of Aisha?”

The following Friday she stood up at the morning prayers, brandishing a sandal that had belonged to Muhammad. “See how this, the Prophet’s own sandal, has not yet even fallen apart?” she shouted at Othman in that high, piercing voice of hers. “This is how quickly you have forgotten the sunna, his practice!” How could Othman have underestimated her? But then whoever would have thought that a mere sandal could be used so effectively? As the whole mosque erupted in condemnation of the Caliph, people took off their own sandals and brandished them in Aisha’s support. A new propaganda tool had made its first powerful impression, one not lost on all the caliphs and shahs and sultans of centuries to come, who would produce inordinate numbers of ornately displayed relics of the Prophet — sandals, shirts, teeth, nail clippings, hair — to bolster their authority.

Under Omar, loyalty to the principles of Islam had trumped any loyalty to family — a principle now utterly undermined by Othman.

The end began with a rumor. Word spread among the rebels that military reinforcements for the besieged Caliph were on the way from his governor in Syria. The reinforcements never arrived, and nobody knew whether the Syrian governor had ever received such a request, or if he had received it and, for reasons of his own, ignored it. Either way, it made no difference; the very idea of Syrian reinforcements brought things to a head. Rumor did its work, as it always does.

Abu Bakr was the first to strike, the son of the first Caliph leading the assassins of the third. His dagger slashed across the old man’s forehead, and that first blood was the sign that released the others. As Othman fell back, they piled in on him, knives striking again and again. Blood splashed onto the walls, onto the carpet, even onto the open pages of the Quran — an indelible image of defilement that still haunts the Muslim faithful , both Sunni and Shia. Yet still they attacked, even after there was no breath left in Othman’s body.

They had no idea that Ali would rule for only five years. They rejoiced, applauding the new Commander of the Faithful when he refused to take the title of Caliph. That title had been honored by Abu Bakr and Omar, Ali said, but it had since been corrupted beyond repair by the Umayyads. Instead, he would be known as the Imam — literally, he who stands in front. On the one hand, it was a modest title, given to whoever leads the daily prayers. On the other, this was Imam with a definite capital I, the spiritual and political leader of all Muslims. And between Caliph and Imam, a world of politics and theology would intervene.

Ali was destined to be the only man aside from Muhammad himself whom both Sunnis and Shia would acknowledge as a rightful leader of Islam. But while Sunnis would eventually recognize and respect him as the fourth Caliph — the fourth and last of the rashidun, the “rightly guided ones” — the Shia would never recognize the caliphate at all, not even the first three Caliphs. To them, Ali was and always has been the first rightful successor to Muhammad, designated by him as the true spiritual leader who would pass on his knowledge and insight to his sons, so that they in turn could pass it on to their own sons. Ali, that is, was the first of the twelve Imams who would join Muhammad and his daughter Fatima as the true Ahl al-Bayt.

The sensitive Islamic term fitna is still more complex. The root is the word for being led astray. It can mean trial or temptation, intrigue or sedition, discord or dissension. It always implies upheaval, even chaos. But the most common meaning is civil war — the most uncivil warfare of all. Tribes, clans, even families split against themselves; cousins and in-laws take opposite sides; brothers may even fight brothers, and fathers, their own sons. Fitna is the terrible wrenching apart of the fabric of society, the unraveling of the tightly woven matrix of kinship, and it was seen in the seventh century, as it still is today, as the ultimate threat to Islam, greater by far than that of the most benighted unbelievers.

This was the traditional role of women in battle, though never before from the center. Usually they stayed at the rear, where they urged on their side, mocking the virility of their enemies and daring their own fighters to feats of valor. Their shrill ululations were designed to strike fear in the hearts of the other side, much as the eerie sound of bagpipes in a very different part of the world.

It was women who called for blood , and if any doubted what they were capable of, people still talked with awe of the aristocratic Hind, whose husband had led the Meccan opposition to Muhammad and his followers. Her father had died in the first major battle between the Meccans and the Medinans, and she knew who had killed him: Muhammad’s uncle Hamza. So when the Meccans marched on Medina to do battle again, it had been Hind who led the chanting, taunting Muhammad’s men and daring them to advance; Hind who had been fired up with the thirst for revenge and who put a price on Hamza’s head; Hind who roamed the battlefield after the two sides had fought to a standoff, who strode from corpse to corpse, searching for the one she wanted. She found it, and when she did, she uttered a cry of victory that years later still froze the blood of those who had heard her. She stood astride Hamza, gripped her knife with both hands, and plunged it deep into his body, gouging him open to rip out not his heart but something far larger and far more visceral — his liver. Ululating in triumph, she held that liver up high above her head and then, in full view of all, she crammed it into her mouth, tore it apart with her teeth, spat out the pieces, stamped on them, and ground them into the dirt. Who could ever forget the sight of that blood running from her mouth and streaming down her chin and her arms, of those eyes gleaming with revenge? It was so compelling that people still referred to her son, half in taunt, half in admiration, as the Son of the Liver Eater. Never to his face, though, for he was none other than Muawiya, the man who had become the powerful governor of Syria. Like his mother, he was not one to be trifled with.

But nobody denies that such tales are a matter of bravado, and everyone knows bravado for what it is: an attempt to ward off terror . That is why most of the stories of the Battle of the Camel forgo heroics for a palpable sense of folly, of the senselessness and tragedy of it all.

All the while, a far more formidable opponent had been merely biding his time. In Damascus, Muawiya had stood calmly by as Ali had been drawn into civil war. The grisly relics of Othman’s assassination still hung on the pulpit of the main mosque as he had ordered, serving as all too vivid testimony to the original sin of Ali’s rule. But Muawiya saw no reason to take action as long as there was a chance Aisha would do his work for him. Now that she had been defeated, however, he decided to play his hand. He made the cool calculation that if Ali had displayed great nobility of purpose in dealing with Aisha, that same nobility could also serve to hasten his undoing.

By his own account, Muawiya was “a man blessed with patience and deliberateness” — an expert dissimulator, that is, with a positively Byzantine sense of politics that allowed him to turn things to his advantage without seeming to do so.

Eight centuries before Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince, Muawiya was the supreme expert in the attainment and maintenance of power , a clear-eyed pragmatist who delighted in the art and science of manipulation, whether by bribery, flattery, intelligence, or exquisitely calculated deception.

Muawiya was known for his generosity as much as for his ruthlessness. In fact, he prided himself on being exactly as generous and precisely as ruthless as he needed to be. “If there be but one hair binding someone to me, I do not let it break,” he once said. “If he pulls, I loosen; if he loosens, I pull.” As for any sign of dissent: “I do not apply my sword where my whip is enough, nor my whip where my tongue is enough.”

Yet Muawiya accepted with equanimity the one thing that might have displeased him most, and that was his nickname, Son of the Liver Eater. He certainly recognized the taunt in it, for it was an insult for any man to be known by his mother’s name instead of his father’s, as though he had been born out of wedlock. But he purposely let it ride. “I do not come between people and their tongues,” he said, “so long as they do not come between us and our rule.”

Ali never intended the move to Kufa to be a permanent one. His plan was to return to Medina as soon as he had settled the issue with Muawiya and Syria, but he never would return. From the moment he made the decision in favor of Kufa, Muslim power began to leave Arabia behind, and this was entirely Muawiya’s doing. By refusing to recognize Ali as Caliph, he had forced the issue. It was his defiance that had brought Ali to Kufa and that would lead to Iraq’s becoming the cradle of Shia Islam.

The Meccans’ concerns were well founded. Their descendants were to be the Islamic rulers of the future, but they would never live in Arabia. As the centuries passed, Muslim power would center in Iraq, in Syria, in Persia, in Egypt, in India, in Spain, in Turkey, anywhere but Arabia, which became increasingly cut off, saved from reverting back to its pre-Islamic isolation only by the pull of the annual hajj pilgrimage. Arabia would not exert political power again for more than a thousand years, until the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect emerged from the central highlands in the eighteenth century to carry out violent raids against Shia shrines in Iraq and even against the holy places of Mecca and Medina. In alliance with the Saud family, the Wahhabi influence would spread worldwide in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Financed by oil wealth, Arabia — now Saudi Arabia — would regain the preeminence it had once held in Islam, aided and abetted by the Western thirst for oil even as it nurtured the Sunni extremists who would turn so violently against the West.

In the twenty-first century, Westerners shocked at the scope of Muslim reaction to Danish cartoons of Muhammad seemed to conclude that there is no tradition of satire in Islam. On the contrary, there is a strongly defined tradition, and one clearly linked to warfare. In the seventh century, satire was a potent weapon, and it is still seen that way. Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses created such a stir in the Islamic world because it was an extraordinarily well-informed satire. By playing on Quranic verses and on hadith reports of Muhammad’s life, Rushdie cut close to the bone. While satire may be thought relatively harmless in the West — at its best, cutting-edge humor, but the cut only a figurative one — in Islam the cut is far more literal. When they are the first weapon in war, words draw blood.

Such poems could not possibly have circulated without Muawiya’s knowledge and approval. They were an essential part of his campaign to rouse the will of the people to war — a will that was eminently amenable to skillful manipulation. In fact, the will of the public can still be manipulated in much the same way in even the most proudly democratic of countries, as was clear when the Bush administration falsely presented the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a response to the Al Qaida attack of September 11, 2001.

But Muawiya was more than content to leave honor and valor to Ali. His concern was far more practical. “It is not a fair offer,” he retorted. “Ali has killed everyone he has ever challenged to single combat.” And with this refusal, the only option left was battle.

Ali himself was nearly killed. Arrows fell so thick and fast around him that as one witness said, “his two cubs, Hasan and Hussein, were hard put to fend off the shafts with their shields.” They urged Ali to move faster so as to avoid being so exposed. His famed reply, the epitome of heroic sangfroid in the face of battle, was an augury of what was to come. “My sons,” he said, “the fateful day will inevitably come for your father. Going fast will not make it come later, and going slow will not make it come sooner. It makes no difference to your father whether he comes upon death, or death comes upon him. ”

Ali himself was not deceived. The very idea of arbitration to decide who was to be Caliph not only placed his own right to the caliphate in question from the start, it also made the Quran itself a matter of negotiation. For the first time, the Quran was being made into a political tool.

Ali had been thoroughly outmaneuvered. No matter that he could plainly see how Muawiya had manipulated the situation, or that one of the most worldly of men had used faith as a weapon against one of the most spiritual. With his troops standing fast by their refusal to fight any further, Ali was left no option but to consent to arbitration.

But there is nobody as righteous or as blind to reason as the reformed sinner. “When we wanted arbitration,” Wahb replied, “we sinned and became unbelievers. But we have repented. If you now do the same, we will be with you. But if you will not, then as the Quran says, ‘We reject you without distinction, for God does not love the treacherous.’

Wahb declared that the whole of Kufa was mired in a state of jahiliya, the pagan darkness that had reigned before the advent of Islam. “Let us go out, my brothers, from this place of wicked people,” he said, and go out they did, some three thousand strong. Fifty miles north of Kufa they established a new settlement on the Tigris at Nahrawan. It was to be a haven of purity, Wahb announced, a beacon of righteousness in a corrupt world. He and his men were to be the first Islamic fundamentalists. They called themselves the Rejectionists — khariji, meaning “those who go out.” The reference was to the phrase “those who go forth to serve God’s cause” in Sura 9 of the Quran, which is aptly titled “Repentance.” They had seen the light and repented, and with the absolutism of the newly penitent, they devoted themselves to the letter of the Quran and to the exclusion of its spirit. We are holier than thou, they were saying, purer than the pure. And as is the way with such righteousness, they took their zeal for purity over the brink into all-out fanaticism.

They did so with the clearest of consciences. Even the murder of the wife and unborn child, they maintained, was called for by God, since women and children of the enemy shared in the sin of their male kin. There were no innocents. And in this, the seventh-century khariji Rejectionists set the pattern for their descendants.

The Wahhabis’ impassioned call for a return to what they saw as the purity of early Islam gathered strength in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in such movements as the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Salafis in Egypt, and Al Qaida. The perceived enemy within Islam would become as dangerous as the enemy without, if not more so.

The man who had sacrificed so much to avoid fitna had now fought three civil war battles. In all three, he had been victorious — or would have been if his men had kept fighting at Siffin — but he could not escape a growing feeling of self-loathing. He had waited twenty-five years for this? Not to lead Islam into a new era of unity but to kill other Muslims?

Poison has none of the heroics of battle. It works quietly and selectively, one might almost say discreetly. For Muawiya, it was the perfect weapon. His personal physician, Ibn Uthal, a Christian and a noted alchemist, was an expert on poisons, as was his successor, Abu al-Hakam, also a Christian.

By the late twentieth century, Najaf was so large that nearby Kufa had become little more than a suburb hard by the river. All the more canny, then, of Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of today’s Mahdi Army, when he adopted not the Najaf shrine but the main mosque of Kufa as his home pulpit. In doing so, he took on the spirit not of Ali assassinated, but of the living Imam. Preaching where Ali had preached, Muqtada assumed the role of the new champion of the oppressed.

Part Three - Hussein

“Let each man save himself,” he ordered. “Inform me of troublemakers sought by the Caliph Muawiya. Make lists of them, and you will be free from harm. Anyone who refuses will be denied protection, and his blood and property will be halal” — Ziyad’s to take at will. With his secret police, his network of informants, his brutal reprisals, Ziyad ran Iraq much as another dictator was to run it fourteen hundred years later. Like Saddam Hussein, he was a Sunni ruling a majority Shia population. If they pined for Ali, that was their problem. He could not control their hearts, but he could, and did, control their every action. He was every bit as ruthless as Saddam would be, and seemingly as immovable.

Muawiya’s dynastic ambition was to utterly change the caliphate. On this, both Sunnis and Shia are in agreement. The protodemocratic impulse that had driven the earliest years of Islam — the messy business of the shura, with the principle, if not quite the practice, of consensus — would become a thing of the past. As Byzantine despotism had appropriated Christianity, so now Umayyad despotism would appropriate Islam.

In time they would cite the bitterly anti-Shia thirteenth-century scholar Ibn Taymiya, whose writings are still central to mainstream Sunni thought. Sixty years with an unjust leader were preferable to a single night with an ineffective one, Ibn Taymiya declared. His reasoning was that without an effectively run state, the implementation of Islamic law was impossible. But he was also clearly stating that church and state, as it were, were no longer one and the same, as they had been in Muhammad’s time.

Hussein’s story was about to become the foundation story of Shiism, its sacred touchstone, its Passion story. The long journey from Mecca to Iraq was his Gethsemane. Knowing that the Kufans had betrayed him, he rode on nonetheless, in full awareness of what was waiting for him.

Shahadat is a word of subtle shadings, though as with the double meaning of jihad, this may be hard to see when the image of Islamic martyrdom is that of suicide bombers so blinded by righteousness that they sacrifice not just their own lives but all sense of humanity. In fact, while shahadat certainly means “self-sacrifice,” it also means “acting as a witness,” a double meaning that originally existed in English too, since the word “martyr” comes from the Greek for witness. This is why the Islamic declaration of faith — the equivalent of the Shema Israel or the Lord’s Prayer — is called the shahada, the “testifying.” And it is this dual role of martyr and witness that would inspire the leading intellectual architect of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 to utterly redefine Hussein’s death as an act of liberation.

Ali Shariati is all but unknown in the West, yet for years he was idolized in Iran on a par with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

“Martyrdom has a unique radiance,” Shariati declared. “It creates light and heat in the world. It creates movement, vision, and hope. By his death, the martyr condemns the oppressor and provides commitment for the oppressed. In the iced-over hearts of a people, he bestows the blood of life and resurrection.” Such sacrifice was not for Islam alone. It was for all people, everywhere. Hussein acted as witness “for all the oppressed people of history. He has declared his presence in all wars, struggles, and battlefields for freedom of every time and land. He died at Karbala so that he may be resurrected in all generations and all ages.”

For centuries, Hussein’s martyrdom had been the central paradigm of Shia Islam, the symbol of the eternal battle between good and evil, but Shariati raised it to the level of liberation theology. He transformed Ashura, the ten-day commemoration of what happened at Karbala, taking it out of the realm of grief and mourning and into that of hope and activism. Karbala would no longer merely explain repression; it would be the inspiration to rise up against it, and Shariati’s most famous call to action would become the new rallying cry of activist Shiism, chanted by idealistic young revolutionaries in the streets of Teheran even as the Shah’s troops fired volley after volley into the crowd: “Every day is Ashura, and every land is Karbala.”

In the ten days leading up to Ashura, every detail of the ordeal at Karbala fourteen hundred years ago is recalled and reenacted. The story so central to Shia Islam has been kept alive year after year, century after century, not in holy writ but by the impassioned force of memory, of repetition and reenactment.

With time, it made no difference if Abbas had really fought on with only one arm, or if the horse really did cry, or if the doves really did fly down as though from heaven. Faith and need said they did. The stories have become as true as the most incontrovertible fact, if not more so, because they have such depth of meaning. As with the death of Christ, the death of Hussein soars beyond history into metahistory. It enters the realm of faith and inspiration, of passion both emotional and religious.

The Karbala story was still used, though in a far more deliberately manipulative way. In the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, thousands of Iranian boys were given headbands inscribed with the word “Karbala,” then sent off to become human minesweepers. Wave after wave of them ran headlong into Iraqi minefields to be blown up to clear the way for Iranian troops, each of them in the desperate faith that he was heading for a martyr’s paradise. Frontline troops were inspired to sacrifice by visits from singers and chanters of Karbala lamentations, the most famed of whom was known as “Khomeini’s Nightingale.” Khomeini had swept into power with the help of the Karbala factor, then taken control of it, taming it into the docility and obedience Shariati had warned of.

The Abbasids ousted the Umayyads just seventy years after Karbala and brought the caliphate back from Syria to Iraq. In 762 they built a magnificent new capital city on the banks of the Tigris. Laid out in a perfect circle, it was originally called Medinat as-Salaam — “City of Peace” — though it quickly became better known as Baghdad, from the Persian for “gift of paradise.”

A night, it seems, when wishes and prayers really could come true, which is why on this night the Shia faithful make their way not to Samarra, where the twelfth Imam was born, but to Karbala, where it is believed he will return, followed by Hussein on one side and Jesus on the other.

More than four out of five Muslims are non-Arab.

Such heavy-handed intervention helped create the intense anti-Westernism that today underlies both Sunni and Shia radicalism. The fear and resentment of manipulation by the West were expressed in best-selling fashion by Iranian cultural critic Jalal Al-e Ahmad, whose 1962 book Gharbzadegi — “Occidentosis,” or “Westoxification” — saw Western cultural and financial dominance as a fatal disease that had to be rooted out of the Iranian body politic and by extension out of Islam as a whole. Ahmad’s call was taken up across the Shia-Sunni divide by Egyptian radical ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who helped lay the groundwork for modern Islamism. In his 1964 book Milestones, Qutb wrote that “setting up the kingdom of God on earth and eliminating the kingdom of man means taking power from the hands of the human usurpers and restoring it to God alone” — a deliberate echo of “Judgment belongs to God alone,” the seventh-century rallying cry of the khariji Rejectionists who assassinated Ali.

Sunni and Shia radicals alike called on a potent blend of the seventh century and the twentieth: on the Karbala story and on anti-Westernism. By the 1980s such calls were a clear danger signal to the pro-American Saudis, who were highly aware that radical Sunni energies could come home to roost in an Arabian equivalent of the Iranian Revolution. Their answer, in effect, was to deal with radical Islamism by financing it abroad, thus deflecting its impact at home. The Saudis became major exporters of Wahhabi extremism and its bitterly anti-Shia stance , from Africa to Indonesia, countering a newly strengthened sense of Shia identity and power — “the Shia revival,” as it’s been called — energized by the Iranian Revolution. The Sunni-Shia split had again become as politicized as when it began.

In such a confrontation, the Sunnis would seem to have a clear advantage since the Shia are only some fifteen percent of all Muslims worldwide. But raw numbers can be misleading. In the Middle East heartland of Islam, the Shia are closer to fifty percent, and wherever oil reserves are richest — Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf coast, including eastern Saudi Arabia — they are in the majority. So long as oil dominates the world economy, the stakes are again as high as they were at the height of the Muslim empire. And the main issue is again what it was in the seventh century — who should lead Islam? — now played out on an international level. Where Ali once struggled against Muawiya, Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia today vie with each other for influence and political leadership of the Islamic world, a power struggle demonstrated most painfully in the cities of Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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After the Prophet : Book summary and reviews of After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton

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After the Prophet

The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

by Lesley Hazleton

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Published Sep 2009 256 pages Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion Publication Information

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Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over his successor had begun. Pitting the family of his favorite wife, the controversial Aisha, against supporters of his son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, the struggle would reach its breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, when soldiers of the first Sunni dynasty massacred seventy-two warriors led by Muhammad's grandson Hussein at Karbala. Hussein's agonizing ordeal at Karbala was soon to become the Passion story at the core of Shia Islam. Hazleton's vivid, gripping prose provides extraordinary insight into the origins of the world's most volatile blend of politics and religion. Balancing past and present, she shows how these seventh-century events are as alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today as though they had just happened, shaping modern headlines from Iran's Islamic Revolution to the civil war in Iraq. After the Prophet is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and an emotional and political revelation for Western readers.

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"Starred Review. Anyone with an interest in the Middle East, U.S.-international relations or a profound story masterfully told will be well served by this exceptional book." - Publishers Weekly "This story is well known to readers with any background at all in Islam, for whom the book will be superfluous. However, given that few Western readers, it seems, have much of that background, Hazleton's storytelling approach to the schism will be welcome. She writes fluidly .... A literate, evenhanded account of a long-ago religious conflict that continues to play out-and shape history-today." - Kirkus Reviews " After the Prophet is a remarkable and respectful telling of the story of Islam—a tale of power, intrigue, rivalry, jealousy, assassination, manipulation, greed, and faith that would have made Machiavelli shudder (had he read it), but above all it is a very human story, told in a wonderfully novelistic style that puts most other, often dreary, explanations of the Shia-Sunni divide to shame." - Hooman Majd, author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ "My only regret is that Hazleton didn’t write this terrific and necessary book in time to enlighten Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, et al., before they so unwisely invaded a land, and a religious culture, of which they were reprehensibly ignorant. I hope they read it now, with proper rue. Meanwhile, the rest of us can take pleasure in Hazleton's vigorously drawn characters, her lucid storytelling, and her enthralling, imaginative grasp of the roots and consequences of the Sunni-Shia divide." - Jonathan Raban, author of My Holy War and Surveillance

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Lesley Hazleton Author Biography

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Lesley Hazleton is an award-winning writer whose work focuses on the intersection of religion, history, and politics. She reported on the Middle East from Jerusalem for more than a dozen years, and has written for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Nation, and The New Republic, among others. Her book After the Prophet was a finalist for a PEN Center USA Literary Award, and she is the recipient of The Stranger's Genius in Literature Award. Hazleton lives in Seattle.

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After the Prophet

A historian delves into Islamic history to illuminate the roots of the Shiite-Sunni schism.

• By Husna Haq

September 17, 2009

As a child, I was roused by my father every weekend for Sunday school, held in the basement of our mosque with 50-odd unruly children. There, we were sent off to one of four cordoned-off sections of the basement where we sat on orange and blue plastic folding chairs and listened as our teacher – often an “aunty” or “uncle” from the community – lectured us on the Koran, Arabic, or – my favorite subject – stories full of hardship and triumph, the seerah , or life of our prophet Muhammad.

Those stories about Muhammad and the early years of Islam are still among my favorites, which is why I picked up Lesley Hazleton ’s After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam. Hazleton, a Middle East journalist and author of several books on religion and history, draws from the work of 10th-century Islamic historian al-Tabari, to piece together a tale of the volatile relationships and political machinations that occurred after the death of Muhammad in 632. These are the events that would eventually lead to the great Shiite (Shia)-Sunni cleft in Islam which continues to play out today in sectarian violence throughout the Muslim world.

Hazleton begins where Sunday school left off, with the death of Muhammad, introducing the book’s central figures, Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife, and Ali, his cousin and son-in-law. She takes us through the caliphates of Abu Bakr , Omar, Uthman, and Ali, and, some 50 years later, to the tragic massacre of 72 warriors led by Muhammad’s grandson Hussein at Karbala , a pivotal event in Shiite history.

A Sunday school story it is not. Hazleton pits Aisha and Ali against each other in a bitter rivalry, paints a picture of calculating collusion among several of Muhammad’s close companions who would later be appointed caliph, and spares no gruesome details in the recreation of battles in which warriors were disemboweled, mutilated, and trampled.

Unfortunately, some of Hazleton’s depictions appear to be amplified merely for narrative drama, as in the case of the rivalry between Aisha and Ali, or based on unconfirmed assumptions, as in the case of collusion among Muhammad’s companions.

Regarding the rivalry between Muhammad’s wife Aisha and his cousin Ali, Hazleton’s bias is obvious. She calls Aisha, a woman revered in Islam as the “Mother of the Faithful,” “mean-spirited,” “headstrong,” and “used to having things her way.” Ali, on the other hand, she terms a “noble warrior,” “a man of integrity ... reluctant to compromise his principles.” The prejudice is blatant and offensive. Hazleton relies on numerous sources to create the basic outline of her narrative, but seems to fill in the blanks with her own opinions and commentary.

Even more troubling are the inaccuracies and assumptions. Hazleton writes that Aisha was “the first wife [Muhammad] married after the death of Khadija.” In fact, Sawda bint Zamah was the first wife he married after Khadija. She also writes that the Koranic revelation on veiling “clearly applied only to the Prophet’s wives ... and would eventually be enforced by Islamic fundamentalists convinced that it should apply to all women.”

That’s a misreading of the Koran and Muslim tradition no matter how you look at it. It is agreed throughout the Muslim world that the “Revelation of the Curtain” – which requires male companions to speak to the prophet’s wives only through a veil – does, in fact, apply only to the prophet’s wives. But it’s a different passage that deals with hijab, or veiling, and when it comes to interpreting that passage a majority of mainstream Muslim scholars – and many Muslim women, myself included – do believe it is compulsory for all Muslim women.

Hazleton’s description of 7th-century Arabian society, however, is illuminating. Here, she explains the centrality of poetry to Arab life. “[The poets] were the gossip columnists, the op-ed writers, the bloggers, the entertainers of the time.... Laced with puns and double entendres, [their satires] were irresistibly repeatable, building up momentum the more they spread. The barbed rhyming couplets acted like lances, verbal attacks all the more powerful in a society where alliances were made on a promise and a handshake, and men were literally taken at their word.”

The book excels in its central aim, explaining the Shiite-Sunni schism, the sense of disinheritance Shiites feel about their history, and the violent implications this has had on modern politics. At its simplest, the schism stems from a disagreement over who should have succeeded Muhammad after his death. Shiites believe Ali was the rightful hereditary heir; Sunnis believe Abu Bakr was the rightful elected leader.

Sunni readers like myself will appreciate Hazleton’s insight into the Shiite mind. “They had been disinherited, deprived of what they saw as their rightful place, the leadership of Islam. And this sense of disinheritance would sear deep into Shia hearts and minds, a wound that would fester through to the 20th century ... and erupt first in the Iranian revolution, then in civil war in Lebanon , and then, as the 21st century began, in the war in Iraq .”

As sectarian aggression flares in Iraq, Hazleton’s explanation of its deep, entrenched roots is essential. Too often, however, her inaccuracies, biases, and assumptions suggest a shallow and sometimes partisan understanding of Islamic history, and for many careful readers, threaten her credibility.

Husna Haq was an intern at the Monitor.

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After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a rift that dominates the news now more than ever.   Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, beginning a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder's controversial wife Aisha against his son-in-law Ali, and shattering Muhammad’s ideal of unity.     Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet explores the volatile intersection of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia–Sunni split.

• ISBN-10 9780385523936
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• Publication date September 4, 2009
• Language English
• File size 2509 KB
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Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over his successor had begun. Pitting the family of his favorite wife, the controversial Aisha, against supporters of his son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, the struggle would reach its breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, when soldiers of the first Sunni dynasty massacred seventy-two warriors led by Muhammad's grandson Hussein at Karbala. Hussein's agonizing ordeal at Karbala was soon to become the Passion story at the core of Shia Islam.

Hazleton's vivid, gripping prose provides extraordinary insight into the origins of the world's most volatile blend of politics and religion. Balancing past and present, she shows how these seventh-century events are as alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today as though they had just happened, shaping modern headlines from Iran's Islamic Revolution to the civil war in Iraq.

After the Prophet is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and an emotional and political revelation for Western readers.

It began with a question asked after a particularly ghastly suicide bombing in Iraq: "How come Muhammad, the prophet of unity who spoke of one people and one God, left behind him this terrible, unending, bloody legacy of division between Sunni and Shia?" The question haunted me, and led me to the magnificent story of the struggle for leadership after Muhammad's death, an epic as alive and powerful today as when it first happened.

I knew then that how I wrote this book was as important as what I wrote. I had discovered a story so rich in characters, culminating in such a tragic and unforgettable sacrifice, that it would have made a writer like Gabriel Garcia Marquez green with envy. Of course--how else could it survive and gather power over so many centuries? How else inspire people to forfeit their lives and those of others in its name? Yet though it is deeply engraved in Muslim consciousness--to the Sunnis as history and to the Shia as sacred history--the story of the events that divide them has remained largely unknown in the West. And our ignorance of it has haunted us as one Western power after another has tried to intervene in a conflict they barely understand.

That's why I wanted to bring Western readers inside the story, to make it as alive for them as it is in the Middle East, so that they can not only understand it on an intellectual level, but experience it--grasp its emotive depth and its inspirational power, and thus understand how it has survived and even strengthened, and how it affects the lives of all of us today.

The subject was all the more irresistible to me personally since it brings together many of my deepest interests: the interplay of religion and politics, more intricately intertwined in the Middle East than anywhere else in the world; my own experience living in and reporting from the Middle East for Time magazine and other publications; my affinity for narrative nonfiction and for tracing the interplay of past and present; and my original training as a psychologist, which comes into play as I explore the story, the way it has endured, and how it is used today in politics, society, spiritual life, and, too often, war.

I could almost imagine that if all this had only been better known in the West, American troops would never have been sent within a hundred miles of Iraqi holy cities like Najaf and Karbala, which figure in it so largely, and that we would never have tried to intervene in an argument fueled by such a volatile blend of emotion, religion, and politics. But I know this is wishful thinking. In the end, I will be happy if readers simply turn over the last page and breathe out the words I found myself saying again and again as my research deepened, and that seem to me an entirely appropriate response to a story of this power: "Oh my God..." --Lesley Hazleton

(Photo © Lesly Wiener)

From Publishers Weekly

About the author.

British-born Lesley Hazleton is a psychologist and veteran Middle East journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Harper’s The Nation, New Republic, New York Review of Books , and other publications. The author of several acclaimed books on Middle East politics, religion, and history, including Jerusalem, Jerusalem and Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother , she now lives in Seattle, Washington. www.AfterTheProphet.com

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Book Review: After The Prophet – The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split

Dec 13, 2019, 12:27 PM | Article By: Lesley Hazleton

Reviewed by Z. Hussain

Before it was just plain ‘Muslim’, but we now live in era where the words ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’ are bombarded at us from every direction, whether we belong to the religion of Islam or not. The lay person is now asking what the difference is and why they seem to be at war with each other. Those of us who have grown up in the faith or are a part of the faith are well aware of the differences between both sects. However, when explaining these issues to the people asking the questions, many just don’t understand how events in the past could lead to what is going on today.

“They told different versions of the same story, disagreeing not on what had taken place in the seventh century but on what it meant.”

Enter Lesley Hazleton’s book, which aims to provide a purely historical context, sprinkled with some theology, on the root cause of the schism between Sunni and Shia and how it permeates the whole world. It is imperative for the readers of this book to remember this isn’t a polemical discussion attempting to persuade you one side is correct. Whether you are a Muslim or not, the book is a pure historical narrative of what happened after the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Hazleton empathises with how muddy this topic can be due to the fact that both schools of thought affirm/deny certain historical events but does her best to bring both sides together. Predominantly though, these are her conclusions on this part of history.

Let us first get one thing straight – if you are a Sunni or Shia Muslim, there will be plenty of parts of the book you will not agree with, be it the claims it makes about the Islamic history or theology of each group (e.g. the Sunni reader may not welcome how Hazleton narrates the ‘Incident of the Door’; the Shia reader may not take kindly to how Hazleton claims Imam Hassan (peace be upon him) could not forgive Imam Ali (peace be upon him) for betraying his principles by warring at Siffin). That said, Hazleton has clearly done her research, as the bibliography indicates, and uses a breadth of credible sources in her writing. One should not have any qualms in using this book as an academic source because it is excellently referenced.

The book is split into three chapters named simply after the three primary figures the Shia-Sunni split revolves around:

1. Muhammad

Interestingly, and maybe controversially, the common theme running through each of the chapters is Ayesha, one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), who Hazleton seems to be completely fascinated with. Hazleton is able to really explore the psychology of Ayesha and gives an excellent insight into her character and her controversial actions. The same in-depth analysis is also given to Muawiya where the reader is able to really understand his cunning nature and ongoing feud with Imam Ali (peace be upon him).

“Charming she must have been, and sassy she definitely was. Sometimes, though, the charm wears thin, at least to the modern ear. The stories Aisha later told of her marriage were intended to show her influence and spiritedness, but there is often a definite edge to them, a sense of a young woman not to be crossed or denied”

The beauty of the book lies in how Hazleton is able to transport the reader to this epoch of Islam. She writes in such a way where you feel you are standing in the middle of each pivotal event of Islam and experiencing them using all five senses. The way she describes the ‘Pen & Paper Incident’, the reader feels they are standing next to the bed of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) witnessing the heated argument. When she describes the ‘Battle of the Camel’, one feels they are on the battlefield witnessing the turmoil of Muslims at war with each other.

The strongest aspect of the book may be seen as its downfall by some (Shia Muslims in particular). Many traditional Shia Muslims have been raised to believe the family of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them all) were these celestial beings on earth who always performed miracles and were ‘superhuman’. Although this may not be entirely inaccurate, such people may find it uncomfortable reading to see the family of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them all) portrayed simply as human beings with emotions, desires and feelings like us, rather than on a lofty pedestal. Yes, they are acknowledged as having excellent morals and principles but are ultimately flawed heroes. Although Shias should reject such a take on the family of the Prophet (peace be upon them) it is still absolutely fascinating to see them portrayed as ‘humans’ as it is a perspective that is neglected in Muslim circles.

“Yet it is also an altogether human scene. Everyone so concerned, everyone crowded around, trying to protect Muhammad from the importuning of others, to ease life for a mortally ill man. They were all, it seemed, doing their best. But as their voices rose in debate over the pros and cons of calling for pen and paper, the terrible sensitivity to noise overtook Muhammad again.”

Lesley Hazleton may not be a Muslim but she is well qualified to write this book when looking at her credentials and her wonderful talks on various platforms where she discusses Islam; in the book she mentions narrations and traditions that Muslims may not have heard of before, so even those who think they know all there is to know about the Shia-Sunni split will learn something new. One really hopes that Muslims who read this book do not reduce its validity because it was written by a non-Muslim; she demonstrates more knowledge than many Muslims.

“If Ali was the foundation figure of Shia Islam, Hussein was to become its sacrificial icon. The story of what happened to him once he reached Iraq would become the Passion story of Shiism—its emotional and spiritual core.”

What is amazing is how she ‘gets’ it. She ‘gets’ why events 1400 years ago are still shaping the actions of people today. She ‘gets’ the emotion underpinning the Shia-Sunni split whereas others brush it off as merely ‘history’ or ‘politics’. Perhaps, most importantly, she ‘gets’ Karbala. Her discussion on how Imam Hussain’s tragedy is used for internal and external revolution will have resonance with Shia readers; the book even opens with a narrative of the bomb-blast in Karbala in 2004 on the day of Ashura and later on she details the events of Ashura itself which will bring tears to the eyes of those who hold Imam Hussain dear to their hearts.

If you are a Muslim who is bored of the Shia-Sunni debate, it may refresh you after reading this from a unique perspective. If you are not a Muslim, it is an excellent starting point to understand the context of why certain events are taking place in the world today. However, it may be beneficial to then speak to members of the Sunni and Shia community to further expand on what is in the book. Excellently written with some striking quotables and vivid imagery, perhaps the book is not a ‘must-read’ but it certainly is one you should read.

Available at Timbooktoo tel 4494345

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After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam Paperback – Illustrated, 7 September 2010

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In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a rift that dominates the news now more than ever.   Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, beginning a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder's controversial wife Aisha against his son-in-law Ali, and shattering Muhammad’s ideal of unity.     Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet explores the volatile intersection of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia–Sunni split.

• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Anchor Books
• Publication date 7 September 2010
• Dimensions 13.11 x 1.96 x 20.19 cm
• ISBN-10 0385523947
• ISBN-13 978-0385523943
• See all details

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About the author.

Lesley Hazleton  is an award-winning writer whose work focuses on the intersection of religion, history, and politics. She reported on the Middle East from Jerusalem for more than a dozen years, and has written for  Time ,  The New York Times ,  The New York Review of Books ,  Harper’s ,  The Nation , and  The New Republic , among others. Her book  After the Prophet  was a finalist for a PEN Center USA Literary Award, and she is the recipient of  The Stranger ’s Genius in Literature Award. Hazleton lives in Seattle.   For more information, visit: www.aftertheprophet.com. accidentaltheologist.com 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor Books; Illustrated edition (7 September 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0385523947
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385523943
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 kg 50 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.11 x 1.96 x 20.19 cm
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
• #36 in Middle Eastern History (Books)
• #76 in European History (Books)
• #160 in Islam (Books)

About the author

Lesley hazleton.

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After the Prophet

• The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

By: Lesley Hazleton

• Narrated by: Lesley Hazleton
• Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
• 4.6 out of 5 stars 4.6 (1,037 ratings)

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Publisher's summary

In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a rift that dominates the news now more than ever.

Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, sparking a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon, Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder's controversial wife, Aisha, against his son-in-law, Ali, and shattering Muhammad's ideal of unity.

Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet explores the volatile intersections of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia-Sunni split.

• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: History

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Wonderful Book!

• By April N. Baskin on 03-01-20

A Historical Research on the Lives of the 12 Shia Imams

By: Mahdi Maghrebi

• Narrated by: Ensieea Rizwani
• Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 1

After the demise of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the Muslims were divided regarding whom they should follow as their political and religious leader. The Sunnis followed the Prophet’s companions whilst the Shias followed the 12 Holy Imams chosen by God. The Shia Imams were from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) from his only surviving daughter, Lady Fatimah (SA).

Introduction to the Qur’an

• By: Martyn Oliver, The Great Courses
• Narrated by: Professor Martyn Oliver
• Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
• Original Recording
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 584
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 504
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 497

Often, much of what is misunderstood about Islam is the result of a lack of information - and some dangerous and prolific myths. To combat these myths and better understand the complex Islamic tradition, Dr. Martyn Oliver, a senior professorial lecturer at American University, presents 12 in-depth lectures to provide you with a multifaceted approach to Muhammad, Islam, and the revelation known today as the Qur'an.

A Fine Survey

• By Mark on 10-13-19

By: Martyn Oliver , and others

Misquoting Muhammad

• The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy
• Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
• Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 109
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 95
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 94

Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion's founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars. Misquoting Muhammad takes listeners back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape.

Fantastic Book, Horrible Arabic Pronunciation

• By Amazon Customer on 08-29-18

The Story of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

• The Simple Seerah: Part 1
• By: Asim Khan, Toyris Miah
• Narrated by: Rahim Jung
• Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 11
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 10
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 10

Just like the printed version of The Simple Seerah, this audibook revolutonises the Seerah learning experience. This audibook is designed to be immersive and enjoyable to listen to, narrated in simple English for the whole family. The Arabic word ‘Seerah’ is the term used by many Muslims around the world when referring to the life of the last and final messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be upon him.) He lived an incredible life, filled with challenges and adventures, battles, miracles and so much more!

Vivid and entertaining for kids

• By Nicole Dahmani on 04-24-24

By: Asim Khan , and others

Islam 101: History, Beliefs, and Practices

By: Akbar Ahmed

• Narrated by: Akbar Ahmed
• Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 19
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 17

In these 12 captivating lectures, you'll explore the life of the Prophet of Islam as well as the Quran's five pillars, which govern the beliefs and behavior of Muslims everywhere. You'll learn how the incredible legacies of the great Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires still influence the Arab world, Iran, and South Asia. You'll also look at Islam in other parts of the world. The current Muslim struggle to preserve tradition in an age of globalization and ethnic and religious strife are examined in detail.

Comprehensive and insightful

• By Michael Bloom on 11-18-19

• One City, Three Faiths
• Narrated by: Karen Armstrong, Lisa Armytage
• Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 18
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 17

Venerated for millennia by three faiths, torn by irreconcilable conflict, conquered, rebuilt, and mourned for again and again, Jerusalem is a sacred city whose very sacredness has engendered terrible tragedy. In this fascinating volume, Karen Armstrong, author of the highly praised A History of God , traces the history of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all laid claim to Jerusalem as their holy place, and how three radically different concepts of holiness have shaped and scarred the city for thousands of years.

A truly great history book

• By T on 05-08-22

What listeners say about After the Prophet

• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.6 out of 5.0
• 5 Stars 747
• 4 Stars 211
• 5 Stars 679
• 4 Stars 186
• 5 Stars 690
• 4 Stars 171

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews, amazon reviews.

• Overall 4 out of 5 stars
• Performance 3 out of 5 stars
• Story 4 out of 5 stars

A good primer for basic understanding

It's usually never a good idea to let the author to read their own book but in a serviceable book the author gives a serviceable narration. If you don't know Shia from Shinola this audiobook is good place to learn the basics. It a quick and breezy enough affair helping one to understand what the debate is all about and why some very bad people are blowing up some very nice mosques. However if you want a deeper understanding of either the Sia or Sunni movements or the history of the same, look elsewhere. What you get here is a very quick bus tour of the major highlights. There is nothing about the various flavors of either the Sunni or Shia understanding. There are parts where historical whiplash occurs where the author blast from the distant past to the present day in the narration. There are subjects given only the thinnest of glosses, like the Mongol Invasion and it's impact on the Shia heartland. Our friends the Mongols barely make an appearance before charging off screen on their ponies. As a very significant event in both Muslim history and world history, the paint by numbers presentation does not do much justice to the event. More curious listeners are left wanting much more than this rushed, barn storming introduction to the split. Still, I can recommend the Audiobook as a quick and dirty primer, as long as you understand that it barely scratches the surface of the subject. A deeper understanding, one based on the ancient antagonisms of Imperial Rome and Imperial Persia is waiting to be fleshed out somewhere else. As for narration, it's a solid C effort, a C+ at times. A bit stolid, a bit pokey, and always with the airs of a elderly British Don, it still delivers a good enough listening experience.

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• Performance 5 out of 5 stars

Informative and compelling story

Well researched, telling the narratives of very important stories of early Islam. This really helped me better understand what happened so long ago, at least according to the narratives and legend, and how we got here. It's also well paced and good drama.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

Extremely Well Told Story of History of Islam

I have always been curious about the history that caused the apparent rift in my faith, Islam. This version of the history was illuminating and fascinating. I am determined to learn more and understand how the tapestry we now see before us was woven. I highly recommend this book!

Excellent narration.

As a muslim I listened to this at first with reservation since it is from a non-Muslim but I gained tremendous respect for the author/narrator with each chapter in the book since she has great depth in knowledge. The presentation of the facts from both the sides are presented quite accurately and connected to how history and politics are affected by the different views both in the past and currently. The narration is so moving at the story of Karbala that I was moved to tears as if I was truly listening to a religious scholar in Ashura. This skill is only present in someone with knowledge and the skill of speech to present it in a way to touch the listener. Not all scholars have attained both of these qualities and I admire Lesley Hazleton for this greatly. I gained a lot of in depth knowledge that I have not been able to read from the volumes of historical readings that are present but either do not have an English translation or those that do, are very difficult reads for the Western educated person. Thanks very much for writing this book and narrating it.

• Performance 4 out of 5 stars

Excellent concise telling of the early Islam story

A very readable (listenable) telling of early Islamic history. I am not a scholar on the topic but this is an interest of mine. The story is told in an easy to follow fashion. Not bogged down in details.

• Abid Ali Khan

Beginning of History

Enjoyed listening a wonderful narration of historical events. At places, it looked like the author is himself biased to oneside but excellent book.

• Skeptic Lee

Storytelling -based on research- at its best!

This author is a master storyteller. The information has been carefully researched and it unfolds in a way that the reader/listener craves more and more. Can't recommend this book and author highly enough.

• Alwayshungry

good solid research

well narrated book and very well researched keeping an unbiased view on a sensitive issue. Lesley does a good job of presenting the issue from a pure historical and academic point of view. highly recommended.

• Aaron Siering

This is a remarkably entertaining audiobook. Islam is often understood in the West as a monolithic religion when nothing could be farther from the truth. However, we should read the Quran the religion of Islam was quickly overcome by the surrounding culture. This book presents the story of Islam immediately following the death of Muhammad through the first four Caliphs until the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty. If you have any interest at all in the subject then I think you will enjoy this book.

One of the best!!

History has never sounded so riveting and entertaining yet after reading this book, one can understand why the Shia and Sunni schism is deep yet the religious differences between the two are subtle. There are a lot of comments about how the historical references tilt towards the Shia but if you pick a number of primary source accounts, the historical events remain the same. One has to look at historical figures in the light of the events that surrounded them rather than glorified accounts written in the future with different interpretations or made up events. I don’t see that as an attack on anyone’s faith or religion.

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Benjamin McEvoy

Essays on writing, reading, and life

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (Book Review)

August 9, 2019 By Ben McEvoy

The Prophet is one of the most translated books in history.

Translated into over 100 languages and never out of print. As such, the chance is high you’ve already read it.

But if you haven’t, I implore you to make The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran one of the books you read this year. It’s a short work, but the lessons will stay with you long after you’ve read it.

The Prophet  is comprised of 26 beautifully poetic meditations on the nature of every big important topic concerning the human condition: work, love, crime and punishment, justice, freedom, friendship, passion, pain, self-knowledge, beauty, death, and so much more.

Like Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet , The Prophet could be read one of two ways:

• You can read it as though each line were a gong being sounded in the temple of your heart. Deep resonant everlasting truths that encapsulate the good aims of all religions.
• You can read it cynically and see the book as a bunch of pretty sounding but meaningless platitudes.

I prefer to read works like these in the former way.

I have a good bullshit detector and, even behind the written word that is perfectly sculpted and manicured, I can see if a writer has put their life and soul into a work or if they are just trying to turn a buck by appealing to the masses.  

The Prophet  by Kahlil Gibran (Book Review)

A decent review of The Prophet need only contain the particular quotes that were most resonant.

Explaining around the quotes strips the original poetry of their precision and power.

So what I’ll do in this review is introduce the quotes that meant the most to me, then we’ll talk about how to practically apply them in your life.

Books like The Prophet should not just be read as tomes of feel good soundbites. You need to put these things to work!

“Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.  For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?”

I love this.

This reminds me of the part of The Gulag Archipelago where Alexander Solzhenitsyn says this:  

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.

Both are paradigm shifts to thinking about good and evil, but Gibran’s is more optimistic.

Gibran is refusing to speak of the evil in one. He is choosing to see evil in others as simply good tortured by hunger and thirst.

What he’s saying here is that everybody has their reasons for the evils they perpetrate, and few people (I’m thinking no one but the mentally ill) would believe themselves to be evil.  

In his own way (a different paradigm) Gibran, like Solzhenitsyn, sees all humans capable of the good and the bad.  

You are capable of good and evil.

Whenever the discussion of what one would do if they were in Nazi Germany comes up, everyone believes they would be one of the rare few harbouring Jews.

No one believes they would simply keep their heads down in order to keep their family alive.

Even fewer believe they would actively be part of the Nazi party.

But this belief is likely erroneous – statistically and historically we know that you were more likely to be on the side of evil (even if you chose the lesser evil of not being active but at least keeping quiet about the atrocities).  

Do terrorists see themselves as terrorists?

Or do they see themselves as patriots?

As martyrs?

As a method of getting along better with people in the world, rather than blindly ranting and raving next time you perceive the slightest injustice, ask yourself how another’s seemingly callous or selfish actions could simply be “good tortured by its own hunger and thirst”.  

The Prophet on friendship 

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;   For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.  And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Gibran goes a little further and talks about the importance of sharing laughter and pleasure in little things with your friends and not only burdening them or seeking them out in times of need.

I’ve been talking about this perfect dichotomy of friendship for ten years now.

It’s nice to see a poet of Gibran’s calibre echo my same thoughts: conversation with friends should be funny or profound.

Your discourses should move you to tears of laughter or bring forth untold realisations about the human condition.

You’re simultaneously lightening the weight of the world and adding to the load in the form of deepened, more nuanced mental models.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

This is a powerful philosophy by which to guide your life.

Every great revelation was proceeded by pain.

Anything worth understanding has been arrived at through furrowed brows and aching hearts.

Spiritual growth makes you ache.

This is why you go to the gym.

It’s painful at the bottom of a squat, but your body super compensates by becoming stronger.

Dry spells in dating are broken by a flood of lovers.

Poverty stretches on for years, yet if you toil intelligently you receive a windfall.

Without pain, you can’t have pleasure.

Without pain, you can’t have understanding.  

How do you break the shell?

Do as Rilke instructs and live the questions.

What is causing you the most pain right now?

Play it out. Put it down on paper. Then strive towards further pain in that field.

Perhaps you suck at public speaking. Well what would cause your breakthrough? Steering towards the pain. Exposure therapy. Over and over until it clicks and the shell cracks.  

“Much of your pain is self-chosen.”

I’ve tried to tell people this and have believed it for a long time, but people say there are circumstances beyond their control.

True, but it’s way more liberating to believe that all of your problems, all of your pain, is self-chosen.

This is not easy however.  

What you focus on is what you feel.

Read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning  (my review here ) and learn how he survived the Nazi concentration camps.

Listen to Tony Robbins coaching the highest performers in the world.

Look to anyone who has overcome adversity and you’ll see these people chose their pain.  

• What pain do you want to discard with today?
• What pain do you want to adopt?

Pain is useful.

We don’t want to rid ourselves of all pain, but be selective over what pain we choose to embrace.

Pain from toxic relationships and abusive lovers can go out with the trash.

Pain from striving to create a unique piece of art can come in.

The Prophet on freedom.

You can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.

This applies to everything.

Why is it those who advocate visualisation and affirmations tell you to do so using the present tense?

Because affirmations that are goals instead of realities only serve to emphasise your lack of something.

I believe visualisation does work, affirmations do work, there are endless numbers of great athletes, physical and cerebral specimens in every industry and art form that prove it – but they only work if you believe that which you are visualising and affirming.

Everyone has had the experience of wanting something with all their might only to get the thing they desire right when they stop desiring it.

There’s that famous scene from Swingers in which they talk about how to get your ex-girlfriend back.

You can get your ex back, but the trick is to move on completely and not want her back.

When you truly do not want her anymore, she will come back to you.

Ironically, at that point it means nothing.  

the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,   And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

Every great work says this but in different forms.

Read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations   (review here ).

Read the Bible.

Look at Tintoretto paintings.

Listen to a Wagnerian opera.

We are capable of great feats of art, beauty, and altruism.

We are also capable of indulging our darkest animal impulses.

We are constantly walking a tightrope between god and beast.

“The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder”

And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.  The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,  And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

This reminds me of Playboy’s 1971 interview with Albert Speer, the author of Inside the Third Reich and Hitler’s closest confident and second in command.

Speer talks about how at Nuremberg he accepted responsibility even for those acts that weren’t under his jurisdiction and that he knew nothing about, such as the atrocities against the Jews, the mass executions of Russians, and the prisoners of war.  

It’s easy for us to condemn men like Speer now.

But take a step back.

What about those not in Hitler’s circle?

What about those citizens that did nothing?

What about humanity generally as a whole?

Aren’t we all to blame for the Holocaust?

Aren’t we all to blame for slavery? What about the Cambodian killing fields? Mao’s China? The gulag archipelago? Rwandan genocide? School shootings? Genital mutilation?  

Gibran says that “the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.”

Taking blame for somebody else’s wrongdoing, because the ability to do wrong is inherent in all of us, is an idea I used to wrestle with a lot, although I haven’t thought about it recently as my life hasn’t much demanded it.

I go back and forth on this.

Are the good really to blame for the bad?

It’s more nuanced than that.

But as a philosophy to promote forgiveness, understanding, and empathy, I don’t think it can be beat.

This harps back to one of the oldest and most enduring religious symbols – Jesus spread on the cross, taking on the sins of the world.

In accepting blame for everything (a philosophy that is being popularised in the modern day by the likes of Jocko Willink and Jordon Peterson) you ultimately find complete freedom.

The Prophet   on comfort.

What have you in your locked houses?  Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?  Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?  Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?  Tell me, have you these in your houses?  Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?

This generation needs to heed this call more than any other.  

We no longer browse for books or records in stores or queue for the movies.

We simply have Amazon deliver books straight to our mobile device and we can stream anything we want whenever we want.  

We don’t even date anymore. Not properly. Everyone’s trying to slide in those DMs on Instagram or Tinder.  

We’ve become so comfortable that our comfort has morphed into depression and isolation.

We’re sick and alone and we don’t even realised how unnatural it is.

“Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.”

Seek discomfort.

Seek growth.

List all the things you don’t have in your life that you want and I’ll bet I could make a list to match that shows where you’re comfortable.

Want a partner but don’t have one?

You’re too comfortable with internet pornography.

Want money but you only have a few bucks in your account?

You’re too comfortable with your Netflix subscription.

Want six pack abs but you’re rocking a keg?

You’re more comfortable on the sofa and unwilling to sacrifice an hour in the morning to get yourself sweaty.

“Your joy is sorrow unmasked.   And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.”

The Prophet is filled with paradigm shifts.

Here’s another one to think about when you find yourself sad, blue, or depressed.

This makes me think of how Milton Erickson treated one woman’s grief.

Listen to this video if you are suffering from grief.

You might be at the right point in your grief in which this hits hard and changes the trajectory of the rest of your life.

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

This is something to consider whenever you find yourself suffering deeply.

It’s impossible to be brimming with joy every second of your life.

It’s also impossible to have every second a bottomless chasm of despair (though it may feel like it at times).  

“is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?”

I’ve long been thinking about opposites being the same side of the coin.

Ever since I first read King Lear over a decade ago, I’ve been attempting to refine my thoughts on this.

I’m getting closer. But Gibran puts it beautifully here.

The metaphor can extend further beyond joy and sorrow.

• The lute is love. The knives are hatred.
• The lute is ambition. The knives are envy.
• The lute is poverty. The knives are prosperity.

In every up and every down look for the opposite, for they are inextricably intertwined.  

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.  When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

How true are these as maxims?

Such an amazing paradigm shift for how you can think about bad times.

If you’re feeling down and at the bottom right now, it is only one side of the same coin.  

“Work is love made visible.”

Every great artist has fallen in love with other works that are love made visible.

One decides to be an architect after seeing the time-transcending love poured into La Sagrada Familia.

One becomes a filmmaker after experiencing Scorsese’s love letter to faith in Silence .

One becomes a mechanic after pouring their soul into their first car restoration.  

And what is it to work with love?  It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.  It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.  It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.  It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,  And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Before everything work based thing you do, ask yourself how it could be an expression of love.

And love doesn’t always mean perfect honey-moon lovey dovey expressions of devotion.

Oftentimes love means sacrifice.

Love means wanting the best for the person you’re giving to.  

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.  For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.  And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.  And if you sing though as angels, and love not the signing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of this when I sit down to work.

If I’m feeling resistance or like I’m doing it for any other reason apart from love, I often ask myself:

Do you want to not do this at all?

Because that’s the choice.

Either you do it with love or you don’t do it.  

“All work is empty save when there is love.”

We don’t have long left on this earth.

Why leave a trail of empty lacklustre shells quickly forgotten and even more swiftly discarded when you can leave a legacy of love labours?

The Prophet on love.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,  Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

This reminds me of Rilke’s assertion that love is an obligation to go within yourself and become better, not to throw your imperfect self at another person.  

Find the person to compliment your life.

You’re an instrument and together you can make beautiful music.

It doesn’t matter what music you make or what kind of instrument (a beat-up guitar from the charity shop can still make a great song), as long as you stand alone and together at once.  

“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

This is a different way to think about parting and saying goodbye to somebody.

When we’re always with someone, we take them for granted.

Shouldn’t we always think as though this is going to be the hour of separation?

Because it could be.

This is a powerful gratitude hack.

if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,  Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,  Into the reasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

When you go into a loving relationship, you might hold back for fear of being hurt.

You’ll succeed, but you’ll also reduce the connection that you could possibly feel.

It’s like taking an antidepressant.

You feel flat.

Perhaps you smile from time to time, but not so much.

Perhaps you frown, but you do so through a haze.

Life is comprised of extremes and if you refuse to accept the negative extremes you do not deserve, nor shall you receive, the positive extremes.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”  And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Understanding that you do not control the flow of love is liberating.

It will stop you from making crazy decisions too.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.  But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To know the pain of too much tenderness.  To be wounded by your own understanding of love;  And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

Desire the darkness of love.

Allow every nuance of it’s expression into you.

“If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons?”

This is something you should ask yourself frequently.

It gets you thinking abundantly.

Take stock every quarter and ask yourself what connections you’ve made, what skills you’ve learnt, what you have achieved.  

There is so much more I could put here in this review of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet .

Every page sparks a revelation.

But I’d much prefer you pick up a copy of your own and let me know your favourite passages.

You can check out The Prophet here .

Francis Wilkinson: Kristi Noem’s cruelty fits right into MAGA gun culture

It’s only right that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s evolving canine scandal should focus on Cricket, the 14-month-old wirehair pointer that Noem shot to death because Cricket was a bad girl. It was Cricket, after all, who took the bullet.

Cricket’s bizarre manner of death, at the hand of a caretaker who allowed the puppy to wreak havoc and then made her pay for it, is relayed in a book scheduled for release at about the time Donald Trump might be deciding on his running mate. The Guardian got hold of a pre-release copy and told the tale of Cricket last weekend. Politicians complain of gotcha stories but this one is a gotme, told by Noem herself. As the news traveled, normal people wondered if Noem has a conscience. (Who executes a puppy?) Political people wondered if she has a brain. (Who admits to having executed a puppy?)

But if you take the spotlight off the doomed dog, or the goat Noem claimed to have killed in crueler fashion (two shots were necessary), you can see how her ghoulishness fits into the mad mosaic of MAGA. It’s the cruelty, of course. And the gun.

In Montana, Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy has his own shooting scandal. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, had been campaigning around the state talking about the bullet lodged in his arm from being shot while serving in Afghanistan. Except in 2015 Sheehy told a Montana park ranger that he had accidentally shot himself in the arm that day. The Washington Post reported that Sheehy’s Colt .45 revolver fell and discharged while he was loading his vehicle during a family visit to the Montana park, according to federal court records. Sheehy’s recklessness could have ended someone’s life.

So Sheehy appears to have manufactured a tall tale about war service, which he thought would convey toughness, while Noem relayed a disconcerting tale about cruelty, which she apparently thought would translate as Trumpy. Republican politicians campaigning during Reconstruction “waved the bloody shirt” to summon the partisan passions of the Civil War. MAGA politicians wave the bloody gun to inflame the culture war.

MAGA Christmas cards have featured young children holding semi-automatic killing machines, poised to unleash holy hell to celebrate the Savior’s birth. You can become a MAGA hero by killing a couple of protesters in someone else’s town, then join the MAGA grift circuit to talk about how guns are freedom and freedom is everything – except, of course, for guys who don’t have any because you killed them with your gun. On Jan. 6, the Secret Service collected 269 knives or blades along with tasers, brass knuckles and more from those attending Trump’s insurrection speech. Trump, however, demanded the removal of magnetometers so that more heavily armed fans would be able to crowd the stage, absorbing his rage without surrendering their weapons. They weren’t, after all, there to harm him, he said.

Aspiring to that level of menace takes more work for some than others. “Ted Cruz TRIGGERS LIBS by cooking crispy bacon on an AR-15,” the National Rifle Association noted for anyone too dull to grasp the point of a culture-war video made by the Republican senator from Texas. The AR-15 is not a child’s toy; it has left brain matter on the walls of children’s classrooms. Yukking it up on his video, Cruz sought to show that even the most calculating striver can be a hot, dangerous mess.

Noem’s Cricket story didn’t drop into this moral pit from outer space. It wasn’t inserted in her manuscript by accident. It’s there to signal solidarity with a political culture that increasingly honors cruelty and valorizes violence.

Book publishing is a slow-motion business. MAGA culture, by contrast, moves swiftly. Only a short while ago MAGA leaders took umbrage at depictions of their resemblance to Vladimir Putin’s minions. This month, the majority of the House Republican conference voted to abandon Ukraine, ceding an independent nation of 38 million to Putin’s brutality. In the old days of the Joe Biden administration, Supreme Court conservatives were all about American history and tradition. Last week, the court’s GOP partisans warmed to granting Trump Putinesque immunity from the law outside the White House, and Putinist powers should he make it back in.

It can be hard to ride such a rapid moral collapse. With her puppy tale, Noem may have overshot her target, but just barely. Indeed, the South Dakotan may be slightly ahead of her time. Today, her story comes off as grotesque and creepy. By November, killing puppies, or others, may be all the MAGA rage.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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Review: Jerry Seinfeld and Melissa McCarthy spoof the ‘making of’ Pop-Tarts in Netflix film ‘Unfrosted’

Jason Fraley | [email protected]

May 3, 2024, 12:46 PM

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In the past year alone, we’ve seen films about the “making of” countless products, including the BlackBerry, Tetris, Air Jordans, Beanie Babies and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Now, Jerry Seinfeld spoofs that entire concept in “Unfrosted: The Pop Tart Story,” streaming on Netflix starting this Friday.

Set in the aptly-named Battle Creek, Michigan in 1963, the film follows the ridiculously untrue story of cereal company Kellogg’s competing with rival company Post to create a hit breakfast pastry for American toasters.

After reuniting with his “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David last month on the series finale of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Jerry Seinfeld stars as Bob Cabana, the fictional inventor of Pop-Tarts. In reality, Doc Thompson of Kellogg’s brought them to shelves to preempt William Post’s not-ready-for-market product Country Squares.

Jerry also co-writes the screenplay with his “Bee Movie” colleague Barry Marder and fellow “Seinfeld” alumni Spike Feresten, who penned the episodes “The Soup Nazi” and “The Little Kicks,” and Andy Robin, who wrote the episodes “The Fatigues” and “The Junior Mint.” That means we have this group to thank for Elaine Benes’ dance, Frank Costanza’s outbursts and quotable lines like “No soup for you!” and “They’re very refreshing!”

While “Seinfeld” remains my all-time favorite sitcom, “Unfrosted” is obviously not their best work. Granted, it’s hard to quantify quality when this movie humors itself as a Mel Brooks-style spoof in the vein of “Spaceballs.” Like “History of the World: Part 1,” there’s even a reference to Pop-Tarts being the greatest rectangles since Moses’ Ten Commandments, recalling the episode where Jerry accused Bryan Cranston of converting to Judaism purely for the jokes. “And that offends you as a Jewish person?” “No, it offends me as a comedian!”

In “Unfrosted,” Jerry banters with a deep bench of supporting stars, but I won’t spoil them here. Nearly every scene features another famous face in a cameo. I’ll settle for listing the big time celebrities shown in the trailer: Amy Schumer as Marjorie Post, Jim Gaffigan as Edsel Kellogg III and  Melissa McCarthy as Donna Stankowski, a NASA scientist who joins Kellogg’s with a crew recalling the Mercury 7 astronauts in a space-race spoof.

Also in the trailer is Hugh Grant as Thurl Ravenscroft (“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”), the booming voice of Frosted Flakes for over five decades. Grant comically wears a Tony the Tiger suit alongside other mascots from Toucan Sam to the Corn Flakes rooster. Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day and Drew Tarver show up as Snap, Crackle and Pop, and while many of their scenes fall flat, their ceremonial flag-folding at a funeral made me laugh out loud.

It all builds to a climatic Jan. 6 spoof that looks like a riot at a cosplay convention with Tony the Tiger dressed like the QAnon Shaman (I refuse the say the guy’s real name because he’s going to jail for storming the U.S. Capitol). Here, Fred Armisen plays Mike Puntz trying to “certify” the pastry deal just like former Vice President Mike Pence certifying the results of 2020 election. It would be funny if it weren’t still so dangerous of a threat to happen again.

Such a finale might confuse extreme-right and extreme-left viewers who heard Seinfeld’s recent statement about political correctness ruining comedy. They’ll ask, “How can an anti-woke comedian also criticize Jan. 6? Aren’t all of our public figures supposed to follow a specific set of ideals in lockstep with one liberal or conservative agenda?” Sigh, in real life, people are nuanced with varying beliefs — and we should treat each other as such.

I have a feeling Jerry’s recent statements will tank this film’s Rotten Tomatoes score by critics looking to punish him. The film isn’t as bad as the low rating it’s about to receive, but it’s also not a comedy classic. Check it out if you want to stay home and watch a silly sendup of product-based movies. The only problem is that “Barbie” did it best last summer, so you might want to instead go see Ryan Gosling in “The Fall Guy.” I can’t wait to see it tonight.

In the end, “Unfrosted” might leave you hungry for more substance, just like Kenny Bania arguing that soup isn’t a meal (depends if there’s crackers). This comedy feast isn’t a big salad. Some jokes as yummy like Kenny Rogers’ Roasters; others taste like they were prepared in Kramer’s shower, swirling down a garbage-disposal drain. Might as well make the origin story of Rusty’s Beefarino. All I can say is these Pop-Tarts are making me thirsty!

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Hailed by The Washington Post for “his savantlike ability to name every Best Picture winner in history," Jason Fraley began at WTOP as Morning Drive Writer in 2008, film critic in 2011 and Entertainment Editor in 2014, providing daily arts coverage on-air and online.

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Maybe Erik Larson Should Have Left the Civil War Alone

In “The Demon of Unrest,” present-day political strife inspires a dramatic portrait of the run-up to the deadliest war on American soil.

Maj. Robert Anderson in 1860. Credit... George S. Cook, via Library of Congress

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By Alexis Coe

Alexis Coe is a fellow at New America and the author, most recently, of “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.”

• April 30, 2024
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THE DEMON OF UNREST: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, by Erik Larson

The Civil War is one hell of a drug. It’s plentiful and Main Street-legal, but can induce hallucinatory visions when mixed with inflammatory substances. “I’m so attracted to seeing it,” former President Donald J. Trump confessed at a rally this past Jan. 6, three years after his “Big Lie” inspired followers to storm the Capitol — a feat the Southern Confederacy and its campaign to preserve slavery were unable to accomplish, even as the effort left more than 600,000 people dead in its wake.

In “The Demon of Unrest ,” Erik Larson recounts being “appalled” but also “riveted” by Jan. 6 and by “today’s political discord, which, incredibly, has led some benighted Americans to whisper of secession and civil war.”

When Larson, the reigning king of Dad History, drops a new book on the Civil War a month and a half before Father’s Day in a pivotal election year, he knows what he’s doing. Sort of. “The Demon of Unrest ” is Larson’s first book on the Civil War. And his green horns show.

Ostensibly, it mirrors his best-selling books — among them, “ The Splendid and the Vile ” and “ The Devil in the White City ” — with the same pulpy, black-and-white cover treatment and bulky page count, satisfying the collect-them-all, size-matters kind of reader.

The drama unfolds between Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the following April, when Confederate troops in Charleston, S.C., shelled Fort Sumter and started the Civil War. During those tense five months, Lincoln hoped, despite a pro-slavery mob’s attempt to stop Congress from tallying the vote and decades of physical violence within the Senate and House chambers , that the war might narrowly be avoided.

At the start the outgoing president, James Buchanan, is maddeningly passive in the face of cabinet resignations and seceding states, including South Carolina, where Confederates would see federal forces arriving at Fort Sumter as nothing short of a foreign incursion. “They ought to hang him,” an astonished Lincoln privately remarks, bewildered by Buchanan’s talk of surrendering federal forts.

Publicly, Lincoln maintains a determined yet conciliatory posture even as Larson’s other hero, Maj. Robert Anderson, a former enslaver and the fort’s commander, is under siege by thousands of better-armed Confederate soldiers and running out of supplies. Anderson and his 80 or so men pray for the best while cornered by the worst.

The stage is set. “I invite you now to step into the past,” Larson writes, and he means it. He wants you not just immersed, but engulfed. A Larson book is like the Dead Sea: The extraordinarily dense level of details — “On the stillest nights, at 9 o’clock, Major Anderson could hear the great bells in the distant witch-cap spire of St. Michael’s Church, bastion of Charleston society where planters displayed rank by purchasing pews” — usually allows readers to float on his narrative without much effort.

I tried my best not to swim, but on more than one occasion, I almost drowned from exertion, especially in the incredibly banal final stretch. And still there was something lacking in the book’s 565 pages: Nary a Black person, free or enslaved, is presented as more than a fleeting, one-dimensional figure. Frederick Douglass, a leading abolitionist and standard of histories of the era, warrants no more than a mention.

Black people are primarily nameless victims of an antagonistic labor system that’s causing a political crisis among white Americans. At one point, to differentiate this near monolith, Larson employs the term “escape-minded Blacks,” a curious turn of phrase that suggests there were “bondage-minded Blacks.”

The flattening is all the more noticeable because so many other characters are given shape. Larson offers a cradle-to-coffin biography of the South Carolina congressman-turned-Confederate James Hammond. Lengthy passages on Hammond’s “five-way affair” with (read: sexual abuse of) four teenage nieces are followed by a short, unnervingly euphemistic account of the enslaved women he (and his son) raped and impregnated: Hammond made Sally Johnson “his mistress,” and when her daughter Louisa turned 12, he “made her his mistress as well.”

Larson’s magnolias-under-the-moonlight word choice is inadequate. Sally and Louisa were damned to Hammond’s forced labor camps, along with more than 300 enslaved people who “had a penchant for dying.” But they got Christmas off, Larson notes; Hammond “held a barbecue” and, on one occasion, “gave a calico frock to every female who had given birth.”

“Cotton is king,” Hammond declared in 1858. The phrase would come to epitomize the newly minted Confederacy’s misguided confidence in both its economic domination and the war. The greatest echo of the present day in “The Demon of Unrest” may be Larson’s newcomer ego, a swaggering disregard for the difference between the shopworn and the truly complex that leads straight into the pitfalls of nostalgia and hubris.

At his Jan. 6 anniversary rally, a century and a half after the Civil War ended, Trump suggested that Lincoln could have negotiated his way out of the conflict and avoided the killing — but only at great personal cost. “If he negotiated it,” Trump observed, “you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.” What better reason could there have been to fight?

THE DEMON OF UNREST : A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War | By Erik Larson | Crown | 565 pp. | $35

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“Real Americans,” a new novel by Rachel Khong , follows three generations of Chinese Americans as they all fight for self-determination in their own way .

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Brittney Griner’s ordeal riveted the nation. Now she tells her own story.

The WNBA star’s book, “Coming Home,” delves into the dehumanizing indignities she suffered after being arrested in Russia and held prisoner for 10 months.

The beginning of Brittney Griner’s new memoir is shockingly mundane — a hurried packing job in preparation for what had become for the Phoenix Mercury star a routine overseas trip.

Griner, who supplemented her WNBA income by playing for the UMMC Ekaterinburg team, was off to Russia. She sailed through security in Phoenix and then New York before landing in Moscow, where she and several other foreigners were subjected to further searches. A sniffer dog showed no sign that it had detected anything, so Griner was surprised to be asked to unpack her carry-ons. That’s where she unearthed not one but two partially used canisters of cannabis oil. They were legal in Arizona, where Griner was a licensed medical marijuana user, to help her cope with sports-related injuries. In Russia, they were contraband.

The been-there-done-that opening sets the tone for a book that careens from the ordinary to the surreal. Readers may well recognize missteps they have made getting through security in the sudden crisis Griner faces — and recoil in horror at what comes next.

“The agent picked up the cartridge and glared at me. I couldn’t speak, think, breathe,” she recalls. “Even after the second cartridge was discovered, I was hoping he’d let it slide, give me a strong warning.”

Of course, that’s not what happened.

Griner’s passport was taken and then, after much panicked waiting, she was pressured into signing a Russian document she didn’t understand. “ Maybe if I sign this, I can go, ” she thought. Instead she was ushered into an unmarked car and taken to a red-brick building where she was interrogated and later read her charge: smuggling narcotics into Russia.

“I left Phoenix in a frenzy,” Griner recalls. “Three hellish days later, just before dawn, I lost my freedom, my peace, my life as I’d known it … The future was unimaginable.”

The broad outline of Griner’s ordeal is well known. But “Coming Home” delves unflinchingly into the dehumanizing indignities the Olympic athlete suffered during the 10 months she served out of a nine-year sentence. The too-tight cuffs, the too-short beds and the strip searches; the hours spent crouched in cages; the bewildering multiday transfer to a penal colony; the backbreaking toil sewing military uniforms; the efforts to find allies among the few imprisoned English speakers; the indigestible food and stinking toilets. Her faith helped her avoid sinking into suicidal thinking.

“Coming Home” is also a reminder that sudden detentions rewrite the lives not just of those who are wrongly held but of the family members, other supporters and former hostages who work to bring them home. Griner’s wife, Cherelle, who was then in law school, became her chief advocate, marshaling players, politicians and prominent Black women, including Gayle King, behind a powerful #WeAreBG campaign.

Still, Vanessa Nygaard, then coach of the Phoenix Mercury, focused on the attention Griner’s case was not getting, arguing that LeBron James would have been brought home more quickly. “It’s a statement about the value of a woman. It’s a statement about the value of a Black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person,” she said.

Written with Michelle Burford, founding senior editor of O, The Oprah Magazine, who has also channeled the stories of actress Cicely Tyson, gymnast Simone Biles and singer Alicia Keys into print, “Coming Home” is bound for the talk-show circuits and probably the bestseller lists. The text resonates with the emotional clarity of Griner’s voice — and sometimes her desperate text messages — shifting, a little jarringly, to sections written in a more descriptive journalistic style. It does not share the literary artistry of another recently published memoir , “American Mother,” the joint work of novelist Colum McCann and Diane Foley, whose son Jim was publicly beheaded in 2014 by ISIS terrorists. But it is a riveting read.

Some will question the wisdom of Griner’s trip in February 2022, as Russia was poised to invade Ukraine. The financial incentives were clear, but there were signs from early on that Griner had entered an unsavory world: Women players had become sports royalty in Russia, thanks largely to Shabtai Kalmanovich, a KGB spy and sometime diamond trader who poured millions into the game his third wife played and was later assassinated in a drive-by shooting on a Moscow street.

There’s nothing new about Russia’s strategy of arresting innocent Americans. In the early days of the Cold War, my father-in-law was held for two months, sometimes in solitary confinement, after he and his college friend Warren “Jim” Oelsner cycled from West Germany into the Soviet Zone, where they were arrested and accused of espionage. Dean Acheson, then secretary of state, condemned the students’ detention as “an illegal, outrageous and improper thing to do.” Now, with the threat of a second Cold War looming, Griner’s book leaves readers with questions that go beyond the scope of this memoir:

How her release was secured and then executed as a one-for-one trade on an Abu Dhabi tarmac in December 2022, where Griner was exchanged for the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.

What lies ahead for the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich particularly in an election year when Russia may be reluctant to give President Biden an electoral boost? Gershkovich has been held for more than a year in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison after being accused of spying — a charge that he, the Journal and the Biden administration deny.

And why, after more than five years, does former Marine and corporate security executive Paul Whelan linger in a Russian penal colony?

All legitimate questions.

Meanwhile, Griner’s return to the United States has swung between celebrations and new threats. There were joyful shindigs as well as red-carpet invitations to the White House correspondents’ dinner and the Met Gala. Griner saw the Biden administration taking further steps to raise awareness, with the passage of bipartisan legislation in 2023 to create the National Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day, which is observed each March. Griner is determined to use her celebrity status to secure the release of others and to right social injustices.

“I can use my darkest moment to shine a light on American hostages all over the world,” Griner writes. “On equal pay for female athletes and understanding of LGBTQ+ people. On the experiences of Black women, whose expressions of anger, while no different from anyone’s, brand us as always irate.”

But the joy of Griner’s homecoming was sullied by racist and homophobic attacks, including vitriol from some who saw a sports star who had taken a knee during the national anthem at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement (she now stands) as less worthy of the high-profile trade than Whelan, who had served in the Marines. Overbearing journalists appeared on her doorstep, and threatening letters piled up in the mailbox, prompting Griner to flee with Cherelle to an Airbnb and hire full-time security guards. Then, last June, as Griner was traveling with her teammates through Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, a man accosted her, demanding to know whether she thought it was fair to trade her for Bout, the “Merchant of Death.”

The couple decided to seek refuge in the desert mountains. Griner describes a blissful paradise “surrounded by cactuses and quiet.” But that paradise also represents one more forced relocation, putting a disconcerting twist on the meaning of “Coming Home” to today’s deeply divided America.

Frances Stead Sellers, an associate editor of The Washington Post, is a 2024 journalist in residence at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law.

Coming Home

By Brittney Griner and Michelle Burford

Knopf. 370 pp. $30

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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Mistrial in case of US military contractor accused of Abu Ghraib abuse

Eight-member civil jury unable to reach verdict on whether Caci conspired with US soldiers to abuse detainees in Iraqi prison

The trial of a US military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees in Iraq two decades ago, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, collapsed on Thursday when an eight-person civil jury in Virginia failed to return a verdict.

Caci Premier Technology, a private company contracted by the US government to provide civilian interrogators at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004, had been accused of conspiring with US soldiers to physically and mentally assault those held with the intention of “softening them up” for questioning.

Horrific leaked images from Abu Ghraib of a hooded detainee standing on a box attached to electrical wiring, and others piled naked while smiling army soldiers gave thumbs-up signs, became synonymous with widespread abuses committed by American troops, and sparked global outrage.

A federal judge in Alexandria declared a mistrial on Thursday after the jury said it was deadlocked and could not reach a verdict following the six-day trial and almost eight days of deliberations.

Caci, based in Reston, Virginia, had argued it was not complicit in the abuse because its employees had little to no interaction with the three plaintiffs,and that any liability for their mistreatment belonged to the US government.

They jury sent out a note saying it was deadlocked, and indicating in particular that it was hung up on a legal principle known as the “borrowed servants” doctrine.

The plaintiffs, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and As’ad Al-Zuba’e, Iraqi civilians who were detained at Abu Ghraib before being released in 2004, will seek a retrial, their lawyers said.

Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) that represented them, told the Guardian in a statement: “We are, of course, disappointed by the jury’s failure to reach a unanimous verdict in favor of our plaintiffs despite the wealth of evidence.

“But we remain awed by the courage of our clients, who have fought for justice for their torment for 16 years. We look forward to the opportunity to present our case again.”

Al-Ejaili, meanwhile, said he was grateful the plaintiffs’ voices were heard.

“It is enough that we tried and didn’t remain silent,” he said.

“We might not have received justice yet in our just case today, but what is more important is that we made it to trial and spoke up so the world could hear from us directly. This will not be the final word; what happened in Abu Ghraib is engraved into our memories and will never be forgotten in history.”

Prosecutors in the trial, which began on 15 April, detailed “sadistic, blatant and wanton abuses” of those rounded up by US forces. The lawsuit said Al-Ejaili, who was working as journalist for Al Jazeera when he was detained, was left naked for hours with his hands tied, repeatedly beaten, and threatened with dogs.

Zuba’e said his captors tortured him with extremely hot and cold water, beat his genitals with a stick, and kept him in a solitary cell for nearly a year; while Al Shimari, who was detained for for two months at Abu Ghraib, was subjected to electric shocks, food deprivation and forced physical activity to the point of exhaustion.

None of the three were ever charged or provided with a reason for their arrest. CCR lawyers argued that Caci was liable for their mistreatment even if they could not prove their interrogators were the ones who directly inflicted the abuse.

Other evidence included reports from two retired army generals, who documented the abuse and concluded that multiple Caci interrogators were complicit. The reports concluded that one of the interrogators, Steven Stefanowicz, lied to investigators about his conduct, and that he probably instructed soldiers to mistreat detainees and used dogs to intimidate detainees during interrogations.

Stefanowicz testified for Caci at trial through a recorded video deposition and denied mistreating detainees.

Caci officials initially had serious doubts about his ability to work as an interrogator, according to evidence introduced at trial. An email sent by the Caci official Tom Howard before the company sent interrogators to Iraq described Stefanowicz as a “no-go for filling an interrogator position”.

Caci initially sent Stefanowicz over to Iraq not as an interrogator but as a screener, but he testified that the army – desperately short of interrogators at a prison with a rapidly expanding population – promoted him to interrogator within a day of his arrival.

Trial evidence showed that Caci defended the work of another of its interrogators, Dan Johnson, even after the army sought his dismissal when photos of the Abu Ghraib abuse became public, and one of the photos showed Johnson questioning a detainee in a crouched position that army investigators determined to be an unauthorized stress position.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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