I have read several introductory and semi-advanced books on Islam, before and after becoming a Muslim myself. This book definitely rates as one of the best. I have read "The Vision of Islam" (by Murata & Chittick), "Approaching the Quran" (by Sells), and "What Everyone Should Know About Islam and Muslims (by Haneef) among others, and this books stands out as the best. It puts to rest a lot of Western stereotypes about the Quran, especially about the Islamic concepts of War, Women, and Marriage. But the best and most unique parts of the book deal with the style of the Quran in Arabic, its expert use of future, past, and present tense, and the change in person (first, second, third) that is such a beautiful feature of the Quran. The book also compares the stories of Adam, Eve, and Joseph in the Quran and Bible in a most intelligent and sensitive way. I definitely recommend this book as it is also refreshing to read an introductory book on the Quran written by a Muslim.

MUSLIM OR NON-MUSLIM, YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT THE TRUE BEAUTY OF ISLAM BY READING THIS BOOK. IT CLEARS UP SEVERAL STEROTYPES AND MISINFORMATION DUE TO TRANSLATION ERRORS, MISINTERPRETATION, PREJUDICE ETC. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT THE REAL ISLAM, AND ABOUT THE ONE, ETERNAL, EVER-LIVING GOD, AND HIS WORDS AS FOUND IN THE HOLY QURAN, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK.IT CLEARS UP COMMON STEROTYPES AND PREPARES YOU MENTALLY TO REALLY LEARN ABOUT TRUE ISLAM.

A beautifully crafted fiction that illustrates in a vivid way much of Egypt social ills and its charms. Yusuf Al-Qa'id uses a very creative approach and highly unusual one in Egyptian novels to tell the story of a substitution of a poor peasant for the wealthy son of the village mayor. The story takes place in 1973, at a time when conscription lasted for indefinite periods of time and only few years after humiliation of the Egyptian military in 1967. Six different storytellers reveal the details of the story to us from very different perspectives with highly varying levels of empathy with the main character.

Al Quid uses extensive symbolism in the story; none of the characters have names except for the main character who was given an unusual generic first name "the Egyptian". Oppressive social pressures, slaving for family status and appearances, corruption a patriarchal tyranny, city indifference, rich vs poor, gap of opportunity, oppression of authority, helplessness of the common and indeed of all Egyptians are all the strong and recurring themes throughout the book. The symbolism is generally not subtle and at times it feels like the author has tried to cover more social ills than anyone story can do justice. The story is too gripping to lose the reader in the midst of the litany of Egypt's social ills.

While the six different story tellers help round out a more complete picture of the central sad tale as a whole, much of the story and many of the characters came across one dimensional, too cardboard like the good, the bad, the greedy, the conscientious, the helpless and so forth. Somehow, to me, it felt something was lacking despite the six different perspectives. All six storytellers painted the one vision the Al Qaid had, they told us different parts of the story, only in few cases did they really show us very different perspectives. While I have immensely enjoyed this novel, this one missing aspect detracted from it for me. The multiple storytellers is such an ideal way to portray more well rounded characters but was not fully utilized.

After I read this book to an "unknown" author, it became clear to me why it was selected by the "Emerging Voices International Book Series" to be translated and introduced to the American reader. This novel takes place in Egypt during the 1973 war, where the son of a poor watch-man was coerced to send his son to the front instead of the son of a rich 'umda' or village chief. Although it takes place in a rural Egyptian village, yet it touches on issues that have no borders. It stimulates the reader to think deep inside about one's own beliefs on issues such as justice, social class and differences between the rich and the poor, the "haves" and the "have-nots". I was quite impressed by the innovative technique that the author has chosen to write his novel. The characters of the novel are also the narrators of the story. They are telling their sides of the story by talking directly to the reader, yet in a manner that maintains the fluency and continuity of the events without any repetition. The author deliberately omitted giving names to any of the characters, with the exception of the main character, a young man named "Masri" or the Egyptian, which symbolized the (Egyptian) people. This book cannot be described in a brief review effortlessly, somehow you must read it to get its full effect and meaning. Although it is written in a simple manner, yet I perceive it to be rather sophisticated invloving deep thought from the writer to reflect deeper meanings. Ther were a few typos in the text, but these did not take away from this wonderful novel, but clearly would have been better without. I believe that anyone who will read this book will appreciate an outstanding writer and an innovative novel.

This short book of prophetic sayings conveys more of the spirit of Islam than many scholarly books of much greater length. In particular, it shows Islam's integrative, balanced nature, through the author's diverse selection of hadiths- such as those of companions extolling the Prophet's bravery and skill in battle, his advice to repeat "Glory to God," 33 times after prayers, and his encouragement of smiling as an act of worship. I give it 4 stars because some selections seem to be abridged without indication.

Thomas Cleary has put together a collage of hadith--sayings of Muhammad (Peace be upon him)--that gives the reader a better understanding of the Prophet of Islam. The hadith are from "Sahih Bukhari" which is the most authentic scholarly collection of hadith. The hadith contained here deal with everything from moral character to cosmological realities. The book does a great job of showing not only a more fleshed-out look at the Prophet but also his message which dealt with all aspects of life.
Highly recommended as an entertaining as well as enlightening read which will give one a better understanding of the Prophet of Islam.

This is the most comprehensive book on the " Rumble in the jungle" one can hope to get. The beauty of the book is that unlike other biographies it never loses it's touch with reality. The accurately described scenes in Ali's training camp and Ali's frustration with having to train, the boredom that a prize fighter goes through while training are all aptly revealed . Ali's psyche has been explored as in no other book. The author has also given his own brilliant account of the country that the fight took place in, Zaire. This book also has many of those things that weren't concentrated upon in "When we were kings", like the fact that Ali didn't train as hard for this fight as most fighters do for a heavyweight championship but instead was banking on his clever tricks to secure victory for himself. After reading this book, the reader would like to watch "When we were kings" again to have a better understanding of the movie, as he or she would have a greater knowledge of the events and the persons involved in the drama. Norman's deep insight of the boxing world can be gauged from the thoughts he has when he is wathcing Muhmmad Ali celebrate after his victory, "In the privacy of his bathroom, doubtless he will wince and piss blood. That is the price after many a fight. It was his pride of course to show none of this." Unlike most other white writers of his time, Norman understands and feels what makes Ali tick. The reader is taken into the thought provoking world of Ali's attitude and reason-towards his people, his religion, his profession, his opponents and his friends. All in all, this book is for anybody who is a boxing fan or a Muhammad Ali fan.

This was my first experience with Norman Mailer and it certainly will not be my last. The Fight paints beautiful portraits of many of the characters, events, and locations that surrounded The Rumbe in The Jungle of 1975. His eye for detail and incredible descriptive ability made this a wonderful read. More important to boxing fans, however, is that his actual recount of the fight itself may be the single best piece of boxing writing I have ever read--it was better than watching the real thing and Mailer somehow makes the reader feel like he is both a ringside spectator and one of the combatants at the same time (a strange experience, but certainly one worth having). This book is an excellent companion to When We Were Kings and the actual video of the fight, both of which are sold by Amazon. Another interesting contrast is provided by David Remnick's King of the World, which details the months leading up to Ali's first championship fight against Sonny Liston. Ali evolved a great deal between 1964 when he was still a young, scared Cassius Clay and 1975 when he had become an older, wiser, though no less enthusiastic champion. The Fight is a great book, a must have for all boxing fans and certainly worthy of any reader who enjoys excellent character development, action, and terrific writing.

This book is a must read for fans of boxing and Muhammed Ali. Mailer brings the "Rumble in the Jungle" to life. When describing Ali's miraculous return from the dead and his role in creating the African American identity, Mailer is at his best. Something much more important than a boxing match took place. Mailer fills it with symbolism, insight and love.

Just saw the Will Smith movie Ali. Save your seven bucks and read this book. It's much more interesting and doesn't bore you with Ali's private life. What's more, it covers almost exactly the same ground as the movie, stopping at the Foreman fight and concentrating on Ali's stand against the war.

Will Smith just can't compare to the real thing and the real Ali definitely comes through in this book which I read last year.

Wow, finally a book that gives more than the usual boxing cliches about Ali. This book tells about the other side of Ali, the crusader for justice who took an incredibly courageous stand against the Vietnam War and risked going to prison for his beliefs.

The average boxing fan probably won't like it because it doesn't talk much about Ali as a boxer but rather gives us some political insights that most boxing fans are probably too conservative or apolitical to appreciate.

It's a truly fascinating book, very well written and it explodes a lot of the myths about Ali because it is co-wriiten by Ali's best friend Howard Bingham, one of the only people who knows what really happened. Read this book!

Other than a couple of minor factual errors (Sonny Liston bowed out of their second fight in the 7th round, not the 8th), this is a great book, filled with the best information and inside accounts I've ever seen about Ali and I've read just about all of them.

It even blows away a few myths that I've always believed because they are repated by one writer after another.

Muhammad Ali may not have been the biggest, meanest boxer of all time, but he definitely has to be one of the most determined athletes ever to set foot in a ring. This is why Myers, like Ali himself, refers to the boxer as "the greatest." Through easy reading, Myers paints a picture of what life was life for working class blacks in the near South (Louisville KY) in the 1950's. He describes the fighters who came before Ali (heroes like Joe Louis and Archie Moore), and goes into detail describing both the person and the boxing style of Ali's opponents--Liston, Frazier, Foreman and others. Myers also details the mental strategies and physical competency of Ali. It is here that the reader realizes that much of Ali's game was fought outside the ring, with not only the next opponent, but also the press, the public, an the government. Viet Nam, the draft, the Nation of Islam, the skewing of the military to induct more minorities, and the subject of 'conscientious objection' are touched upon, giving young readers a sense of the social history of the period, without the ho-hum of a history book. Myers also dissects the boxing industry, where young talent is often beaten to a senseless pulp for the sake of audiences, the mass media, and a few dollars. Myers does an excellent job of conveying the fact that the boxer from Louisville was the greatest in his determination to win, not because of his physical ability, but because of his mental agility. Myers also notes Ali's negative trait of verbally insulting and intimidating his opponent. His vicious assaulting of his opponents (especially the racial insults he spewed at Joe Frazier) set the stage for the trash-talking which is now rampant in sports at all levels. This book will intrigue a variety of students in middle school and up. It is easy to read, with enough black and white photographs and large page margins to attract even reluctant readers. It is a good introduction to what actually goes on in professional athletics, the physical and mental game of winning.

The greatest muhammad ali was a really good book. I don't like reading but i couldn't but it down. It is about Muhammad Ali and his life. He got into boxing because of a kid that stole his bike. He wanted to beat the [stuff] out of the kid. As soon as they find the theif, Ali's trainer said he had good potentail. This book goes through Ali's life as a boxer and how he started. It talks about his family too. Walter Dean Myers wrote a lot of good books like Moster, and Fallen Angels which i also read. After reading those 2 books i wasen't disapointed.

The book"THE GREATEST MUHAMMAD ALI" is one of the best books ihave ever read. When I first read this book I coudn't put it down. this book only took me a week to read and also you get information you never herd of like I never knew that Muhammad Ali's real name is Cassius Clay. When Muhammad was young he used to get beat up and his bike was stolen. After he got beat up he started taking boxing lessions. He lost most of his boxing matches when he was young. In the book you lean about others like Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson Ali never misted a practus. The reason I liked the book is because I took boxing lessons and now Iknow how to protect myself if I need to. Also you get good information on the boxers Ali's life. In the book they say that Ali has skills of most of thebest fighters that ever lived.Reading this book helped me change the way I look at things like the way I treat people andto be tough competitor at sports I play. It also helped me see how his life was as a African American boxer. I'm glad I found this awesome book to read because it made me want to be a boxer.

This book must have been obsolete already 7 years ago. DOS there is the most popular system, assembler is still 16-bit, with some "news" on few pages about "new" 32-bit one. It is ridiculous how they can annotate this book as up-to-date and for such ski-high price ! Don't fall in this trap.

I used this book in my college Assembly course, and after reviewing quite a number of other books, this is by far the best one I have seen to date. Sure, it does concentrate on the 8086/8088 processors and XT machines to quite an extent, but one must remember that even the latest Pentiums are 80x86-compatible processors (as far as the instruction sets are concerned), so that being said I feel that this book is far from obsolete. I've been programming in assembly on everything from the XT, to the HP200lx palmtop, to the Pentium-4, and this book has never failed to be an exceptional reference tool. Expensive, but well worth it!

I have been through most of this book and flipped through some of the other pages (not done yet). So far this book has been very informative. It describes older architecture to help you understand the newer architecture. Describing many of the chips that you do not see on your computer motherboard anymore, but rather integrated all into one IC. Eager to finish.

Ibn Ishaq is one of the earliest Islamic historians. This book deals in detail with genealogy of Muhammad and events relating his life and death. The emphasis is on the events regarding Muhammad's childhood and manhood. It elaborates on the policies of Muhammad and the way he managed the infant Islamic state. I think this book should be used as a paradigm for the making for a true Islamic state. Many of Muhammad's practices described in this book are unknown to majority of Muslims. As Muslims I believe that it is the responsibility of them to read this book and further investigate their governments and their policies. I believe Islam is very much perceived as a totalitarian religion, which has nothing to do with the reality. The true Islamic beliefs and administration of the government can only be explored by reading materials such as this where we can see how Muhammad himself conducted the state and then relate it to modern times. Therefore it is imperative for Muslims and non-Muslims to launch their own enquiry and investigate the true meaning and purpose of Islam in the light of Koran, Traditions of Muhammad and early historical events documented by either Ibn Isahq, al-Tabari, Ibn Saad or al-Bladhuri (these the earliest sources).

Ibn Ishaq is one of the earliest Islamic historians. This book deals in detail with genealogy of Muhammad and events relating his life and death. The emphasis is on the events regarding Muhammad's childhood and manhood. It elaborates on the policies of Muhammad and the way he managed the infant Islamic state. I think this book should be used as a paradigm for the making for a true Islamic state. Many of Muhammad's practices described in this book are unknown to majority of Muslims. As Muslims I believe that it is the responsibility of them to read this book and further investigate their governments and their policies. I believe Islam is very much perceived as a totalitarian religion, which has nothing to do with the reality. The true Islamic beliefs and administration of the government can only be explored by reading materials such as this where we can see how Muhammad himself conducted the state and then relate it to modern times. Therefore it is imperative for Muslims and non-Muslims to launch their own enquiry and investigate the true meaning and purpose of Islam in the light of Koran, Traditions of Muhammad and early historical events documented by either Ibn Isahq, al-Tabari, Ibn Saad or al-Bladhuri (these the earliest sources).

One of the most influential and interesting books I have ever read, beautifully translated in the opinion of one who knows some Arabic. Not only a precious source on the life of Muhammand but also on Arabic literature and culture and Islam. This is a book which deserves to known by people outside of the field of Arabic and Islamic studies; it is one of the great biographies of all time.

Although some topics might be difficult to understand for a non-Muslim, the book reveals the various schools of thought existing in contemporary Islam. But to profit from book's content, general information and a history of theological evolution in Islam will be found elsewhere.

The Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrines is probably the most valuable book printed on Islamic beliefs and practice this century. In a time when the reality of this religion has been obscured from within its folds as well as from without, Shaykh Kabbani does an immeasurable service by elucidating and shedding light on its truth as it has been understood since the time of the Prophet (s) himself by those who earnestly sought their Creator. It is thus understandable that such a man will no doubt attract vehement opposition from those who seek to distort and pervert religion for the sake of their own personal agendas. In wake of such hypocrites and the rising tide of opportunism, Shaykh Kabbani must be commended for striving so courageously despite the opposition of the corrupt and spiritually diseased - those who do not even believe that the purification of the human heart is a fundamental element of any religious or spiritual practice.

Finally the view point of traditional Islamic scholarship is available in a comprehensive english book with extensive references to Quran, Hadith and major scholars. The book is a must read for all Muslims or all those interested in traditional Islam. It refutes the extremist Saudi sect version of Islam.

Armstrong has written what is likely the most accessible biography of Muhammad available today. It gives an intriguing account of not only Mohammed's life, but also the historical context under which Islam emerged. The book provides a sound introduction to how and why the Muslim world came to be, as well as glimpse into why it has evolved into its current state.

One negative aspect of the novel is that Armstrong often painstakingly tries to justify many of the Prophet's actions, likely out of fear that Western readers will simply write these actions of as barbaric and primitive. There is no need to do this, and the downside is that Armstrong often comes off sounding biased. Armstrong already gives us a clear understanding of the harsh and violent society which plagued 6th century Arabia. Based on this, why the Prophet took many of the actions he did should be understandable to the reader.

This however is only a minor criticism and it by no means mars this fascinating book. One only wishes Muslim writers could offer such enriching accounts of their Prophet rather than blindly praising him to no end and offering little valuable insight into the complexities of the man.

This book may be a good starting point for a Westerner who knows little or nothing about Islam and its prophet. The book is fairly easy to read, as it is not saturated with excessive details or citations, but the tone does get monotonous quickly. Armstrong may have been very interested in the subject, but if that's the case, her passion and interest do not really come through and fail to make a deep impression on the reader. At times, I felt bored. The title is a bit misleading, too. This is not really a biography of Muhammad, but a kind of interpretation of Islam, its origins, and the character of the prophet--all intertwined in a single book.

The sources for the book are English-language secondary sources, and the author was relatively new to Islam at the time of writing. I give it a generous four stars, but strictly speaking this is not really a biography of the prophet, nor a particularly gripping account of the rise of Islam. For a secular interpretation of Muhammad, you may want to see Rodinson's book, and for the faithful, perhaps Martin Lings'. Armstrong's book is best for those who are curious about Islam but afraid to wade in with both feet. Also, the book has an absolutely beautiful cover.

While it's a good thing that there are books out there on Islam that counter the "make big bucks by bashing Islam" trend, Ms Armstrong could have gone deeper.

The primary example to me is her handling of the so-called "Banu Qurayza Massacre." Robert Spencer (_Islam Unveiled_) and his imitators love to recount the story of how Muhammad had 900 Jewish men executed without telling why it happened; Ms Armstrong puts it in context to explain it (Spencer neglected to mention the seige of Medina which preceded the "massacre" -- pagan Meccans had surrounded Medina, bent on destroying the Muslim community, and a group of Jews in Medina called Banu Qurayza were about to let them into the city).

The problem is that the "massacre" never happened. There was no massive slaughter of Jews. Only the tribe's leaders -- a dozen people at most -- were executed for this treacherous act. (For the truth about this incident, check out W.N. Arafat's pre-9/11 article, "New Light on the story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina," available through your favorite search engine.) I hope a future edition of the book will correct this mistake, but for now, I can only give it four stars.