The Prophet Muhammad taught the word of God to the Arabs. Within a generation of his death his followers
- as vivid a cast of heroic individuals as history has known
- had exploded out of Arabia to confront the two great superpowers of the seventh-century & establish Islam & a new civilization. That the protagonists originated from the small oasis communities of central Arabia gives their adventures their rivalries their loves & their achievements an additional vivacity & intimacy. So that on one hand THE HEIRS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD is a swaggering saga of ambition immense achievement self-sacrificing nobility & blood rivalry while on the other it allows us to understand some of the complexities of our modern world. For within this fifty-year span of conquest & empire-building Barnaby Rogerson also identifies the seeds of discord that destroyed the unity of Islam & traces the roots of the schism between Sunni & Shia Muslims to the rivalry of the two individuals who best knew & loved the Prophet: his cousin & son-in-law Ali & his wife Aisha.