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F. E. Peters: Jesus and Muhammad. Parallel Tracks, Parallel Lives, New York 2011: Oxford University Press, xxiii + 214 S. ISBN 978-0-19-974746-7, .f 24.95.
There is much to admire in the scholarly output of F. E. Peters. A classicist by training, he brings so his studies of early Islamic history something of the rigor of the classical tradition as well as the ability to draw fruitful , and very welcome, contrasts and parallels between the cultural histories that he studies. As a his- torian, he has devoted a great deal of his attention to Islamic origins, a subject now embroiled in controversy between skeptics of various hues and others willing to grant the sources various degrees of credibility. Eschewing extreme skepticism, Peters has opted for a strategy which gingerly weaves a path among the minefields and seeks to establish what can be known with reasonable certainty about early Islam and its founder. His most often quoted essay in this regard is "The Quest of the Historical Muhammad" which appeared as an Appendix to his booliMuharnmad and the origins of Islam (SUNY Press, 1994). That essay, though now outdated in some respects, remains a sober and readable attempt at "extricating the princeless ore" from the "rubble" in which Muhammad's life is embedded. The method used for this extraction however is not fully explained; he describes it as "a combination of common sense and some modern heuristic devices" and leaves it at that.
The book currently under review may be said to have emanated from that earlier work. In that wor Peters drew occasional parallels between the lives of Jesus and Muhammad. In the present work, these parallels become the main focus. In eight chapters, followed by an Epilogue, Peters arranges the two lives in rough chro- nological order and unter major themes, e.g. "The Settings", "The Living Voice", "The Message", "Act Two: Tragedy and Triumph" , "A new Dawn: The Aftermath, the Legacy ", and so forth. Each chapter is structured in exactly the same way. Jesus comes first, followed by Muhammad, and then a sort of conclusion called "After- thoughts". Within each chapter, there are numerous titled subsections. What is the purpose of this parallel and highly structured treatment? It is the hope "that each...