The Presence of the Prophet in Early Modern and Contemporary Islam, Volume 1.

Reviewed by: Amidu Olalekan Sanni, Lagos State University

Published by: Leiden: Brill, 2022, xix+716pp. ISBN: 9789004466722.

Proceeding from the axiomatic truth that Muslims, of whatever doctrinal, political, and cultural leaning, are attached to Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him) and hold him in especial esteem, the difference being one of degree and type, a French-German collaborative research project was put in place, namely, “The Presence of the Prophet: Muhammad in the Mirror of his Community in Early and Modern Islam” (See https://prophet.hypotheses. org -ANR-DFG 2017-2020-).

The title under review is the first of the projected three volumes on the subject matter from Islamic antiquity to date, specifically from 1450 CE-1850 CE, and from thence to the present. The volumes arising from the project are to evaluate, in the framework of the “plurality of representations” (p. 5), the significance of this attachment in the context of Muslims’ various identities, modalities of rituals, ceremonies, and other socio-political indices through a multidisciplinary discourse model, viz., philosophical, juridical, political, artistic, literary, and philological.