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Payambar: The Messenger
Paperback
Publisher Price: $28.00
ISBN13: 9781048307429
Publisher: Quintessence Publishing (IL)
Published: Jul 14 2026
Pages: 564
Weight: 1.72
Height: 1.14 Width: 6.13 Depth: 9.25
Language: English
Payambar: The Messenger is a sweeping, lyrical biography of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) - a work that reads with the grandeur of a great historical novel while remaining rooted in the early sources. First published in Farsi in 1937 by the distinguished Iranian writer, journalist, and statesman Zeinolabedin Rahnema, it became one of the most beloved lives of the Prophet in the Persian-reading world, passing through some twenty editions in its first decades and many more since, before reaching English readers in the celebrated translation of the renowned scholar L. P. Elwell-Sutton.
Now, for the first time, Rahnema's three original volumes are gathered into a single complete edition, faithfully preserving the author's text exactly as he wrote it.
This is the story of a darkness and a light - of a long night that became a brilliant morning. Rahnema opens not in the deserts of Arabia but amid the jewelled splendour of the two empires that held the world in their hands: the Sasanian court of Anushirvan at Ctesiphon and the throne of Byzantium. Against this panorama of imperial power, he sets the birth of an orphan in Mecca whose voice would one day reach the ears of the world and reshape the lives of a vast portion of humankind.
Rahnema writes with a special tenderness towards the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) and his blessed household, the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them). We witness the devotion of his beloved wife Khadija, the radiant figure of his daughter Lady Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her), and the unwavering faith and courage of Imam Ali (peace be upon him), the Commander of the Faithful - rendered with a warmth and majesty that has moved generations of readers.
What makes this work extraordinary is its rare marriage of scholarship and art. Rahnema writes with the eye of a poet, philosopher, and mystic, painting a vivid, living picture of seventh-century Arabia - its deserts and caravans, its idols and tribal loyalties - and of the man who rose to prophethood. His is a deliberate art: he weaves the documented history of the early sources together with the cherished legends of the tradition, each kept in its place - the legendary passages, as he tells the reader, left to God, who alone knows the truth. We follow the Prophet from the loss of his parents and his marriage to Khadija, through the first revelation in the cave and the long years of persecution, to the migration to Medina and the trials that forged a new community.
Composed for believers, the book carries the warmth and devotion of a story told from within a living faith, rich with the verses of the Holy Quran and the luminous poetry of Rumi. For Muslim readers, and for lovers of the Ahl al-Bayt in particular, it offers a deeply moving portrait of the Beloved Prophet and his household. For others, it offers the chance to see the life of the great Prophet of Islam as it appeared to those who lived and loved him.
Rahnema began this work in the late 1930s, in a season of self-imposed withdrawal from public life, seeking a subject close to the soul. The result is a biography at once readable, lively, even witty, and profoundly spiritual - a book that, in his own words, seeks to establish a relationship with the hearts and souls of its readers.
More than eight decades on, Payambar: The Messenger remains a singular achievement: a work of history that never reads as dry reference, and a work of imagination faithful to the spirit of the record. It is an essential addition to the library of every reader who loves the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) and seeks to understand the spirit of Islam.
A timeless classic of Islamic literature, now complete in one volume.
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