If this interview (not to mention the title) is any indication, University of Michigan professor Juan Cole’s new book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires, is an exercise in hagiography, not scholarship. A sampling of his commentary includes such whoppers as “Muhammad saw himself as an ally of the West,” “Peace-making and turning the other cheek are very important themes in the Qur’an,” and “Christians have fought a lot of wars and even been involved in genocide, but we all also know about the Quakers and Mennonites. Only a few authors have written on the history of peace movements in Islam.”
