A review of the book 'After The Prophet: The Epic Story Of The Shia-Sunni Split In Islam' written by Lesley Hazleton.
Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet written by Lesley Hazleton , explores the volatile intersection of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia–Sunni split.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'After The Prophet: The Epic Story Of The Shia-Sunni Split In Islam' written by Lesley Hazleton.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Lesley Hazleton was a veteran Middle East journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the Nation and other publications. She had an interest in the religious, cultural, historical, and political issues connected to the Middle East and has written many books based on the same. She passed away in April, 2024.
Let me read a brief description of the book:
QUOTE
In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a rift that dominates the news now more than ever.
Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, starting a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder's controversial wife Aisha against his son-in-law Ali, and shattering Muhammad’s ideal of unity.
Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet explores the volatile intersection of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia–Sunni split.
UNQUOTE
If you are like me, a non-Muslim who wondered what exactly is the reason behind the Shia-Sunni split, then you can’t get a better book to understand the ‘root cause’ of this problem.
What happened at Karbala in the seventh century is the foundation story of the Shia-Sunni split. Told in vivid and intimate detail in the earliest Islamic histories, it is known to all Sunnis throughout the Middle East and all but engraved on the heart of every Shia. It has not just endured but gathered emotive force to become an ever-widening spiral in which past and present, faith and politics, personal identity and national redemption are inextricably intertwined.
The Karbala story is indeed one without end, still unfolding throughout the Muslim world, and most bloodily of all in Iraq, the cradle of Shia Islam.
This book tells you how it happened, and why it is still happening.
Drawing heavily on early Islamic chroniclers like al-Tabari (a 10th-century Persian scholar whose History of the Prophets and Kings is a cornerstone of Islamic annals) and Ibn Ishaq (author of the earliest biography of Muhammad)—primary sources that are essentially the bedrock of Muslim historiography—Hazleton weaves a dramatic tale of betrayal, ambition, and bloodshed that feels more like a Shakespearean tragedy than dry academic prose.
It might all have been simple enough if Muhammad had had sons. Even one son. If a son had existed, perhaps the whole history of Islam would have been different. The discord, the civil war, the rival caliphates, the split between Sunni and Shia—all might have been averted. But though Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, had given birth to two sons alongside four daughters, both had died in infancy, and though Muhammad had married nine more wives after her death, not one had become pregnant.
Where Sunnis would see Muhammad’s choice of Abu Bakr as his companion on the hijra—the emigration to Medina—as proof that he intended Abu Bakr to be his successor, for instance, the Shia would see his declaration at Ghadir Khumm as proof of his designation of Ali. The Sunnis, in effect, would honor history as it had taken shape; the Shia would honor it as they believe it should have taken shape, and as they maintain it indeed did in a realm other than the worldly one.
Aisha, Ali, Muawiya, and Husein are drawn as flesh-and-blood personalities with motives, fears, and pride, not just names in a chronicle.
The sympathies of Hazleton are pretty clear: she tends to cast Ali and Husein in a tragic, heroic light, and the Umayyads (particularly Muawiya and Yazid) as cynical power politicians.
Final Verdict:
After the Prophet at about just over 200 pages of text, excluding notes, moves quickly. You never feel bogged down in isnads (chains of transmission) or legal minutiae.
Hazleton writes well, and she provides a vivid doorway into an enormously consequential slice of history. She explicitly frames the 7th-century conflicts as living memories in today’s Middle East, linking Karbala to modern Shia political identity, from Iran’s 1979 revolution to the Iraq civil war.
In an era where left-leaning academics often romanticize Islam as a "religion of peace," Hazleton's reliance on primary sources delivers a sobering counter-narrative: peace was shattered from the start, and the wounds have never healed.
I give this book 4.25/5 and highly recommend it if you're tired of sanitized history and want the real, blood-soaked story behind today's headlines. Just don't expect it to make you optimistic about the prospects for reform.
The book is available in all the formats, except that, in India there is no Audible version available as yet. I have given the respective buy link in the show notes. Please check it out for the latest price.
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