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Marcel Behrens, "Ein Garten des Paradieses": Die Prophetenmoschee von Medina (Mitteilungen zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der islamischen Welt, 24), Würzburg 2007: Ergon, 421 pp. ISBN: 978-3-89913-572-5.
The history of Medina after the death of the Prophet Mu1ammad remains a relatively poorly studied field of research, and Marcel Behrens' book is a welcome addition to the scholarly literature. The author's focus is by no means exclusively upon the Prophet's Mosque - and certainly not upon its architectural and art-historical history - but encompasses many aspects of the history of the town. Behrens' intention (see, for example, pp. 18; 378) was to investigate how the sanctity of and high regard for the Prophet's Mosque and Medina was manifested in the writings of scholars, the actions of the town's rulers, and the behaviour of Medina's inhabitants and visitors. The principal (although certainly not the sole) focus of the work is on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and so discussions of the impact of Saudi rule over the 0ijaz and the accompanying Wahhab\ ideology on the development of the Prophet's Mosque and the town are a recurring feature throughout.
The book addresses a wide range of topics, ranging for example from whether the Prophet had intended to build a house or a mosque in Medina to the types of souvenirs pilgrims to the town have traditionally sought and the role of the corps of eunuchs in the Prophet's Mosque. Only a cursory overview, which leaves plenty aside, can be offered here. After the introduction, which includes a discussion of the most important sources (for example travellers, Muslim and non- Muslim, to the city) for the forthcoming study, chapter one (pp. 29-62) provides an introductory overview of Medina's history, mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and then in chapter two (pp. 63-188) an architectural history of the Prophet's Mosque is presented. An important part of this chapter is the survey (pp. 66-120) of the main phases in the construction of the mosque from the Prophet's lifetime...