Maxime Rodinson, a distinguished professor at the Sorbonne, first published his biography of Muhammad in 1960. The book, which is a classic, has been widely read ever since. Rodinson, though deeply versed in scholarly studies of the Prophet, does not seek to add to it here but to introduce Muhammad, first of all, as “a man of flesh and blood” who led a life of extraordinary drama and shaped history as few others have.