0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

182 Reviews
velop a personal approach to Aristotle that was much more ad litteram? These are
questions for future research.
It is to the great credit of the present translation, and the extensive documentation
amassed by Arnzen, that these questions may now arise with greater clarity
and precision than ever before. All in all, this is an amazingly gratifying work
for scholars to access, and a sterling addition to the venerable CCAA series. One
does rather wish that Arnzen would show his hand already and present us with
an integral Arabic edition as well; and perhaps such a work is forthcoming in the
due course of time. Arnzen does after all present – for the first time ever – a working
hypothesis for the manuscript stemma (p. 15). In the meantime, scholars will
have plenty to work with and digest here.
Taneli Kukkonen: Otago, taneli.kukkonen@otago.ac.nz
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