¿... But above all Essad Bey was a brilliant, intoxicating stylist. Bey's writing is of a kind that hardly exists among contemporary non-fiction writers, even less so among experts on Islam. It has rhythm and uses harmonious imagery; it is rich in semantic and syntactic variations; he understands the arc of suspense so well that it sometimes carries the author away from historical facts towards possible but not proven fiction. His biography on Mohammed has perhaps no place in scientific libraries ¿ but one could not think of a more entertaining depiction, one which captures the spirit of early Islamic history above and beyond that of any source-critical monograph.¿ Navid Kermani
