This is the one book that I enjoyed thoroughly from cover to cover. Martin Lings did a painstaking research to come up with all the details in the book. The book recounts the life of prophet mohammed and arabia before he was born. I understand the author died recently and has to his credit other books along the same theme. Naturally he converted and became a Muslim long before writing this book.
iIread several books on the biography of the Prophet but none was as detailed in terms of events and revelations. Take for example the Battle of the Trench (Khandaq) which virtually all the other books I read mentioned albeit scantily. This book gave the details of what happened and how the battle ended with the mushrik

IMTIAZ AHMED

This is a book I avoided reading for about two years. I got it free when I was in KSA for the Hajj, but dropped it and avoided it after reading a few pages. Early this year when pilgrims returned, my father-in-law gave me the latest edition of the book. In this edition Mr Ahmed wrote a nice introduction to the book which essentially situated it and narrated its genesis. The contents of this page made it more interesting to me and I did not drop the book till the last page.
Needless to say I enjoyed the book thoroughly. It is simply a collection of essays on various aspects of muslim life complete with suras from the qur'an and authentic Hadiths to back them.
According to the author its a collection of sermons that he delivered on Fridays and on occasions when he migrated to the USA. It would appear that Mr Ahmed had religious leadership thrusted onto him and in his quest to perform, read widely and developed those essays. The beuaty of these essays lies more when one is faced with a situation and is at a loss how to handle it. For example the essay on marriage came in handy to me recently when a niece got married. All I did was to check up the book and see what Imtiaz Ahmed said.
I recommend this book to all muslims, young and old.
The author has other books to his credit which can be read or downloaded for his web site here.