BAB PERTAMA, PERENGGAN PERTAMA:
"If there was a single moment it all began, it was that of Muhammad's death. Even the Prophet was mortal. That was the problem. It was as though nobody had considered the possibility that he might die, not even Muhammad himself. Did he know he was dying?"
Buku ini tergolong dalam keluarga 'narrative nonfiction', pengkisahan berfakta.
Maka penulisnya, wartawan dan siswazah psikologi Lesley Hazleton, menghidangkan ceritera pertelingkahan antara kelompok Sunah (Ahli Sunah wal Jamaah) dengan kelompok Syiah yang berputar pada orbit watak-watak utama: Nabi Muhammad SAW, isteri baginda 'Aisyah, sepupu baginda 'Ali, cucu baginda Hassan dan Hussein, dan para pengasas dinasti Ummayah dan dinasti Abasiah.
Ceritera pertelingkahan yang diberikan emosi, latar dan sifat-sifat tabii' manusia. Ceritera pertelingkahan yang terbit daripada ketulenan iman, ketamakan kuasa dan kerakusan nafsu yang menjurus ke arah percaturan politik, pembelotan, pembunuhan dan perang saudara sebangsa seagama.
Sebagaimana diungkapkan sendiri oleh Lesley Hazleton, buku ini terbit daripada rasa ingin tahu beliau terhadap jawapan kepada persoalan ini: 'How come Muhammad, the prophet of unity who spoke of one people and one God, left behind this terrible, unending, bloody legacy of division between Sunni and Shia?
Ujarnya lagi: 'The question haunted me, and led me to the magnificent story of the struggle for leadership after Muhammad's death, an epic as alive and powerful today as when it first happened'
Buku ini bukan sekadar menghidangkan 'epik', malah membawa saya ke Timur Tengah pada abad ketujuh, menghadirkan saya ke dalam kamar yang sedang menyaksikan saat-saat akhir kehidupan Rasulullah, menyeret saya ke tengah-tengah medan konflik antara sahabat baginda sebaik sahaja baginda wafat, dan mendorong saya ke sudut-sudut pertelingkahan yang menumpahkan darah antara tokoh yang sebelumnya sama-sama berjuang di bawah panji-panji Islam.
Lesley Hazleton, menerusi After the Prophet, berjaya mencapai hasrat beliau: '...I wanted to bring Western readers inside the story, to make it as alive for them as it is in the Middle East...'
Beliau bertekad: '...they can not only understand it (the story) on an intellectual level, but experience it, grasp its emotive depth and its inspirational power, ...'
Akhirnya beliau berharap: '...and thus understand how it (the emotion and the inspiration) has survived and even strengthened, and how it affects the lives of all of us today.'
Lesley Hazleton menutup After the Prophet dengan untaian kata-kata berikut: 'But whether sacredness inheres in the Prophet's blood family, as the Shia believe, or in the community as a whole, as Sunnis believe, nobody in the West should forget that what unites the two main branches of Islam is far greater than that what divides them, and that the vast majority of all Muslims still cherish the ideal of unity preached by Muhammad himself - an ideal the more deeply held for being so deeply broken.'
After the Prophet: 256 muka surat, RM66.23 (Kinokuniya)
