Reddit reviews Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader

I can't believe how cheaply one can learn and gain knowledge today alhamdulillah.

Even though the mention of Mohammad Shamil is small, it intrigued me enough to go buy a book on his life. There wasn't much material there so lets see how that book turns out.

This one https://www.amazon.ca/Commander-Faithful-Life-Times-el-Kader/dp/0982324669

I just finished the book by John Kiser called Commander Of The Faithful - The Life And Times Of Emir Abd el-Kader


I would highly recommend it for anyone looking to understand Islam, and anyone interested in seeing what a refined soul looks like in the real world of battle. It's very easy to talk about spirituality and these seemingly higher and impressive sounding ideas and notions, but the reality of them is made known in the theater of battle where one often has to choose between the salvation of one's soul or the salvation of one's body, although not mutually exclusive, to the limited eye it can appear that way. And this is where tawakkul really manifests.


He was a man, that through his Prophetic character, seduced all of Europe, particularly the French, who he once fought against for over 15 years. Later on when he was imprisoned, it was his former opponents on the battlefield that became his most ardent defenders. Another excellent feature of the book is the intimate sources used because they highlight on a very personal level the colonization of Algeria. We're used to reading about colonization and imperialism on a very high, almost machine like, level. But this book really goes into the personal human dimension of it where you get to see what many among the French thought and believed, and what many among the Algerians thought and believed. It was very eye opening and reveals that, as all human matters are, not black and white.