Unlike Jesus, say, or even the Buddha, the prophet Muhammad is not a familiar figure to many in the west. This course aims to address this. We will be reading together the sayings of the prophet, scrupulously collected within the Islamic oral tradition several centuries after his death. These sayings or hadith are regarded in Islam as second only in importance to the Koran (which has, of course, greater spiritual authority, as its revelations are understood to proceed from God). We will consider the particular collection of sayings usually regarded as the most authoritative, the Sahih Bukhari (or Sahih al-Bukhari), edited by Muhammad al-Bukhari, condensed from the original 9 volumes into one volume: ISBN 9798640953879. You will need to buy this (inexpensive) book.