CAIRO, Dec 13: The censors at Al Azhar, Cairo's centre of Islamic learning, have recommended the government ban a 19th century biography of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) by a scholar portrayed in the Arabic media as an ancestor of US President George Bush.

An Al Azhar official said on Monday the ban applied to the original English version of The Life of Mohammad (pbuh) by the scholar George Bush, first published in 1830.

He did not give a reason but press articles on an Arabic translation of the book have criticized its account of early Islamic history. They quote Mr Bush as saying Muslims spread Islam by force and persecuted Christians, for example.

At least one of the newspaper's articles came with large photographs of President George Bush and his father, former president George Bush, and references to the Bush family.

The London-based Al Hayat on Monday attributed the book to "George Bush the Ancestor" and quoted the translator as saying: "The religious thought of the Bush family has been inherited for a long time." -Reuters