"But I also think that any reader can benefit from learning about Muhammad. He was one of those archetypal figures whose lives have epitomized for millions of people what it is to be fully human. He was living in an age that was just as cruel and violent as own own. His society was in crisis. Many felt that their old world and, like many today, they were experiencing a spiritual vacuum. The Prophet's inspiring life shows that it is possible for one person to change the world forever, to give old traditions a new and luminous resonance, and that faith is not always easy but requires a creative struggle on our part." (Preface, pg. 7-8)

"The loss of our cultural roots can be a profoundly disturbing experience and even in our own day it can produce an aggressive, defiant religiosity as a means of asserting the beleaguered...