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Armstrong's brief biography quite impartially records both accomplishments Westerners can easily admire, and events which seem utterly foreign to Western eyes. She helps me sense how Muhammad's visions could electrify Arabian society, and shows how much they evolved over the course of his career. But some aspects of the story are as difficult to explain as anything found in the Old Testament, and Armstrong does not second guess the sources from that age. For example, I was simply astonished by the reasoning given for rejecting the traditional goddesses of Arabia: "Why did they attribute daughters to Allah, when they themselves preferred sons?" Yet the archangel Gabriel was deemed the messenger of the Quran, and this was considered perfectly godly. Armstrong leaves us to ponder the paradoxes of a man who seemed to combine the roles of Moses, David, and Amos, within a different social world.

If I assumed I knew what kind of community Muhammad tried to build, this book raised many reasons to look again. Concerning the peaceful victory over Muhammad's deadly enemies in Mecca, Armstrong explains: "It was a strange conquest, and an impartial observer might have wondered why the Muslims and the Quraysh had fought at all. Muhammad kept his word and returned to Medina with the Emigrants and the Helpers. He did not attempt to rule Mecca himself; nor did he replace the Qurayshan officials with his own companions; nor did he establish a purist Islamic regime."