Muhammed - A Biography of the Prophet (Karen Armstrong, 1992)

Reading this was a bit odd. I would like to be less ignorant about the roots of Islam and I think it was helpful to read this. But the author (who I later learned is quite a prominent writer and commenter on all things religious) seems to be anticipating a non-Muslim Western readership that is hostile to Islam. She ends up working too hard to define various occurrences as justifiable under or consistent with the Torah or the gospels or the New Testament; I'm not sure why she strains to make the effort, I would assume Islam doesn't require that kind of justification?

Her concluding comments leave no doubt she blames the West for any conflict that exists with radical Muslims, maybe she thinks this type of book will help enlighten the ignorant Westerners? But as far as I can tell, the West (and Christendom in general) has a long and well-publicized list of failings in relations among Christian denominations and non-Christian religions alike, but continually calling this out isn't very helpful and probably is irrelevant to discussing others?

She quite often takes the same approach with passages in the Koran; again, I'm not sure why this was necessary. She comes across as almost over-sensitive about perceptions of Islam as unfair to women, the harem, "religion of the sword," violence, relationships with Jews, etc. The effort to point out - or interpret where necessary - various Koran passages seemed unnecessarily strained. After all, it seems like all religions have authoritative writings full of admirable ideas about justice, social justice (widows, orphans), peace, family, etc., along with other passages that might sound awkward to the "modern" ear. The challenge is translating this into a workable civil society (including not having the various religions run into each other). I can see where this could be extra difficult where the political leadership's claims are based on divine authority rather than consent of the governed . . .

An interesting idea was the author's discussion of the differing emphases between Christianity and Islam, including a description of the primitive status of desert Arabia in comparison to more developed civilizations (Greece, Rome, Persia, Byzantium, etc.) or religious traditions. She notes that Muhammad was very preoccupied with not getting himself killed, establishing alliances, etc.; that there was no established civil order in this part of the world within which the religion could function. Christianity by comparison grew up in a (Roman) state with order - if directed aggressively at the Christians in the early going - in any event, the Christians didn't need to start with an army or establish their own state, they emphasized healing, preaching, submission; and then took over the Roman machinery when the time came. Also with the emphasis on "end of days" in the early going for Christians, why try to build anything? So there were very good reasons for Islam to have different, more practical, priorities. I think there are some interesting ideas here.

Muhammed's unfolding revelations were reminiscent of (what little I've read of) Joseph Smith; handy concepts came along as needed; admittedly can sound cynical but in the end if a charismatic leader creates something that works for folks on a large scale, it's impressive. And I certainly can't figure out how anyone generates inspirational ideas, by definition these are coming outside the normal process of analysis etc.