From the Preface
Muhammad stands at the Islamic center, of course, as he has from the beginning; and those who have sought to stand beside him, or even perhaps within him, have essayed biographies of the Prophet of Islam....The present work is biographical, but it is at the same time something broader. It is an inquiry --or perhaps a joint inquiry since the reader will be provided with the same sources available to the historian-- into the religious environment of the person Muslims hail as the "Envoy of God" and an attempt to trace his progress along the path from paganism to that distintive form of monotheism called Islam. The Arabic word islam means "submission," and though we may never come to any firm conviction as to why this man first "submitted" to the Almighty God in Western Arabia in the seventh Christian century, then persistently and persuasively convinced others to do likewise, we do have at hand a large body of evidence to enable us to try, as well as a long tradition of scholarship from Muslims and non-Muslims who have gone before along this way.
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