Some Good Books on Islam

I recently finished Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower" and enjoyed it. The book is written like a novel, it grabs you and keeps you reading. Wright's book is all about the history of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden and many other players in the Muslim war against the West.

I am now wading my way through "The Life of Mahomet" by William Muir. Muir wrote this weighty tome in the 19th century and it has a lot of antiquated language. Nevertheless, it is a detailed account of Muhammad's life and how he established Islam. Muir discusses all the facts and players in the development of Islam, and he does it in a scholarly way. He obviously spent years researching the subject matter. He also speculates about what Muhammad's thoughts and motivations might have been, but he never passes off his speculation as fact.

Muir believed that Muhammad was originally sincere in his desire to find a path to God and to raise Mecca out of the superstition and darkness that enveloped it. However, ignorance and self delusion were factors in Muhammad's rise to power.