The Meccan merchants had met Christian monks and hermits during their travels, and were familiar with the stories of Jesus and the concepts of Paradi… - Karen Armstrong

Then, as now, there would always be people who preferred the option of devoting their religious energies to sacred space over the more difficult duty of compassion.

Human beings are the only animals who have the capacity to envisage something that is not present or something that does not yet exist but which is merely possible. The imagination has thus been the cause of our major achievements in science and technology as well as in art and religion.

The Qur’an had begun to develop a primitive just war theory. In the steppes, aggressive warfare was praiseworthy; but in the Qur’an, self-defense was the only possible justification for hostilities and the preemptive strike was condemned.5 War was always a terrible evil, but it was sometimes necessary in order to preserve decent values, such as freedom of worship. Even here, the Qur’an did not abandon its pluralism: synagogues and churches as well as mosques should be protected. The Muslims felt that they had suffered a fearful assault; their expulsion from Mecca was an act that had no justification. Exile from the tribe violated the deepest sanction of Arabia; it had attacked the core of the Muslims’ identity.