This book arrived as junk mail, addressed to a neighbor with an Arab name who no longer lives here. I picked it up and read the cover and the back, and thought: Cool! Sentimental, uplifting fluff for Muslims! Christians have it, why not other religions?
Then I tried to read it.
What the cover doesn't say is that "touched by God" means "found Jesus." This book is part of a stealth campaign to convert Muslims.
...Well, okay, this book is a way for Christians to feel better about themselves while imagining that they're reading a book intended to convert Muslims. I can't believe that any real Muslim would be able to get through it. The book makes stupid mistakes, like assuming that Muslims live in perpetual fear of damnation because they don't have a savior to assure them that they're going to Heaven. Er... that's a Christian preoccupation. It's like a Christian living in perpetual fear of spiritual contamination because they don't know how to do ablutions.
Or even stupider mistakes, like the story about the boy whose teacher beat him because he asked how Muhammad knew he was inspired, and he wouldn't accept the teacher's answer of, "Because the Qur'an says so." Uhm. So that story about Muhammad meditating in the cave? And the angel Jibril/Gabriel coming to him with a scroll and ordering him to read from it? And half-stifling him because he said he couldn't read? Then ordering him to recite instead, and teaching him the first sura? And appearing to him again later, standing astride the horizon, saying "O Muhammad, you are the messenger of God and I am Jibril"? Sh!t, son, *I* know that story and I'm not even Muslim. It's not in the Quran, it's a hadith, but an actual Muslim would know that authentic hadiths are as binding as the Quran. The kid would know the story, the teacher would refer to it, and the teacher would also have plenty of Quranic verses to quote supporting Muhammad's inspiration. "Because the Qur'an says so," my rosy pink bottom.
The other objection I have to this book is the way Jesus appears to the ten amazing Muslims. We're not talking subtleties--hints, leads, waves of emotion. We're talking BAM! BRIGHT LIGHT AND JESUS IN YOUR FACE. Actual Jesus, in the actual room, bathed in a bank of celestial Klieg lights and telling you he loves you and wants to be your dead heavenly boyfriend. No wonder the ten amazing Muslims converted. I'd convert, too. In fact, maybe folks wouldn't be leaving Christianity in droves if Jesus wasn't saving his celestial woo for a bunch of converts. Come on, Jesus, get with it! Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold! Pitch some heavenly woo my ex-Christian way!