Dave Minor

“Muhammad preached his farewell sermon to the Muslim community. He reminded them to deal justly with one another, to treat women kindly, and to abandon the blood feuds and vendettas inspired by the spirit of jahiliyyah. Muslim must never fight against Muslim.”
― Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time

“A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information. If, however, it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed.”
― Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth

“Paul had been doing his best to hasten the coming of the Messiah; that was the “good” that he was trying to do. But in an overwhelming moment of truth, he realized that Jesus’s followers were absolutely right and that his persecution of their community had actually impeded the arrival of the Messianic Age. As if this were not enough, his violence had broken the fundamental principles of the Torah: love of God and love of neighbor. In his excessive ardor for the law’s integrity, he had forgotten God’s stern command: “Thou shalt not kill.”
― Karen Armstrong, St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate

“The Meccan merchants had met Christian monks and hermits during their travels, and were familiar with the stories of Jesus and the concepts of Paradise and the Last Judgment. They called Jews and Christians the ahl al-kitab (“the People of the Book”). They admired the notion of a revealed text and wished they had sacred scripture in their own language.”
― Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time