Location: Chapter 3 (“Muhammad and the Rise of Islam”)
• Today I reached the section describing Muhammad’s encounter with Gabriel. Once again, Goldschmidt dives deeper than Mansfield on the religious and social background. • He’s excellent at taking you back into antiquity before bringing you forward. The overview is high-level enough to follow, but deep enough to give you a genuine sense of how the region felt before Islam emerged. • His description of Arab tribal and clan structures immediately struck me: it mirrors, almost eerily, the family, identity, honor, and governance patterns I’ve seen in American Indian nations. Not in a superficial way—many of the same dynamics of kinship, loyalty, and decentralized power. • It reminded me of my FEMA years—specifically the military officer (COL ___) who had spent extensive time in the Middle East and insisted my tribal-nation experience translated extremely well to the region. I didn’t fully buy that at the time. This book makes it obvious he knew exactly what he was talking about. • I’m also struck by how deeply the authors go into the religious landscape before Islam—early Christian sects, intra-Christian disputes, Jewish communities, and the desert monotheistic tendencies. It all helps explain why Islam took root the way it did. • A big insight: Arabs were already religiously diverse—Christian, Jewish, and otherwise—long before Muhammad. This adds layers I hadn’t appreciated fully from Mansfield alone. • Another observation: reading about Eastern Christianity and the so-called “heresies” gave me a new perspective on why many American Christians emotionally identify more with modern Judaism than with Middle Eastern Orthodox Christians. The latter are often dismissed—incorrectly—as somehow “less Christian,” even though they are direct heirs of early Christianity. The book reframes this beautifully. • I’m enjoying seeing Goldschmidt build his thesis slowly and carefully. Some sections move a bit slower than I’d like, but overall the payoff is obvious: he’s constructing a foundation that will matter later. • And again—this book is far more comprehensive than its title lets on. I’m already laughing at calling this “concise.”
• Today I reached the section describing Muhammad’s encounter with Gabriel. Once again, Goldschmidt dives deeper than Mansfield on the religious and social background.
• He’s excellent at taking you back into antiquity before bringing you forward. The overview is high-level enough to follow, but deep enough to give you a genuine sense of how the region felt before Islam emerged.
• His description of Arab tribal and clan structures immediately struck me: it mirrors, almost eerily, the family, identity, honor, and governance patterns I’ve seen in American Indian nations. Not in a superficial way—many of the same dynamics of kinship, loyalty, and decentralized power.
• It reminded me of my FEMA years—specifically the military officer (COL ___) who had spent extensive time in the Middle East and insisted my tribal-nation experience translated extremely well to the region. I didn’t fully buy that at the time. This book makes it obvious he knew exactly what he was talking about.
• I’m also struck by how deeply the authors go into the religious landscape before Islam—early Christian sects, intra-Christian disputes, Jewish communities, and the desert monotheistic tendencies. It all helps explain why Islam took root the way it did.
• A big insight: Arabs were already religiously diverse—Christian, Jewish, and otherwise—long before Muhammad. This adds layers I hadn’t appreciated fully from Mansfield alone.
• Another observation: reading about Eastern Christianity and the so-called “heresies” gave me a new perspective on why many American Christians emotionally identify more with modern Judaism than with Middle Eastern Orthodox Christians. The latter are often dismissed—incorrectly—as somehow “less Christian,” even though they are direct heirs of early Christianity. The book reframes this beautifully.
• I’m enjoying seeing Goldschmidt build his thesis slowly and carefully. Some sections move a bit slower than I’d like, but overall the payoff is obvious: he’s constructing a foundation that will matter later.
• And again—this book is far more comprehensive than its title lets on. I’m already laughing at calling this “concise.”