Muhammad’s was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance; yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality."A rich biography… Those who read it will come away well prepared to understand the prophet whose message, 14 centuries later, is the creed of more than a billion and a halfpeople.” –The San Francisco Chronicle