It is difficult to write objectively about the rise of Islam or, for that matter, of any other religion. Leaving aside personal convictions, the historian is usually confronted with a great deal of obscurity about the origins of the religion concerned. If any details about the early development of the religion survive, they are; in most cases, highly coloured and often exaggerated, so that it is difficult to distinguish fact from myth. Islam is more fortunate than Christianity in so far as we have more information, at least about its founder. Yet the material we have about the condition of Arabia at this time is so tantalizingly fragmentary that it does not allow us fully to understand the history of this period. Much has been written about the life and career of Muḥammad, and every detail has been adequately scrutinized and fully analysed to the extent that we are now generally assured about the basic facts of his activities. Nevertheless, these facts by themselves do not explain all these activities nor do they make it any easier to understand his motives. Of course any explanation is subject to the interpretation of these activities and it is only natural that historians should differ in such interpretation.