This is an account of Mohammad's life and is also the study of the impact of an ideology upon a society. Seventh century Arabia, although fragmented and in many respects primitive, was moving towards a settled economy. The ideology of Islam - calling for submission to the will of God - moulded this nation into unity and into a conquering force which, within a hundred years of Mohammad's death, subdued an area stretching from the Pyrenees to the borders of China.