In his life Mohammad was ridiculed, abused and harassed, and relentlessly persecuted. Garbage was thrown over his head; he was mocked as a psychic or psychotic; he was starved and banished as a cast out; and finally he was targeted for assassination and so he decided to take off to Medina. But in all these episodes where he always wished well for his tormenters, and more significantly when he returned to Mecca as a conqueror, he never resorted to “shot guns”. For me he is a symbol of non-violence, patience and extreme tolerance and open-mindedness.

Having said that which relates to the last sentence of Mr. Mughal’s letter, let me clarify the other question asked in his letter. In my view Mohammad was much more than a merchant before he became a merchant and long before he started receiving Qur’an. Throughout his life, he had a life of deep contemplation, deliberations, meditation and an extreme sense of piety, fairness and morality. He himself was not a merchant but employed by a merchant. Quoting Mughal’s own words “Khadijah who first summoned him for an interview after hearing of Muhammad's reputation as Al-Amin, the Trusted One” confirms that she heard his reputation as “the Trusted One” and not as a merchant. And he never betrayed Khadija in any respect as is implied by words such as  “while raking in nothing but profit from Khadijah's mercantile fleet” While in travels what he really was raking in was nothing but wisdom, spirituality, and understanding of affairs of men. All his journeys, whether physical or spiritual – and he had many of these – starting right from the childhood, were journeys towards his prophet-hood.

Lastly, the “punchy” sentence was  ““a merchant” of Mecca sees a vision and the course of history changes”  - though shown in Mr. Mughal’s letter as "A merchant of Mecca saw a vision and changed the course of history." - and that sentence is not Karen Armstrong’s, but mine – as I attempted to summarize the attitude of that author. Please observe my quotation marks in the original letter. Quotation marks Mr. Mughal used are his own. 

To avoid going into a tangent I will stop my letter here. To aid in understanding of the person of Mohammad I will be adding some material on my website shortly. You may like to send your comments directly to me through the site.