Summary

In the “Introduction: A Map for the Journey,” the author, Carla Power, recalls an event from her childhood. At age 11, she was in Cairo with her parents when she bought a “tiny book containing a verse from the Quran.” (1) She was enamored by the small item and used it as a book for a doll. Years later, after the terrorist attacks on American soil in 2001, she found the little book. She realized that she had been childish about her treatment of the Quran. She had become interested in Islam, as her father had been, and had worked at an Oxford program on the subject for two years.

Power talks about the various translations of the Quran, and that some people have used it for their own purposes and...