No one can accuse Jack Miles of shying away from ticklish subjects. Following two acclaimed biographies, the Pulitzer Prize-winning “God: A Biography” (1995) and “Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God” (2001), Mr. Miles concludes his trilogy with an even more demanding challenge: Allah, the god of the Quran.
God might seem to be a relatively straightforward subject. After all, the deity, whether in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament or the Quran, is not exactly coy in speaking about himself: His voice booms out in all three scriptures. But in another sense—and here the difficulties arise—any “biography” of him must be the biography of a voice, now fiercely overwhelming, now tender and even intimate.
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