There are probably very many texts on the history of Islam, with much information and perhaps even disinformation, enough to make you dizzy or turn you into a suicide bomber overnight. I will not take this road. I will take a very lonely, highly debatable, highly controversial road of examining the history and birth of Islam from the point of view of psychology, and especially the psychological make up of the Prophet of Islam, Prophet Muhammad.
And I would not even date this historical account, because I find historical lessons with dates are extremely boring. What is important is to know what happened and why. When it happened, well you can always look it up.
Very many Muslims I met are not even aware of the birth of Islam and why. In the early days of Muhammad as a child, the Arabic culture was to bury alive their baby girls. It is a custom. And if you know what the word custom means, then you know it is something you cannot go against, and if you do, you incur the wrath of the society.
Muhammad could not accept this cruel custom of burying alive baby girls. It pains him much, according to an Islamic historian I met when I was myself a child. He began rebelling against this culture and thus begin a series of correction to the cruelties of societies and individuals, and this accumulated in what Muhammad himself calls Islam.
This very rebellion against sheer cruelty is the birth and the basis of Islam. Islam is of Compassion. The God of Islam is said to be the Most Merciful, Most Compassionate. Very many Muslims say this, but what they say is often then lost in the confusion of what God says and wants of them. The compassion and merciful character of Islam today is lost amongst the confusion of laws and rituals and traditions and politics. Sad, but true.