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Writing biography is a strange thing to do.
撰写传记是一件不可思议的事情
It's a journey into the foreign territory of somebody else's life,
记下别人的一生就如异国旅程一样
a journey, an exploration that can take you places you never dreamed of going
这段旅程让你探索那些从未想过的地方
and still can't quite believe you've been, especially if, like me, you're an agnostic Jew
即使曾去过那里，你自己都不敢相信，尤其当你像我一样，是一位不可知论者、一位犹太人
and the life you've been exploring is that of Muhammad.
而你所探索的旅程就是“穆罕默德”的生平
Five years ago, for instance,
举例来说，五年前
I found myself waking each morning in misty Seattle to what I knew was an impossible question:
当每天在晨雾弥漫的西雅图醒来时，我常想到一个很困难的问题
What actually happened one desert night, half the world and almost half of history away?
隔着半个地球，半页历史，在沙漠中某个夜晚到底发生了什么事？
What happened, that is, on the night in the year 610
公元610年的某个夜晚，
when Muhammad received the first revelation of the Koran on a mountain just outside Mecca?
当穆罕默德在麦加郊外一处山上第一次领受古兰经启示时，到底发生了什么事？
This is the core mystical moment of Islam, and as such, of course, it defies empirical analysis.
这是伊斯兰教最关键的神秘时刻，那当然啦，是无法对其进行实例分析的
Yet the question wouldn't let go of me.
然而这问题挥之不去
I was fully aware that for someone as secular as I am, just asking it could be seen as pure chutzpah.
我完全了解像我这样的非宗教人士，问这样的问题真是放肆无礼
And I plead guilty as charged, because all exploration, physical or intellectual,
我承认这一点，因为肉体上或精神上的任何探索
is inevitably in some sense an act of transgression, of crossing boundaries.
都无法避免地有亵渎且冒犯之意
