Detailed summary of the book:
This is the story of Sam who was born in March 1947, to a loving and caring Christian family in the poverty stricken South side of Chicago. After losing both his parents before becoming a teenager, he struggles to survive and grow up in the basement of a church where he studied the Bible extensively
In the early ’60’s he was attracted and converted to Islam. After wrongfully being accused of association with radicals, he managed to enroll in a university to earn his degree. During his final year at the university he found love and married.
As he develops a successful career at US Steel in Gary, Indiana, he becomes a good friend with a Jewish colleague, and subsequently studies and practices the Jewish faith. Unexpectedly, his wife leaves him, and after overcoming a broken heart he rises to wealth and becomes a faithful follower of Judaism.
Having changed careers from engineering to that of a successful and wealthy stockbroker, he moves to LA in the late ’70’s. Although he resides in an upscale neighborhood in LA, he never disconnected with his roots, and he opens an office in Watts. During these years of partying and enjoying substantial wealth, he turns to the Eastern Religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Throughout his youth and adulthood, he never preferred one faith to another, but studied and practiced each, hoping to find the Truth that he is looking for, and by the late ’80’s, he has twenty years of studying the Religions of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the Dharma Religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and the writings of many philosophers and thinkers such as Tolstoy and Gandhi. As he closes the circle, he is met with the reality of the major earthquake and stock market crash of 1987.
Loosing all his fortune, Sam starts working as a technician at a job similar to the work he first found twenty-two years earlier. With magnanimity and proper pride he continues a simple life, but never gives up his spiritual endeavor. He turns to poetry and by chance becomes fascinated with the poetry of Rumi, coincidentally finding a new friend, Sohrab, who will direct him in his new search for the Truth.
During the ‘’90’s Sam finds his lost love and meets again his wife and daughter he has not seen for twenty years. As he later discovers a lost fortune, with a heart full of love he tries to use his wealth to benefit his neighbors.
After a brief experience in the political arena and having hosted a popular talk show, he bids his faithful audience goodbye following the catastrophic events of 9-11.
Spiritually, he turns his attention from the poetry of Rumi to Sufism and at the end of his journey Sam finds the essence and common ground of all religions. Sam begins to understand the goal of his quest in an unpretentious fable about an angel coming from heaven looking for fire to smoke a pipe. His knowledge of all religions, a heart full of love and inspiration drawn from the mystic language of Attar and Rumi help him to reach the Truth (It is only with a clear conscience that one can see Heaven- And Peace).
He tries to apply his understandings and faith as a basis for peace to heal divisions in his community but only finds success in other surprising ways.