Her books include: Through the Narrow Gate, an autobiographical work [1981]; The Gospel According to Woman [1986]; Holy War, The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World [1988]; Muhammad, A Biography of the Prophet [1991]; A History of God [1993], which became an international bestseller; Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths [1996]; and In the Beginning, A New Interpretation of Genesis [1996]; The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism [2000]; and Islam, A Short History [2000]; Buddha (2001); The Spiral Staircase: A Memoir (2004); A Short History of Myth (2005).The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006); Muhammad: A Prophet for our Time (2006), The Bible: A Biography (2007), The Case for God (2009) and Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2011).

She is a UN Ambassador for the Alliance of Civilizations, recipient of a TED prize and, amongst other international awards, was given a medal for Arts and Sciences by the Egyptian government for her services to Islam under the auspices of the prestigious Al-Azhar madrassah, the first foreigner to have been awarded this decoration.