Michael Hart is an amateur historian and also the author of The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. In this book Hart lists in order the people he believes to be the top 100 most influential people. In this essay I am going to look at three specific people, and compare Hart’s ranking of their impact on society against my own. The three people are Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of Christianity; Paul of Tarsus, Christianity’s most important missionary; and Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Since religion did play a considerable role in the shaping of civilizations, it is no