THE UNIVERSALITY OF ISLAM

The Universality of Islam ~ 176 ~ For thousands of years prior to the advent of Islam, the Arab people had inhabited the Arabian Peninsula, yet, in all that long period, had accomplished nothing worth recording in history. They were noted only for their poetry, and for their readiness to go to war with one another over trivial issues. Sometimes when such fighting broke out, it would continue from generation to generation. However, when they came under the influence of Islam, such a revolution took place in their thinking that these same feuding Arabs, who had no livelihood outside their own limited sphere, were able to lay the foundation of a great world civilization. Spreading far beyond their former geographical boundaries, they dispersed among the countries of the globe. A people, who had previously been dismissed as intellectually negligible, progressed beyond all other nations in every contemporary field of knowledge. The Arabic language, which had enjoyed no greater status than that of a local dialect, was transformed into an international language. Those who had previously been members of a closed society, became masters of a great new world.