Islam As It Is
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 inter-
national language. Those who had previously been
members of a closed society, became masters of a
great new world.
