Islam
Chapter One
Islamic Background
“Around the name of the Arabs,” writes Philip Hitti, “gleams that halo which belongs to the world-conquerors. Within a century after their rise this people became the masters of an empire extending from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the confines of China, an empire greater than that of Rome at its zenith. In this period of unprecedented expansion, they assimilated to their creed, speech, and even physical type, more aliens than any stock before or since, not excepting the Hellenic, the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon, or the Russian.
Central in this Arab rise to greatness was their religion, Islam. If we ask how it came into being, the outsider's answer points to socioreligious currents that were playing over Arabia in Muhammad's day and uses them to explain what happened. The Muslims' answer is different. Islam begins not with Muhammad in sixth-century Arabia, they say, but with God. “In the beginning God...” the book of Genesis tells us. The Koran agrees. It differs only in using the word Al ... read full excerpt from Islam ebook
