Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was superior to anything Islam had developed. Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam. Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions. Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'. Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.
Just like a Corona variant, the Islamic ‘variant’, suddenly appears out of nowhere, fully formed from long years of planning. When Muslims commit Jihad, the mutant variant is immediately blamed. The ‘100% safe and effective’ vaccine of Muhammandan orthodoxy could not protect against the corrupt mutation of the Muslim virus, which has of course, nothing to do with the real ‘strain’ of Muhammad’s cult. This anti-reality philosophy demands that 'Islam' mutates by random chance into 'Extremism', 'Islamism', or 'Terrorism'. Propaganda claims that events ranging from 9-11, to the mass murder of Christians in Nigeria, to the burning down of Notre Dame and 40.000 Jihad attacks since 9-11, and stacks of dead and wounded worldwide is unrelated to the Meccan cult.
In actual fact, Mein Koran and the Hadith are very clear. Islam or Muhammadanism is terror. Terror is used to forward the war aims of the cult, namely the subjugation of the Infidel ape and pig.
Shut up and obey the Allah no matter what. This means that Moslems, wherever they live, are Moslems first and foremost. Muhammadanism is a complete system, encompassing and controlling all facets of existence and society, the political, spiritual, even the economic. Muslims are the Umma or community within this complete system, who must deify Muhammad and submit themselves to his moon-God the Al Lah or Baal of Mecca, where Al Lah in Arabic means the Lord. Baal was the Lord of Mecca and Muhammad’s family were Baal’s caretakers in Mecca.
These phrases are from Bukhari’s Hadith, which are commentaries to clarify the incomprehensible nonsense that is most of the Koran (the comprehensible parts detail war, jihad, the enslavement of women, and submission to Muhammad). Read the following and inform me where the tolerance is:
Bukhari: 4-203
Narrated Ibn 'Umar:
The 'Prophet said, "It is obligatory for one to listen to and obey (the ruler's orders) unless these orders involve one disobedience (to Allah); but if an act of disobedience (to Allah) is imposed, he should not listen to or obey it."
Obey Muhammad and you shall obey Allah. Maybe the 2 are the same? The Imam represents Muhammad and the Jihad.
4-204
Narrated Abu Huraira:
That heard Allah's Apostle saying, "We are the last but will be the foremost to enter Paradise)." The Prophet added, "He who obeys me, obeys Allah, and he who disobeys me, disobeys Allah. He who obeys the chief, obeys me, and he who disobeys the chief, disobeys me. The Imam is like a shelter for whose safety the Muslims should fight and where they should seek protection. If the Imam orders people with righteousness and rules justly, then he will be rewarded for that, and if he does the opposite, he will be responsible for that."
Note: This is obviously a bastardized version of Christ's famous parable of the last will be the first, and the first to last [to enter heaven]. Muhammad supersedes Christ and is put ahead of the Allah-thing.
Obey the call to Jihad. All the time.
4-208
Narrated Anas:
On the day (of the battle) of the Trench, the Ansar were saying, "We are those who have sworn allegiance to Muhammad for Jihad (for ever) as long as we live." The Prophet replied to them, "O Allah! There is no life except the life of the Hereafter. So honour the Ansar and emigrants with Your Generosity." ...."For what will you take the pledge of allegiance from us then?" He said, "I will take (the pledge) for Islam and Jihad."
The Moslem heaven resides in the shade covered by the swords of Jihad......see below.
4-210
Narrated Salim Abu An-Nadr:
The freed slave of 'Umar bin 'Ubaidullah who was 'Umar's clerk: 'Abdullah bin Abi Aufa wrote him (i.e. 'Umar) a letter that contained the following:--"Once Allah's Apostle (during a holy battle), waited till the sun had declined and then he got up among the people and said,"O people! Do not wish to face the enemy (in a battle) and ask Allah to save you (from calamities) but if you should face the enemy, then be patient and let it be known to you that Paradise is under the shades of swords." He then said,, "O Allah! The Revealer of the (Holy) Book, the Mover of the clouds, and Defeater of Al-Ahzab (i.e. the clans of infidels), defeat them infidels and bestow victory upon us."
There is no ‘scariant’ variant of Muhammadanism, which mutates into war, Jihad and terror. Those are precisely the core characteristics of Muhammad’s cult.
Jihad is the most vital pillar for the never-ending expansion of Muhammad’s cult:
The Hadith, Al Bukhari, Volume 1, No. 25. (in Peter Hammond: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam, p. 69).
Those who deny the pillar of Jihad and its centrality for the Muslim cult are deluded ignoramuses.
Peter Hammond’s excellent book ‘Slavery, Terrorism, and Islam’ will not be taught in ‘schools’ which en-masse present a Marxist-beatified, mendacious and illiterate view of Muhammadanism – the rightful name of the Muhammadan cult. Jihad or war is the central feature of Muhammad’s cult, its genesis originating in Muhammad’s leadership of 80 or so military campaigns over a mere 12 or so years. Every 2 months on average, Muhammad was leading a group to war.
As Hammond relates, slavery was not only accepted by Muhammadans, but it was also a central galvanising imperative which propelled Muslim war, conquests and Jihad across Asia, Africa and Europe. This is especially true in Europe stretching from the Urals to Iceland, where especially in Eastern Europe, Central Europe and the Balkans, sex slavery or the sex-Jihad consumed millions of women. The core element of Islam is of course Jihad and within this doctrine, slavery, a practice that Muhammad actively pursued with 20 odd sex slaves in his harem and various other slaves in his retinue, was a key driving force in the Jihad.
Of course we are told by sundry ‘fact-checkers’, ‘professors’, ‘experts’, ‘scholars’ and the self-proclaimed clever people, that Muhammad’s cult named submission, which demanded the submission of others to Baal or the Al-Lah of Mecca (the main idol of Muhammad’s Mecca was Baal, whose shrine was maintained by his family); and most importantly, submission to the only prophet and spokesman for Baal, conveniently being Muhammad himself, is peaceful and even ‘liberating’.
However, as Hammond notes, the core tenets of Muhammadanism, along with its 1400 years of endless slavery, blood, Jihad, and terror, are plainly at odds with the Mohammadophiliacs who declare the Baal-Muhammad cult to be a ‘religion’.
1-Daily confession of the Supremacist Shahada, which affirms that only Allah and Muhammad rule (see below). This is deemed the most important pillar because the supplicant confirms his submission to Muhammad and reiterates the intolerance of the Muslim cult and affirms that it will be victorious over non-Muslims. It is in effect a declaration of supremacism and war.
2. War and Jihad. This is the second most important pillar (according to Muhammad). The most vital aspect of Muhammadanism is the submission of everyone to Muhammad and the confirmation that non-Muslims will be either converted or destroyed. War and Jihad flow from the Shahada and Mein Koran with its 1600 verses of hate speech. The Shahada is found in Qu’ran 3:18.
3-Five daily prayers of the Salah to Muhammad and Baal reinforcing the Shahada and submission to Baal and Muhammad.
4-Keeping of the fast-during Ramadan in which Muslims are only allowed to eat or drink between sunset and sunrise (a practice emanating from the Bronze age long pre-dating Muhammad and imitating the Catholic lent).
5-The giving of alms (zakat) to Muslims and only Muslims. Islamophiliacs and self-proclaimed clever people, apparently cannot name a single Muslim charity which helps non-Muslims.
6-Pilgrimage or Hajj to Mecca performed at least once during the Muslim’s lifetime (this obviously indicates Muslim imperialism, where the conquered Muslim must go and pray at the Arab-Muslim shrine the Kabaa, which long predated Muhammadanism). Considerable wealth and booty have accrued to the Arabs by this commandment.
The pagan origins of Muhammadanism’s 6 pillars are rather obvious.
The Shahada
This statement of Muslim supremacism is almost directly expressed in Qu’ran 3:18. A good critique of the intolerant nature of this Shahada, and its implications is found here.
“I bear witness that there is no deity but Al Lah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Al Lah.”
Do not believe Wikipedia and other corrupt sources and Muslim apologists. They replace ‘Al Lah’ with God. The two concepts have nothing in common. Baal the Meccan moon deity is not God. These sites are duplicitous in their content, erasing for example all mention of the pillar of Jihad and war. Muhammad was very clear that Jihad was the second most important pillar (see quote above at the top).
The implications of the Shahada are obvious. There is Al Lah and only Al Lah. There is Muhammad and only Muhammad. Muhammad states that you must follow the Qu’ran and follow his instructions. There is no other organising principle in life. This manifest supremacism leads to a cult which by its design will be intolerant and atavistic.
As Hammond writes, there are 5 fundamental practices that Muslims must follow, based on the 6 pillars.
1-Muslims must believe only in the Al-Lah (though they are ignorant as to what Al Lah actually is), and Muhammad. You must never question either, with such doubts constituting a mortal offence.
2-Muslims must believe in angels who will help only Muslims. This is probably purloined from Catholic doctrine.
3-Muslims must believe in the ‘revealed’ books namely; the Taurat which includes the 5 books of Moses, and some of the Old Testament), the Psalms, the New Testament, and the Qu’ran. Given that the Qu’ran is violent declaring war and Jihad on the Infidel, it stands to reason that Jihad is not only a pillar of Islam, but its most important defining feature.
4-Muslims must believe in the Prophets send by Al Lah which number about 124.000 with the last and most important being Muhammad. Given this ‘fact’ it is blasphemous, punishable by death to question or criticise Muhammad.
5-Life after Death based on pre-destination, in which pious and submissive (to Muhammad and Al Lah) Muslims are rewarded and non-Muslims, or Muslims who are insufficiently submissive and pious, regardless of how they lived, condemned with ‘Black Faces’ to Hell. This reinforces the blind obedience to Muhammad and his dictatorial demands one finds in the Qu’ran and Hadiths.
Given that one of the greatest existential threats to civilisation is the cult of Muhammad, it is terrifying that most people in the Western world are completely oblivious of its foundations, motivations and pillars, including the second most important pillar and imperative of Jihad.
Summary of Mein Koran:
Moslems must fight in the name of Allah and Muhammad, and use all of their assets, money and even their lives to spread the Moon cult of Mecca.
In exchange for 'striving' in the name of the Allah or Lord of Mecca, Baal the moon deity or Allah, might grant you an eternity in paradise [only males go to paradise and only those who are Koranic enough].
Moslems cannot be friends with Jews or Christians, nor marry their women.
Women must obey Moslem men.
Moslem men may own sex slaves, a harem, 4 wives, and are superior to Jews and Christians.
The pagan cult of Islam is built on war, and its pagan documents, which have antecedents stretching back far into the Bronze-Age, adjures, encourages, nay demands, violence and war. In this vein Nazism and Islam are quite similar supremacist cults, both of which de-humanize their enemies [Jews, Christians, Slavs etc]; and sanctify war to exterminate these untermensch.
The following are typical Koranic verses of terror – a very partial list of 1600 such verses which academics, politicians and media talking heads know nothing about:
Kill the apes and pigs:
"kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191),
Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil doers. (2:193)
Muhammad informs fighting Infidels is necessary because "it is good for us even if we dislike it" (2:216).
"And that God may test those who believe, and destroy the infidels." (3:141)
Jews and Christians will have their necks broken:
"O ye to whom the Scriptures have been given! believe in what we have sent down confirmatory of the Scripture which is in your hands, ere we efface your features, and twist your head round backward, or curse you as we cursed the sabbath-breakers: and the command of God was carried into effect." (4:47).
Jews and Christians are Satanic:
Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (Satan, etc.). So fight you against the friends of Shaitan (Satan); Ever feeble indeed is the plot of Shaitan (Satan)(4:76).
Jihad all the time:
"Relent not in pursuit of the enemy" (4:104)
"slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter" (5:33-4)
"Strike terror (into the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies" (8:60)
"Fight (kill) them (non-Muslims), and Allah will punish (torment) them by your hands, cover them with shame" (9:14)
"I will instil terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them It is not ye who slew them; it was Allah" (8:12, 17)
"And He orders us to fight them on until there is no more tumult and faith in Allah is practiced everywhere (8:39).
"fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5).
Jews and Christians must pay tribute:
"Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled." (9:29)
Jews and Christian neighbors need to be killed:
"Believers! Wage war against such infidels as are your neighbours, and let them find you rigorous" (9:124).
“O Prophet! Strive hard against the disbelieves and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them” (9:73),
Unbelievers, even if a friend of a Moslem, need to die:
"God has bought from the faithful their selves and their belongings against the gift of paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill and get killed; that is a promise binding on Allah... (9: 110).
“O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who are the Pious, (9:123).
"When ye encounter the infidels, strike off their heads till ye have made a great slaughter among them" (Sura 47:3).
"strike off the heads of the disbelievers....wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (47:4).
“Say to those Arabs of the desert, who took not the field, ye shall be called forth against a people of mighty valour. Ye shall do battle with them, or [other translations have "until"] they shall profess Islam.” (48:16).
Islam uber alles. One world, One Muhammad:
"He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion. And Allah sufficeth as a Witness." (48:28)
"He has sent His messenger with the guidance and the true religion, and will make it dominate all religions, in spite of the idol worshipers" (61:9).
"O Prophet! Make war on the infidels and hypocrites, and deal rigorously with them" (66:9)
This constitutes a very partial list of some 1600 such verses which declaim against the Satanic, greedy, stupid, wayward, dishonest, untrustworthy Kufar ape and pig. Such declamations render Islam a cult of death and hate, not a religion.
Yet we see every week that the brain dead of the world are utterly astonished when Moslems kill, crucify, rape, slaughter, and destroy the lives, homes and assets of Christians and Jews. Maybe they should read Mein Koran.
Peter Brown is a Professor at Princeton and has produced one of the great classics outlining true history from the Germanic takeover of the husk called the Western Roman empire, to the rise of Christianity and the creation of the modern world via the syncretic development of the pagan with the Christian. A religious group, which before 315 AD was persecuted, marginalised and comprised no more than 10% of the Roman population, Christianity post Constantine developed into an ideal and foundation for European culture and eventual global domination. This established fact is derided by the usual array of post-modernists, Atheists and ‘Enlighteners’ who ignore the very pagan and barbaric aspects of ‘classical’ civilisation. Without Christianity it is likely we would still be sacrificing humans to wood gods, and living in clans with very little technological advancement in any form discernible from 200 AD. There is nary a claim to a ‘dark age’ since as Peter Brown records and details, none existed. Turbulence, change, synthesis, and our own ignorance do not validate ‘darkness’.
The book is large and covers an enormous geographical area from Iceland to Western China. I remember watching a video and reading various blogs, with Atheists deriding medieval Christians believing in ‘Prester John’, a Christian King in China who would ally with the European Christians during the Crusades of the 13th century and help Christian Europe defeat the Muslim Jihad. Just another example of superstitious Christian ignorance and stupidity, the self-congratulating geniuses will say. Except there was a Christian Kingdom in Western China, artefacts date it to at least 800 A.D. if not earlier and it lasted many centuries. This rich state was Nestorian Christian, a sect that deviated from the Orthodox-Chalcedonian Church in matters of Christ’s divinity (given post birth). It was large and populous for the time, cited close to major trade routes that linked China with Eurasia. Peter Brown mentions this to his credit.
It is one of the few books I have read covering Medieval history, in which there can be very little disagreement with the author’s treatment of the subject. Some of the more important aspects of Brown’s engrossing and important work include the following.
Christianity was before 200 AD primarily a North African and Asian religion. A fact easily lost with our Euro-centric view of history. This means that the Euro-Christianity which developed owed much to these sources which shaped the particular brand of Christian-Catholicism which emerges by the 7th century as something rather different than the Eastern Christian sects.
The constant presence of the profane, pagan pre-Christian world and the interaction with Christianity is an unexplored theme. There was a syncretic relation across Europe between the Roman and pagan, and Christianity. Christianity did not supplant paganism in most areas, as much as merge with it.
Most of what we know about the pagan pre-Christian world comes from Christian writers who were mainly monks. Without this library outlining pagan customs, sagas, rituals, beliefs and creation stories, and legends of how gods and demons worked in our material world, we would know very little about pre-Christian Europe and North Africa.
Education in Christianity, including obviously literacy, was highly prized and was developed early in the Church. This created a class of highly educated, aware, and literate professions within the Church which allowed the development of more complex socio-economic organisations, complex trade, political organisation and governance. Power and brute strength was post Rome, not enough. Culture, ethos, morality, common laws, extended trade which benefitted the general masses, and ‘justice’ which was blind to rank, became just as important. Christianity provided for and filled these needs.
The Muslim Jihad starting in the early 7th century disrupted and deranged a rich Christian civilisation which stretched from Spain to Western China with pockets of Christian domination existing even in Sassanid Persia. Trade, the economy, money, materials and resources all were vastly diminished and created a great contraction in both the Eastern and Western Christian states, with the Muslims almost overrunning all of Europe, stopped finally by the Christian Franks at Poitiers near Tours in 732 (Brown says 733) A.D. Without that victory Christian Europe was probably conquered.
The Roman empire was not a monolithic ‘great classical’ civilisation as expressed by anti-Christian enthusiasts and atheists. By their own false account Rome ‘fell’, which logically indicates it was not that strong. It was in effect taken over during a 150 year period, by German mercenaries and military. When Rome ‘fell’ technological development was static and poor. In a few centuries post 476 AD Europe was covered in windmills and watermills, heralding an age of mechanisation and improvement. Greater productivity means greater wealth, and it this economic prowess which generated the funds for advanced military arts and tools, which allowed the Christians to reclaim Spain and for a while the Holy Land and drive the Muslim Jihad back to its core.
‘Barbarians’ as given to us by Roman propaganda did not really exist, especially along the borders. There was much contact along the Roman ‘limes’ with non-Roman states, tribes and clans. Many were highly Romanised long before 476 AD. It was a porous world and trade and culture were exchanged. Rome did not own civilisation, any more than non-Romans owned barbarism.
Christianity is not static. The Christian religion has changed by region, by year, by century since 200 AD. It continues to do so today (albeit in the wrong and irreligious direction). It was a dynamic, inclusive, and open religion. The institutions of Christianity thus developed more slowly than we believe (baptism, the cemetery, rites and prayers). The Church was not fully formed in any sense, even by the time of Augustine (~400 AD). It took many more centuries.
The Church post Rome maintained not only Roman law, but also much of the existing pagan law. Justinian the great Christian emperor of the Greek Romans (early to mid 6th century), codified Roman law in the Justinian code. Using this, Christians throughout Europe, over many centuries amended Justinian’s codex to include local ‘pagan’ laws, with clear examples being the Franks, Visigoths and Saxons.
It is little known, that the 7th century was a watershed. The Muslim Jihad erupted. But thankfully for civilisation and our own development, the Christian world had become wealthy and educated. Architecture was rich and varied. Libraries at hundreds of monasteries were common. Monks and writers outside the monastery had the time and patronage to fill volumes on history, religion and science. Cities were re-energised as trade emerged post the Justinian induced civil war in North Africa and Italy. Confidence and function were restored to urban centres and their hinterlands. We see technology being applied using water and wind power, to generate great leaps in efficiency in farming and manufacturing. The 7th century is often overlooked, but it sets the foundation for what follows.
There is much more which could be discussed. But the book needs to be read by anyone interested in how or why Europe developed the way it did and how Christianity allowed Europe to not only survive the implosion of a pagan, brutal, slave centred and corrupted Roman empire, but surpass it in all areas, in all aspects, in everything that matters in the material and spiritual worlds.
Raymond Ibrahim compiles the Muslim Jihad against the Christians during September 2021. You could pick any month of any year, for the past 1400 years, and compile similar tragedies and intolerance. Source
Anas Khalifa (the name says it all), who for 20 years was a renowned Salafist preacher, now renounces Salafism, calling it a cancer with a deranged world-view which is spreading rapidly among young Muslims worldwide.
As the Taliban consolidates its power, a genocide, or at least a general persecution of the few Christians who remain in Afghanistan is likely.
The Taliban are compiling lists of Christians and their communities, even going door to door to search for Bibles.
In Afghanistan ISIS Muslims murdered 4 Christians – for simply being Christian.
Christians in Nigeria who welcomed Fulani-Muslim tribes to farm and be a part of their communities, are now being killed and persecuted by the same.
50 Christians were slaughtered in Nigeria in one week, in one state, by Muslim Fulani. On September 24th a Sunday, another 44, in another state were murdered by the same.
Christians are on trial in Egypt for writing about their lives as Coptics in Muslim-Sharia Law Egypt.
In Israel a Muslim man murdered his mother for converting to Christianity.
In Uganda, Muslims attack 5 young converts from Muhammadanism to Christianity, killing one boy.
Churches, prayer halls and directories, attacked and demolished (during September) in Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
As Raymond Ibrahim states, the basic message from those who take the Koran and Muhammad seriously to Christians is one of hate and intolerance.
Was 7th century Muhammadan Arabia a ‘desert backwater’? The Arab states by 620 A.D. had long been in contact with the Roman Empire (since the time of Constantine in the early to mid-4th century) and the Persian or Sassanid empire in the Mesopotamian basin. The Arabs were significant long-distance merchants, and their camel convoys were an important logistical supply train within the Near East. The ‘frontier’ tribes would have been well acquainted with both Rome and Persia and by default, these tribes would have been acculturated to the accoutrements of higher civilisations. It is not entirely accurate to state therefore, that the Muslim Arabs erupting into the area of Syria and Mesopotamia in 636 A.D., were completely savage or ‘barbarian’.
Many Arab tribes were Christian as well as Jewish. No one knows the demographic or religious breakdown in 7th century Arabia, but it is understood that the richest settlements were Christian and Jewish and populated the entire peninsula, including Yemen. Given the long-distance trade routes and the active Christian and Jewish communities along these routes, it can again be surmised that not all of Arabia was a barbarian land. It was the very presence of numerous and wealthy Christian and Jewish settlements which lead to the formation of Muhammadanism, itself a melange of pagan beliefs, misunderstood stories from the Old Testament and fragments from the New. It was not a heretical Christian sect as wrongly perceived by the Byzantines (Chalcedonian-Orthodox) and Syriac Christians (Nestorians), when the Muslim armies swept into the Eastern Roman and Sassanid empires.
Muhammad himself was a merchant, first working for, and then marrying a wealthy merchant widow Khadija, who was much older. He would have been a long-distance carrier of goods and merchandise, heading across the Roman and Persian borders to entrepots and trading centres. Undoubtedly, he encountered the richer Christian and Zoroastrian cultures, and would have seen the wealth of both empires. Both states had a unifying culture centred on religion. He would have seen the power of a centralising and unifying aegis of belief.
In Byzantium the heartland down to the coast of Judea and Egypt was Orthodox-Chalcedon, agreeing that Christ was both man and divinity, and that the man died on the cross and rose again to show he was divine. For the orthodox the nature of Christ as both God and man and was indivisible and occurred in the womb through the immaculate conception. In this view, Christ was of two natures but a singular God-man, God died with the man on the cross and both rose again on the 3rd day after the Crucifixion. In Syria and spreading across Persia into Western China were the Nestorian Christians who viewed Christ born to Mary as a human, that the divine nature of Christ did not exist in the womb. Mary was thus, not the mother of God. Nestorians believed that the divinity of Christ was given outside the womb.
There were many complications and divisions within Eastern Christianity and much fierce debating and theological theorising and design. The Arab Christians would have been involved in such disputes which were at the core of Christianity. Who was Christ? How can a man be a God? Why would God choose Mary to birth the Christ? Is the Trinity indivisible? Or is the God-Man who is the word, divisible? What is the nature of the Trinity? These are complex issues and not easily understood nor resolved. Muhammad and the pagan Arabs were likely aware of them and of the great energy and passion that went into such debates within Christian communities.
Importantly, Muhammad would have seen first-hand, just how ruptured and horribly crippled both Persia and Eastern Rome were by their endless, vicious wars, which included widespread raiding, slave-trading, and wanton destruction of farmland and city. By 630 both empires were exhausted, depleted, financially unstable and the entire Near East, desirous of peace. This depletion of imperial power and deprecation of manpower and wealth, would have been obvious to the traveling, alert merchant. This must have made an impression on Muhammad and is probably why before he died (632), he wrote arrogant, imperious letters to both the Roman and Sassanid courts demanding they submit to Arab-Muslim rule. His appreciation of their weaknesses was not without great merit.
It is not an exaggeration to state that Muhammad’s experience as a merchant, his interaction with wealthy, urbanised and sophisticated Christian communities, his observation that a unifying religious belief could weld a single population into a potent force, shaped his ambition to change Arabia from a peripheral land, with disparate, disunited tribes, into an unified empire which would spread and dominate the Near East.