I am 91 years old and now live in Houston with my daughter, grandchildren, and great grandchildren after almost 89 years of living in Missouri and Michigan.

The World of Islam
 by

Josephine Visnovske

The Arab is trapped in his need to preserve pride and honor. It is paramount that he must never be proved wrong, and to save face he must avenge the death of a tribal member.

History reveals the inhabitants to be gifted perspicacious people who possess many talents and are not to be underestimated. A race whose brilliance is second only to that of Hellenism. Archeologists disclose that it was among the Arab that man first used the wheel, that he originated writing, schools, astronomy, the sixty minute hour, and the Codes of  Law.

During the  Afghanistan and  Desert Storm conflicts, the television media constantly bombarded us views of hordes of shouting angry Moslems, inspiring pictures of them in our minds eye as being uncouth members of nomadic Bedouin tribes who are either passionately demonstrating, or while facing Mecca five times a day, are fervently reciting their holy book the "Koran."

The Koran outlaws blood-feuding and teaches that every Moslem is brother to every other Moslem.  They believe "Classical Arabic" as written in their Holy Book is the spoken language of God; that it was given to Adam by Him, and is the language of the people who enter into Paradise. Reciting the Koran is a sacred duty to the Arab, and every good Moslem is expected to memorize the Book during his childhood. As soon as a child is born the Islamic Creed is whispered in his ear. They are the last words uttered by a dying Moslem.

Arabs are descendents of Shem (The son of Noah of the Ark) and are members of the Semitic race, as are their hated fellow Semites, the Jews of Israel.

It is difficult to determine where the Arab began and the Jew ended. In past centuries the minds of the two nations worked together for their common benefit and their cultures became so intertwined the Jews lost their Hebrew and adopted the Arabic Language.  (2)

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all rooted in Jerusalem.  The three great religions reject idols and believe in the worship of "One True God." Centuries ago bickering and wars began over the possession of Jerusalem with the great prize being taken by the  Saracens, who ruled there for seven hundred years. For a millennium bickering was continued and were fought among the three religions, and the intolerance continues in the twentieth century.

The Islamic religion was founded  during the fifth century by Muhammad, a poverty stricken illiterate self proclaimed "Prophet of God. "  He was born in the holy city of Mecca on April 20, 571 A. D.  As a youth he became the servant of Kadija, the rich widow of a merchant who dealt in agriculture: as her agent he journeyed by caravan to trade in the cities of the Asian  Mideast.  At the age of twenty five Muhammad found favor in the eyes of the prosperous widow; romance flourished, and she bestowed upon him her hand in marriage.

Muhammad knew Jews scorned the black meteoric stone that is inserted in the walls of their sacred temple " The Kaaba".  Located in Mecca, the temple is a sanctuary and a place of pilgrimage. The Black Stone dates back to antiquity.  The ancient Arab regarded it as a God and it is the object of their deepest adoration. In addition to the stone, the Arab daily  worshiped one of a plurality of 365 idols. They believed the sacred stone had placed them, as well a the other minor deities which controlled their lives, under its protection.  It is possible that during his journeys to Jerusalem Muhammad was exposed to the Jews belief in "One True God"  and was converted without realizing what had happened to him.

It is speculated that Muhammad was a epileptic. At about the age of thirty he began to experience great spiritual  struggles and hear voices and revelations. He became disturbed by insincerity and superstition evident in  the community, and began to preach about "One True God". Muhammad proclaimed himself to be a prophet who crowned the advent of Jesus and other divine teachers born before him.

Muhammad barely escaped with his life; during his Hegria (or flight) he was forced to live in a cave for 2 years while the word of his faith spread.  People living in Medina,  a rival city located on the caravan route, were attracted to his teachings  and invited him to come to rule there in the name of his god, Allah. He arrived in Medina on Friday Sept. 20, 622 A.D. Henceforth that day became the Sabbath of the new religion. In the name of Allah, Muhammad began to raid caravans bound for Mecca and zealously destroyed idols he found.

One by one the Elders of the temple at Mecca came over to his faith.  Finally, after he had achieved great affluence and power he was invited to extend his rule to the holy city.

Muhammad used his religion as mortar to weld the nation into a monarchy of little spirituality, and rules as an  autocrat; so perpetually it remains, its final law is the will of its ruler.

The Islamic Religion exerts great influence on the quality of the lives of the Arab. perhaps the distinctive source of strength in the Islamic nations is the meticulous observance of their method of prayer and worship. Because of their devotion, all efforts to change the character of the Empire have failed.

The great tide of Islamic faith prevailed because everywhere oppressed peoples found it to be the freshest cleanest political idea that had yet come into the world.  In spite of wars, political upheavals, murders and intrigue, Islam did preserve decency and restraint on life.  It was only when Moslems lost faith in the sincerity of their representative that Islam began to decay. Wars caused the plainness of the Moslem faith to be neglected and lost.

With the demise of Muhammad, Islam collapsed into a state of spite, greed, and bickering among heirs, that led to the murder of descendants of succeeding caliphs.

  It is the sacred duty of a Moslem to memorize the Holy Book the "Koran" as a method of preserving the power of memory that was lost with the invention of  print.  For centuries the Koran was preserved by repetition and memory. Moslems resisted the use of the printing press until well into the twentieth century.

During the eleventh century, Peter, a barefooted hermit, appeared and harangued great crowds of Europeans to join a peoples crusade to free Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks.  Pope Urban 2nd was determined to recapture Jerusalem, and in  1099 sanctioned the first and most successful of many subsequent Christian Crusades. A Belgian, Godfrey of Bullion, organized and led millions of Christians on the march to the Holy City.  Adherents came from all parts of Europe, and although many perished  by the wayside, after a siege of forty days and great and bloody slaughter, the surviving Crusaders wrest the Holy Sepulcher from the infidels.  After they achieved victory, the Christians were astonished to find their foes to be people more advanced in civilization than those of England and France. They found  the Arab possessed superior knowledge and the most exceptional culture in the world.

In Baghdad schools and colleges abounded and it became the scientific and educational center of the civilized globe. Nestorian Christians and Jews were incorporated into the system and a series of great universities were established at various locations. Moslems drew students from Europe and their philosophical influence on thought was considerable. The Arab made important contributions in mathematics, although the origin of numerals and decimals are obscure because Indians also claim them as their contribution. Moslems created algebra and spherical trigonometry and the zero was unknown until the ninth century when it and the decimal were invented by a Moslem mathematician named Muhammad Ibn-Musa.  

Arabs were skilled at using the stars for navigation. They invented the stern rudder which made ships more maneuverable. Their lateen sail was used by the great navigator Prince Henry of Portugal to make the Portuguese seafaring explorations possible. Although the manufacture of paper seems to have been  learned from Chinese prisoners they captured, Europe acquired the skills from the Arab. A lack of paper may have been a contributing factor to the decline of  education during the dark ages.

The ancient Arabic Empire was once the greatest in the world. By A.D. 755, the Saracen Empire extended along the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea from Spain all the way to India.

Many generations after the demise of Muhammad, the Caliph Mansur built a new Islamic Capitol in Baghdad. the Caliph became King of Kings , and the Holy Wars became acquisitions of plunder. The court of the Caliph became luxurious and unlimited in wealth supplied by the loot reaped during the wars.

Christendom of Europe was saved by Charles Martel of France in A.D.  732 ,when he repulsed an attempted Islamic invasion from Spain by the Arab. The religious history of the world would have been changed had the Moslem succeeded in the attempt to force conformity on the West by use of the sword.

After the close of World War 2, the United Nations held a peace conference in San Francisco, CA in  1948 wherein an agreement was reached to partition Palestine and the independent state of Israel was established. Thereafter the surrounding Arab states have become implacable and fanatical in their unswerving hostility toward the Jewish Nation of Israel unto the present day.

Josephine Visnovske

ggvis@webtv.net