The world before the Prophet Muhammad

When Almighty Allah sent His lastand greatest Prophet,
Muhammadsallallaaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, , humankind was immersed in a
state of degeneration. The messages of the past prophets had been
distorted and ignored, civilizationwas on the decline and humanity had
slumped into an age of darkness, with disbelief, oppression and
corruption prevalent everywhere. The condition of the world at that
time presented the gloomiest picture ever of human history.
At the time of the birth of Prophet Muhammad,, there existed two great
powers on earth: one in the East and another in the West. In the East
there was the Persian Empire, and in the West, theRoman Empire. As it
might be expected, these two powers were actively hostile and almost
permanently at war with one another. As a result, they were weak and
disunited, though appearing to be otherwise. Despite their disunity
and weakness, they made no serious effort to eradicate the causes of
their instability.
The Arabs were living under no better conditions. They were families
and tribes comprising different attitudes and feelings; but they were
all similar in one respect: they were slaves of habits and impulses.
They used to take pride in invasion and plunder. Moreover, they were
so low in their moral affairs that a number of them used to bury their
daughters alive.
Religiously speaking, the Arabs of that era were mostly idol
worshippers. Some of them used to make their own gods from sweets, and
subsequently, they would eat them when they got hungry. They had
replaced the monotheism of Ibraaheem)Abraham(with the worship of
idols, stars and demons, turning the Ka'bah, which was built for the
One and Only Creator,into a pantheon of idols. In addition, tribal
rivalries and blood feuds ran among them likethe burning desert sands
ofArabia.
The people of Makkah used to practice usury on a large scale with very
high interest rates -- sometimes a hundred percent. When the debtors
were not able to repay -- and that was most often the case -- they
were enslaved or obliged to force their wives and daughters to commit
certain sins, in order to be able tocollect enough money to repay the
debt.
Ignorance was not confined to the Arabs alone. On the fringes
ofArabiawhere the desert gives way to hospitable lands, met the
ever-changing borders of 'world arrogance', the two superpowersof the
age: the Persian and the Roman Empires.
The fire-worshipping Persians, with their strange concept of dualism
were further plagued by the still weirder Mazdakite doctrine )i.e. a
socio-religious movement that flared up in the Sasanian Kavad )488-531
CE( founded by Mazdak son of Bamdad(, that advocated communal
ownership and even ruled that women were the common property of all
men. LikeMani a few centuries earlier, who had claimed a new religion
by combining the teachings of Jesusand Zoroaster, Mazdakite's movement
was also a reaction tothe corruption of the traditional priestly
class. Both creeds died away after the execution of their proponents,
who more or less depended on royal patronage. Onthe other hand, the
Sasanian aristocracy aligned with the Zoroastrian clergy was steeped
inpleasures, burdening the oppressed masses with heavy taxes and
oppression.
At the other end was the Byzantine world, which though claiming to
profess a divinely revealed religion, had in fact polluted the
monotheist message of Prophet Jesuswith the sediments of ancient Greek
and Roman pagan thoughts, resulting in the birth ofChristianity. In
381 CE, the Greco-Roman Church council rejected the doctrine of Arius
of Alexandria, to which most of the eastern provinces of the empire
adhered, and in its place the council had coined the belief thatGod
and Jesusare of one substance and therefore co-existent. Arius and his
followers had held the belief in the uniqueness and majesty of God,
Who Alone, they said has existed since eternity, while Jesuswas
created in time.
There were colonies of Jews scattered across West Asia andNorth
Africato whom several Messengers had been sent by Almighty Allaah.
However, even these divine favors had failed to reform them. The laws
sent to Prophet Moseshad been distorted and tampered with.
Further to the east lay the once flourishing cultures
ofChinaandIndiawhich were groping in darkness. Confucianism had
confused the Chinese, robbing their minds of any positive thinking. On
the other hand, Hinduism had no universal pretensions whatsoever, and
waspeculiar to the geographical confines ofIndiaor more
properlyNorthern Indiaand its Aryan invaders. Conversion of foreigners
was difficult because one had to be born in a particularcaste and it
was the mystery of'Karma'that determined one's fate.
In short, wars, bloodshed, slavery, oppression of women and the
deprived held sway everywhere, might ruled over right. The world was
in dire distress but no one seemed capable of delivering it from
darkness. No religion, ideology, creed or cult during those times,
could offer any hope to the agonies and frustrations of humankind.
None of the religions in currency had any universal outlook or
evenpretensions and were limited to insurmountable geographical and
psychological barriers, preaching discrimination and the narrow-minded
superiority of a particular race.
Thus, it was in such a chaotic state of depression that AlmightyAllaah
sent His last great Prophet,with the universal Message ofIslam to save
humankind from disbelief, oppression, corruption, ignorance and moral
decadence that was dragging humanity towards self-annihilation.