Holy Prophet of Islam - Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa — Page 29
The Holy Prophet of Islam, Hadrat Muḥammad Mustafa sa organization. Some of their tribal chiefs exercised leadership from oasis towns and were used by the imperial governments to keep other nomads away from the lands and to collect taxes. They were able therefore to create more stable political units, like that of the Lakhmids with its capital at Hira, in a region where the Sasanians did not exercise direct control, and that of the Ghassānids in a similar region of the Byzantine Empire. The people of these states acquired political and military knowledge, and were open to ideas and beliefs coming from the imperial lands; Hira was a. Christian center. From these states, from Yemen, and also by the passage of traders along the trade routes, there came into Arabia some knowledge of the outside world and its culture, and some settlers from it. There were. Jewish craftsmen, merchants and cultivators in the oases of Hijāz in western Arabia, and Christian monks and converts in central Arabia. (A History of Arab Peoples, Albert Hourani, The Belknap Press of Harvard. University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991). Europe was still largely pagan, devoted to the worship of Nordic,. Teuton, and a host of other gods. In South Asia, Brahmanism and. Buddhism had long passed their prime and had entered upon a placid and prolonged old age. . In the Far East, the homely philosophy of Confucius and the "way" of Lao-Tze pursued a sluggish and somnolent course. They had earlier been stirred by the advent of Buddhism into China, but had fallen back into passivity, along with Buddhism. Chinese scholars, feeling that a period of decline and decay had set in made sporadic efforts at revival. . The two great empires of Iran and Byzantium were interlocked in a struggle which ultimately resulted in death for both. The sudden end of one and the slow expiration of the other followed in due course, though the final blows in each case proceeded from a quarter entirely unexpected. . Religion, philosophy, and learning were at a low ebb. The spirit, the mind, and the intellect languished. Mankind had entered upon a decline. The earth seemed to be dying. It was the darkest period of the. Dark Ages. There was only an occasional glimmer of light here and there. 29