Perseverance — Page xviii
Introduction xvii Under the tribal system of governance, clans protected their own and their declared guests. Anyone not protected was vulnerable to harm. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Failure to retaliate was a sure sign of weakness. Arrogant ethnic claims were recited to instill awe in the eyes of rival clans. The slightest insult would ignite decades of tribal warfare. The weak were preyed upon, and looting was the law of the land. Pre-Islamic poetry and narrations bear historical testimony to the immorality of Arab society. This infamous age was drowned in a tsunami of spirituality that quenched the parched deserts of Arabia. The Holy Prophet Muhammad saw spiritually revived a dead nation and brought forth fruits never imagined. The lowly Bedouins were tauntingly called rats by their Roman and Persian neighbors. However, within a matter of years, the Holy Prophet Muhammad saw transformed these rats into rulers. Within decades the Muslim Arabs built an empire that stretched from Spain to China, and led the world in math, medicine, arts and astronomy. They became the leaders in science and spirituality. The same Arabs who exulted in drinking five times a day, now prayed five times a day; and the indulgent nights in which they previously pursued wine and women, were now consumed in prayer, intoxicated by the spiritual wine of the Qur’ ā n. Although that was fourteen hundred years ago, history plays the same tunes as it marches into its future. Today in the United States we see inner city gangs singing their rhyming rap songs in self-praise, boasting of their sinful pursuits. They don gold necklaces and diamond rings as if these sculpted stones held the keys to their self-esteem. Their lives revolve around their man-made idols, pursuing all that will disappear upon death’s