But these divine favours had failed to reform the crime hardened Jews...

But these divine favours had failed to reform the crime hardened Jews, whose very name had become synonymous for treachery. They had long deviated from the commandments of Allah, distorting the laws brought by Prophet Moses (a), tampering with divine scriptures, slaying prophets and in the end coining the chauvinist creed called Judaism.

It was more a racial sedition rather than a set of beliefs and the Israelites' vehement opposition to the last great reformer, Prophet Jesus Christ (a), was still fresh in the minds of the people. Further to the east lay the once flourishing cultures of China and India which were now groping in the dark. Confucianism had confused the Chinese, robbing their minds of any positive thinking. The Sui dynasty (581-618) espousing the cause of Buddhism had plunged China into a blood bath.

If Buddhism was never intelligible to the masses, Taoism the religion of the former court was even more remote and expensive to practice looking like a huge complex of rites, cults and strange rituals. The victims of these feuds were of course the poor masses, bewildered as ever and seething under oppression. In the subcontinent, the fabric of the Indian society was in even more shambles.

Hinduism and the absurd philosophy of the caste system it preached had created water-tight compartments between the human race reducing the so-called lower classes to the ranks of mere beasts of burden. Hinduism had no universal pretensions whatsoever, and had evolved and was peculiar to the geographical confines of India, or more properly Northern India and its Aryan invaders.

Conversion of foreigners was difficult because one had to be born in a particular caste and it was the mystery of 'Karma' that determined one's fate. In addition, India presented a confusion of castes and creeds and a pantheon of idols more weird and in erotic postures than found anywhere else. Tantric rites including demon-worship, sacrifice of humans and possibly cannibalism were the order of the day.

No intermarriage, no inter-living, burning of the widows on the dead husband's pyre, exploitation of the so-called lower class women dedicated to temples as devdasis but whose actual work was to satisfy the carnal desires of the priests, were some of the sordid affairs in practice. Outside the periphery of the civilized world, beyond the River Jexartes in the endless steppes of Central Asia, dwelt the marauding Turks and other related tribes.