The faith of Manichaeus which gave an ideological code and...

The faith of Manichaeus which gave an ideological code and which had appeared two or three (in one doubtful version about five) centuries before Islam in Iran, also gained no success. How was it, then, that this alien movement coming from a remote and strange land made such an overwhelming entry and so easily overcame all lands including almost the entire civilised world of the time?

To illustrate the importance of this matter, let us quote from a European subscriber to the Encyclopedia Britannica, also in order to know the point of view of an opposing source concerning the movement of Islam: "Had a small Christian contingent been maintained in Arabia, that same emperor of Abyssinia alongwith the Christian government of that country would have been able to crush Muhammad (a.s.) in his cradle and destroy him, and Abyssinia would have succeeded in checking a movement which was to change the social, political and religious conditions of the world and cause a revolution in the political, social and religious conditions of the world." This is the view of a Christian adversary whose observation "Muhammad would have been crushed in his cradle" reveals the degree of his animosity and rancour.

It is therefore worth considering what spirit and moral power was inherent in this revolution that according to this Christian historian, even a small Christian contingent in Hejaz could have contained its progress in the initial stage. Previous…