In Arabia, the socio-economic crisis was growing until unprecedented severity. The contradictions created by or exacerbated by the crisis required resolution. Relations between the owners of land once owned by the entire community and landless congregation, between the nobility and ordinary members of the tribes, between slaves and slave owners, artisans and rich moneylenders, wealthy merchants and their workers became increasingly strained.
The leaders of society clearly felt the need for a strong centralized power, able to keep in check the disgruntled and oppressed people. It would also provide an opportunity to unite the scattered parts of the country, its cities and oases, to ensure national independence, to restore the old caravan routes, to wage wars of conquest.
Old tribal beliefs and religions prevented unification trends and prevented the creation of a unified state on the territory of the entire Arabian Peninsula.
Islam turned out to be an ideological tool suitable for unifying purposes, as well as corresponding to the class interests of the privileged strata of Arab society. His strict, consistent monotheism, the preaching of the «brotherhood» of all Muslims, regardless of their tribal affiliation, met the requirements of the time. Muslims – a word formed from the Arabic «Muslim», that is loyal, obedient. Islam is the word of the same root, meaning: surrender to God, submission.
However, it would certainly be wrong to believe that Islam was the intended result of the activities of certain individuals who set themselves certain political or economic goals.
Islam is a spontaneous religious teaching. It took time. The emergence of Islam was preceded by the spread of the teachings of the Hanifs or hanifism – an early form of Arab monotheism. Hanifs opposed idolatry in various parts of Arabia and rejected polytheism. They preached the idea of monotheism, glorified asceticism. The widespread notion among Muslims that belief in one God begins only with Muhammad is untrue. The latter began religious activity as a follower of hanifism, who recognized instead of many gods the one God – Allah. In the first biography of Muhammad («Sira»), this is stated quite clearly.
Neither Hanifs, nor Muhammad was not original in the preaching of monotheism. Monotheistic religions were already known in Arabia. In the cities of Yemen, the oases of the Northern Hijaz, especially in Yasrib, a city later known as Medina, some tribes practiced Judaism. Jewish immigrants brought it there from the Roman Empire. Christianity was spread in the North of Yemen and East of Nejd. Christians of various persuasions met among farmers, artisans and merchants. They were also among the Bedouin nomads. Preaching the religion of monotheism, therefore, could not be perceived as a striking, unheard of hitherto, incomparable phenomenon.
Thus, Islam took moral and religious teachings not only from the Hanifs. It contains elements of Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and ritual remnants of ancient Arab cults, which later became part of the Koran. This syncretism-one of the strong evidence of the earthly origin of the Muslim religion, its gradual formation. He refutes the theological version of the origin of Islam as a result of the «revelations» sent down to Muhammad, the prophet most valued by Allah and loved by him.
