Muhammad’s Contributions
Prophet Muhammad was indeed the last prophet. It is unfair to Muhammad to take him out of context. You have to have some appreciation for the harsh life he and his people were born into. This was not the Saudi Arabia of petrodollars.
Before the angel visited with him, he had the reputation in his community of being a good man, a quiet man of few words, but a good heart, a fair temperament, prone to solitude and meditation. He was born a prophet.
You have to read up on the Mecca of the day. You have to read up on the Medina of the day. You have to read up on the Bedouin life of the day. Lack of water does not even begin to describe it.
Lucifer, aka Satan, The Devil, the fallen angel and his team, that Lucifer has managed to penetrate every religion. At one point Jesus calls Peter, the Rock on which he intended to erect his church, Satan. Peter was capable of hearing the Holy Father's voice, that is how he became the first to figure out Jesus was the Son Of God. But he was also capable of hearing Satan's voice and mistaking it for his own. The Hindu caste system is Lucifer's finest piece of work. The apocalypse, armageddon talk in the Bible is all Lucifer.
When Muhammad thought he was hearing Gabriel's voice, it was not always Gabriel. Sometimes it was Lucifer, and some of them he was able to figure out. Those verses in the Koran were labeled Satanic Verses back in the days. Sometimes it was Lucifer, sometimes it was his own voice, sometimes it was others who claimed to speak for Muhammad because that claim brought authority. Claims of Muhammad's voice continued even after he was dead and gone. One is burdened with the judgment to figure out which voice is which.
But there was a Mecca before there was a Muhammad. But before Muhammad the people of Mecca were into idolatry and worshipping many false gods and goddesses. Muhammad's role was to clean all that up and bring his people to the one true Living God who is formless, as in is beyond space and time.
Cultural diversity is as fundamental as human free will. The uniqueness of the cultural context is also relevant.
By the time Muhammad was born, Christianity indeed had degenerated into the kinds of acts the Romans were guilty of during Christianity's early centuries.
It is said, actually Einstein said it, that Buddhism is a thinking religion. Every religion is a thinking religion. Every religion is supposed to be a thinking religion. If you can't think, you have no need of religion. Human beings have been created special. Human beings can think. Human beings are born with free will.
Every word in every holy book can be questioned. Every word of every preacher can be questioned. Because your journey to God is a personal journey. Your relationship with God is deeply personal. No one else can make the decisions for you.
Dictatorship is Lucifer. Authoritarian governments are Lucifer. Injustice is Lucifer. Sexism is Lucifer. A blind following of archaic laws is Lucifer. Blind obedience to ignorant clerics is Lucifer.
You are supposed to think. You are supposed to debate and decide.
Muhammad led a people living in the harshest possible circumstances from many false gods to the one true Living God who is beyond space and time. That was Muhammad, the last prophet to all humanity.
