Desolate is the best word to describe Arabia in the years before the prophet’s birth. Although civilization made its début along the only portion of Arabia that doesn’t touch the sea, for thirty-five centuries it failed to take root in the desert sands. In the east lay Mesopotamia, the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates. Its legendary cities invented the tool that binds you and me, reader and writer: man’s greatest invention, written language. Nearly five thousand years ago the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians used cuneiform to proclaim their achievements in science, math, astronomy, law, medicine, agriculture, architecture, the arts, and religion. Yet while these advances were occurring, Arabia remained isolated and stagnant – providing the culture necessary to propagate Islam. Poverty in proximity to greatness makes a people vulnerable to deceit. While we stand upon the shoulders of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Sumerian scholars, we are haunted by their faith. Two politically-minded doctrines grew out of its schemes – Medieval Catholicism and fundamental Islam. For a thousand years the most powerful forces were not nations but religions. Both deployed rites first practiced in Babylonian temples. Many Catholic symbols, festivals, and doctrines are rooted in the practices of these distant peoples. Christmas, Easter, Lent, the priesthood, confession, and the worship of the Virgin Mary are examples of present rites borrowed from a pagan past. Islam was not …