In the historical and social context in which Islam arose, the teaching that there is one God, Allah, and only one, and one Prophet, Muhammad, was crucial to the establishment and development of the religion, and to Islam's explanation of how the cosmos functions and what place human beings are to have in the world. This focus on one God and one Prophet form the creed of the first pillar of Islam, and give the modern college student a clear path to tread through a world of problems and temptations.
The world of the founder and prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was one of great division and turbulence, with a number of gods, including Allah, which the people variously worshipped. Smith describes the society into which Muhammad was born as "barbaric." Political and economic turmoil "made this chaotic situation even worse." The "prevailing religion [which included a number of gods] was providing no check whatever" on the personal and social actions of the people. Smith describes pre-Islam religion of the time as "animistic polytheism." In other words, it was a society and a world in which human beings did not know their place in the world, except to pursue their separate and selfish ends. They had no guiding God and they had no effective leader whose word was authoritative or effective. Smith concludes that "the time was ripe for a deliverer."
Islam includes five pillars, the first of which is "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet." The religion founded by the Prophet effectively did away with the "animistic polytheism" which preceded it, gave the people an all-powerful God with strict guidelines for behavior, replacing the "barbaric" behavior of the past, and unified the various aspects of life (politics, economics, military, behavioral, religion, social, cultural) which had previously been causes of division. Under Allah and the Prophet, Islam gave its adherents a clear and universal vision of how to live in every sp...