Muhammad was not the only person who thought this. There was a group of people, several of whom were relations of him or of his wife, who shared this view. Some of them thought that Moses and the Law would be best for Arabia; but many of them saw that Jesus Christ and the Gospel were what they needed, and most of these in the end became Christians. If Muhammad had joined them, the history of the world from then to now might have been very different. But Muhammad had set his heart on an Arabian prophet and an Arabian book, and the more he thought of it the more sure he felt that this was the real way to unity and greatness for Arabia.
He himself belonged to the family which took the lead in religious matters in Arabia, he had always been made much of, and told he would be a great man; he used to have fits which seemed to him and to others to mark him out as something out of the common; so it is not surprising that he at last came to believe that he was to be the new Arabian prophet who seemed to him to be so badly wanted. His fits began to take the form of visions, and he believed that the words of the longed for book were being revealed to him.
But it was a long time before he came forward publicly, and when he did he was a good deal laughed at, and only a few became his followers. Then he got an invitation to the town of Medina, where he had a number of cousins. The people of Medina were very jealous of Mecca, and all, whether they believed in him or not, joined in giving Muhammad a great welcome.
It was in Medina that Muhammad really founded his religion, and there he became a very great man. But sad to say, as his religion developed all its bad points came out, and Muhammad became a very cruel tyrant and very self-indulgent, excusing himself by saying that God allowed him, because he was a prophet, to do things which were sinful when other people did them.
The people who joined Muhammad’s religion were called Muhammadans or Muslims, and they went everywhere making as many converts as they could, by fair means or foul. They had learnt that there was one God, but they knew nothing of the Bible; they only knew the Quran, the book which Muhammad was revealing, and they knew nothing of the example of Jesus Christ: their only example was Muhammad, who was a murderer.