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Pringle Kennedy has observed (Arabian Society at the Time of Muhammad pp. 8-10, 18-21):
Muhammad was, to use a striking expression, the man of the hour. In order to understand his wonderful success, one must study the conditions of his times. Five and half centuries and more had elapsed when he was born since Jesus had come into the world. At that time, the old religions of Greece and Rome, and of the hundred and one states along the Mediterranean, had lost their vitality. In their place, Caesarism had come as a living cult. The worship of the state as personified by the reigning Caesar, such was the religion of the Roman Empire. Other religions might exist, it was true; but they had to permit this new cult by the side of them and predominant over them. But Caesarism failed to satisfy. The Eastern religions and superstitions (Egyptian, Syrian, and Persian) appealed to many, in the Roman world and found numerous votaries. The fatal fault of many of these creeds was that in many respects they were so ignoble.... When Christianity conquered Caesarism at the commencement of the fourth century, it, in its turn, became caesarised. No longer was it the pure creed, which had been taught some three centuries before. It had become largely de-spiritualized, ritualized, materialized....
How, in a few years, all this was changed, how, by 650 AD a great part of this world became a different world from what it had been before, is one of the most remarkable chapters in human history. This wonderful change followed, if it was not mainly caused by, the life of one man, the Prophet of Mecca. Whatever the opinion one may have of this extraordinary man, whether it be that of the devout Muslim who considers him the last and greatest herald of God’s word, or of the fanatical Christian of former days, who considered him an emissary of the Evil One, or of certain modern Orientalists, who look on him rather as a politician than a saint, as an organizer of Asia in general and Arabia in particular, against Europe, rather than as a religious reformer; there can be no difference as to the immensity of the effect which his life has had on the history of the world. To those of us, to whom the man is everything, the milieu but little, he is the supreme instance of what can be done by one man. Even others, who hold that the conditions of time and place, the surroundings of every sort, the capacity of receptivity of the human mind, have, more than an individual effort, brought about the great steps in the world’s history, cannot well deny, that even if this step were to come, without Muhammad, it would have been indefinitely delayed.
In the fifth and sixth centuries, the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilization possible, since they had given to man a sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had broken down and nothing had been found adequate to take their place.... It seemed then that the great civilization which had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next, and law and order were unknown.... The new sanctions created by Christianity were creating divisions and destruction instead of unity and order. Civilization like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over-reached the world stood tottering, rotted to the core. Was there any emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more to unity and to save civilization? It was among the Arabs that the man was born who were to unite the whole known world of the east and south (J. H. Denison, Emotions as the Basis of Civilization, pp. 265-9).
Muhammad was, to use a striking expression, the man of the hour. In order to understand his wonderful success, one must study the conditions of his times. Five and half centuries and more had elapsed when he was born since Jesus had come into the world. At that time, the old religions of Greece and Rome, and of the hundred and one states along the Mediterranean, had lost their vitality. In their place, Caesarism had come as a living cult. The worship of the state as personified by the reigning Caesar, such was the religion of the Roman Empire. Other religions might exist, it was true; but they had to permit this new cult by the side of them and predominant over them. But Caesarism failed to satisfy. The Eastern religions and superstitions (Egyptian, Syrian, and Persian) appealed to many, in the Roman world and found numerous votaries. The fatal fault of many of these creeds was that in many respects they were so ignoble.... When Christianity conquered Caesarism at the commencement of the fourth century, it, in its turn, became caesarised. No longer was it the pure creed, which had been taught some three centuries before. It had become largely de-spiritualized, ritualized, materialized....
How, in a few years, all this was changed, how, by 650 AD a great part of this world became a different world from what it had been before, is one of the most remarkable chapters in human history. This wonderful change followed, if it was not mainly caused by, the life of one man, the Prophet of Mecca. Whatever the opinion one may have of this extraordinary man, whether it be that of the devout Muslim who considers him the last and greatest herald of God’s word, or of the fanatical Christian of former days, who considered him an emissary of the Evil One, or of certain modern Orientalists, who look on him rather as a politician than a saint, as an organizer of Asia in general and Arabia in particular, against Europe, rather than as a religious reformer; there can be no difference as to the immensity of the effect which his life has had on the history of the world. To those of us, to whom the man is everything, the milieu but little, he is the supreme instance of what can be done by one man. Even others, who hold that the conditions of time and place, the surroundings of every sort, the capacity of receptivity of the human mind, have, more than an individual effort, brought about the great steps in the world’s history, cannot well deny, that even if this step were to come, without Muhammad, it would have been indefinitely delayed.
In the fifth and sixth centuries, the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilization possible, since they had given to man a sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had broken down and nothing had been found adequate to take their place.... It seemed then that the great civilization which had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next, and law and order were unknown.... The new sanctions created by Christianity were creating divisions and destruction instead of unity and order. Civilization like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over-reached the world stood tottering, rotted to the core. Was there any emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more to unity and to save civilization? It was among the Arabs that the man was born who were to unite the whole known world of the east and south (J. H. Denison, Emotions as the Basis of Civilization, pp. 265-9).