1. In this century, the papacy was officially instituted. The etymology of the word “pope” (“daddy”) is a reference within the Church. The pope, then, comes to be the maximum authority in Christianity; what he says will be law, a determination to be fulfilled in all the collegiates, by all the cardinals, bishops and priests.

2. However, some distinct figures arose in the past centuries and were considered popes, such as Leo I and Gregory I. The city of Constantinople, then, came to be the center of the attentions within Christianity, after the fall of the Roman Empire of the West.

3. In 610, the emperor of the Roman Empire of the East, Phocas, decided to name a pope: Boniface III, who came to be considered the first pope after the officialization of the papacy. When historians speak of the institution of the papacy, they list various positive aspects. Before the 7th century, there were many fights and conflicts; there were those who considered that the Doctrine should be in one way, while others had different opinions. Anyway, it was very important to maintain the unity within Christianity. But there was also a negative aspect, because, if the pope erred in his decisions, if he committed some mistake, the Church would err as a whole. And many mistakes were happening in the following centuries.

4. The tree of religions has two great branches: the Vedic branch and the Abrahamic branch. The Vedas, polytheist doctrine, became the wisdom of the East. Various eastern doctrines inspired themselves in the Vedic truths, coming from India. On the other hand, in the West, we have the Abrahamic religions, monotheists, that are only three: Judaism, Christianity and, the most recent of them, Islam.

5. Exactly in the year 610 arose the first expressions of Islam, precisely when Christianity officially instituted the papacy. Its initiator was called Muhammad (Mohammed, in Portuguese), son of Abdullah.

6. When Muhammad was born, his father had already died and, at two years of age, his mother also came to die. He passed, then, to be raised by the paternal grandfather, Abu al-Muttalib, for, according to the tradition of his people, the child belonged to the father. Thus, he stayed under the care of the grandfather, who had married a second time and had children, some of the same age as Muhammad. However, when he still was young, around six years of age, his grandfather died.

7. From then on, one of his uncles, older than him, came to have his custody. This uncle traveled a lot and took him along. In one of these trips, when Muhammad was adolescent, he had contact with Christianity. He met a pilgrim who walked along the roads preaching the Christian faith. Muhammad had never heard speak of Jesus. He absorbed, then, some concepts of Christianity.

8. He lived in a society very different from that which, later, he would build the Islam. The Arab peoples, at the time when Muhammad was child and adolescent, also were polytheists. There was the cult to many gods and different religions.

9. There, in Mecca, where Muhammad was born, there existed a cubic construction, made of bricks (and that exists until today), called Kaaba, word that means “cube”. For those who see it today in photographs, it may seem black, but it is only covered by a black cloth. It was — and still is — a place of great reverence.

10. There is a very interesting tradition within Islam. It is said that who built the Kaaba was Abraham, together with his son Ishmael. Abraham had two sons: the first, with his servant Hagar, was Ishmael, who generated the Arab people. After, he had a second son, with his wife Sarah, called Isaac, who generated the peoples of Palestine and the own Jews.

11. When Ishmael was adolescent, Sarah forced Abraham to expel him, together with his mother, Hagar, out of the home. Abraham, very displeased, sent away his slave and his son, of approximately 13 years of age. After the death of Sarah, says the tradition that Ishmael returned to approach Abraham. Then, in one of these pilgrimages that the two made, they would have built the Kaaba.

12. In this Kaaba there is a very interesting curiosity. In one of its sides, in one of the pieces of the foundation, there exists a rock called “the stone that fell from the sky”, which, in truth, is a meteorite, much larger than the bricks. As all the bricks are equal and have the same form, this stone stands out totally from the rest of the construction. It is there until today.

13. In the beginning, the Kaaba was worshiped by the polytheists and was full of idols, statues of different gods. Muhammad grew in this polytheist environment until becoming adult.

14. When we speak of Jews, Christians and Muslims, we want to say that we are all brothers; we make part of the same family. We came from the same trunk of Abraham. But why do we fight so much?

15. Let us resume the history and understand the reason why. Abraham had a wife, Sarah, who could not give him children. Then, she allowed that he lie with his Egyptian slave, Hagar, so that he have a child with her and generate his descendence. From this relation was born Ishmael, who, in thesis, was the firstborn. Ishmael, for Islam and the Quran, is the son of the promise.

16. But after Sarah, the legitimate wife of Abraham, even in advanced age, had a son: Isaac. We know the history: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who generated the twelve tribes of Israel, being one of them the tribe of Judah. From Judah comes the generation that reaches Joseph, father of Jesus; that is, the Christians come from Jesus, who comes from Judah, who comes from Abraham. The Jews come from Isaac, who comes from Abraham. Already our Muslim brothers come from the first son, Ishmael. Then, we are brothers!

17. What we see today in the Middle East — these fights and disagreements — are, in great part, conflicts of family (as happens even in the best families). The feuds exist in our interpretations. We could very well learn to live in harmony.

18. Interesting is that Ishmael, tell the traditions, also married with an Egyptian and, from this union, they had equally twelve sons, that formed the twelve tribes that originated the Arab nations. One of these tribes is the Quraysh. From this tribe, in the year 570, Muhammad was born.

19. Then, after knowing the Christian preacher, Muhammad became a simple merchant and without great possessions. When he was 25 years old, he met a widow of 40 years, very rich, called Khadijah. They married, and he ascended socially, becoming a rich merchant. The union lasted many years, and Muhammad did not take any other woman in this period.

20. When Muhammad completed 40 years, in the year 610, he already was shepherd and possessed sheep and properties. In one of the times in which he shepherded his sheep in Mount Hira, he entered into a cave and there happened a phenomenon that would change his life forever.

21. In that cave, Muhammad felt a spiritual approach. The angel Gabriel appeared to him — the same that made the annunciation to Mary, saying that she would be the mother of the Savior. According to tell the traditions, the angel Gabriel said to him: “It falls to you to reveal the one God, Allah, and you will be His prophet.”

22. Then, right there, he had trances in which the angel Gabriel spoke with him, but nothing was written down. The angel inspired him, and Muhammad began to recite verses, “without writing them in any place”, only reciting. The people began to go to the cave to hear him, and many perceived his altered state of consciousness.

23. From that year of 610, the angel began to inspire messages that gave origin to the Suras, that which later composed the sacred book of the Muslims: the Quran. Muhammad compiled the messages and began his preachings to the people. But they were not preachings free of conflicts, for the people were polytheists and began to implicate with him and persecute him.

24. As the persecutions became very violent, in the year of 622 he had to move to another city, Medina. This change became known as Hijra, phenomenon very important within Islam, because it was when he took Islam from Mecca to Medina. The Muslim calendar begins exactly in 622.

25. There, in Medina, Islam gained breath, grew and fell into the liking of the people. In this period of persecutions and change, his wife Khadijah died, in 619. Thus, Muhammad lost the father, the mother, the grandfather, the uncle and, lastly, the wife. His history of orphanhood was very striking.

26. The persecutions were extremely violent. There were tortures and deaths against those who presented themselves as defenders of his thought. There was martyrdom among his followers. This was the cause of his change to Medina. Muhammad already had become a reasonably influential person, and this, according to the historians, spared him from being sacrificed.

27. Muhammad stayed ten years in Medina, organizing himself, making disciples and guiding the people in the Doctrine. After this period, already feeling himself strong enough for a confrontation with the people of his native city, he decided to return to Mecca.

28. Islam has five principles:

29. Shahada (profession of faith): there is only one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his greatest prophet among all the others;

30. Sawm (fasting): the sacred month of Ramadan, in which the Muslims fast from the dawn to the sunset, dedicating themselves to the prayer, reflection, charity and reading of the Quran;

31. Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca): obligatory for every Muslim adult with financial and health conditions;

32. Salat (prayer): five daily prayers obligatory, always turned to the city of Mecca, where is found the Kaaba. Wherever they are on the planet, it is duty of the Muslims to maintain this constant connection with Allah;

33. Zakat (charity): every Muslim must practice charity, help the needy and promote the solidarity.

34. The problem is not in the religions, but in the men. Christ spoke of love, Moses spoke of love, the Quran speaks of love — and it is the book that most cites the Virgin Mary and speaks of charity. If there exist ill-intentioned people, the fault is not of the religion, but of the men. The Quran is a rhymed book, musical, a very beautiful form of writing.

35. When Muhammad still was alive, there was a group of people that said that he would have affirmed that who would substitute him after his death would be his nephew and son-in-law, married with his daughter Fatima, called Ali. However, when Muhammad died, it was not Ali who substituted him, but Abu Bakr. The defenders of Ali were very upset and, then, there occurred a rupture. Those who wanted Ali as leader became Shiites; those who did not want him became Sunnis. These groups began to fight right after the death of Muhammad.

36. Abu Bakr was the chosen because he was the first to convert; thus, he received this reverence. But he already was very old and did not remain for very long. After his death, it was said that Ali would assume his place and would be the caliph, but this did not happen: Umar was the chosen. The hatred and the revolt grew even more. When Umar died, again arose the expectation that Ali would assume, but Uthman took his place, aggravating even more the situation. Only after the death of Uthman is that Ali finally became the fourth caliph.

37. Caliphs are the substitutes of Muhammad. The caliph is for Islam what the pope is for Catholicism. However, Ali was very persecuted and ended up being killed. His sons Hassan, Hussain and Muhammad assumed in sequence, but also were killed. The lineage of Ali is composed, in total, by twelve caliphs.

38. The last of this lineage was Mahdi, who had 13 years when assuming. However, he disappeared. In the view of Islam, he did not die; he simply transubstantiated himself and remains alive. Then, when one pronounces his name, one must place the hand over the head. According to the Islamic traditions, when Jesus returns the second time, Mahdi will come with Him to judge the humanity and separate the good from the bad.

39. It was these first caliphs that wrote the Quran. They called the people who knew the verses of the prophet Muhammad and passed them to the paper. Thus, they organized the Suras that Muhammad would have received. After this, all the other texts were burned. Nobody could possess another text beyond that adopted by this group of specialists that composed the Quran.

40. The Quran is formed by 114 Suras, but it is not a chronological sequence. They are organized by size, beginning by the longest until reaching the last, very small. This was done because it was not known for sure the order in which they had been received. When one questions the reason of this organization, it is answered that it follows the same principle used to organize chromosomes: by size. Thus, the same logic was applied to the organization of the texts of the Suras.

41. Between the years of 621 and 622, Muhammad had an insight, a kind of unfolding. Tell the historians that he was taken on a winged horse called Buraq, from the city of Mecca (he had not yet moved to Medina) to Jerusalem, more precisely to Mount Moriah. There he would have ascended to the seventh heaven, met Allah and received directly from Him the Quran. He would have received the revelation that Allah was the true God and that he was the greatest of the prophets. He would also have met Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus Christ.

42. This tradition justifies the interest of the three monotheist religions for Jerusalem. Mount Moriah was that in which Abraham received from God the request to take his son Isaac to the mount and sacrifice him. According to the Jewish traditions, it is also the mount in which Cain and Abel made their sacrifices to God and the place where Jacob fought the whole night with the angel. In the understanding of Judaism, Mount Moriah was the place where various generations had spiritual experiences. Therefore, it is a place of sacrifice and offerings for many centuries.

43. Mount Moriah is sacred for the Muslims. There is found what remained of the last temple of the Jews, known as the Wailing Wall. However, it is a mistake to call it like that, for, for the Jews, its correct name is Western Wall. The Jews do not go there to lament; on the contrary, they go to revere God through the prayer. For the Christians, Mount Moriah is also important, for there is the church built in the place where Jesus was crucified.

44. The same Mount Moriah is revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians. The importance of Jerusalem is enormous for the three monotheist religions. However, precisely for this reason, it is also a city marked by intense disputes.

45. After the death of Muhammad, occurred in the year 632, there began the expansion of Islam, and the disputes between Christians and Muslims intensified themselves. Places until then Christian, such as Asia Minor, the north of Africa and Turkey, began to become Muslim. In 632, Syria, that was a Christian cradle, became Muslim. In 638, the caliph Umar, the second of the caliphs, took Jerusalem. And there occurred an interesting phenomenon: Christianity, that had left the West with the fall of the Roman Empire and gone to the East, began, with the Muslim invasion, to retreat again toward Europe.

46. And, walking toward the next century, the Muslims prepared themselves to invade Europe, while the disputes between Christians and Muslims would take great proportions.