God and history

There are several distinct names and characteristics of God in the Hebrew
Bible (this is based on the analysis of Karen Armstrong in "A History
of God.") In the earliest chapters God is referred to as Yahweh
(yod-heh-vav-heh), the famous tetragrammaton, also the origin of Jehovah
in English, that is the unspoken (and hence unpronounceable) name of God
to Orthodox Jews. This version of God was a very "jealous" God, who
expected the Children of Israel to obey his commandments, and if they
didn't they would suffer accordingly.
Then later in the Bible, God is referred to as Adonai ('Lord') or Elohim.
This God is a more loving and gentle God. It is speculated that this God is
the one that inspired Jesus Christ to carry out his ministry as a reformist
Jew.
On the other hand, Mohammed, who was also undoubtedly inspired by his
contact with Jews and his knowledge of Judaism, appears to have drawn
more on the violent and imperious version of God. This is not surprising,
since the Arabs in pre-Islamic times were a collection of mutually
antagonistic and warring tribes, with pagan beliefs and little or no unity.
Their main interaction at that time was to raid each others' territory in
order to expand and collect booty (in fact the word 'raid' is of Arabic
origin). Mohammed was the first, under the guise of Islam, to unify
the tribes into a coherent force, which was the basis for the lightning
ability of their horsemen to attack and conquer the Byzantine Empire.
This origin, and the fact that Islam was literally spread by the sword, may
explain something about the tendency to violence in Arab culture and
mentality. But, before we get carried away we must remember that
Christianity, that was supposedly founded on the basis of "love they
neighbor," resulted in uncountable deaths and mutilations of Jews and others
who would not accept conversion to Christianity. So the tendency to violence
is mainly a base human instinct, that demands the subjugation of people with
beliefs distinct from one's own.
Nevertheless, one must wonder why the Muslim world is, second to Africa, the
most backward, poor and undemocratic region of the earth today. To speculate
about this one has to go back to the control of the ulema, the council of
Muslim scholars, of the Middle Ages who prevented change occurring in Islam
for many centuries. Note that in Islam, because of the way it developed,
there was no distinction, as there was under Christianity, between religion
and state, and when these two are inextricably intertwined, there is no way
that the State can develop separately from the control of the ulema. This
leaves us with the uncomfortable condition, that before the Arab/Muslim world
can develop true democracy there has to be a kind of reformation in which the
control of the Muslim clerics is broken. But, unfortunately the opposite has
happened in Iran and the PA, and it is unlikely that they would give up their
clerical control without a strong fight.
The small Jewish tribe, with feet in both camps, and crushed by both of them
as the grain between the grinding stones, managed to survive, and
eventually broke through to control its own slice of land. In Israel, the
Jews have established a State based on the Western model, since most of the
early pioneers came from countries where the existence of the State was
independent of religion, but nevertheless where religion plays a very strong
role. We are a compromise between the two poles, trying to exist without being
crushed by either. Both have tried, the Europeans before the State was
founded and the Muslims ever since.