Monday marks the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and as a non-Muslim, I would like to enlighten Malaysians, especially non-Muslims, on the significance of the event.

Not many would realise, non-Muslims I mean, that Muhammad was the greatest political revolutionary leader and most just president of a sovereign nation, the Arab nation, ever lived.

He was the paragon of what fighting against oppressive systems as capitalism, feudalism, racism and bigotry meant. All this occurred in the decadent Arab nation, stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east.

Not only was there an oppressive system in place which sucked the poor like oranges, women were abused as slaves and sexual objects, incest and dishonesty of the highest order were the rule and not exception.

Love and forgiveness, the words of the earlier divine messengers, were long forgotten.

Muhammad, appointed by the Creator of us all, handled his divine duty with 200 percent commitment, and over a period of 20 years, worked compulsively to rid the Arab nation of tyranny.

He taught the Arabs, a highly corrupt and immoral nation, what it meant to be true humans. To tread a middle path between selfish withdrawal and extreme addiction to material pleasure.

The true Arab was to be a Muslim, which meant not just a decent person but a soldier of justice anywhere in the world, who lived a disciplined life, avoided extremes of wealth and dumped bigotry.

In reforming the Arab nation, bringing it back to its glorious scientific roots, Muhammad made sure social structures that hindered every human from reaching his and her true potential were eradicated, gradually.

Democracy and consensus, freedom of speech, and protection of women and children, besides non-Arab minorities, were integral in Muhammad's social revolution.

His revolution was the first to give women the right to vote and to sue for spousal abuse, besides the right to divorce, work or not to work (i.e. be housewives).

In fact, the system of democracy, one which was truly socialist democracy, was Muhammad's divine vision through and through. Environmentalism was Muhammad's vision and so was reverence for life.

He did not introduce anything new. All was from his ancestors, the Arabs' fathers as Noah and Abraham.

Torture and murder were sacrilege, and violence was only to be done in self-defence. Nobody had a right in war to massacre civilians, steal, destroy nature, and ruin holy houses.

Speaking with humility and living simply were human ideals, as was refraining from forcing others to conform to one's viewpoint.

High-handedness of lawmen, and arrogance of people with power were considered sufficient grounds to remove them from power.

The culture of learning all in the world which lead to goodness of humanity, was not only emphasised by Muhammad, but also made a divine duty for humans. Nature was to be a Bible.

Humans, Muhammad taught the Arabs, were not born beastly but were descended from the first man and woman, divine creatures on a mission from the heavens to create a happy home on planet Earth.

Muhammad affirmed the messages of all divine messengers before him, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, the Buddha, Moses and Jesus. That message was that all humans were of the same blood and had no business to oppress one another.

Humans' duty was to rise above the laws of the jungle and make Earth a place for all to feel at home. All forms of humans bullying humans were considered evil.

In his life, Muhammad introduced not just a message to the Arab nation, but also to the human race.

To the Arab nation, it was a return to the simple monotheism of its great ancestor, Noah, a monotheism which emphasised clean living and daily discipline in all human actions.

The Arabs were specially appointed by Noah to teach humanity goodness, a sort of global scouts and girl guides movement.

The Arabs, as prefects of humanity, were also called Muslims, or believers in Justice based on Monotheism. Any non-Arab was free to join the corps of Muslims.

To the world, Muhammad introduced a Universal Monotheism, or Universal Humanism, which emphasised that all faiths were the same, all humans were the same, and that every human had a duty to bring justice, to the best of his or her ability.

This is the Tauhid , which is a word non-Muslims must not be afraid of, for they are not supposed to be patronising with regard to their own race and religion.

They are instead, to share a global commitment to all common and unifying values which bring justice, and to embrace the religion called Universal Humanism or Universal Monotheism.

After all, non-Muslims and Muslims, Muhammad reminded the people of his day, were descendants of Adam and Eve, the first couple and our common parents who were primal monotheists or proto-Muslims.

Universal Monotheism is within us when we are born, he said, and we are thus proto-Muslims.

Muhammad opened the eyes of religionist fanatics among the Arabs, that there was no eternal damnation for people just because of their views. He told them that people would suffer or survive based on their actions.

The Arabs, the first people to be civilised, were and are, the biggest backsliders in history. Many divine messengers came to them, and each time the messengers left the world, this nation backslided very badly.

Witness how the monotheist Muslim Arabs over the centuries turned from democrats to tyrannical pharaohs who kept slaves and sacrificed humans.

Their state very much reflects what humans truly are. Humans are the viceroys of their Creator on Earth because they have the rational minds animals do not.

Sadly, they are prone to becoming anti-Creator, doing all sorts of selfish acts and becoming evil. The larger the responsibility, the more prone they are to being evil.

That happened to the Arabs after Muhammad left the world. His beloved assistants Abu Bakar, Omar, Osman and Ali carried on his good work in changing the Arabs' minds and protecting non-Arabs from Arab racism.

But within a period of two decades, a bunch of corrupt Arabs called the Ummayads, former pseudo-Christian fanatics, or Nazarites, built their own unlawful business empire, reintroduced corruption, and did all they could to undermine the four good assistants' work.

After Abu Bakar's death, Omar, Osman and Ali were assassinated, together with some of the best Muslim Arab leaders, by the Ummayads.

From then onwards, the Ummayads hijacked the Arab Islamic nation, and twisted its truly democratic and just nature.

While there were good people like scholars and scientists living under their dictatorship, the Ummayads ran a dirty and autocratic system, with two extremisms - extreme liberalism for the elite, and extreme religionist obscurantism for the masses.

The last assistants of Muhammad on the non-Arab part of humanity, upholding the Universal Humanism of Tauhid, were the Sikh Gurus of India.

Their mission sadly ended with barbaric slaughter, at the hands of so-called Muslims, hypocritical Indian emperors called the Moghuls, the Ummayads' successors.

Today, all good humans, whatever their faith, are Muhammad's true successors. May we remember our divine origins and work to achieve justice in the world.

May all Muslims and non-Muslims pray hard and reflect on Muhammad's revolution. Achieving his revolution may not be 100 percent possible, given our human failings and temptations.

But we can do our best, and make life worth living, by taking a strong stand in writing, campaigning, boycotting or even enlightening others, whenever there is evil and injustice in the world.

This is why. Muhammad, like messengers before him, said justice is within us, and since we are descended from divine messengers who hated evil and loved justice, let us love justice and make it done.