It is impossible to misconceive the importance and significance of
Hanifism in the origin of Islam. The path was already prepared for
it and Islam offered to the Arabs what they were long in search for:
a moral, ethical, and spiritual teaching; a higher form of worship
and last but not least fraternity and union. The tribal cults were
henceforward merged in a higher worship and the nobler energies of the
Arab race obtained a religious consecration.
Islam became the starting point for the Arabs for conquests, alike
spiritual and temporal. With Islam became the prerogative of the
Arab race to be “an ensign to the nations;” to bear and to carry the
banner of the true God to the remotest corner of the earth. Hence the
unceasing campaigns and hence the far-extending conquests.