LA ILAHA ILLALLAH, no god other than Allah, is the most fundamental and most often sung expression of Islamic belief. He simultaneously denies the existence of all other deities and affirms the divinity of the one true God, Allah, all in one breath. This is truly the most exclusive and iconoclastic statement that rejects the notion of divinity other than Allah. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “cosmopolitan” as something that is “common to the whole world,” or a person who is “at home in all areas.” parts of the earth or in many spheres of interest” (1978, 301). Now, how, in the land of Allah, can we speak of “Muslim” global cosmopolitanism? This is exactly how Allah or his prophet Muhammad (570-632), from the first day, considered Islam, like it or not, as the religion for all humanity. Listen to his first revealed injunction: “Read in the name of your Lord, who created man from congealed blood; Proclaim that your Lord is the Most Generous, Who taught with the Pen; Taught man what he did not know. (Quran, 96:1-5). In this first proclamation of Islam, Allah reveals himself as the Creator of all humanity and the Giver of all knowledge. It is in fact this universal sense of God that gave Islam a different vision, breaking with previous notions of tribalism or religion. regional gods who were believed to compete with each other to provide protection and prosperity to their respective followers. Islam freed God from the tribal and racial shackles of past cultures. (Maududi, 1960) The greatest appeal of Islam was that people did not need to belong to a certain caste or ethnicity to also be chosen by Allah, the Creator. It was not a tribal allegiance, but a human commitment that was necessary to attain the Divine Being. S...... middle of paper ......rroed religious restrictions on interfaith marriages. Behind most Islamic arts and sciences in the Middle Ages there were also great non-Muslim minds. It was in Islamic Spain that a cosmopolitan society was able to produce the arbophile Mozarabs who were the medieval Christian version of the modern Anglophile Muslims, and you are looking at one of them. THANKS. Bibliography Cook, MA “Economic Developments,” in Joseph Schacht and CE Bosworth, eds., The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, 1974). Donner, Fred M. “Muhammad and the Caliphate,” in John Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam (New York, 1999). Mawdudi, Sayyid Abul A'ala. Towards an Understanding of Islam (Lahore, 1960) Mehmud, Safdar. A Short History of Islam (Karachi, 1970) Smith, Jane I. “Islam and Christendom,” in John Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam (New York, 1999)