Religion, like intelligence and language. can be used for both good and evil purposes, but this is also true of culture, science, politics and all other important human activities. Almost all revealed religions teach that humans have a pre-birth soul that predisposes them to respond to a Divine call even before the revelation occurs.

A reference to the pre-scripture, prehistoric period when spiritual evolution was unaided by God appears in the book of Genesis 4:26 where it states, “At that time humans began to invoke YHVH by name.” Most of the rabbinic commentators translate the verb hukhal to mean ‘profane’ taking this as a negative statement. But ‘began’ is the more normal meaning of the verb.

The Torah asserts that prior to Enosh humans did not practice religion based on the divine insight of revelation “invoke YHVH by name” as they were able to do later. Mystical and spiritual experiences were interpreted by human intelligence without the benefit of prophetic revelation. In the spirit of this Torah insight I offer the following account of the evolution of pre-historic human spirituality.

The Qur’an contains 99 Arabic names (attributes or character traits) for the multifaceted essence of the one God, but not one of them connects the one God with one people, while one of the dozens of Biblical names for God is ‘The God of the Hebrews’. “But they (Aaron and Moses) said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,”. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. “ (Exodus 3:18 and 5 other verses in the Book of Exodus in the Torah).

The Hebrew Prophet Malachi (2:5 New International translation) states: “My covenant was with him (Messengers Abraham, Jacob, Moses and David), a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them (the commandments) to him (Banu Israel); this called for reverence and he (Banu Israel) revered me and stood in awe of my name (YHVH for Jews and Allah for Muslims).”

Awe and reverence for the one God are basic for all monotheistic religions. As the Qur’an says: “Hold firmly to what We have given (the Torah) you (Banu Israel) and........

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