A Study of Islam- Part Two
Muhammad: The Prophet of Islam
This profile is based on what
many Muslims believe about Muhammad. The earliest accounts of Muhammad were
written about 150 years after his death and many scholars argue that the data
about him comes too long after he died to provide historical certainty about his
life. All of the source materials are of Muslim origin, and there is no external
(i.e. non-Muslim) supporting evidence.
Most secular historians clearly have no
interest in following Muhammad, yet some of them regard him as the most
significant person in human history. Though Christianity claims more believers,
Muhammad is view by some historians as having a greater impact on history, given
the breadth of Islamic political power, the depth and range of Islamic
spirituality, and the pervasive way in which Islam brings its ideology to bear
on every facet of life.
Whatever the merit of this judgment, anyone
who reviews the history of the world since the seventh century can see the
profound impact Muhammad made in his lifetime and since.
Muslims believe, of course, that Muhammad is the Prophet, the
final Messenger of Allah. Thus our understanding of Islam is intrinsically
linked with our understanding of assessment of Muhammad.
His Background
Muhammad was born in the wealthy merchant
town of Mecca, which was a very important trading center for western Arabia. It
stood on the main caravan routes joining the land trade routes of Arabia and the
maritime trade of the Red Sea. It linked India to the West and Africa to Persia.
The religious situation in Arabia before
the advent of Islam is referred to by Muslim historians as ‘the times of
ignorance’. The Arabs were largely idolatrous and polytheistic as well as
mostly animists, worshipping the stars, for example. According to some sources,
as many as 360 deities were worshipped at the Kaba.
Jewish and Christian communities had
settled in Arabia. The Jews, being traders, had settled in the trading cities on
the caravan routes, taking with them their Rabbis, Scriptures, and synagogues.
From the Jews, the Arabs gained a superficial knowledge of the Old Testament
stories and Jewish folklore, which is seen in the pages of the Quran.
The Christianity that Muhammad encountered
was brought to Arabia chiefly by Christians who had fled the Byzantine Roman Empire.
They fled to Arabia to avoid the mandatory conversion to Christianity the
Byzantine Empire required. They were considered heretics by the Empire.
Muhammad’s imperfect understanding of Christian doctrine was probably due to
the nature of these informants in exile.
His Early Life
Muslims generally accept that Muhammad was
born in A.D. 570. His was a world of tribal Arabia, where people believed in
many gods.
Muhammad knew pain very early in life.
There are conflicting accounts as to which of his parents died first. Some say
he was born a few months after the death of his father Abdullah and that his
mother, Aminah, died when he was six. Other accounts indicate that his mother
died during birth and that his father raised him until his death when Muhammad
was six.
He was reared by his uncle after the death
of his parents. His family belonged to the Quarish tribe, which at that time,
were the custodians of the Kaba. Little is known of his early childhood. At the
age of twenty-five he married Khadija, a wealthy widow merchant fifteen years
older than he. He led her trade caravans as far away as Damascus.
In his leisure time Muhammad retreated to a
cave on Mount Hira, outside Mecca, for relaxation. In 610, at age forty, his
life changed forever on the seventeenth night of the Arabic month Ramadan
(approximately November on the Christian calendar). Muhammad claimed that the
angel Gabriel visited him on Mount Hira, in a powerful, terrifying, and
transforming encounter. According to the earliest documents, Muhammad returned
home, shaken by this encounter, and turned to his wife for confirmation of his
prophetic call.
Three years later Muhammad began to preach
to his Meccan neighbors. His message of one God met fierce resistance. Arabs
were polytheistic and Mecca’s main shrine, the Kaba, was home to many gods.
Muhammad gained some converts immediately, one of the most famous being his
friend Abu Bakr. His earliest followers came mainly from the poor clans of
Mecca, drawn to Muhammad’s message of social reform.
Muslims believe that in 620, one year after
the death of Muhammad’s first wife Khadija, the angel Gabriel brought Muhammad
by night to Jerusalem on the back of a heavenly horse named Buruq. In the holy
city the prophet conversed with Jesus, Moses, and Abraham. Then, according to
the Quran, was taken by ladder to the seventh heaven. Muslims believe that the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is built on the spot from which Muhammad ascended.
From 610 to 622 A.D., the angel is said to
have brought Muhammad several more revelations. Over time these were collected
and became the Quran. Tradition holds that Muhammad was completely illiterate
and that his followers remembered his preaching and codified them in to the
Quran about 652, some twenty years after his death.
The preaching of Muhammad had gotten him
into grave trouble. He attacked the deities of the Kaba and proclaimed Allah as
the only God. This attack went to the very heart and core of the religious and
commercial interests associated with the Kaba and the economic interests of the
merchants. His own tribe turned against him. On July 16, 622, Muhammad was
forced to flee to Medina, about 250 miles north of Mecca. This is the most
famous date in Islam. It is known as the flight to Medina, the Hegira. It is the
beginning of the Islamic calendar, year 1 A.H. (After the Hegira). Then, for
eight long and bitter years, the prophet engaged in repeated military battles
with his Meccan and Jewish enemies. He suffered many major defeats and setbacks.
To appease the Jews, Muhammad had proposed
Friday as the Sabbath and prayer facing Jerusalem five times daily. After the
majority of Jews rejected his leadership, Muhammad chose to pray facing Mecca,
and he exchanged the Jewish Day of Atonement for the month long fasting season
of Ramadan.
He adopted Abraham as patriarch,
considering him the father of all Arabs as the father of Ishmael through whose
lineage Muslims claim descent. Thus, Abraham became the first and most prominent
Muslim.
The Jewish tribes were either expelled or
executed. In a battle with the last Jewish tribe around Medina, seven to eight
hundred men were slaughtered. Woman and children became the booty of the Muslim
warriors.
Muhammad later married a Jewish widow and
another woman from the vanquished Jewish tribes. He continued to have a high
regard for Jewish monotheism, calling Jews “People of the Book.” He accepted
them as long as they submitted to his authority as leader of the community and
did not stand in his way of fighting idolatry and polytheism.
By January 630, Muhammad triumphed, leading
an army of ten thousand against Mecca and destroying the idols in the Kaba. He
demanded a pledge of loyalty from every man and woman under the penalty of
death. Idolaters and unbelievers were considered enemies of the Islamic
community. The world was divided into two areas: the world of Islam and the
world of disobedience. Through struggle and warfare the world of disobedience
was to be brought under the authority and subjugation of the world of Islam. Thus
Islam was the correct and pure religion, and jihad (a holy or just war) was the
method to bring others into it through conversion and domination.
Muslims made peace or war. They collected a
tax from non-Muslims and provided protection for them. In raiding expeditions a
fifth of the booty went to Muhammad for personal and public purposes; his
warriors received the remainder.
From 622 to 632, Muhammad built his mosque
and established the basic beliefs and practices of Islam in Medina. They include
rituals of prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage.
Medina continued to be his home base.
Muhammad led military campaigns in northern Arabia, and returned to Mecca for
his final pilgrimage in early 632. Being in poor health, he returned to Medina
and died on June 8, 632 A.D. He had never made provisions regarding a successor
and great divisions occurred within Islam. Ultimately, two major groups would
emerge vying for leadership – the Sunnis and the Shiites.
Muhammad in Summary
· Was born in Mecca in 570 A.D.
· Married the wealthy widow Khadija, who provided him economic security, became one of his first converts to Islam, and gave him a daughter Fatima
· Experienced in a cave, visions from Allah through the angel Gabriel, visions which Muhammad identified as revelations and later these revelations were codified into the Quran, the perfect book from God.
· Preached monotheism and attacked the polytheism and animism of tribal worship at the Kaba in the center of Mecca, resulting in both notoriety and persecution.
· Won as a convert Ali, who later married Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, fathering two sons, Hasan and Husain, anc who became the first leader of the Shiites.
· Escaped to Medina in 622, and event known as the Hegira; the Hegira begins the Islamic calendar.
Copyright © 2002, Scott Ptak. All Rights Reserved.