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May peace and blessings of Allah be on thee |
Islam
From The Beginning To 1300 Date: 2002 Muhammad, Prophet Of Islam Into this environment at Mecca was born a man who would change completely the religious, political, and social organization of his people. Muhammad (c. 570-632) came from a family belonging to the Koraysh. His early years were difficult because of the deaths of both his parents and his grandfather who cared for him after his parents' loss. He was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib, a prominent merchant of Mecca. His early years were spent helping his uncle in the caravan trade. Even as a young man, Muhammad came to be admired by his fellow Meccans as a sincere and honest person, and earned the nickname al-Amin, "the trustworthy." When he was about twenty years old, he accepted employment by a wealthy widow, Khadija, whose caravans traded with Syria. He later married Khadija and took his place as a leading influential citizen of the city. Muhammad's marriage to Khadija was a long and happy one, and produced two sons, who both died as infants, and two daughters, of whom the younger, Fatima, is best known. A description of Muhammad, and probably a very accurate one, has been preserved in the Sira, the traditional biography of the Prophet. He is described as a handsome, large man with broad shoulders, black, shining eyes flecked with brown, and a fair complexion. His personality was reserved and gentle, but he was a man of impressive energy. He walked quickly, and always seemed to make it difficult for his friends to keep up with him. Although he was a popular companion, an energetic businessman, and a responsible husband and father, Muhammad was a very introspective man. Often he would escape from the society, which he considered too materialistic and irreligious, and spend long hours alone in a cave on nearby Mount Hira. In these hours of meditation Muhammad searched for answers to the metaphysical questions that many thoughtful Arabs were beginning to explore. Muhammad's meditations many times produced nearly total mental and physical exhaustion. During one such solitary meditation, Muhammad heard a call that was to alter the history of the world. Muhammad's first communication from heaven came in the form of a command: Recite! In the name of your Lord, who created all things, who created man from a clot (of blood). Recite! And your Lord is Most Bounteous Who teaches by the Pen, teaches man that which he would not have otherwise known (Koran 96:1-5) The Arabic word for "recitation" or "reading" is qur'an, and the collected revelations given to Muhammad are known to us as the Koran. The revelations that continued to come over the next twenty years were sometimes terse and short, at other times elaborate and poetic. The early revelations did not immediately convince Muhammad that he was a messenger of God. In fact, his first reaction was fear and self-doubt. During his depressions brought on by fears over the source and nature of his revelations, he sought the comfort and advice of Khadija. As the revelations continued, Muhammad finally became convinced that the message he was receiving was the truth, and that he had been called to be a messenger of divine revelation. He came to think of himself and his mission as one similar to prophets and messengers who had preceded him in announcing the existence of the one God, Allah. Allah, "the God," was the same God worshiped by the Christians and Jews, but Allah had now chosen Muhammad to be his last and greatest prophet to perfect the religion revealed earlier to Abraham, Moses, the Hebrew prophets, and Jesus. The religion Muhammad preached is called Islam, which means surrender or submission to the will of God. The followers of Islam are called Muslims. The term Muslim refers to one who submits to God's law. Muhammad's Message And Early Followers At first Muhammad had little success in attracting followers in Mecca. The early message Muhammad brought to the Arabs was one of sternness and strength: that Allah was one and majestic, all-powerful and demanding of the faith of his followers. Furthermore, Allah demanded that his followers be compassionate, ethical, and just in all their dealings: In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent, the Most Merciful by the night as it enshrouds by the day as it illuminates by Him Who created the male and female indeed your affairs lead to various ends. For who gives (of himself) and acts righteously, and conforms to goodness, We will give him ease. But as for him who is niggardly cleaning himself, self-sufficient and rejects goodness, We will indeed ease his path to adversity. Nor shall his wealth save him as he perishes for Guidance is from Us and to Us belongs the Last and First (92:1-14) Muhammad was able to win the early support of some of his relatives and close friends. His first converts were his wife, his cousin Ali, and Abu Bakr, a leading merchant of the Koraysh tribe who was highly respected for his integrity. Abu Bakr remained the constant companion of the Prophet during his persecution and exile and later became the first caliph (leader) of Islam. But opposition to Muhammad's message was very strong, especially from Mecca's leading citizens. Many thought Muhammad was a poor poet attempting to pass on his own literary creations as the word of God. Others believed him to be possessed by demons. Muhammad's strong monotheism worried those residents of Mecca who obtained their income from the pilgrims to the Kaaba. Most of Muhammad's early converts were among the poorest of the city's residents, and Mecca's leading citizens feared social revolution. Since Muhammad was himself a member of the Koraysh tribe, its leaders first tried to convince Abu Talib to persuade his nephew to stop preaching. Next they tried to bribe Muhammad himself with the promise of a lucrative position in tribal affairs. When such offers were rejected, actual persecution of Muhammad's converts began, and a commercial and social boycott of the Prophet's family was attempted. During this time Abu Talib and Khadija both died, and Muhammad's faith and resolution was greatly tested. But inspired by the spirit and example of earlier prophets such as Abraham and Moses, who were also tested and persecuted, Muhammad persevered in his faith and continued his preaching. The Hijrah To the north of Mecca is the city of Medina, which was then called Yathrib. The residents of Medina were more familiar with monotheistic beliefs, perhaps because of the Jewish community in residence there. They also had no dependence on the revenues from a pagan site of pilgrimage, as the Meccans had. Some pilgrims from Medina saw in Muhammad a powerful and influential leader and invited him to come to Medina to settle differences among rival factions. Muhammad sent some of his followers from Mecca to take up residence in Medina in order to escape persecution. Muhammad and Abu Bakr were the last to leave when it became known that the Koraysh intended to kill the Prophet. They were followed, but escaped, the story goes, by hiding in a narrow cave whose entrance was quickly covered by a spider's web. The web convinced Koraysh that the cave had been abandoned for a long while. The Hijrah, or "migration" from Mecca to Medina (often transliterated as Hegira), took place in September 622. The event was such a turning point in the history of Islam that the year is counted as Year One of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, the Prophet met with entirely different circumstance than in his birthplace. His leadership turned Medina (Madinat al Nali, or the City of the Prophet) into the leading center of power in the Arabian peninsula. The Community At Medina Muhammad was received in Medina as a leader and a spiritual visionary. He and his followers set about the establishment of a genuine community, or Ummah, free of pressure and persecution. The community at Medina included a number of Jewish and Christian families, whom Muhammad tried to convert. His efforts were successful with some Jewish residents, but the Jews who did not choose to accept Muhammad's faith were allowed to continue their way of life, since they were also held to be "people of the Book" to whom Allah had made himself known through earlier prophets. The care of the community at Medina was of grave concern to Muhammad. Many of those who followed the prophet to Medina were without work, and necessary food was sometimes obtained by plundering the caravans passing Medina on the way to Mecca. Also, Muhammad and his followers became steadily more agressive in their attempts to win converts to Islam. The word jihad, meaning struggle, was applied to the early efforts of the Ummah to win converts and strengthen its own recruiting. Military encounters with the pagan opponents of Islam began in 624, with the battle of Bedr. Muhammad defeated the stronger Koraysh army of Mecca, and the victory reinforced the resolve of the new religion's followers. Succeeding battles established the Muslims as the dominant force in Arabia, and finally a truce with Mecca was arranged, under which the Muslims could visit the holy shrines in the city. Return To Mecca In 629 Muhammad returned with his followers to take control of the city of Mecca and to cleanse the Kaaba of pagan idols. The temple itself, together with the Black Stone, was preserved as the supreme religious center of Islam the "Mecca" to which all devout Muslims are to attempt to make a pilgrimage during their lifetimes. Muhammad urged his old enemies and unbelievers to accept Islam and become part of the Ummah. By 632, almost all of the Arabian peninsula had accepted Islam, and Muhammad had even sent ambassadors to the neighboring Byzantine and Persian empires to announce the new religion and encourage converts. Clearly Muhammad did not look upon Islam as only a religion of the Arabs, and certainly sought converts other than the residents of the Arabian peninsula. The Death Of Muhammad Muhammad died on June 8, 632 in Medina. He succumbed to a fever, probably induced by the great strains brought on by constant campaigns for new converts and the unrelenting demands for his attention. Muslims at first refused to accept his death, but were reassured by Abu Bakr, who recited this verse from the Koran: Muhammad is only a messenger: many are the messengers who have died before him; if he dies, or is slain, will you turn back on your heels? (3: 144) On the day of Muhammad's death, the question of leadership of the faithful was solved by the democratic election of Abu Bakr, who became the Prophet's first successor or caliph (from the Arabic khalifa). Abu Bakr was not looked upon as a prophet; Muhammad was seen as the last and the greatest of Allah's messengers. The caliph was regarded as the head of the Islamic Ummah. The significance of Muhammad to the birth and growth of Islam is impossible to overestimate. The Prophet and his message inspired his followers to create and work for the betterment of a society united by the Islamic faith. Tribal loyalties were replaced by faith in the One God, who chose to speak to his people in their own language through a messenger who was also one of their own. Soon after Muhammad's death, his followers and companions, many of whom were scholars and teachers, began to collect and codify his teachings and actions. The result of their efforts was the hadith, or reports of the activities and sayings of Muhammad. The hadith has become an important source of values and ethical paths of behavior for the Islamic world. The Sunnah, the custom or practice of the Prophet, is grounded in the hadith and serves as a pattern for a model way of life to be imitated by the faithful. Sunni Islam is thus based on imitation of the Prophet's behavior as a proper goal for a meaningful life; 85 percent of the modern world's Muslims are Sunni. Home Page |