The Rise of Islam

Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the last prophet and founder of Islam, is one of the most influential people who walked on this earth. By the time of the prophet’s death at the age of sixty-two he had brought into existence a dynamic movement that would carry Islam through the centuries and across the continents, birthing empires, transforming the sciences, and challenging economic, cultural, and political systems.^[1] Considering the religion of Islam, one may wonder who this Muhammad, the last prophet, was and how his instructions were shaped by the cultural, economical, social and religious environment in which he lived. The other questions that may rise are how this small movement could become within centuries the dominant religion of the Mediterranean, and why Christianity was not able to stop it. This essay will propose that it was due to the lack of unity among Christians on the one hand and on the other hand to Muhammad`s attractive instructions about brotherhood and solidarity among his followers, fervour, faith, simplicity of Islam, moral values, and the use of the sword that Islam augmented so rapidly and displaced Christianity.

Source

Before I explore the life of Muhammad, there is one important note: Almost all of the Muslim sources on the pre-Islamic period and the years spanning Muhammad`s career are relatively late, having been written a century and a half or more after the events they purport to describe. Several scholars have cast serious doubt upon the accuracy of the traditional picture of pre-and early Islamic society.^[2] Jonathan P. Berkey concludes that

The problem with the sources is that they were put together and used by Muslims to settle later controversies and to justify retrospectively and “Islamic Heilsgeschichte”, and so reflect more what later Muslims wanted to remember than what was necessarily historically accurate.^[3]

Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies closes the case when he says, “there is nothing wrong with speculation, as long as it is not called history.”^[4] Consequently the following elaboration on the pre-Islamic history and the development of Islamic teaching itself is not build on solid rock but includes still a sense of speculation. First I will explore Muhammad´s life itself and the environment he and his teachings were shaped by.

Muhammad´s Life

محمّد (Arabic), or Muhammad [praiseworthy] ibn Abdullah [Servant of Allah], was born on Monday, the 12th of First Rabi` in the Year 570, the year of the Elephant.<sup>[5]</sup> According to popular stories, Āmnia d. Wahb, the mother of God´s apostle, used to say when she was pregnant that a prophetic voice said to her, “You are pregnant with the lord of this people and when he is born [...] call him Muhammad.”<sup>[6]</sup> This means he had a ‘divine call’ from the very beginning of his life. It is certain that the future Prophet`s father died before his son was born.^[7] His mother died when he was six years old, and his grandfather Abd al-muttalib cared for him. After his grandfather´s death, his uncle Abu Talib cared for him.^[8] Muhammad`s father-less childhood may have contributed to his strong teaching of solidarity in his later life. He did not get any formal education in reading or writing.^[9] D.S. Margoliouth claims that “it seems clear that Mohammad came of a humble family.”^[10]

There is no doubt that as a young man Mohammad often accompanied his uncle Abu Talib´s trading caravan into Syria and other various destinations. Conducting these caravans, military qualities could often be displayed.^[11] According to Ibn Ishaq Sirat Rasul Allah`s biography of Muhammad was one of those caravans of tremendous significance for Muhammad´s life.

Muhammad encountered a Christian monk names Bahira who prepared a feast for the travellers. At the meal Bahira questioned Muhammad and found between his shoulder blades the seal of prophethood. Mohammad´s uncle, Abu Talib was then questioned about the boy and warned to take care of him: “Take your nephew back to his country and guard him carefully against the Jews, for by Allah! If they see him and know about him what I know, they will do him evil; a great future lies before this nephew of yours.”^[12]

On these journeys Mohammad made acquaintances who afterwards proved serviceable.^[13] D.S. Margoliouth suggests that on all these expeditions he appears to have picked up information, mostly through conversations or from listening to story-tellers.^[14] From intercourse with Arabian Jewish and Christian Merchants he derived a sort of biblical phraseology.^[15] Mohammed probably heard expressions such as “as far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our sins from us;” “a camel entering a needle´s eye,” etc. and automatically adopted them into his understanding of life.^[16] In line with that, the Marxist writer on Islam, Maxime Rodinson, suggests that it was Muhammad´s subconscious mind, working on all that he had learned from Jews and Christians that produced visions which he claimed he received from the angel Gabriel.^[17] When at times some Jew or Christian testified publicly that Mohammad had correctly reproduced the information which he had picked up, it occasioned him the keenest pleasure.^[18]

Social and Economical Structure

Muhammad came to a ‘no-people.’ The Arabs were largely ignored by the two great empires of the sixth century: the Christian empire centred on Byzantium (Constantinople, the modern Istanbul), over to the west; and the Zoroastrian Sassanian empire to the east, in Persia.^[19] War between those two empires benefited the expansion of Islam because they were weakened and could not resist Muslim attacks as much as they wished.^[20] The people lived in widely scattered, more or less independent, tribes, with no central form of government. Although these tribes had alliances with one another in an ad hoc manner as the need arose, such arrangements were fragile and subject to rapid dissolution.^[21] Muhammad`s tribe, the Quraish (a gathering of several clans), were the leading merchants of Mecca at the time. Trade with foreign lands was the most common means of providing for their needs of life.^[22]

Those Arabic tribes had had a very high tribe and clan loyalty. “The power that bound people together on the clan and tribal levels is known as “asabīya,” a kind of powerful “group feeling.”^[23] As one poet expressed it: “Be loyal to thy tribe, its claim upon its members is strong enough to make a husband give up his wife.”^[24] “Out in the desert the rules were clear: look after your own clan. An attack on one is an attack on all. The need of one is the need of all. Fighting is unavoidable and noble. Death in fighting for the clan is an honourable death. If you are fortunate enough to live into old age, the clan will care for you, provide for you. Orphans, too, will be cared for.”^[25] As we will see, all those aspects of social life among the Pre-Islamic Arabic people, specifically this learned fighting and loyalty, played a huge role when Muhammad was forming the umma, the Islamic community.

Religious Environment

Pagans: They had no religion in common. What they had was a confusing mixture: the worship of sun and moon, and stars, probably borrowed in part from the Zoroastrians, the worship of strangely shaped or unusually large stones, the worship of the spirits of trees and wells and springs. Their polytheism, worshiping several hundred idols, gave them some sense of unity.^[26] Muhammad`s tribe, the Quraish, were pagan polytheists and controlled the majority of Arabia´s pagan shrines including the principal one, the Kaaba, at Mecca with 360 gods.^[27] While believing in superstition, they still retained some of the Abrahamic traditions such as devotion to the Holy Sanctuary, circumambulation, observance of pilgrimage, the vigil on ‘Arafah’ and offering sacrifices, but had only few moral demands.^[28] Despite paganism, and due to Polytheism, Judaism and Christianity found their ways into Arabia.

Judaism: There were several Jewish tribes in Arabia, including some that were powerful and influential. These Jews had probably fled from Palestine during the Roman persecutions.^[29] Judaism turned into abominable hypocrisy in league with hegemony. Rabbis turned into lords to the exclusion of the Lord. They got involved in the practice of dictatorial subjection of people and calling their subordinates to account for the least word or idea. Their sole target turned into acquisition of wealth and power even if it were at the risk of losing their religion, or the emergence of atheism and disbelief.^[30]

[...]

^[1] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2004), 13.

^[2] Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 39.

^[3] Ibid., 40.

^[4] Ibn Warraq, The Quest For The Historical Muhammad, (New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 90.

^[5] F.E. Peters, Muhammed And The Origins Of Islam, (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 102.

^[6] A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad –a translation of Ibn Isaq`s Sirat Rasul Allah- (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 69.

^[7] D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed And The Rise Of Islam, (Kingsway: Botolpb Printing Works, 1931), 45.

^[8] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, 19.

^[9] D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed And The Rise Of Islam, 59.

^[10] Ibid., 47.

^[11] D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed And The Rise Of Islam, 57.

^[12] A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad –a translation of Ibn Isaq`s Sirat Rasul Allah- 81.

^[13] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, 20-21.

^[14] D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed And The Rise Of Islam, 58-59.

^[15] Ibid., 60.

^[16] Ibid., 61.

^[17] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2004), 22.

^[18] D.S. Margoliouth, Mohammed And The Rise Of Islam, 61.

^[19] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, 13-14.

^[20] Mr. Farshtey´s Classroom. Article “The Expansion of Islam” was authored by Mr. Farhstey. Date of publishing unknown. Accessed on 01.04.2009. < http://mrfarshtey.net/whnotes/expansion_of_Islam.pdf>

^[21] Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985), 48.

^[22] Witness Pioneer – A Visual Islamic Organization. Author of “ Aspects of Pre-Islamic Arabian Society ” unknown. Last updated on September 16, 2002. Accessed on 01.04.2009. <http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/SM_tsn/ch1s4.html>

^[23] Frederick Mathewson Denny, An Introduction to Islam, 50.

^[24] Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 9th ed. (New York: St. Martin´s Press, 1967), 27.

^[25] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, 15.

^[26] Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell, Islam in Context, 15.

^[27] Jack Budd, Studies on Islam, (Northants: Stanley L. Hunt (Printers) Ltd., 1981), 6.

^[28] Witness Pioneer – A Visual Islamic Organization. <http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/SM_tsn/ch1s4.html>

^[29] Jack Budd, Studies on Islam, 6.

^[30] Sunni Path – The online Islamic Academy. Author of article “Religions of the Arab” is unknown. Date of publishing unknown. Accessed on 01.04.2009 <http://www.sunnipath.com/library/Books/B0033P0003.aspx>