MUHAMMAD [ ]: The Prophet of Islam

Transcription

1 Muslims in Calgary MUHAMMAD [ ]: The Prophet of Islam Author : MuslimsInCalgary By Tayeb El-hibri Muhammad is referred to by Muslims as rasul Allah (the messenger of God) or al-nabi (the Prophet), an appellation that they always follow with the invocation salla Allah alayhi wa sallam (May God's peace and blessing be upon him). Early Life He was born in Mecca in 570, the year of the Elephant, a fortuitous year in tradition, since Mecca in that year survived an Abyssinian invasion directed through Yemen. 1 / 6

2 Although one of various pagan centers in Arabia, Mecca was considered the most important one on account of the Kaʿba, a cubical religious sanctuary revered since ancient times. A spiritual focal point for devotees, who came to it as pilgrims with sacrifices, Mecca provided a convenient meeting point for merchants who exchanged goods there and poets who displayed their literary talents and competed for the attention of its wealthy guests and residents. Authority over the city rested in a loose confederation of tribal groups largely dominated by the tribe of Quraysh. Muhammad was born to the clan of Banu Hashim (Hashimites), a branch within Quraysh that was known less for its wealth than for its religious prestige. The patriarch of the clan was traditionally entrusted with caring for the Kaʿba and maintenance of the pilgrimage facilities, such as the renowned well of zamzam, where Islamic tradition states that in ancient times Ismaʿil, abandoned with his mother Hagar by Abraham (Ibrahim), struck water in the desert and thereby attracted settlement in that spot. Because Mecca is situated on the overland route between Yemen and Syria, its importance as a station, market, and religious center grew with the increasing caravan trade in the region. Muhammad grew up as an orphan, having lost both of his parents by the age of six. He was then cared for briefly by his grandfather, Abd al-muttalib, the patriarch of his clan, and afterward by his uncle Abu Talib. In his adolescent years, Muhammad joined his uncle on trade journeys, the most notable of which were to Syria, and he noticed the effects of this commercial boom on his city. The growth of excessive competition in Mecca was gradually undermining traditional Arab tribal values that emphasized principles of solidarity, mutual help, and magnanimity (muru'a), and leaving a pool of destitute and disenfranchised Meccans who were abandoned by a new, wealth-driven generation. In this troubled Arab milieu, Muhammad, who attracted attention in Mecca because of his fair dealing, honesty, and moral sensitivity, was commissioned by a wealthy widow, Khadija, to take charge of her caravan trade. Aged twenty-five, Muhammad married Khadija, fifteen years his senior; she bore him two sons (al-qasim and Abdullah), who died in infancy, and four daughters (Zaynab, Ruqiyya, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima). Beyond his distress about the social malaise in Mecca, Muhammad was dissatisfied with the pagan beliefs of the Meccans. The Kaʿba, surrounded by idols that catered to various pagan cults, had become a platform for profit making and opportunism. Beginning of Islamic Religion Seeking a full break with this society, Muhammad found solace in spiritual retreats that he undertook in a mountain cave, Hira, on the outskirts of Mecca. According to tradition, Muhammad spent long stretches of time alone in the cave, and it was on one of these occasions, in the year 610, that the angel Gabriel ( Jabril) appeared to him and presented him with the words, "Recite in the name of thy Lord, the Creator" (Sura 2 / 6

3 96:1). Gabriel announced to Muhammad that he was to be the messenger of God and called on him to warn his people against polytheism and to lead them to the worship of the one God. The first words of the Qurʾan came to light in the month of Ramadan hence the religious importance of that month and other verses followed in later years in various contexts over the course of Muhammad's life. Those closest to Muhammad his wife, Khadija, his cousin Ali, his companion Abu Bakr, and his servant Zayd were the first to hear the words of the Qurʾan and to embrace the new message, Islam (meaning literally surrendering oneself to the will of God). After overcoming some initial hesitation, Muhammad grew confident in his sense of mission and took the message to the public arena of Mecca. The earliest Qurʾanic recitations of Muhammad emphasized the belief in absolute monotheism. Meccans were called on to cast aside all polytheism and to worship the one God, Allah, the creator of the universe. The Qurʾan described the omniscience and omnipotence of God and invited the people (al-nas) to ponder the signs of creation. The Qurʾan also admonished the Meccans for their exploitative business practices, involving usurious transactions and unfairness, and warned them of the existence of Judgment Day, when all would be rewarded or punished according to their deeds. This admonishment, together with Muhammad's public denigration of paganism, elicited the hostility of the leading Meccan merchants, who, in addition to feeling their pride offended, feared that the Islamic concept of one God would undermine the status of Mecca as a pagan center and an economic hub. Recognizing the significance of Hashimite solidarity, the Meccans at first attempted to make Muhammad abandon his attack on paganism by such methods as offering to make him king of Mecca, but when all failed, they declared a boycott against him and tried to extend it to all his clan. In Mecca, Muhammad gained few Islamic converts (primarily young men, some from affluent families), and his attempt to preach in the neighboring town of Taʾif elicited even greater hostility than in Mecca. Finally, in 620, the prospects of the new religion began to change when Muhammad met six men from Medina who were visiting Mecca. This Medinese group, from the tribe of Khazraj, had long been familiar with messianic expectations that circulated in the discourse of Jews and Christians living in the region and proved receptive to the Islamic prophecy. The next year, this group held a larger meeting between Muhammad and seventy residents of Medina who pledged loyalty to the Prophet and invited him to their town. After years of rivalry in Medina between its two leading tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, Muhammad's leadership offered the possibility of a neutral authority that could mediate disputes, administer the affairs of a diverse community, and contribute to its social recovery. As the hostility of the Meccans to the new religion and its adherents mounted, Muhammad finally decided to migrate, with Abu Bakr, to Medina in a secret journey that took place on 17 September 622. The trip, known in Arabic as hijra (migration), would later mark the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar. 3 / 6

4 Rise of Islamic State Once established in Medina, Muhammad set about organizing the nascent Islamic community and strengthening fraternalist ties between the Meccan emigrants (almuhajirun) and the Medinese, known as the helpers (al-ansar). In a document referred to by scholars today as the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad declared the unity of the community (umma) of Medina under his leadership and stipulated that all matters of legal and political concern were to be referred to him. Medina's hosting of the new religion soon made it the target of Meccan hostility. In 624, mounting tension between the two cities finally led to the first military confrontation at the battle of Badr, where a small Muslim force succeeded in beating back a larger Meccan army. The significance of Badr was not so much military as political. Muhammad's victory strengthened his support in Medina, attracted the admiration of tribal leaders from around the Arabian peninsula, and undermined the prestige of the Meccan order. Between the years 624 and 628, Mecca engaged the Medinese in numerous military skirmishes and battles, the most famous of which was the battle of alkhandaq (the Trench) in 626. In that year, Mecca assembled a massive confederation of neighboring tribes to invade Medina, but the campaign was forestalled by the Medinese strategy of digging a trench around Medina. The Meccan army, unprepared for a siege and composed of tribal groups that had united for a quick battle only, soon dispersed and retreated. This last confrontation definitively turned Muhammad into the central leadership figure, and it was then only a matter of time before Mecca would itself become vulnerable to conquest. In 628, Muhammad set out to Mecca on pilgrimage with the new community, only to find his way blocked by the Meccans. At the peace of al- Hudaybiyya in that year, the Meccans called for a long-term truce, after which Muslims would be allowed access to Mecca for pilgrimage. Two years later, the treaty was violated by confederate tribesmen of Mecca, and this opened the way for the Islamic conquest of Mecca, which took place peacefully in 630. A year later, various Arab tribal chiefs from around the peninsula converged on Medina to pay homage or pledge allegiance to the Prophet. Whether nominal or effective, Muhammad's political authority had extended over the greater part of the peninsula, and texts of letters can be obtained from Islamic sources that Muhammad sent to neighboring kings of Persia and Byzantium, as well as various regional princes, inviting them to embrace Islam. Medina continued its role as the capital of the Islamic state, although Mecca, after the destruction of the idols around the Kaʿba, became the spiritual center of Islam. In 632, soon after completing pilgrimage at Mecca and setting out again for Medina, Muhammad fell mortally ill from a fever. In his final days, he made no specific arrangements for succession. With illness preventing him from leading the prayers, the Prophet asked Abu Bakr to lead the community in prayers, and this gesture would later be interpreted in Sunni Islam as a recommendation for political succession. Shiʿite 4 / 6

5 Islam, in contrast, turns toother traditions describing Muhammad's praise for Ali as a reflection of the Prophet's general designation of Ali as his successor. Ali was also, through his marriage to Fatima, the father of Muhammad's two grandchildren, al- Hasan and al-husayn. The life of Muhammad has long captivated the attention of Muslims and non-muslims alike. Muslims look on him not only as a spiritual guide but also as an exemplar in social, ethical, and political terms. Islamic law grew not only from Qurʾanic edicts but also from the Islamic understanding of Muhammad's day-to-day manner of handling all sorts of temporal issues. Oral tradition (hadith) transmitted through Muhammad's companions recounts in detail his instructions and how he lived. Outside observers, on the other hand, continue to weigh Muhammad's achievements in comparison with those of other spiritual masters. In his confrontation with polytheism and his experience of migration, he is compared to Abraham, whereas as promulgator of the rudiments of Islamic law, he evokes a connection with Moses; in his political leadership of the community, he evokes a connection with David. In the vast desert on the fringes of the urban and sophisticated empires of the time those of the Byzantines and the Sassanians, each with long traditions of structured governmental institutions Muhammad united both the nomadic and sedentary Arabs into a coherent social unit that would later conquer these powers. Although this political expansion took place under his successors, Muhammad had laid the foundation for an Islamic universalist social vision that was rooted in a unifying monotheistic belief. The memory of the prophetic experience of hijra between cities henceforth inspired its emulation on a grander scale outside Arabia. Bibliography Cook, Michael. Muhammad. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, Guillaume, Alfred. The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's "Sirat Rasul Allah." London, Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, revised edition. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, Muir, Sir William. The Life of Mohammad (1912). New York: AMS Press, Rodinson, Maxime. Mohammed, translated by Anne Carter. New York: Pantheon, Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Clarendon, Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Clarendon, Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1961; reprint / 6

6 Powered by TCPDF ( Source: El-hibri, Tayeb. "Muhammad [ ]." Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, edited by Philip Mattar, 2nd ed., vol. 3, 6 / 6