The Birth of Islam

After the fall of classical civilizations, religion became a more important organizing force than political structures. One of the most important religions in this regard was Islam, a new religion that formed on the Arabian Peninsula around 600 A.D.

Background

The Arabian Peninsula into which Muhammad was born was dominated by nomadic tribes. Only within the tribe did people have security and livelihood. Bound together by blood, the tribe provided protection and sustenance for the weak, young and elderly. One could not survive for long outside of this system. By the time of Muhammad’s birth in 570, this system had begun to break down. The Mecca into which he was born was undergoing dramatic tensions and was ripe for change. His tribe, the Quraysh, had rapidly gained wealth through trading with the surrounding people. In the stampede for wealth, local traditions were being challenged. There was perpetual violence and war as tribes fought among themselves. The Arabs seemed a lost people, “exiled forever from the civilized world and ignored by God Himself.” As contact with the Persian and Byzantine empires increased, the people were becoming aware of the more sophisticated religions of Judaism and Christianity. This feeling of having had no prophet, no revealed scripture, and no single High God, only increased the frustration of cultures caught in the dissolution of their inherited traditions.

Muhammad

The vision Muhammad on the night of 17 Ramadan would change this scene forever. Overpowered by these visions, he began pouring forth the speech that would become the Quran (recitation). For two years he kept quite about his visions, only sharing them with his wife and her cousin, a Christian. Both thought these visions were from God. He began preaching openly in 612 and gained converts. Among them was his young cousin Ali, his friend Abu Bakr, “and the young merchant Uthman ibn Affan from the powerful Umayyad family.” Most of his preaching focused on the emerging economic inequalities around Mecca; it was wrong, he insisted, on building a private fortune rather than helping out the poor.

The religion Muhammad started was called Islam, meaning surrender, because of their submission to God’s demand that human beings “behave to one another with justice, equity and compassion.” Such attitudes were to be expressed in the ritual prayers Muslims were required to make three times a day (later changed to five.) They were also required to give a portion of their wealth to the poor and to fast during the month of Ramadan, the month Muhammad had his vision. (Islamic calendar is lunar, so Ramadan moves through the seasons.) But above all the ritual and requirements, the purpose of Islam was to establish social justice on earth; their first duty was to build “a community characterized to practical compassion, in which there was a fair distribution of wealth. This was far more important than any doctrinal teaching about God.” This Islamic community was called the ummah and is instructive on understanding the political nature of the religion.

For 21 years Muhammad continued to receive the revelations that would be the Quran. Interestingly, the Quran insisted that it was simply a “reminder” of truths that everyone already knew. It continued a series of revelations that had been going on for thousands of years. Muhammad, the Quran claimed, had not come to negate other religions, but his message “is that same as that of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, or Jesus.” In fact, the Quran warns not to argue with the “people of the book.” (Surah 29:46) Thus it “did not put forward any philosophical arguments for monotheism; its approach was practical, and , as such, it appealed to the pragmatic Arabs. The old religion, the Quran claimed, was simply not working. There was spiritual malaise, chronic and destructive warfare, and an injustice that violated the best Arab traditions and tribal codes. The way forward lay in a single God and a unified ummah, which was governed by justice and equity.”

5 duties, or Pillars, are essential in Islam:

1) profession of faith—“There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet

2) Prayers--The second duty is that of five daily prayers toward Mecca
3) Almsgiving--The third cardinal duty of a Muslim is to pay zakat.
4) Fasting—During month of Ramadan
5) Pilgrimage to Kabba

Growth of Islam.

As it grew in Mecca, they faced hostility from the merchants and traditionalists. It became impossible for Muhammad to realize the ummah in Mecca, so he went to Medina.

In Medina, Islam grew. It clashed with the Jews, who believed the era of prophesy was over. Moreover, some of the Quran’s stories about prophets like Noah and Moses differed from the Old Testament. Tension grew. In 624 he told his followers not to pray toward Jerusalem, but rather to face the Kabba at Mecca. As he gathered warriors to return to Mecca, he learned that the Jews were plotting his assassination. In response, his men massacred the Jewish men in Medina and sold their women and children into slavery.

In 630, Muhammad made the hajj, or the return to Mecca, with 10,000 men. He entered the city and destroyed the gods in the Kabba. He died two years later, after which nearly all the tribes around Mecca joined the ummah. Muhammad had united the warring tribes of Arabia in to one people with one god.

By far the most important issue after Muhammad’s death was succession. Who would be the prophet’s successor, or the caliph? Muhammad left no instructions as to how the leader of the ummah would be chosen.

The Rashidun (the “rightly guided” caliphs)

Abu Bakr

The first person to be in control was Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law and close friend. He died after only two years and on his deathbed chose Umar I to be the next caliph.

Umar I

Under Umar I Islam experienced its first great period of expansion. It entered into Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iraq. In 644 Umar was stabbed to death in the Mosque of Medina by a Persian prisoner of war. After his death Uthman was elected by several Meccan electors.

Uthman

Uthman was Muhammad’s son-in-law and one of his first converts after Muhammad’s visions. Although an old man, he carried on the territorial expansion of Islam. He made many of his people angry, however, because he favored the wealthy aristocrats of Mecca. He also issued an “official” version of the Quran and ordered all others to be burned. This made him unpopular with some people. In 656 angry Muslim troops from Egypt and Iraq caught up with Uthman in Medina and murdered him.

Ali

These troops, along with the population of Medina, recognized Ali, the closest male relative of Muhammad, as the Caliph. This decision was contested, and a five-year civil war broke out within the ummah.

In 657 Ali was killed by some of his followers who felt he betrayed them. Some Muslims thought that Ali should have been the caliph because he was Muhammad’s closest living male relative.