Muhammad is the Messenger of God

[ Muhammad is the Messenger of God



[ It was in Mecca that a relatively
obscure, forty-year old citizen named Muhammad from a lower clan began
to preach a new religion. In 610 AD, Muhammad revealed to his closest
relatives that he had been asked by the voice of God to recite a new
message to the world. He initially kept this message private among his
closest relatives; three years later, however, they would persuade him
to carry his recitation to a wider audience. These recitations, which
Muhammad would later come to consider to be the voice of an
intermediary of God, would form the heart and soul of Islam: the
Qur'an, or "Recitation."
[ ]Muhammad considered himself a "Messenger of God," or
rasul Allah—a messenger of God in Islam does more than just carry a
message to God's people, a messenger carries an entirely new and
revivifying message to humanity. It was as a rasul Allah that the life
of Muhammad would come down to us. Of his forty years of life before
the Recitation, the only sources we have are oral traditions that
construct that early life in the context of his great

calling.
[ ]We do know that he came from a relatively poor clan, the
Hashim, that was, in fact, the clan that headed the opposition to the
wealthy merchant clans. He was born after the death of his father—this
meant that he could inherit none of his father's property so he grew up
in poverty. He became the servant and at the age of twenty-five married
a wealthy widow, Khadija. [/size]
[ ]Muhammad's poverty in his youth and the social tensions
in Mecca with bitter divisions resulting from the unequal distribution
of wealth among the clans became significant aspects of the message of
Islam. While the message of the Qur'an is universal, it is also very
historically specific in its ******* and the traditions surrounding its
*******. The message that Muhammad delivered was meant for very
specific circumstances and many of the revelations would address
specific concerns addressed to Muhammad. As far as the division of
wealth and Muhammad's poverty, one of the fundamental messages of the
Qur'an is the emphasis on material welfare and the entire community's
responsibility for the material welfare of all its members. [/size]


Mecca
[ ]610-622 While Muhammad gained several followers in
Mecca, the wealthiest and most powerful clans bitterly opposed the new
religion. The revelations recited by Muhammad were often specifically
directed against the most powerful clans, particularly in the direct
commands to redistribute wealth. Because of this opposition to the
wealthy clans, Muhammad's new religion largely appealed to the
unfortunate of Mecca: foreigners who were not protected by any clan,
members of poor clans, and the children of the wealthiest clans who had
fallen out of favor or somehow lost their inheritance. [/size]
[ ]At first, though opposed to the religion, the wealthiest
clans took a wait-and-see attitude. As the religion gained followers,
the wealthiest clans tried ot appropriate Muhammad for themselves,
offering him a wealthy marriage and entrance into the most powerful
merchant clans if he would stop preaching his new religion. When that
didn't work, the wealthy clans brought pressure on Muhammad's clan, the
Hashim, to force him to stop his recitations. But the Hashim were led
by Muhammad's uncle, Abu Talib, who sided with Muhammad. The wealthy
clans then boycotted the Hashim and tried to force them economically to
give over this new religion. [/size]
[ ]Although he was supported by his clan and although his
message was fundamentally opposed to the attitude and practices of the
wealthy clans, Muhammad seems to have tried to make some peace with
these clans in the first decade. It was this attempt to make peace that
the incident of the Satanic verses took place. Seeking some
accomodation, Muhammad seems to have sought to reconcile his new
religion with the traditional religion of Mecca by incorporating other
gods—the three gods of Meccan relgion: al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat. It
would later be revealed to Muhammad that these Quranic verses had been
sent to him by Satan and were thus deceptions. When Muhammad recanted
these verses as Satanic, the wealthiest clans turned against him
bitterly and would attempt no more reconciliation. [/size]
[ The opening came with the death of Abu Talib in 619; the
Hashimite clan fell under the leadership of Abu Lahab who dismissed
Muhammad from the protection of the clan. What this meant was that
anyone could do anything to Muhammad and the clan would not seek
revenge—for all effects and purposes, Muhammad had fallen outside the
protection of any law. Muhammad desperately sought for protection under
other clans, but they all refused. [/size]
[ Then one day in 620, Muhammad met with six men from
Yathrib. These men were so impressed that they would later lead a
larger delegation to meet with Muhammad and discuss both his
revelations and the possibility of his moving to Yathrib. [/size]


Medina
[ ]622-628 Yathrib at the time was torn apart by clan
violence. The city consisted of a majority of Arabic clans and a
minority of Jewish clans—although the two groups had separate
religions, they were little different culturally or ethnically. It was
largely through blood-feuds that the violence in Yathrib slowly
spread—by 618, these blood-feuds erupted into all-out war involving
almost every clan. [/size]
[ ]These circumstances in part explain the readiness of the
inhabitants of Yathrib to accept a new religion. But the overwhelming
selling point was Muhammad himself and the message he spoke. In 621,
five of the original six returned again to Mecca and brought along
seven more men. Again, they were so impressed that they swore to follow
this new religion. These twelve then persuaded over seventy-five fellow
citizens to meet Muhammad again in 622—these seventy-five swore to both
follow the new religion and fight for Muhammad. [/size]
[ ]Muhammad now had the protection he so desparately needed
for his followers and he put into motion the emigration of his
followers from Mecca to Yathrib, which he renamed Medina. However, he
had to be cautious—if the wealthy clans got wind of his plans, they
would interpret it as a threat and would use any means to stop it. So
Muhammad had his followers gradually leave the city while he remained
behind with his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and his son-in-law, Ali. The
ruse worked—while his followers left the city, the powerful clans
suspected nothing. [/size]
[ ]Leaving the city would be more difficult. Once he left
the city, Muhammad knew that the Meccans would track him down quickly.
Under cover of night he left the city for some caves above the city.
Here he hid out until the Meccans stopped searching the roadways for
him—after three days he set out to Medina along the least-travelled
roads. This journey to Medina was the Hijra and it is from this year
that the Muslim calendar begins. While normally translated
"pilgrimage," Hijra means something like "severing relational ties"
(the closest English *****alent I can think of is, "running away from
home" or "divorcing your relatives"). [/size]
[ In Medina, he was greeeted with enthusiasm. Here
Muhammad was in part called on to mediate disputes between rival clans.
And it was here that the Recitation profoundly changed character. While
the Meccan revelations concerned themselves with general ethics and
spiritual matters, the Medinan verses are more concerned with ethical
and political questions. While the Meccan verses address the question
of how to make one's life right with God, the Medinan revelations
address the question of building and maintaining a community with a
common religious tie. [/size]
[ It was also in the Medinan years that Muhammad turned
his religion away from Judaism and the Jews. In Mecca and in the early
years in Medina, Muhammad tried to incorporate Jews into both the
recitations and the community of Islam. The tensions in Medina,
however, translated into a series of rejections of Judaism and Jews.
The final blow came when Muhammad, at prayer, suddenly had a verse
revealed to him that believers should not pray to Jerusalem but to
Mecca. He then ordered his congregation to turn completely around
(Mecca is 180 degrees in the opposite direction from Jerusalem when
you're in Medina); symbolically, the gesture signified that Islam had
broken completely from Judaism. [/size]
[ In both the Islamic and the Western world, there is a
great deal of controversy regarding Muhammad's attitude towards Mecca.
Whether or not he planned to go to war with Mecca, he sooned became
engaged in activities that would guarantee a war between Medina and
Mecca. [/size]
[ He began with raids on Meccan trading caravans. At first
these raids, or razzia, were only carried out by the Meccan emigrants.
As they began to rack up a few successes, they were soon joined by
Medinans, who were called Ansar, or "Helpers." [/size]
[ ]Battle with the Meccans was inevitable, and in 624 (year
2 in the Muslim calendar), Muhammad, with only 300 men, defeated a
Meccan force of over 900 men at Badr, the single most significant
battle in Islamic history. A series of battles followed until the
Meccans laid siege to Medina in 627. Arabs, however, prosecuted warfare
through the use of raids—unused to laying siege, the Meccans gave it
over in a little over a day. [/size]
[ The failure of the Medinan siege left the Meccans with
no prestige left, particularly among those, such as the Persians and
the southern Arabians, who would be inspired to fight for them.
Muhammad re-entered Mecca as a pilgrim in 628; in 630 (year 8 on the
Muslim calendar), Muhammad re-entered Mecca as its conqueror. [/size]


The Last Years
628-632 He was a disenfranchised son of a poor clan. He
had received messages from God and established a new religion. Cast out
from his clan's protection, he fled to Medina where his religion grew
quickly. And now he had returned to Mecca as the head of a growing
political unit, in fact, a germinating empire. He turned his attention
to dealing with other Arabian tribes. His goal was in part to protect
his community and in part an effort to unify the Arabian tribes. When
he beat a group of tribes, the Hawazin, he became the most powerful
military presence in Arabia.
[ As Muhammad brought various tribes and cities into
alliance, at first he demanded that the people acknowledge Islam and
his role as the messenger of God. These were not normal political
alliances, but tribal alliances. As Islam expanded, this tribal
character would not admit non-Arabs into the same structure—non-Arabs
allied themselves to Islam by being a mawali, or "client' of a tribe. [/size]
But the Islamic peace in Arabia was only a peace at the
surface. There was still much opposition among the tribes; along the
Persian Gulf, for instance, most of the tribes and clans were
non-Islamic and towards Syria the tribes allied themselves with the
Byzantine empire. The last two years of Muhammad's life were largely
spent dealing with these internal threats to the Islamic

[ ]peace. [/size]
[ ]In his last year of life, Muhammad led a grea
pilgrimage or Hajj to the Ka'aba in Mecca. This final gesture gave to
Islam the last of its fundamental obligations. Three months later he
died. [/size]
[ Although he had bequeathed a religion on his people and
had brilliantly conquered and ruled over an Arabian unity founded in
the city of Mecca, he left no political mechanism in place for either
political or religious succession. Who would rule in his place? Who
could keep the alliances together? Most importantly, what would happen
to the religion he founded? Since Muhammad was a source of constant
revelation, what would happen to the Islamic world when cast adrift
from the source of their religious ideas and [/size]

[ revelation? ]
[ This would occupy the Islamic mind for the first decades
after Muhammad's death. Two things result from this: an Islamic empire
stretching across Africa to Europe itself and, the greatest of all
Islamic achievements, the Qur'an. ][/size]