Muhammad

For other people named Muhammad, see Muhammad (disambiguation).

Muhammad (Arabic محمد Template:ArabDIN; also Mohammed, Mohamet, and other variants ), 570-632 C.E., was an Arab religious and political leader who established Islam and the Muslim community (Ummah, Arabic: أمة) to whom he preached. He united the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula into a federation of allied tribes with its capital at Medina.

He is considered the prophet in both the Islamic and Baha'i religious traditions. Muslims do not regard him as the founder of a new religion, but rather believe him to be the last in a line of prophets of God (Arabic Allah) and regard his mission as one of restoring the original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham and other prophets of Islam that had become corrupted by man over time. For the last 23 years of his life, beginning at the age of forty, Muhammad reported receiving revelations from God delivered through the angel Gabriel. The content of these revelations, known as the Qur'an, was memorized and recorded by his followers and compiled into a single volume shortly after his death. The Qur'an, along with the details of Muhammad’s life as recounted by his biographers and his contemporaries, forms the basis of Islamic theology.

Etymology

File:Muhammad callig.png

"Muhammad" in Arabic calligraphy.

The name Muhammad etymologically means "the praised one" in Arabic. Within Islam, Muhammad is known as "The Prophet" and "The Messenger". Although the Qur'an sometimes declines to make distinction among prophets, in verse ^{[Quran 33:40]} it singles out Muhammad as the "Seal of the Prophets" (^{[Quran 33:40]}) . The Qur'an also refers to Muhammad as "Ahmad" (^{[Quran 61:6]}) (Arabic :احمد), Arabic for "more praiseworthy".

Overview

Born to ‘Abdu’llah ibn ‘Abdu’l-Muttalib, Muhammad initially adopted the occupation of a merchant. The Islamic sources indicate that he was a charismatic person known for his integrity. The sources report that, in his youth, he was called by the nickname "Al-Amin" (Arabic: الامين ), a common Arab name meaning "faithful, trustworthy," and was sought out as an impartial arbitrator. During the holy month of Ramadan, Muhammad would retreat to cave located at the summit of Mount Hira, just outside Mecca in the Arabian Hijaz. There he fasted and prayed, and would often reflect on the troubles of Arab society that seemed to affect him profoundly. In the year 610, when Muhammad was about forty, he reported being visited in the cave by the Archangel Gabriel who commanded him to recite verses sent by God. According to Islamic belief, these revelations continued for the next twenty-three years, until his death. The collection of these verses is known as the Qur'an. He expanded his mission as a prophet, publicly preaching strict monotheism, preaching against the social evils of his day, and warning of a Day of Judgment when all humans shall be held responsible for their deeds. He did not wholly reject Judaism and Christianity, two other monotheistic faiths known to the Arabs, but said that he had been sent by God in order to complete and perfect those teachings.

After initially ignoring Muhammad's call, the elites in Mecca, commercially threatened by the growing popularity of his message, persecuted Muhammad and his followers. This continued, and intensified, over more than a decade. The hardships reached a new level for Muhammad after the deaths of his wife Khadija, an early convert to the faith, and his uncle Abu Talib, an important political protector who declined to enter Islam. Eventually, in 622, he was forced to move out of Mecca in a journey known to Muslims as the Hijra (the Migration). He settled in the area of Yathrib (now known as Medina) with his followers, where he was the leader of the first avowedly Muslim community.

Eight years of war between Mohammad and Meccan forces followed, ending with the Muslim victory and conquest of Mecca. The Muslims subsequently removed everything they considered idolatrous from the Kaaba. Most of the townspeople accepted Islam. In March 632, Muhammad led the pilgrimage known as the Hajj. On returning to Medina he fell ill and died after a few days, on June 8.

Under the caliphs who assumed authority after his death, the Islamic empire expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, much of the Iberian Peninsula, and Anatolia. Later conquests, commercial contact between Muslims and non-Muslims, and missionary activity spread Islam over much of the Eastern Hemisphere, including China and Southeast Asia.

Sources for Muhammad's life

Main article: Historiography of early Islam

File:Bukharistomb.gif

The Tomb of Imam Bukhari, who compiled Sahih Bukhari, the most authoritative source for Sunni Muslims concerning the life of Muhammad

Before his death, the prophet passed on the authenticated legacy of the Qur'an to his followers and made sure that it was correct. Following the death of Muhammad, verses of the Qur'an that had been approved by the prophet were collected by the first Caliph Abu Bakr into a book form. The Qur'an (a word that literally translates as "Recitation") was also maintained by the "Hafiz", people who memorised the entire document and recited it. Similarly, for some time, the immediate or contemporary biographical records of Muhammad, his "Sunnah", were passed on orally.

The hadith are the written collection of the Arab oral traditions concerning Muhammad. The dates often given for Muhammad's life are 570-632 CE. The most authoritative hadiths in Sunni Islam are compiled in the Muwatta, Sahih Bukhari, and Sahih Muslim, while in Shia'ism more emphasis is placed on the Usul al-Kafi.

The earliest surviving biography of Muhammad is a collection of "hadith" called the Sirah Rasul Allah or, the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq, a member of the Tabi‘in generation who was born 85 years after Hijra -- approximately 717 CE -- and who died in 767. He wrote his biography approximately a hundred years after Muhammad died; it references other earlier biographies of which no texts have survived. Ibn Ishaq's work is contained in fragments quoted in a compilation of anecdotes and traditions composed by Islamic historian Ibn Hisham (d. 834) and al-Tabari (838-923).

Other sources for biographies of Muhammad are:

• the military chronicles of Waqidi (745-822)
• the biographies of Ibn Sa'd (783-845), a student of Waqidi
• later histories
• Qur'anic commentaries
• collections of Prophetic hadith

These texts were recorded more than a century, and often several centuries, after the death of Muhammad. Some passages in the Qur'an are believed to shed some light on Muhammad's biography; however, they require a great deal of interpretation to be useful.

Unlike the much existing debate on retrieving the actual words of Jesus from the Gospels among academic scholars, the Qur'an is generally considered to represent what was issued from the mouth of Muhammad. However regarding the quotes attributed to Muhammad, i.e. Hadith, Bernard Lewis states that "the collection and scrutiny of Hadiths didn't take place until several generations" after Muhammad's death and that "during that period the opportunities and motives for falsification were almost unlimited." In addition to the problem of oral transmission for over a hundred years, there existed motives for deliberate distortion. The Muslims themselves at an early date realized that many Hadiths were fabricated and thus developed a whole science of criticism to distinguish between genuine Hadiths and pious or impious frauds. However Bernard Lewis states that modern critics have pointed out many defects in their approach. Some skeptical scholars (Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, and others) have raised doubts about the reliability of the Islamic sources, especially the hadith collections. They note for instance that the earliest biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq does not contain any dates or explicit details; yet, later Islamic narratives have progressively more dates, with minute details of Muhammad's life being inserted into their accounts as successive generations of scholars relay the story, such that by the time we arrive at contemporary renditions of Muhammad's story, dates and details have exploded exponentially without explanation. These skeptics believe that many hadith and other traditions were manufactured, or doctored, to support one or another of the many political or doctrinal factions that had developed within Islam in its first century or later. The life of Muhammad was believed to be the exemplar for all Muslims; hence the importance of showing that Muhammad said or did something proving that a particular faction was right. If the skeptics are right, and if much of the early material cannot really be trusted, then all that is factually known is what is contained in the summary above. Patricia Crone has since revised her position and accepts that while there exists a difficulty in the handling of the hadith because of their "amorphous nature" and purpose as documentary evidence for deriving religious law rather than as historical narrative, Muslim historical accounts cannot be totally discounted and are in her judgement "more or less correct".[1][2]

Other academic scholars, such as Montgomery Watt and Wilferd Madelung, have been much more willing to trust the Islamic sources. Their accounts of the life of Muhammad are similar to those held by most believing Muslims. These historical "traditionalists," both Muslim and non-Muslim, present a much more detailed picture of Muhammad's life.

There is a great deal of possibly unreliable material available on the life of Muhammad, but very little that is accepted by all academics. In a 2003 article, Gregor Schoeler summarizes it thus:

The current research on the life of Muhammad is characterized by the fact that two groups of researchers stand directly opposed to one another: The one group advocates, somewhat aggressively, the conviction that all transmitted traditions, in part because of great inner contradictions, legendary forms, and so forth, are to be rejected. The other group is opposed to that view. According to these researchers, the Islamic transmission, despite all these defects, has at least a genuine core, which can be recognized using the appropriate source-critical methods. The difficulty certainly consists of finding criteria by which the genuine is to be differentiated from spurious.

This second group of academics is more willing to accept the traditional Muslim accounts, shorn of hagiography and supernatural traditions, and based on the earliest accounts rather than later traditions.

Muslims had developed an extensive science of critical analysis of these sources that develped into schools of thought (madhabs) and have accepted fuller accounts of Muhammad's life including traditions not credited by non-Muslim scholars. However, Muslims are not united on the subject; some accept "naturalistic" versions pared of most supernatural elements; some Muslims believe in versions of Muhammad's life full of miracles. There are versions of Muhammad's life favoring different traditions within Islam. There are also significant differences between Sunni versions of Muhammad's life and Shi'a versions. It is impossible to present one Muslim version. However, a few of the most common traditions which are not accepted by academics but widely believed by Muslims are covered below.

Western Academic view of Muhammad

Main article: Non-Islamic view of Muhammad's historicity

11th century Persian Qur'an folio page in kufic script

From a scholarly point of view, the most credible source providing information on events in Muhammad's life is the Qur'an, even though its chronological interpretation is complex, and even though it contains very little in the way of coherent biography. In addition, the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him (the sira and hadith literature) provide further information on Muhammad's life. All, or most, of the Qur'an was apparently written down by Muhammad's secretaries while he was alive, but it was, then as now, primarily an orally related document, and the written compilation of the whole Qur'an in its definite form as we have it now was completed early after the death of Muhammad. The earliest surviving written sira (Biographies of Muhammad and quotes attributed to him) dates to 150 years after Muhammad, the compilation and (critical) analysis of which took place even later.

Modern historians agree that Muhammad lived during the 7th century and adopted various monotheistic traditions in an effort to replace the common polytheistic religions of the Arabian Peninsula, eventually gaining wide acceptance as a prophet. Modern historians, contrary to the traditional prevailing views in west, have concluded that Muhammad was both devout and sincere in his claim of receiving revelation, "for this alone makes credible the development of a great religion." Secular historians generally decline to address the question of whether the messages Muhammad reported being revealed to him were from "his unconscious, the collective unconscious functioning in him, or from some divine source", but they acknowledge that the material came from "beyond his conscious mind" .

Life based on Islamic traditions

Most Muslims, and Western academics who trust Islamic traditions, accept a much more detailed version of Muhammad's life.

Before Medina

Main article: Muhammad before Medina

Genealogy

Muhammad traced his genealogy as follows:

Muhammad was born into the Quraysh tribe. He is the son of Abd Allah, who is son of Abd al-Muttalib (Shaiba) son of Hashim (Amr) ibn Abd Manaf (al-Mughira) son of Qusai (Zaid) ibn Kilab ibn Murra son of Ka`b ibn Lu'ay son of Ghalib ibn Fahr (Quraish) son of Malik ibn an-Nadr (Qais) the son of Kinana son of Khuzaimah son of Mudrikah (Amir) son of Ilyas son of Mudar son of Nizar son of Ma`ad ibn Adnan, whom the northern Arabs believed to be their common ancestor. Adnan in turn is said to have been a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham. (ibn means "son of" in Arabic; alternate names of people with two names are given in parentheses.)

He was also called Abu-Qaasim (meaning "father of Qaasim") by some, after his short-lived first son.

Childhood

Muhammad was born into an affluent family settled in the northern Arabian town of Mecca. Tradition places it in the Year of the Elephant, commonly identified with 570. Some calculate his birthday as 20 April of that year, while Shi'a Muslims believe it to have been 26 April 570. Other sources calculate the year of his birth to have been 571. Muhammad's father, Abdullah, had died almost six months before he was born and the young boy was brought up by his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, of the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh tribe. At the age of six, Muhammad lost his mother Amina and became fully orphaned. "Many years later, when he was exiled by his Meccan opponents, on his first pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca, he stopped at his mother's grave and cried bitterly, bringing tears to the eyes of his companions." When he was eight years of age, his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, who had become his guardian, also died. Muhammad now came under the care of his uncle Abu Talib, the new leader of the Hashim clan of the Quraish tribe, the most powerful in Mecca.

Mecca was a thriving commercial center, due in great part to a stone shrine (now called the Kaaba) that housed statues of many Arabian gods. Merchants from various tribes would visit Mecca during the pilgrimage season, when all inter-tribal warfare was forbidden and they could trade in safety. While still in his teens, Muhammad began accompanying his uncle on trading journeys to Syria. He thus became well-travelled and knowledgeable about foreign ways.

Middle years

Muhammad became a merchant. He "was involved in trade between the Indian ocean and the Mediterranean Sea." He gained a reputation for reliability and married one of his employers named Khadijah, a forty-year-old widow in 595. Muhammad consented to the marriage, which by all accounts was a happy one.

Ibn Ishaq records that Khadijah bore Muhammad six children: two sons named Al Qasem and Abdullah (who is also called Al Tayeb and Al Taher) and four daughters. All of Khadija's children were born before Muhammad received his first revelation. His son Qasim died at the age of two. The four daughters are said to be Zainab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima.

The Shi'a say that Muhammad had only the one daughter, Fatima, and that the other daughters were either children of Khadijah by her previous marriage, or children of her sister.

The Beginnings of the Qur'an

The mountain of Hira where, according to Muslim tradition, Muhammad received his first revelation.

Muhammad often retreated to the cave of Hira on the Jabal al-nur near Mecca. Here The first revelations of the Quran are reported to havet been revealed to by the angel Gabriel him around the year 610. Muslim tradition narrates that the angel appeared and commanded him to recite the following verses:

Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,- He Who taught (the use of) the pen,- Taught man that which he knew not.

His wife Khadijah and her Christian cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal were the first to believe that Muhammad was a prophet. They were soon followed by Muhammad's ten-year-old cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib, close friend Abu Bakr and adopted son Zaid bin Muhammad (later known as Zaid bin Haarith.)

These revelations are reported to have frequently occurred over the next 23 years until his death. According to the tradition, the form of the revelations or messages from God was sometimes hearing the words spoken to him, but mostly he would have found them in his heart. "Muhammad believed he could easily distinguish between his own thinking and these revelations." To people around Muhammad, the most convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad's inspirations, according to Welch, must have been his mysterious seizures at the moments of inspiration. Welch states that graphic descriptions of Muhammad's condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, since they are unlikely to have been invented by later Muslims. Muhammad's enemies however accused him as one possessed, a soothsayer, or a magician since these experiences made an impression similar to those soothsayer figures well known in ancient Arabia. Welch states it remains uncertain whether Muhammad had such experiences before he began to see himself as a prophet and if so how long did he have such experiences.

Around 613, Muhammad began to spread his message amongst the people. Most of those who heard his message ignored it. A few mocked him. Others believed and joined him.

Rejection

The Cambridge History of Islam states that three following groups were forming the early converts to Islam: 1. Younger brothers and sons of great merchants 2. People who had fallen out of the first rank in their tribe or failed to attain it 3. The weak - mostly unprotected foreigners. Although these three groups of course converted because they believed the teaching of the Qur'an was correct, but these groups, The Cambridge History of Islam writes, were all suffering from the selfishness and unscrupulous dealings of the great merchants.

As the ranks of Muhammad's followers swelled, he became a threat to the local tribes and the rulers of the city, whose wealth rested upon the Kaaba, the focal point of Meccan religious life, which Muhammad threatened to overthrow. Muhammad’s denunciation of the Meccan traditional religion was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Ka'aba. The great merchants tried to come to some arrangements with Muhammad in exchange for abandaning his preaching. They offered him admission into the inner circle of merchants and establishing his position in the circle by an advantageous marriage, but Muhammad rejected their offer. Muhammad and his followers were thus persecuted. Some of them fled to the Ethiopian Kingdom of Aksum and founded a small colony there under the protection of the Christian Ethiopian king (called Al-Negashi, or "The King").

Several suras and parts of suras are said to date from this time, and reflect its circumstances: see for example al-Masadd, al-Humaza, parts of Maryam and al-Anbiya, al-Kafirun, and Abasa.

In 619, both Muhammad's wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib died; it was known as aamul hazn ("the year of sorrows.") Muhammad's own clan withdrew their protection of him. During this time Muslims endured ostracism, an economic embargo, poverty, hunger, even beatings and death threats.

Isra and Miraj

Some time in 620, Muhammad told his followers that he had experienced the Isra and Miraj, a miraculous journey said to have been accomplished in one night along with Angel Gabriel. In the first part of the journey, the Isra, he is said to have travelled from Mecca to the furthest mosque, in Jerusalem, presently known as Masjid al Aqsa. In the second part, the Miraj, Muhammad is said to have toured Heaven and Hell, and spoken with earlier prophets, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

Muslims believe that the Dome of the Rock is the site from which Muhammad ascended to Heaven.

Timeline of Muhammad
Important dates and locations in the life of Muhammad
c. 569	Death of his father, `Abd Allah
c. 570	Possible date of birth, April 20: Mecca
570	Legendary unsuccessful Ethiopian attack on Mecca
576	Death of Mother
578	Death of Grandfather
c. 583	Takes trading journeys to Syria
c. 595	Meets and marries Khadijah
610	First reports of Qur'anic revelation: Mecca
c. 610	Appears as Prophet of Islam: Mecca
c. 613	Begins spreading message of Islam publicly: Mecca
c. 614	Begins to gather following: Mecca
c. 615	Emigration of Muslims to Ethiopia
616	Banu Hashim clan boycott begins
c. 618	Medinan Civil War: Medina
619	Banu Hashim clan boycott ends
619	The year of sorrows: Khadijah and Abu Talib die
c. 620	Isra and Miraj
622	Emigrates to Medina (Hijra)
624	Battle of Badr Muslims defeat Meccans
624	Expulsion of Banu Qaynuqa
625	Battle of Uhud Meccans battle Muslims
625	Expulsion of Banu Nadir
626	Attack on Dumat al-Jandal: Syria
627	Battle of the Trench
627	Destruction of Banu Qurayza
627	Bani Kalb subjugation: Dumat al-Jandal
628	Treaty of Hudaybiyya
c. 628	Gains access to Mecca shrine Kaaba
628	Conquest of the Khaybar oasis
629	First hajj pilgrimage
629	Attack on Byzantine empire fails: Battle of Mu'tah
630	Attacks and bloodlessly captures Mecca
c. 630	Battle of Hunayn
c. 630	Siege of Taif
630	Establishes theocracy: Conquest of Mecca
c. 631	Rules most of the Arabian peninsula
c. 632	Attacks the Ghassanids: Tabuk
632	Farewell hajj pilgrimage
632	Death (June 8): Medina

In Medina

Main article: Muhammad in Medina

Hijra

By 622, life in the small Muslim community of Mecca was becoming not only difficult, but dangerous. Muslim traditions say that there were several attempts to assassinate Muhammad. Muhammad then resolved to emigrate to Medina, then known as Yathrib, a large agricultural oasis where there were a number of Muslim converts. By breaking the link with his own tribe, Muhammad demonstrated that tribal and family loyalties were insignificant compared to the bonds of Islam, a revolutionary idea in the tribal society of Arabia. This Hijra or emigration (traditionally translated into English as "flight") marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The Muslim calendar counts dates from the Hijra, which is why Muslim dates have the suffix AH (After Hijra).

Muhammad came to Medina as a mediator, invited to resolve the feud between the Arab factions of Aws and Khazraj. He ultimately did so by absorbing both factions into his Muslim community, forbidding bloodshed among Muslims. However, Medina was also home to a number of Jewish tribes, divided into three major clans: Banu Qainuqa, Banu Qurayza and Banu Nadir, and some minor groups.

There was fighting in Jathrib for around a hundred years before 620. The Jewish tribes allied with other clans and were sometimes on opposing sides. The recurring slaughters and disagreements over the resulting claims, especially after the great battle of Bu'ath in which all the clans were involved, made it obvious to them that the tribal conceptions of blood-feud and an eye for an eye were no longer workable unless "there was one man with authority to adjudicate in disputed cases." A delegation from Medina, consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina, invited Muhammad as a neutral outsider to Medina to serve as the chief arbitrator for the entire community. Among the things Muhammad done in order to settle down the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina was drafting a document known as the Constitution of Medina, "establishing a kind of alliance or federation" among the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca, which specified the rights and duties of all citizens and the relationship of the different communities in Medina (including that of the Muslim community to other communities).

Muhammad and his followers are said to have negotiated an agreement with the other Medinans, a document now known as the Constitution of Medina (date debated), which laid out the terms on which the different factions, specifically the Jews and other "Peoples of the Book" could exist within the new Islamic State.

The Jewish groups had refused to acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet and in the document only appear second in character. [And] the prestige of his [Muhammad] military successes [later in life] gave him almost autocratic power.

Some academic historians attribute the change of qibla, the Muslim direction of prayer, from the site of the former Temple in Jerusalem to the Kaaba in Mecca, which occurred during this period, to Muhammad's abandonment of hope of recruiting Jews as allies or followers. According to Muslims, the change of qibla was seen as a command from God both reflecting the independence of the Muslims as well as a test to discern those who truly followed the revelation and those who were simply opportunistic. Minou Reeves, Fellow of the Institute of Linguists at London, states that the change in qibla or the change in the fasting day from Ashura, corresponding to Yom Kippur, to Ramadan, only shows that Islam was instituted progressively and the claim that "Muhammad made up the religion as he went along, to suit the circumstances" is unjustified.

War

Relations between Mecca and Medina rapidly worsened (see surat al-Baqara). Meccans confiscated all the property that the Muslims had left in Mecca. In Medina, Muhammad signed treaties of alliance and mutual help with neighboring tribes.

In March of 624, Muhammad led some three hundred warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The Meccans successfully defended the caravan, but then decided to teach the Muslims a lesson and marched against Medina. On March 15, 624 near a place called Badr, the Meccans and the Muslims clashed. Though outnumbered more than three times (one thousand to three hundred) in the battle, the Muslims met with success, killing at least forty-five Meccans and taking seventy prisoners for ransom; only fourteen Muslims died. This marked the real beginning of Muslim military achievement.

Rule consolidated

To his followers, the victory in Badr apparently seemed a divine authentication of Muhammad's prophethood. Muhammad and his followers were now a dominant force in the oasis of Yathrib (Medina).

After Khadija's death, Muhammad had married Aisha, the daughter of his friend Abu Bakr (who would later emerge as the first leader of the Muslims after Muhammad's death). In Medina, he married Hafsah, daughter of Umar (who would eventually become Abu Bakr's successor).

Muhammad's daughter Fatima married Ali, Muhammad's cousin. According to the Sunni, another daughter, Umm Kulthum, married Uthman. Each of these men, in later years, would emerge as successors to Muhammad and political leaders of the Muslims. Thus, all four caliphs were linked to Muhammad by marriage. Sunni Muslims regard these caliphs as the Rashidun, or Rightly Guided. (See Succession to Muhammad for more information on the controversy on the succession to the caliphate).

Continued warfare

In 625 the Meccan general Abu Sufyan marched on Medina with three thousand men. The ensuing Battle of Uhud took place on March 23 and ended in a stalemate. The Meccans claimed victory, but they had lost too many men to pursue the Muslims into Medina.

In April 627, Abu Sufyan led another strong force against Medina. But Muhammad had dug a trench around Medina and successfully defended the city in the Battle of the Trench.

Following the Muslims' victory at the Battle of the Trench, the Muslims were able, through conversion and conquest, to extend their rule to many of the neighboring cities and tribes.

Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Medina

In the course of Muhammad's proselytizing in Mecca, he viewed Christians and Jews (whom he referred to as "People of the Book") as natural allies, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support. Muslims, like Jews, were at that time praying towards Jerusalem. Muhammad was very excited to move to Medina, where the Jewish community there had long worshiped the one God.

Many Medinans converted to the faith of the Meccan immigrants, but the Jewish tribes did not. Much to Muhammad's disappointment, they rejected his status as a prophet. Their opposition "may well have been for political as well as religous reasons". According to Watt, "Jews would normally be unwilling to admit that a non-Jew could be a prophet." Mark Cohen adds that Muhammad was appearing "centuries after the cessation of biblical prophecy" and "couched his message in a verbiage foreign to Judaism both in its format and rhetoric." As Muhammad taught that his message was identical to those of previous prophets (such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus), the Jews were furthermore in the position to make some Muslims doubt about his prophethood; the Jews, according to Watt, could argue that "some passages in the Qur'an contradicted their ancient scriptures". Mark Cohen states that "Muhammad could only have appeared to [Jews] as an imposter whose... message bore but a skewed resemblance to biblical and rabbinic Judaism." On political reasons, Esposito writes that "the Jewish tribes, which had long lived in Medina and had political ties with the Quraysh ... cooperated with (Muhammad's) Meccan enemies." Watt states that many of the Jews had close links with Abd-Allah ibn Ubayy , "the potential prince of Medina" who "is said that but for the arrival of Muhammad, had not become" the chief arbitrator of the community. The Jews may have hoped for greater influence if Ubayy had become a ruler. Watt writes that the Islamic response to these criticisms was:

The Qur'an, met these intellectual criticisms by developing the conception of the religion of Abraham. While the knowledge of Abraham came from the Old Testament and material based on that, Abraham could be regarded as the ancestor of the Arabs through Ishmael. It was also an undeniable fact that he was not a Jew or Christian, since the Jews are either to be taken as the followers of Moses or as the descendants of Abraham's grandson, Jacob. At the same time Abraham had stood for the worship of God alone. The Qur'an therefore claimed that it was restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, not clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians.

Watt states that the charge of altering the scripture may mean no more than giving false interpretations to some passages, though in later Islam it was taken to mean that parts of the Bible are corrupt. Muslims were also arguing that there was nothing surprising in Jewish rejection of Muhammad, since they had done that before to many prophets mentioned in their scriptures. The Qur'an also criticized some exclusive claims of Jews such as that they alone will be in Paradise.

Muhammad, being invited as an arbitrator for the whole community, drafted the Constitution of Medina in order to settle down the longstanding disputes in Medina. The Constitution of Medina specified the rights and duties of all citizens and the relationship of the Muslim community to other communities and demanded the Jews' political loyalty in return for religious and cultural autonomy. However, after each major battle with the Medinans, Muhammad accused one of the Jewish tribes of treachery (See ^{[Quran 2:100]}). After Badr and Uhud, the Banu Qainuqa and Banu Nadir, respectively, were expelled "with their families and possessions" from Medina. After the Battle of the Trench in 627, the Jews of Banu Qurayza were accused of conspiring with the Meccans; Qurayza men were beheaded, women and children enslaved, and their properties confiscated.

The Banu Qurayza incident has generated much controversy in the centuries since, and is therefore worth examining more closely here. Watt writes that "during the siege of Medina, Muhammad became anxious about their conduct and sent some of the leading Muslims to talk to them [the Jewish tribes]; the result was disquieting. Though Qurayza does not appear to have committed any overt hostile act and been overtly correct in their behaviour, they had almost certainly[probably ] been involved in negotiations with the enemy and would have attacked Muhammad in the rear had there been an opportunity. An attack from the south on the Muslim rear by Qurayza might have put an end to Muhammad's career. " Marco Scholler believes the Banu Qurayza were "openly, probably actively," supporting Meccans and their allies. Finally, Welch states that Muslims "discovered, or perhaps became suspected" that the Jews were conspiring with the enemy." A minority of academic scholars reject the incident holding that Ibn Ishaq, the first biographer of Muhammad, supposedly gathered many details of the incident from descendants of the Qurayza Jews themselves. These descendants allegedly embellished or manufactured details of the incident by borrowing from histories of Jewish persecutions during Roman times. Watt, however, finds this argument "not entirely convincing."

The motivation for Muhammad's actions was political rather than racial or theological. John Esposito writes that the massacre of traitors was common practice, "neither alien to Arab customs nor to that of the Hebrew prophets." Watt writes that in Arab eyes, the massacre "wasn't barbarous but a mark of strength, since it showed that the Muslims were not afraid of blood reprisals."

Such was the story of Jews and Muhammad; "Jews had opposed Muhammad to the utmost of their abilities and they were utterly crushed." Watt speculates that had Jews come to terms with Muhammad instead of opposing him, they had become partners in the Arab Empire and Islam a sect of Jewry. They could have secured very favourable terms with him, including religous autonomy. A great opportunity that was lost.

The truce of Hudaybiyya

Main article: Treaty of Hudaybiyya

File:S78669.jpg

Muhammad's sword

Although verses (^{[Quran 2:196]}-^{[Quran 2:210]}) about the performing of Hajj had already come, Muhammad and Muslims did not perform it due to the enmity of the Quraish. It was the month of Shawwal 6 A.H. when Muhammad saw in a vision that he was shaving his head after the Hajj. Muhammad therefore decided to perform the Haj in the following month. Hence around the 13th of March, 628 with 1400 Companions he went towards Mecca without the least intention of giving battle. But the Quraish were determined to offer resistance to Muslims and they posted themselves outside Mecca, closing all access to the city. . In order to settle the dispute peacefully, Muhammad halted at a place called Hudaybiyya. Hence after series of talks a treaty was signed. The main points of treaty were the following:

1. They have agreed to lay down the burden of war for ten years
2. Muhammad, should not perform Hajj this year
3. They may come next year to perform Hajj (unarmed) but shall not stay in Mecca for more than three days
4. Any Muslim living in Mecca cannot settle in Medina, but Medinan Muslims may come and join Meccans (and will not be returned).

Many Muslims were not satisfied with the terms of the treaty. However, on the way to Medina, God revealed to the Prophet a new chapter of the Qur'an named "Al-Fath" (The Victory) ^{[Quran 48:1]}-^{[Quran 48:29]}. The new Revelation left no doubt in Muslims' minds that the expedition from which they were now returning must be considered a victorious one. . With the passage of time, it became more and more apparent why the Qur'an had declared the truce a victory. The men of Mecca and Medina could now meet in peace and discuss Islam. Hence, during the following two years the community of Islam more than doubled.

Muhammad's letters to the Heads of State

"Muhammad Original Letter to Heraclius".

After the truce signed by the Hudaybiyya, Muhammad is said to have sent letters to many rulers of the world, asking them to convert to Islam. Hence he sent messengers (with letters) to Heraclius of the Byzantine Empire (the eastern Roman Empire), Chosroes of Persia, the chief of Yemen and to some others.

After the conquest

Main article: Muhammad after the conquest of Mecca

The conquest of Mecca

File:THEKabaa.jpg

The Kabaa in Mecca held a major economic and religious role for the area, it became the Muslim Qibla, or direction for Salat

Main article: Conquest of Mecca

The truce of Hudaybiyya had been in force for two years. . The tribe of Khuz'aah had a friendly relationship with Muhammad, while on the other hand their enemies, the Banu Bakr, had an alliance with the Meccans. A clan of the Bakr made a night raid against the Khuz'aah, killing a few of them . The Meccans helped their allies (i.e., the Banu Bakr) with weapons and, according to some sources, a few Meccans also took part in the fighting . After the fighting Muhammad offered Meccans following three conditions.

1. The Meccans were to pay blood-money for those slain among the Khuza'ah tribe, or
2. They should have nothing to do with the Banu Bakr, or
3. They should declare the truce of Hudaybiyya null.

The Meccans replied that they would accept only the third condition. However, soon they realized their mistake and sent Abu Safyan to renew the Hudaybiyya treaty, but now his request was declined by Muhammad. Muhammad began to prepare for a campaign. .

In 630, Muhammad marched on Mecca with an enormous force, said to number more than ten thousand men. Most Meccans converted to Islam, and Muhammad subsequently destroyed all of the statues of Arabian gods in and around the Kaaba. Henceforth the pilgrimage would be a Muslim pilgrimage and the shrine was converted to a Muslim shrine.

Unification of Arabia

The capitulation of Mecca and the defeat of an alliance of enemy tribes at Hunayn effectively brought the greater part of the Arabian peninsula under Muhammad's authority. However, this authority was not enforced by a regular government, as Muhammad chose instead to rule through personal relationships and tribal treaties. The Muslims were clearly the dominant force in Arabia, and most of the remaining tribes and states hastened to convert to Islam.

Death

File:Masjid Nabawi. Medina, Saudi Arabia.jpg

The Al-Masjid al-Nabawi is Islam's second most sacred site; the Green dome in the background stands above Muhammad's tomb

One day, upon returning from a visit to a cemetery, Muhammad became very ill. He suffered for several days with head pain and weakness. Muhammad finally succumbed to his malady around noon on Monday, June 8, 632, in the city of Medina, at the age of sixty-three. He is buried in the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.

According to Shi'a Islam, Muhammad had appointed his son-in-law Ali as his successor in a public sermon at Ghadir Khumm. Shi'a believe that Muhammad's companions Abu Bakr and Umar conspired to oust Ali and make Abu Bakr the leader or caliph. Sunni Muslims dispute this, and say that the leaders of the community conferred and freely chose Abu Bakr, who was among the followers of Muhammad. The matter is further discussed in the article Succession to Muhammad.

Muhammad as a military leader

Main article: Muhammad as a general

For most of the sixty-three years of his life, Muhammad was a merchant, then a religious leader. He took up the sword late in his life. He was an active military leader for ten years.

Family life

Main article: Muhammad's marriages

Muhammad was first married to Khadijah at the age of 25 with whom he lived in happiness and fidelity during the prime of his life for 25 years. The death of Khadijah, his dear wife with whom he shared his every hope and fear seemed inconsolable and some of his friends adviced him to marry again to reduce his grief but he was reluctant to do so. It was suggested to Muhammad by Khawla bint Hakim, that he should marry Sawda bint Zama, a Muslim widow, or Aisha. 'Muhammad is said to have asked her to arrange for him to marry both. It had already been agreed that Aisha should marry another man, whose father, though still pagan, was friendly to the Muslims. By common consent, however, this agreement was set aside and Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad.' As was common among Arabs and particularly among nobles and leaders of the Arabian society, later Muhammad married more wives mostly because of social and political motives, to make for a total of eleven, of whom nine or ten were living at the time of his death. "As was customary for Arab chiefs, many were political marriages to cement alliances." For example, as Watt in Encyclopedia of Islam states, Muhammad's marriage to Aisha to 'must have seen ... a means of strengthening the ties between himself and Abu Bakr, his chief follower.' "Others were marriages to widows of his companians who had fallen in combat and were in need of protection. Remarriage was difficult in a society that emphasized virginity." However these motivations should not obscure the fact that Muhammad was attracted to his wives and enjoyed his wives. Muhammad gave much emphasis to the importance of family and was concerned for his wives. He also viewed sex as "a gift from God to be enjoyed within the bonds of marriage" Some of Muhammad's companians were "shocked by the way he allowed his wives to stand up to him and answer him back. Muhammad regularly helped with household chores, mended his own cloths and took his wives’ advice seriously. On one occasion Umm salamah, the most intelligent of his wives, helped him to prevent a mutiny." Sometimes his wives were of worry, for example when Muhammad found them quarrelling about "the division of booty after a raid, he threatened them to divorce them all unless they lived more strictly in accordance with Islamic values (^{[Quran 33:28]})"

Among Muhammad's wives, the status of Maria al-Qibtiyya is disputed; she may have been a slave, a freed slave, or a wife.

Aisha was the only virgin wife of Muhammad. Watt states that she 'cannot have been more than ten years old when the marriage was consummated, while Spellberg writes that Aisha's youth might have been deliberately emphasized by scholars during the Abbasid caliphate to reject Shi'a political claims for the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib.

Muhammad had children by only two of these unions. Khadijah is said to have borne him four daughters and a son; only one daughter, Fatima, survived her father. Shi'a Muslims dispute the number of Muhammad's children, stating that he had only one daughter, and that the other "daughters" were step-daughters. Maria al-Qibtiyya bore him a son, but the child died when he was ten months old.

Companions

Main articles: Sahaba and Salaf

The term Sahaba (companion) refers to anyone who meets three criteria: to be a contemporary of Muhammad, to have heard Muhammad speak on at least one occasion, and to be a convert to Islam. Companions are considered the ultimate sources for the oral traditions, or hadith, on which much of Muslim law and practice are based. The following are a few examples in alphabetic order:

• Abdullah ibn Abbas
• Abu Bakr
• Abu Dharr
• Ali ibn Abi Talib
• Ammar

• Bilal
• Hamza
• Al-Miqdad
• Sa'd
• Zayd

• Salman the Persian
• Talha
• Umar
• Uthman
• Zubair

Muhammad the reformer

Islamic law transformed the nature of society and family. Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, believes that the advent of Islam in a sense was a revolution which only partially succeeded after long struggles due to tensions between the new religion and very old societies in the countries that the Muslims conquered. He thinks that one such area of tension was a consequence of what he sees as the egalitarian nature of Islamic doctrine. Islam from the first denounced aristocratic privilege, rejected hierarchy, and adopted a formula of the career open to the talents."

John Esposito, professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, sees Muhammad as a reformer who did away with many of the terrible practices of the pagan Arabs. He states that Muhammad's "insistence that each person was personally accountable not to tribal customary law but to an overriding divine law shook the very foundations of Arabian society... Muhammad proclaimed a sweeping program of religious and social reform that affected religious belief and practices, business contracts and practices, male-female and family relations.". Esposito holds that the Qur'an's reforms consist of 'regulations or moral guidance that limit or redefine rather than prohibit or replace existing practices.' He cites slavery and women's status as two examples.

Social security and family structure

William Montgomery Watt, a scholar of Islamic studies, states that Muhammad was both a social and moral reformer in his day and generation. He asserts that Muhammad created a "new system of social security and a new family structure, both of which were a vast improvement on what went before. By taking what was best in the morality of the nomad and adapting it for settled communities, he established a religious and social framework for the life of many races of men."

Slavery

Main article: Islam and Slavery

Bilal, a freed slave, was the first Muezzin

The Qur'an makes numerous references to slavery, regulates it and thus implicitly accepts it (^{[Quran 2:178]}, ^{[Quran 16:75]}, ^{[Quran 30:28]}). Bernard Lewis states, "Slavery existed in all the ancient civilizations of Asia, Africa, Europe, and pre-Columbian America and had been accepted and even endorsed by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as other religions of the world." Lewis, however, states that Islam brought two major changes to ancient slavery which were to have far-reaching consequences. "One of these was the presumption of freedom; the other, the ban on the enslavement of free persons except in strictly defined circumstances," Lewis continues. The position of the Arabian slave was "enormously improved": the Arabian slave "was now no longer merely a chattel but was also a human being with a certain religious and hence a social status and with certain quasi-legal rights."

In Muslim lands, in contrast to the ancient and colonial systems, slaves had a certain legal status and had obligations as well as rights to the slave owner, Bernard Lewis states. Lewis speculates that it was for this reason that "the position of the domestic slave in Muslim society was in most respects better than in either classical antiquity or the nineteenth-century Americas." The pressure from the European opponents of slavery on the Ottoman empire to abolish slavery was not because of the situation of slaves in Muslim lands (as it was no worse than, and even in some cases better than, that of the free poor) but because the processes of acquisition and transportation of slaves to Muslim lands often imposed appalling hardships although "once the slaves were settled in Islamic culture they had genuine opportunities to realize their potential. Many of them became merchants in Mecca, Jedda, and elsewhere." Lewis states that the practice of slavery in the Islamic empire represented a "vast improvement on that inherited from antiquity, from Rome, and from Byzantium." Although slavery was not abolished, Annemarie Schimmel asserts that as the reforms seriously limited the supply of new slaves, slavery would be theoretically abolished with the expansion of Islam.

Women's rights

Majid Khadduri, professor and director of Middle East Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, writes that under the Arabian pre-Islamic law of status, women had virtually no rights. Islamic law, however, provided women with a number of rights. John Esposito, professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, states that the reforms affected marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Women were not accorded with such legal status in other cultures, including the West, until centuries later. Under the Arabian pre-Islamic law, no limitations were set on men's rights to marry or to obtain a divorce. Islamic law, however, restricted polygamy (^[Quran 4:3]) 'Women were given inheritance rights in a patriarchal society that had previously restricted inheritance to male relatives.' Annemarie Schimmel, Professor of Oriental Studies and Sufism at Harvard university, states that "Compared to the pre-Islamic position of women, Islamic legislation meant an enormous progress; the woman has the right, at least according to the letter of the law, to administer the wealth she has brought into the family or has earned by her own work... In the earliest centuries of Islam, the position of women was not bad at all. Only over the course of centuries was she increasingly confined to the house and was forced to veil herself." The Quran and Muhammad's example were more favorable to the security and status of women than history and later Muslim practice might suggest. For example, the Qur'an doesn't require women to wear veils; rather, it was a social habit picked up with the expansion of Islam. In fact, since it was impractical for working women to wear veils, "A veiled woman silently announced that her husband was rich enough to keep her idle."

The institution of marriage, characterized by unquestioned male superiority in the pre-Islamic law of status, was redefined and changed into one in which the woman was somewhat of an interested partner. 'For example, the dowry, previously regarded as a bride-price paid to the father, became a nuptial gift retained by the wife as part of her personal property' Under Islamic law, marriage was no longer viewed as a "status" but rather as a "contract". The essential elements of the marriage contract were now an offer by the man, an acceptance by the woman, and the performance of such conditions as the payment of dowry. The woman's consent was imperative. Furthermore, the offer and acceptance had to be made in the presence of at least two witnesses.

William Montgomery Watt, Professor (Emeritus) of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh, believes that Islam is still, in many ways, a man’s religion. However, he states that Muhammad, in the historical context of his time, can be seen as a figure who testified on behalf of women’s rights and improved things considerably. Watt explains the historical context surrounding women's rights at the time of Muhammad: "It appears that in some parts of Arabia, notably in Mecca, a matrilineal system was in the process of being replaced by a patrilineal one at the time of Muhammad. Growing prosperity caused by a shifting of trade routes was accompanied by a growth in individualism. Men were amassing considerable personal wealth and wanted to be sure that this would be inherited by their own actual sons, and not simply by an extended family of their sisters’ sons. This led to a deterioration in the rights of women. At the time Islam began, the conditions of women were terrible - they had no right to own property, were supposed to be the property of the man, and if the man died everything went to his sons." Muhammad, however, by "instituting rights of property ownership, inheritance, education and divorce, gave women certain basic safeguards."

Haddad and Esposito state that 'although Islam is often criticized for the low status it has ascribed to women, many scholars believe that it was primarily the interpretation of jurists, local traditions, and social trends which brought about a decline in the status of Muslim women. In this view Muhammad granted women rights and privileges in the sphere of family life, marriage, education, and economic endeavors, rights that help improve women's status in society.' However, 'the Arab Bedouins were dedicated to custom and tradition and resisted changes brought by the new religion.' Haddad and Esposito state that in this view 'the inequality of Muslim women happened because of the preexisting habits of the people among whom Islam took root. The economics of these early Muslim societies were not favorable to comfortable life for women. More important, during Islam's second and third centuries the interpretation of the Qur'an was in the hands of deeply conservative scholars, whose decisions are not easy to challenge today. The Qur'an is more favorable to women than is generally realized. In principle, except for a verse or two, the Qur'an grants women equality. For example, Eve was not the delayed product of Adam’s rib (as in the tradition for Christians and Jews); the two were born from a single soul. It was Adam, not Eve, who let the devil convince them to eat the forbidden fruit. Muslim women are instructed to be modest in their dress, but only in general terms. Men are also told to be modest. Many Muslims believe the veiling and seclusion are later male inventions, social habits picked up with the conquest of the Byzantine and Persian Empires.'

Gerhard Endress, professor of Islamic Studies at Ruhr University, states: "The social system ... build up a new system of marriage, family and inheritance; this system treated women as an individual too and guaranteed social security to her as well as to her children. Legally controlled polygamy was an important advance on the various loosely defined arrangements which had previously been both possible and current; it was only by this provision (backed up by severe punishment for adultery), that the family, the core of any sedentary society could be placed on a firm footing."

Sociological reforms

Dale Eickelman, Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations, writes in Encyclopedia of the Qur'an that:

Writing in 1960s, sociologist Robert Bellah (Beyond belief) argued that Islam in its seventh-century origins was, for its time and place, "remarkably modern...in the high degree of commitment, involvement, and participation expected from the rank-and-file members of the community." Its leadership positions were open, and divine revelation emphasized equality among believers. Bellah argues that the restraints that kept the early Muslim community from "wholly exemplifying" these modern principles underscore the modernity of the basic message of the Qur'an, which exhorted its initial audience in seventh-century Arabia to break through the "stagnant localisms" of tribe and kinship. In making such statements, Bellah suggests that the early Islamic community placed a particular value on individuals, as opposed to collective or group responsibility (q.v.), so that efforts by contemporary Muslims to depict the early Islamic community as an egalitarian and participant one are not unwarranted.

Frederick M. Denny, Professor of Islamic Studies and the History of Religions, concludes his article on Community and Society in the Qur'an (cf. Encyclopedia of the Qur'an) by the following remark about the idea of Muslim community (umma), developed by the Qur'an:

Surely the most enduring and influential qur'anic idea of community is that of umma and so flexible is it in specific social, religious, and political terms that it can be embraced across a wide range of concerns by Muslims without their losing a general sense of common cause and consensus concerning the big question of belief and the proper conduct of life both individually and communally. Indeed, the umma idea has enabled Muslims to endure serious setbacks as in the times of western colonialism when political power was at a lower point in many Muslim regions. What is more, the umma ideal does not require a unified political order among Muslims in order to be realized and activated... Whenever one looks in the spreading Muslim populations of today..., the Qur'anic formulations and models of social and communal life of Muslims predominate and provide an ever fresh and innovative approach to defining what is meant to be Muslim and how to live in a pluralistic world alongside other communities and societies, whether religious or secular in nature.

Economic reforms

Michael Bonner, Professor of Medieval Islamic History at the University of Michigan, writes on poverty and economics in the Qur'an that the Qur'an provided a blueprint for a new order in society, in which the poor would be treated more fairly than before. This "economy of poverty" prevailed in Islamic theory and practice until 13th and 14th century. At its heart was a notion of property circulated and purified, in part, through charity, which illustrates a distinctively Islamic way of conceptualizing charity, generosity, and poverty markedly different from "the Christian notion of perennial reciprocity between rich and poor and the ideal of charity as an expression of community love." The Qur'an prohibits bad kind of circulation (often understood interest or usury) and asks for good circulation (zakat [legal alms giving]). Some of the recipients of charity appear only once in the Qur'an, and others—such as orphans, parents, and beggars—reappear constantly. Most common is the triad of kinsfolk, poor, and travelers. Unlike pre-Islamic Arabian society, the Qur'anic idea of economic circulation as a return of goods and obligations was for everyone, whether donors and recipients know each other or not, in which goods move, and society does what it is supposed to do. The Qur'an's distinctive set of economic and social arrangements, in which poverty and the poor have important roles, show signs of newness. The Qur'an told that the guidance comes to a community that regulates its flow of money and goods in the right direction (from top down) and practices generosity as reciprocation for God's bounty. In a broad sense, the narrative underlying the Qur'an is that of a tribal society becoming urbanized. Many scholars have characterized both the Qur'an and Islam as highly favorable to commerce and to the highly mobile type of society that emerged in the medieval Near East. Muslim tradition (both hadith and historiography) maintains that Muhammad did not permit the construction of any buildings in the market of Medina other than mere tents; nor did he permit any tax or rent to be taken there. This expression of a "free market"—involving the circulation of goods within a single space without payment of fees, taxes, or rent, without the construction of permanent buildings, and without any profiting on the part of the caliphal authority (indeed, of the Caliph himself )—was rooted in the term sadaqa, "voluntary alms." This coherent and highly appealing view of the economic universe had much to do with Islam's early and lasting success. Since the poor were at the heart of this economic universe, the teachings of the Qur'an on poverty had a considerable, even a transforming effect in Arabia, the Near East, and beyond.

Other reforms

Islam reduced the devastating effect of blood feuds, which was common among Arabs, by encouraging compensation in money rather than blood. In case the aggrieved party insisted on blood, unlike the pre-Islamic Arab tradition in which any male relative could be slained, only the culprit himself could be slain.

The Cambridge history of Islam states that the nomadic structure of pre-Islamic Arabia had the serious moral problem of the care of the poor and the unfortunate. "Not merely did the Qur'an urge men to show care and concern for the needy, but in its teaching about the Last day it asserted the existence of a sanction applicable to men as individuals in matters where their selfishness was no longer restrained by nomadic ideas of dishonour."

Islam, in an effort to protect and help vargants, orphans and destitute made regular almsgiving-zakat- obligatory for Muslims. This regular almsgiving developed into a form of income tax to be used exclusively for welfare.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at the George Washington University, states the following about the social reforms of Islam in pre-Islamic Arabian society

Islamic social teachings also include support and help for those who have been oppressed or deprived in one way or another. In the reform that Islam carried out in Arabian society, it sided with the poor, and, like Christ, who said, "Blessed are the poor," the Prophet said, "Poverty is my pride." Of course, in both instance poverty means, above all, spiritual poverty, but also on the material level the Prophet, like Christ, lived in simplicity and was closer to the poor and weak than the wealthy and the powerful. Although the Prophet said that wealth is like a ladder with which one can either ascend to Heaven or decend to hell, he always emphasized that the poor must be helped and respected regardless of their lack of worldly provisions.

Miracles in the Muslim biographies

Main article: Islamic view of miracles

The Dome of the Rock sits atop of the rock which Muslims believe Muhammad used in his ascension to Jannah, Paradise. It sits in the center of Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, and is part of Islam’s third most sacred site. This site is on what non-Muslims call the Temple Mount in the old city in East Jerusalem

The pre-modern Muslim biographies of Muhammad envisions Muhammad as a cosmic figure, invested with superhuman qualities. Modern Muslim biographies of Muhammad however portray him as a progressive social reformer, a political leader and a model of human virtue. The view of these modern biographies is that Muhammad's real miracle, as Daniel Brown states modern historians would probably agree, 'was not a moon split or a sighing palm tree, but the transformation of the Arabs from marauding bands of nomads into world conquerors.'

Carl Ernst believes that this main shift in the treatment of Muhammad has been a response to the stridently negative depictions of Muhammad created by European authors. Daniel Brown adds two more reasons: First, Muslims in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were faced with social and political turmoil. The desire for the restoration of the Muslim community encouraged them to view Muhammad as a model for social and political reform. And lastly, 'the ongoing challenge of reforming or reviving Islamic law perpetuated concern for the life of Muhammad as a normative model for human behavior.' Ernst states that this main shift reflects the growth of bourgeois scientific rationalism in Muslim countries.

Legacy

The Oxford dictionary of Islam writes:

Muhammad served as administrator, legislator, judge, and commander-in-chief as well as teacher, preacher, and prayer leader of the Muslim community. For the scholars of Islamic law he is the legislator-jurist who defined ritual observance; for the mystic he is the ideal seeker of spritual perfection; for the philosopher and statesman he is the role model of both a conqueror and a just ruler; for ordinary Muslims, he is a model of God's grace and salvation.

Historical impact

Main articles: Muslim conquests and Muslim culture

After Muhammad, a rapid creation of an empire under the Umayyads established a new polity from the Atlantic to the Indus River. Within a few decades after his death, his successors had united all of Arabia under an Islamic empire, which essentially became the successor to the Sassanid, Byzantine, and ultimately Roman empires. With a historically unprecedented swiftness, they conquered present-day Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and most of North Africa. By 750, Islam was as fully established as the two great earlier monotheistic belief systems, Judaism and Christianity, and had become the world's greatest military power. The rest of North Africa came under Muslim rule, as well as most of the Iberian Peninsula, much of Central Asia, and Sindh). As of 2006, Islam is estimated to be the religion of 1.3 billion people.

Descendants

Muhammad was survived by his daughter Fatima and her children, see Shia. Some say that he had a daughter Zainab, who had borne a daughter, Amma or Umama, who survived him as well, but there is no evidence of such.

Descendants of Muhammad are known by sharifs شريف (plural: ِأشراف Ashraaf) or sayyid. Many rulers and notables in Muslim countries, past and present have professed such descent, with various degrees of credibility, such as the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, the Idrisids, the current royal families of Jordan, Many Scholars of Iran and Iraq. In various Muslim countries, there are societies of varying credibility that authenticate claims of descent.

In the Islamic prayer, Muslims end with the second tashahhud asking God to bless Muhammad and his descendants just as Abraham and his descendants were blessed.

Views on Muhammad

Seal of the Prophets

The Muslim Profession of faith, the Shahada, illustrates the Muslim conception of the role of Muhammad - "There is No God (ʾilāh) but God(Allāh), and Muhammad is His Messenger." As shown on the Flag of Saudi Arabia

Muslims believe Muhammad to be the last in a line of prophets of God (Arabic Allah) and regard his mission as one of restoring the original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham and other prophets of Islam that had become corrupted by man over time. The Qur'an specifically refers to Muhammad as the "Seal of the Prophets", which is taken by most Muslims to believe him to be the last and greatest of the prophets. Scholars such as Welch however hold that this Muslim belief is most likely a later interpretation of the Seal of the Prophets. Carl Ernst considers this phrase to mean that Muhammad's "imprint on history is as final as a wax seal on a letter". Wilferd Madelung states that the meaning of this term is not certain.

Islamic view

Muslim beliefs concerning Muhammad upon some aspects can vary widely between the sects of Islam. This article focuses on the more common beliefs about Muhammad. For how different sects differ in their views see : Islamic views of Muhammad.

More traditions

There are Muslim traditions that are believed by many Muslims, but may be questionable to non-Muslim academic historians.

• Muslims tradition narrates miracles during his time growing up in the desert as an infant during the period when Muhammad was placed in the care of a Bedouin wet nurse - Halima Sadia.
• After he returned to Mecca, he is said to have been beloved by all around him because he was such a polite and honest child.
• As a youth, he was called upon to solve a vexing political problem for his Meccan neighbors. They were rebuilding the Kaaba and feuding over which clan should have the honor of raising the Black Stone into place. Muhammad suggested that the heads of each clan raise the Black Stone on a cloth, so that all had the honor of lifting it. Muhammad then put the stone into its place.
• As a young man and a merchant, Muhammad was known to be trustworthy and honest. The other Meccans called him "Al-Amin", the trustworthy one or the honest one. After he proclaimed his prophethood, however, his neighbors turned against him.

Depictions of Muhammad

Main article: Depictions of Muhammad

Oral and written descriptions are readily accepted by all traditions of Islam, while Muslims differ as to whether or not visual depictions of Muhammad are permissible: Some Muslims believe that to prevent idolatry and shirk, or ascribing partners to Allah, visual depictions of Muhammad and other prophets of Islam should be prohibited. Other Muslims believe respectful depictions should be allowed . Both sides have produced Islamic art — the aniconists through calligraphy and arabesque, the pictorialists through book illustration and architectural decoration . Negative portrayal of Muhammad, whether spoken, written, drawn, or filmed, may be taken as a great offense by Muslims, see Muslim veneration for Muhammad.

Muslim veneration of Muhammad

See also: Muslim veneration for Muhammad, Praise of Muhammad in poetry, Depiction of Muhammad, Islamic music, and Qawwali

File:MuhammadNameInSaffiyahMosqueInTurkey.jpg

Muhammad's name, engraved in gold, adorning the walls of the Hagia Sophia.

It is traditional for Muslims to illustrate and express love and veneration for Muhammad. This is observed in a number of different ways. Most notably, when Muslims say or write Muhammad's name, they usually follow it with Peace be upon him or its Arabic equivalent, sallalahu alayhi wasallam, and for Shias this is extended to Peace be upon him and his descendants. In English this is often abbreviated to "(pbuh)", "(saw)" and "pbuh&hd" for Shias, or even just simply as "p". His contemporaries gave him the title Apostle of God (Arabic: Rasul-Allah or Rasulallah), which is also used by Muslims today, as well as the more obvious title "Prophet". Concerts of Muslim, and especially Sufi, devotional music include songs praising Muhammad. There are religious songs Nasheeds which regularly praise Muhammad.

Conversely, criticism of Muhammad is often equated with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in Pakistan. The position of the four main Sunni Muslim Maddhabs is that Islam prohibits depicting the prophet Muhammad in art; some non-maddhab groups, such as the Salafi movement, take a similar line. The Shia and others have historically taken a much less restrictive view of such depictions, allowing them if they are to praise Muhammad, while a school of Sufi'ism uses calligraphy of the name of Muhammad, Ali, Hussein and other important people in Muslim History to create images of the people.

Other religious traditions in regard to Muhammad

• The Druze, who accept most but not all Qur'anic revelations, also consider him a prophet.

• Bahá'ís venerate Muhammad as one of a number of prophets or "Manifestations of God", but consider his teachings to have been superseded by those of Bahá'u'lláh.
• The Sikh holy text refers to Muhammad as a holy man, but does not elevate him to the status of a Sikh Guru.

See also

• Arabian tribes that interacted with Muhammad
• Depictions of Muhammad
• Family tree of Muhammad
• Hadith
• Hanif
• Islam
• Islamic view of Muhammad
• Non-Islamic views of Muhammad
• Paraclete

• List of films about Muhammad

• Mohammad, Messenger of God (aka The Message)
• Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (documentary)

• List of founders of major religions
• List of Islamic terms in Arabic
• Muezza
• Muhammad's marriages
• Sira

References

• Lewis, Bernard (2002). The Arabs in History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280310-7.
• Ernst, Carl (2004). Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-5577-4.
• Peters, F. E. (2003). Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11553-2.
• Esposito, John (1998). Islam: The Straight Path. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511233-4. - First Edition 1991; Expanded Edition : 1992.
• Esposito, John (1999). The Islamic Threat: Myth Or Reality?. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513076-6.
• Esposito, John (2002). What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515713-3.
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1992). Islam: An Introduction. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-1327-6.
• F. Buhl (A.T. Welch), Annemarie Schimmel, A. Noth, Trude Ehlert (ed.). "Muhammad". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Academic Publishers. ISSN 1573-3912.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Watt, W. Montgomery (1961). Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-881078-4.
• Bloom, Jonathan; Blair, Sheila (2002). Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09422-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Tucker, Judith E.; Nashat, Guity (1999). Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21264-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Bibliography

• Andrae, Tor (2000). Mohammed: The Man and His Faith. Dover. ISBN 0-486-41136-2.
• Armstrong, Karen (1993). Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 0-06-250886-5.
• Cook, Michael (1983). Muhammad. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-287605-8 (reissue 1996).
• Dashti, Ali (1994). Twenty-Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad. Mazda. ISBN 1-56859-029-6.
• Glubb, John Bagot (1970). The Life and Times of Muhammad. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-8154-1176-6 (reprint 2002).
• Guillaume, Alfred, ed. (1955). The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-636033-1. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Hamidullah, Muhammad (1998). The Life and Work of the Prophet of Islam. [s.n.](Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute). ISBN 969-8413-00-6.
• Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (1995). The Life of Muhammad. Islamic Book Service. ISBN 1-57731-195-7.
• Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International, Limited. ISBN 0-89281-170-6.
• Motzki, Harald, ed. (2000). The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, Vol. 32). Brill. ISBN 90-04-11513-7. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Rodinson, Maxime (1961). Muhammad. New Publishers. ISBN 1-56584-752-0.
• Rubin, Uri (1995). The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muhammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims (A Textual Analysis). Darwin Press. ISBN 0-87850-110-X.
• Schimmel, Annemarie (1985). And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4128-5.
• Warraq, Ibn (2000). The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-787-2.
• Watt, W. Montgomery (1961). Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-881078-4.

Additional Reading

• Berg, Herbert (Ed.) (2003). Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins. E. J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-12602-3.
• Lewis, Bernard (2002). The Arabs in History (6th edition ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280310-7. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Stillman, Norman (1975). The Jews of Arab Lands: a History and Source Book. Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0198-0.

External links

Non-sectarian biography

• Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet - PBS Site
• Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet - UPF (Producer's Site)
• Hazrat Muhammad PBUH Life Topics In Urdu

• Encarta Encyclopedia
• 1911 Encyclopedia article on Mahomet

Muslim biographies

• Muhammad: The Prophet of Islam
• The earliest biography of Muhammad, by ibn Ishaq
• Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar)
• The Life of Muhammad by Muhammad Husayn Haykal
• The Infinite LightFetullah Gulen
• The Millennium Biography Of Muhammad Grand Shaykh Hasan Qaribullah, Grand Shaykh Abdullah Ben Sadek
• Toward Understanding Muhammad: Some issues in peace and violence (by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq)
• Muhammad: A Brief Introduction with Annotation (by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq)
• Biography by Harun Yahya
• About the Prophet Muhammad(University of Southern California)
• Tauheed Sunnat - Islamic Multimedia Library - Seerat of the Prophet Muhammed
• Who is Muhammad?*
• The Life of the Messenger of God (pbuh)
• Noorullah Online: Muhammad Rasulullah
• Issues about Prophet Muhammad

Nonmuslim/Critical biographies

• William Muir: The Life of Mahomet