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Life of Muhammad (S.A.W.S.)
MUHAMMAD
For the occidental reader there are grave difficulties in attaining a balanced understanding of the historical role of Muhammad. The most serious of these is that the dominant conception of religion as a private and individual matter leads men to expect that a religious leader will be a certain kind of man; and it is disconcerting to find that Muhammad does not conform to this expectation. He was undoubtedly a religious leader; but for him religion was the total response of his personality to the total situation in which he found himself. He was responding not merely to what the occidental would call the religious and intellectual aspects of the situation, but also to the economic, social and political pressures to which contemporary Mecca was subject. Because he was great as a leader his influence was important in all these spheres, and it is impossible for any occidental to distinguish within his achievement between what is religious and what is non-religious or secular. Another difficulty is that some occidental readers are still not completely free from the prejudices inherited from their medieval ancestors. In the bitterness of the Crusades and other wars against the Saracens, they came to regard the Muslims, and in particular Muhammad, as the incarnation of all that was evil, and the continuing effect of the propaganda of that period has not yet been completely removed from occidental thinking about Islam. It is still much commoner to find good spoken about Buddhism than about Islam. There are also some of the difficulties usually attendant on the historical study of remote periods. Thus it is not easy to find the kernel of fact in the legends about Muhammad's birth, childhood, and early manhood. For his public career there is indeed the Qur'an, which is universally accepted as a contemporary record; but it is silent on many points about which the historian would like information, and such historical material as it has is not always easy to date or interpret. Despite these difficulties, however, some progress is being made towards a more adequate appreciation of Muhammad and his career.1 1 A fuller exposition of the view of Muhammad presented here will be found in the author's Muhammad Prophet and Statesman (London, Oxford University Press, 1961). Detailed references are in Muhammad at Mecca and Muhammad at Medina (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953. I956)- 3° About A.D. 610 a citizen of Mecca, then aged about forty, began to tell relatives and acquaintances of certain experiences which had come to him. Some three years later he began to speak more publicly. A number of his fellow-citizens were attracted by his words, and professed themselves his followers in the way of life he was teaching. For a time a successful movement seemed to be developing, but eventually opposition and hostility made their appearance. What was the nature of the movement and of Muhammad's teaching in this early period before opposition was provoked ? The religious movement may be said to have begun with two visions experienced by Muhammad and briefly described in Sura 5 3 of the Qur'an, verses 1-18. There are also Traditions1 which appear to refer to the visions, but have not the same authority as the Qur'an. At first Muhammad may have interpreted these experiences as visions of God himself, but he later regarded the wonderful being he had seen as an angel from God. As a result of the visions, Muhammad came to a deep conviction that he had been specially commissioned as the 'messenger of God' (rasiil Allah). In the later stages of Muhammad's career, this came to be interpreted as some kind of agent on behalf of God, but to begin with the 'messenger' was simply the carrier of a message. Either in the course of the visions or shortly afterwards, Muhammad began to receive 'messages' or 'revelations' from God. Sometimes he may have heard the words being spoken to him, but for the most part he seems simply to have 'found them in his heart'. Whatever the precise 'manner of revelation'—and several different 'manners' were listed by Muslim scholars—the important point is that the message was not the product of Muhammad's conscious mind. He believed that he could easily distinguish between his own thinking and these revelations. His sincerity in this belief must be accepted by the modern historian, for this alone makes credible the development of a great religion. The further question, however, whether the messages came from Muhammad's unconscious, or the collective unconscious functioning in him, or from some divine source, is beyond the competence of the historian. The messages which thus came to Muhammad from beyond his conscious mind were at first fairly short, and consisted of short verses 1 Arabic singular, Haditb: a technical term for anecdotes about Muhammad, at first transmitted orally. ending in a common rhyme or assonance. They were committed to memory by Muhammad and his followers, and recited as part of their common worship. Muhammad continued to receive the messages at intervals until his death. In his closing years the revelations tended to be longer, to have much longer verses and to deal with the affairs of the community of Muslims at Medina. All, or at least many, of the revelations were probably written down during Muhammad's lifetime by his secretaries. The whole collection of 'revealed' material was given its definitive form by a body of scholars working under the instructions of the Caliph 'Uthman (23-35/644-56), and this is the Qur'an as we now have it. There is no detailed agreement about the dates at which the various passages were revealed, and each sura or 'chapter' may contain passages from different dates. It is generally held, however, that most of the short suras towards the end of the Qur'an are early, and in other respects there is a rough agreement about dating. If now we examine the passages generally regarded as belonging to the earliest period, especially those where no hostility or opposition to Muhammad is implied or asserted, we find that their contents may be summarized under five heads. (1) God1 is good and all-powerful. Various natural phenomena are described and asserted to be signs of God's goodness and power, since they contribute to the maintenance and well-being of mankind. The development of a human being from an embryo is regarded as specially wonderful. (2) God will bring all men back to himself on the Last Day for judgment, and will then assign them for eternity either to heaven (the Garden) or hell (the Fire). In some of the early passages this is spoken of as a judgment on the individual, but in somewhat later passages whole communities seem to be judged together. (3) In the world thus created by God and controlled by Him in the present, man's appropriate attitude is to be grateful to Him and to worship Him. Worship is essentially an acknowledgment of God's might and majesty, and of man's relative weakness and lack of power. (4) God also expects man to be generous with his wealth and not niggardly. This is one of the chief points to be considered in the judgment. In particular the rich are expected to take steps to help the poor and unfortunate. 1 It is appropriate to use the word 'God' rather than the transliteration 'Allah'. For one thing it cannot be denied that Islam is an offshoot of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and for another the Christian Arabs of today have no other word for' God' than Allah. (5) Muhammad has a special vocation as a 'messenger' from God to his own people and as a 'warner' to them about judgment and punishment. The message of the Qur'an, both in this early form and in its later developments, has sometimes been regarded by Christian and Jewish scholars as a pale reflection of some points in the teaching of the Old and New Testaments. To emphasize such dependence, however, even if there were more justification for the assertions than there is, diverts attention from a proper understanding of the beginnings of the Islamic religion in its historical context. In a sense we can say that the ideas of the early passages of the Qur'an were accepted by Muhammad and his followers because they thought they were true; but this does not explain why certain ideas were selected for emphasis. When a modern scholar looks at the relation of these ideas to the historical situation in Mecca in the years from 610 onwards, he sees that they are specially appropriate and relevant. They are, in fact, dealing with the religious aspect of the contemporary economic, social, and political tensions, and are capable of guiding and directing at all levels men's response to these tensions. In the sphere of economics, which is fundamental in that it deals with the things that are necessary for human survival, the important feature of the age was that Mecca had won control of the caravan trade up the west coast of Arabia from the Yemen in the south to Damascus and Gaza in the north. Southwards, the trade-routes continued into Ethiopia and by the use of the monsoons to India. Northwards, the eastern Roman empire or Byzantine empire was eager for the products of the Orient. Perhaps the struggle between the Byzantines and the Persians had diverted trade from the Persian Gulf to western Arabia. Certainly by 61 o the trade through Mecca had become very lucrative, the chief entrepreneurs had become wealthy merchants, and most of the town shared in the prosperity. This dominant position of Mecca had not been attained without unscrupulous dealings to discourage merchants from the Yemen coming to Mecca, while rivals in the neighbouring town of Ta'if had been forced to submit to Mecca after defeat in battle. By 610 the people of Mecca were gaining their livelihood almost exclusively through this mercantile economy. The social tensions present in Mecca about 610 appear to have been mainly due to the conflict between the attitudes fostered by the new mercantile economy and the residual attitudes derived from the previous nomadic economy. Commerce encouraged the acceptance of material values and an individualistic spirit. The great merchant naturally thought chiefly about making the largest possible profit for himself. The capital on which his operations had originally been based had often been the common property of the clan; but he conveniently forgot this. He associated with other merchants whom he regarded as useful business partners, rather than with members of his clan whose business acumen might be inferior. From the Qur'an it appears that the great merchants, who were often also heads of clans, were no longer willing to use their wealth to help the poor and unfortunate among their fellow-clansmen. This indicates a breaking up of the tribal solidarity which had been a prominent feature of nomadic society. Nomadic conceptions of honour hardly applied in the circumstances of commercial life, and so these merchants could be niggardly and selfish without being exposed to obloquy. To this state of affairs the Qur'anic call to generosity and care for the unfortunate was directly relevant. Nomadic attitudes based on the lex talionis were still sufficiently strong to ensure the preservation of public order, that is, the avoidance of homicide, bodily injury, and theft. The more serious moral problem was thus the care of the unfortunate who for some reason or other were unable to share in the general prosperity. 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. The teaching of the Qur'an is not so obviously relevant to the internal politics of Mecca. The tensions here were due to the growth of commerce. There is no trace of a distinction between aristocrats and plebeians such as is found elsewhere. Those referred to as 'weak' were not plebeians but persons without effective protection from a clan. Nearly all the inhabitants of Mecca belonged to the tribe of Quraysh, and acknowledged a common ancestry. The tribe was divided into clans which varied in importance, partly according to numbers, and partly according to the degree of success or failure in commercial ventures. The leading men of the more powerful clans were great merchants who had gained a monopolistic hold over some aspects of the trade of Mecca. Muhammad's clan, that of Hashim, had failed to maintain a place among the leaders, but had become head of a league of less strong clans which opposed the monopolists. Because Qur'anic teaching was directed against the monopolists or great merchants, the clan of Hashim, though mostly not approving of Muhammad's religion, was willing for several years to give him full support against the great merchants who were hostile to his movement. In the external politics of Mecca the dominant fact was the titanic struggle between the Byzantine and Persian empires which had already lasted for nearly half a century when Muhammad began to preach. Meccan trade dictated a policy of neutrality, for it connected the Persianheld Yemen in the south with Byzantine Syria in the north, and had also links with 'Iraq, the effective centre of the Persian empire, and with Ethiopia, friendly to the Byzantines. The Byzantines and Ethiopians were definitely Christian; the Persian empire was officially Zoroastrian, but it seems also to have given some support to Judaism, while there was a strong element of Nestorian Christianity, which was bitterly hostile to the forms of Christianity prevailing in the Byzantine and Ethiopian empires. Thus it would have been difficult for the Meccans to maintain political neutrality, had they adopted any of these forms of monotheism. The Qur'an offered the Arabs a monotheism comparable to Judaism and Christianity but without their political ties. This may be described as the external political relevance of Muhammad's claim to be the messenger of God. One may also speak of a specifically religious aspect in the malaise of Mecca about 610. Material prosperity had led to an excessive valuation of wealth and power and to a belief that human planning could achieve almost anything. The great merchants were chiefly affected, but similar attitudes were found among those who were dependent on them or who tried to copy them. Against this the Qur'an insisted on the omnipotence of God and his punishment of evildoers, including wealthy men who refuse to help the needy; this punishment might be either in this world, or in the life to come, or in both. The nomadic Arabs had believed that human planning was overruled not by a deity but by the operation of an impersonal Time or Fate; but the Qur'an combated any residue of this belief among its hearers by insisting that God was not only allpowerful but also good and merciful. All the people of Mecca were called on to worship God, the Lord of their Ka'ba or sanctuary, in gratitude to him for their prosperity (Sura 106). This was essentially a call to acknowledge that human life was determined by a power which was fundamentally benevolent. Since the teaching of the earlier passages of the Qur'an was thus relevant to the situation in Mecca about 610, it is not surprising to find that those who accepted this teaching and professed themselves followers of Muhammad were men who had been affected in particular ways by that situation. Three groups may be distinguished among the early Muslims. Firstly, there were younger brothers and sons of the great merchants themselves; secondly, there were more important men from clans which had fallen out of the first rank or failed to attain it; and thirdly, there were a few reckoned 'weak'—mostly foreigners who had not found any clan willing to give them effective protection. No doubt all these men followed Muhammad because they thought the teaching of the Qur'an was true. When we look at the facts as external observers, however, we note that all three groups had suffered in some way from the selfishness and unscrupulous dealing of the great merchants, and had therefore presumably seen in the ideas of the Qur'an a possible way out of their tensions and troubles. Muhammad himself as a posthumous child, unable by Arab custom to receive any of his father's property, and yet aware of his great administrative ability, must have been specially conscious of the unenviable position of those excluded from the inner circle of great merchants. Muhammad must have experienced great hardship until, when he was twenty-five, a wealthy woman, Khadlja, first employed him as steward of her merchandise and then married him. After his marriage he was in comfortable circumstances, but the memory of the early years of hardship doubtless remained with him. OPPOSITION AND PERSECUTION Despite the initial successes of Muhammad's religious movement it did not gain the support of any of the great merchants. Two reasons may be suggested for their coolness and subsequent hostility. They may have felt that Muhammad was criticizing business practices which they deemed essential to the successful conduct of commercial operations, and more generally may have resented the Qur'anic attitude to the values by which they lived. In the second place they may have felt that Muhammad's claim to receive messages from God would make ordinary people think he had a superior wisdom, so that, should he ever aspire to become ruler of Mecca, he would have much popular support. Whatever thoughts may have been most prominent in the minds of particular men, the great merchants as a whole certainly came to be opposed to Muhammad. They tried to come to some arrangement with him; if he would abandon his preaching, he would be admitted into the inner circle of merchants, and his position there established by an advantageous marriage; but Muhammad would have none of this. They tried to get the clan of Hashim to bring pressure to bear on him to stop preaching; but honour, perhaps combined with interest in opposing monopolies, led the chief of the clan, his uncle Abu Talib, to continue to give him support. Even when the whole clan of Hashim was subjected to a kind of boycott, it went on supporting Muhammad. The hostility between Muhammad and the great merchants became an open breach after the incident of the' satanic verses'. This incident is so strange that it cannot be sheer invention, though the motives alleged may have been altered by the story-tellers. The Qur'an (22. 5 2/1) implies that on at least one occasion ' Satan had interposed' something in the revelation Muhammad received, and this probably refers to the incident to be described. The story is that, while Muhammad was hoping for some accommodation with the great merchants, he received a revelation mentioning the goddesses al-Lat, al-'Uzza, and Manat (53. 19, 20 as now found), but continuing with other two (or three) verses sanctioning intercession to these deities. At some later date Muhammad received a further revelation abrogating the latter verses, but retaining the names of the goddesses, and saying it was unfair that God should have only daughters while human beings had sons. It is impossible that any later Muslim could have depicted Muhammad as thus appearing to tolerate polytheism. The deities mentioned were specially connected with shrines at Ta'if and two other spots in the region of Mecca. The Arabic phrase' daughters of God' {bandt Allah), which is sometimes used, expressed only an abstract relationship and means something like ' divine or semi-divine beings'; there is no suggestion of families of gods and goddesses as in Greek mythology. Presumably Muhammad, in accepting worship at these shrines on the basis of the 'satanic verses', thought of it as addressed to some kind of angelic being subordinate to God. He may not originally have regarded the permission to worship at these shrines as a compromise; but in the course of time he must have come to realize that toleration of such worship was bound to jeopardize the important aspects of his teaching, and make his n?.w religion indistinguishable from paganism. After the revelation abrogating the 'satanic verses' the breach between Muhammad and the great merchants was an open one. It seems unlikely that the merchants themselves had any profound belief in the old pagan religion, but they were prepared to make use of its remaining influence over the common people, for example, by carrying images of al-Lat and al-'Uzza into battle against the Muslims at Uhud. The Qur'an, on the other hand, vigorously attacks polytheism; sometimes it allows a supernatural reality short of divinity to the beings worshipped but holds that they will repudiate their worshippers, while at other times it asserts that they are merely names to which no reality corresponds. From this time onwards the insistence that God is one and unique is characteristic of Islam. From the refutations in the Qur'an we can also learn some of the arguments used by the opponents to discredit Muhammad. They thought that in pointing to mouldering bodies they had a good argument against resurrection and judgment; but the Qur'an counters by emphasizing that it is God who creates man in the first place 'when he is nothing', and that it is no more difficult to restore life to what is left of his body. The opponents also made attacks on Muhammad personally: he was too unimportant a person to be a messenger from God; his alleged revelations were communicated to him by a human assistant; his teaching was an innovation and a departure from ancestral custom—and this latter was a very serious fault in Arab eyes. Sometimes the Qur'an denied the charges outright. In a sense, however, its more general reply was in its frequent references to former prophets, biblical and other. These stories and allusions helped to create the image of a noble spiritual ancestry for Muhammad and the Muslims. In addition to the verbal criticisms, there was a certain amount of physical persecution. The extent of this is difficult to determine. Because of the lex talionis and the clan system there was little that even the most powerful man could do against a member of another clan, so long as the latter's clan was ready to protect him. Sharp business practices, of course, were outside the purview of the lex talionis; and the great merchants doubtless brought about the commercial ruin of any merchant who openly supported Muhammad. They had also much power within the clan, and some young relatives of the leading merchants suffered considerably at their hands. The 'weak' persons without clan protection were most vulnerable, and there are stories of the hardships they underwent. Muhammad himself, at least until about 619, was protected by his clan, and only met with minor insults, such as having garbage dumped at his door. At a comparatively early date a number of Muhammad's followers are said to have gone to Abyssinia to avoid persecution; but since some of these stayed on until 628 they may have had other motives. The situation changed for the worse about 619 with the death of Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and chief of the clan of Hashim. He was succeeded as chief of the clan by another uncle, Abu Lahab, who was prospering commercially, and had close business relationships with some of the great merchants. These induced Abu Lahab to get Muhammad to admit that his grandfather as a pagan was in hell; and Abu Lahab seems to have made this disrespect towards a former chief of the clan the ground for denying full clan protection. The sources tend to pass over this feature, which later members of Hashim would regard as disgraceful, but it is implicit in other statements in the sources. Presumably at first Abu Lahab merely threatened to withdraw protection from Muhammad if he went on preaching his religion. We hear of Muhammad making approaches to various nomadic tribes, and then visiting the town of Ta'if in hopes, it would seem, of finding a base there. This visit was a disastrous failure, and on his return Muhammad was unable to enter Mecca until he found the chief of another clan willing to give him protection. The outlook for Muhammad and the Muslims was extremely gloomy when, at the Pilgrimage in the summer of 620, he met six men from Medina (Yathrib) who began to discuss the possibility of his going there. THE Hijra OR EMIGRATION TO MEDINA Medina is a fertile oasis, somewhat more than two hundred miles north of Mecca. The inhabitants were mainly pagan Arabs, but there were also a number of Jews. The Jews probably differed little racially and culturally from their Arab neighbours, and were only marked off by religion. They seem to have pioneered the agricultural development of the oasis, and for a time had been dominant politically, but now were declining in power. The Jews were divided into three major clans and some minor groups; eight large clans are distinguished among the Arabs, but some of these had important subdivisions. For nearly a hundred years before 620 there had been fighting in the oasis. At first it had been between single clans; then clans had joined together in ever larger groups. The Jewish clans combined with the others, and were sometimes on opposing sides. Finally, about 618, there had been a great battle at a spot called Bu'ath, in which nearly all the clans of the oasis had been involved. In this battle there had been heavy slaughter, and, though the fighting had ceased, there had been no agreement about the resulting claims for blood, or blood-money. It was becoming obvious that the conception of the blood-feud and the lex talionis, though useful for maintaining a degree of public order in desert conditions, were unworkable in the confined space of an oasis unless there was one man with authority to adjudicate in disputed cases. One of the most powerful men in the oasis, 'Abd Allah b. Ubayy, had along with his clan remained neutral at Bu'ath, presumably in the hope of becoming such an adjudicator acceptable to all. It was said that, but for the arrival of Muhammad, he would have become prince of Medina. Contact with the Jews had familiarized the Arabs of Medina with the conception of an inspired religious leader, perhaps even with the expectation of a Messiah. Thus among the six men who met Muhammad in 620 there would be a degree of readiness to accept his claims at the religious level. At the same time they could not but be aware that a neutral outsider to Medina like Muhammad, with authority based on religious claims, would be in a better position to act as impartial arbiter than any inhabitant of Medina. The six were so impressed by Muhammad that at the Pilgrimage of 621 five of them came back to Mecca with seven others to have further discussions with Muhammad. The twelve represented the most important clans, and expressed their readiness to accept Muhammad as prophet and to avoid certain sins. This is known as the First Pledge of al-'Aqaba. Muhammad must have been delighted, but after his failure at Ta'if he proceeded with care and circumspection. He sent an agent to Medina, ostensibly to instruct the people of Medina in his religion, but presumably also to observe at first hand the internal politics of the community. Things went well, however, and at the Pilgrimage of June 622 seventyfive persons came to Mecca, and not merely repeated the former promise, but also pledged themselves to fight on behalf of Muhammad. This was the Second Pledge of al-'Aqaba or the Pledge of War. Relying on this support from Medina, Muhammad began to encourage his followers in Mecca to emigrate, and they set out in small parties, possibly unnoticed by the great merchants of Mecca. By September about seventy had reached Medina and been given hospitality by Muhammad's supporters there. None willing to make the journey remained in Mecca apart from Muhammad, Abu Bakr, his chief adviser, and 'All, his cousin and son-inlaw, together with their families. One need not believe all the stories which have grown round Muhammad's own emigration, or Hijra—the word means primarily a severing of relationships. His opponents may tardily have realized what was afoot. It is likely, however, that he was still safe so long as he remained in Mecca and kept quiet. The danger would be during the course of the journey, after he had abandoned whatever protection he had in Mecca by leaving the town, and before he reached Medina and the protection pledged to him there. He therefore slipped away by night, leaving 'All sleeping on his bed. Along with Abu Bakr he hid for three days in a cave near Mecca. Then, after the Meccan pursuers had wearied, the two of them with a servant and a camel-man made their way by little-used routes to Medina. After about nine days' travelling they reached the outskirts of the oasis of Medina on 24 September 622. This is the Hijra which is the basis of Islamic chronology, but reckoning commences with the first day of the Arab year in which the emigration took place, viz. 16 July 622. A document, sometimes called the Constitution of Medina, has been preserved in the earliest life of Muhammad. In the form in which we have it, this document seems to be conflated from two or more separate documents, and to be not earlier than the year 5/627. Yet presumably there was some such agreement when Muhammad went to Medina, and this is doubtless reflected in the present form of the document. In essentials the Constitution establishes a kind of alliance or federation between nine different groups, eight clans from Medina and the 'clan' of Emigrants {Muhdjiriin) from the Quraysh of Mecca. It is presupposed that all these groups have accepted Muhammad as the messenger of God. Some non-Muslim groups, Jews or pagans, have a subordinate place in the federation as allies of the main participants. Apart from having his religious claims recognized, Muhammad simply functions as head of one of the nine groups and has no special power or authority, except that disputes endangering the peace of the oasis are to be referred to him. He was thus far from being ruler of the new polity set up at Medina. AGAINST MECCA AND AGAINST THE JEWS The occidental conception of a religious leader would suggest that, when Muhammad and his Meccan followers went to Medina, they would settle down to earn their living by honest hard work as lawabiding citizens. A consideration of how Muhammad might have expected his followers to gain a livelihood indicates that he had very different ones. The oasis had numerous palm-trees and grew some cereal crops, and there was still some land capable of being made fertile; but it seems most unlikely that Muhammad expected his followers to become agriculturalists. He cannot have intended that they should permanently depend on the hospitality of the Muslims of Medina. Such skill as they had was chiefly in commerce, but, if they organized long-distance caravans to Syria, they were bound to come into conflict with the Meccans. It is hard to resist the conclusion that, perhaps even before the Hijra, Muhammad realized that fighting against the Meccans was inevitable. He may not have said much about this, however, to the Muslims of Medina. The assumption that Muhammad deliberately moved towards open hostility with the Meccans explains what became a feature of the Medinan period of his career, viz. the sending out of expeditions. The raid or razzia (Ar. gba^wa, etc., pi. magha^i) was a normal occupation of the nomadic Arab male, indeed almost a kind of sport. A common aim was the carrying off of the sheep or camels of rival groups. Severe fighting was usually avoided, for the favourite tactic was to pounce unexpectedly on an isolated party of herdsmen with force so overwhelming that resistance was pointless. After some six months in Medina, Muhammad began to send out razzias with the special aim of intercepting and capturing Meccan caravans on the way to or from Syria. None of the first expeditions was successful in this primary aim, but they managed to establish friendly relations between the Muslims and nomadic tribes already in alliance with some of the clans of Medina. The reason for the failures was probably that Muhammad's opponents in Medina alerted the Meccans. Eventually about Rajab 2/January 624 Muhammad sent out an expedition of a dozen men or less with sealed orders; in this way there was no chance of their destination being betrayed to the enemy. They set off eastwards, and only opened their orders after a day's march. To the dismay of one or two of them, they found that they were expected to go south to the neighbourhood of Mecca and intercept a caravan approaching Mecca from the Yemen. The most likely version of what subsequently happened is that the party of Muslims, pretending to be pilgrims, fraternized with the four guards of the caravan they hoped to attack. This was easy because they were still in the sacred month, when bloodshed was forbidden; but it became apparent that the caravan would enter the sacred territory of Mecca before the end of the month, and the would-be attackers were therefore in a dilemma—unless they gave up their plan, they must violate either the sacred month or the sacred territory. They decided to act during the sacred month, and quickly over- powered the guards, killing one and taking two prisoners. They seem to have had no difficulty in reaching Medina with the captured caravan and the prisoners. Muhammad appeared to be surprised at some of the reactions in Medina to this event. There was delight among the Emigrants and some of the Muslims of Medina at this first success after a run of failures. Others, however, expressed dismay at the profanation of the sacred month, and Muhammad is said to have hesitated before acknowledging the raid by accepting a fifth of the booty (which came to be recognized as the appropriate share for him). Doubtless the dismay was due not so much to the breaking of the taboo on bloodshed (which was really pagan, though later ascribed to God by the Qur'an), as to the dangers from the Meccans seeking blood-revenge. A revelation was received (2. 217/4) to the effect that, while fighting in the sacred month was sinful, the persecution of the Muslims by the pagan Meccans had been even more sinful. This was followed by a general acknowledgment of the raid to Nakhla, as it was called, together with readiness to accept the consequences. Muhammad may well have foreseen that many of the Muslims of Medina would hesitate before deliberately incurring the active hostility of the Meccans, but he must have judged that the time was now opportune to go ahead with his plans, and gently to push his more reluctant, and perhaps nominal, followers into full support of his policy. About the same time other important decisions were made. Up to this point it was probably only Meccan Emigrants who had taken part in the razzias from Medina; but about this time one of the leading men of Medina, Sa'd b. Mu'adh (reckoned head of the group of clans constituting the 'tribe' of the Aws), decided to support Muhammad to the extent of taking part in razzias. It was doubtless this decision by Sa'd which made it possible for Muhammad to contemplate more active operations against the Meccans, and notably the raid which led to the battle of Badr. About the same time another change in policy was made. Before he went to Medina and during the early months there Muhammad had shown himself anxious to be accepted as a prophet by the Jews of Medina. From the first, it would seem, he had regarded the message he had to convey to the Arabs as identical with that brought to the Jews by Moses and to the Christians by Jesus; and he naturally supposed that the Jews of Medina would welcome him gladly and recognize him as a prophet, at least to the Arabs. Many of the Jews, however, had close links with 'Abd Allah b. Ubayy, the potential prince of Medina, and may have hoped to increase their influence if he became ruler. Besides that, Jews would normally be unwilling to admit that a non-Jew could be a prophet. So instead of welcoming Muhammad to Medina, they began to criticize. Since they were able to say, for example, that some passages in the Qur'an contradicted their own ancient scriptures, they were in a position to make some men doubt whether Muhammad was a prophet receiving messages from God; and such doubts threatened Muhammad's whole religious movement. 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 a 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. On 15 Safar 2/11 February 624 an event is said to have taken place which symbolized the Muslims' break with the Jews. Muhammad was conducting the prayers or worship in a place of prayer belonging to the clan of Salima. They began all facing Jerusalem as had been customary; and this itself was a mark of Muhammad's desire to be accepted by the Jews. As they prayed, however, he received a revelation bidding him take Mecca as his qibla, that is, face in the direction of Mecca; and he and those praying with him at once turned round. This break with the Jews meant that from this time onwards no attempt was made to win them by the acceptance of Jewish practices. On the contrary, Islam was now developed as a separate religion, superior to Judaism and Christianity, and specially connected with the Arabs and Mecca. What appears to be chiefly a religious decision probably also had political aspects. It seems to be closely bound up with the decision to rely on the support of Sa'd b. Mu'adh and dispense with that of'Abd Allah b. Ubayy; the latter was in alliance with some of the Jewish clans, whereas there are traces of anti-Jewish feelings among some of the associates of Sa'd. THE BATTLES AGAINST THE MECCANS The Meccans must have been infuriated at the capture of their caravan almost from under their noses, as it were. The prestige and honour of Mecca required a clear demonstration that such things could not be done with impunity. The various changes of policy at Medina in the two months after the expedition of Nakhla amounted to a reaffirmation of what was implicit in that razzia, namely, a throwing down of the gauntlet to the Meccans. In consequence it is not surprising that Muhammad and the Muslims stepped up the scale of their operations. About a month after the change of qibla, it became known that a large and rich Meccan caravan was to pass near Medina on its return from Gaza. There were said to be a thousand camels and merchandise worth 50,000 dinars. Muhammad decided on a razzia to intercept this caravan, and with the help of Sa'd b. Mu'adh was able to collect a force of about 320 men, of whom just over a quarter were Emigrants and nearly three-quarters Muslims of Medina, who came to be known as Ansdr, or Helpers. The raiding party set out in good time, some five days before the caravan was due to pass Badr, the point at which its route lay closest to Medina. The leader of the caravan, Abu Sufyan, however, was aware of the threat, and by forced marches and a slight change of route eluded the Muslims. Meanwhile a force of perhaps 900 men had been collected in Mecca and had marched north to protect the caravan. According to the usual Arab ideas, a force of 300 men would never have thought of attacking a force of 900; it would have tried to avoid the superior force, yet without giving the impression of running away from it; and in normal circumstances even the 900 might not have felt their superiority sufficiently overwhelming to justify an attack on 300. The Meccan commander, Abu Jahl, however, was bent on teaching a lesson to the impudent upstarts in Medina, and did not immediately return home on hearing that the caravan was safe. Muhammad, for his part, having got the Ansdr to come so far, may have wanted to see them more fully committed, and Sa'd b. Mu'adh may have acquiesced in this. What is certain is that both forces found themselves in a position from which honour made it impossible to withdraw without fighting. The Muslims had occupied the wells of Badr and, when they learnt of the proximity of the enemy, stopped up all the wells except the one nearest the enemy. The Meccans, hidden for a time behind a hill, would have been disgraced if they had not made an effort to get water. So on 19 Ramadan 2/15 March 624 a battle took place. Little can be said about the course of the battle except that it began with single combats. The result was complete victory for the Muslims. Some fifty or more of the Meccans were killed, and nearly seventy taken prisoner. The dead included Abu Jahl and at least a dozen of the leading men of Mecca, whose administrative and commercial skills could hardly be replaced. The Muslims, on the other hand, had only fourteen dead. The chief reason for the victory was doubtless the greater confidence of the Muslims as a result of their religious faith, though it has been suggested that the agriculturalists of Medina were physically stronger than the townsmen of Mecca. There was much booty, which was divided equally among the participants, but the ransoms accepted for most of the prisoners usually went to the individual captor. The significance of Badr is both political and religious. Politically, it made it clear that Muhammad was a serious threat to Mecca. Meccan prestige was greatly diminished by the defeat even though the numbers involved in the battle had been relatively small. The potential threat to Meccan commerce was also considerable. Thus the Meccans were bound to exert all their strength to destroy Muhammad, or at the very least to drive him out of Medina. On the political level, then, the events of the next few years may be understood as the Meccan effort to meet the challenge from Muhammad to their very existence as a commercial state. On the religious side, again, the victory of Badr appeared to Muhammad and the Muslims as God's vindication of their cause after all the hardships they had undergone, and as a proof of the truth of Muhammad's mission. After the battle of Badr, Muhammad doubtless realized that the Meccans would prosecute the war against him more vigorously, and did what he could to consolidate his position in Medina. There were three political assassinations of persons who had used their poetical gifts in the war of ideas against him, and, while he may not have encouraged or even connived at these acts, he did not in any way punish the perpetrators. A few weeks after Badr he took advantage of a quarrel between Muslims and some Jews of the clan of Qaynuqa' to besiege the clan in their forts or keeps. After fifteen days, when their ally 'Abd Allah b. Ubayy had proved unable to help them, they surrendered and were expelled from Medina. They had been armourers and goldsmiths, besides conducting a local market; the Emigrants probably took over the market activities, while the arms and metal-working tools which they had to leave behind would benefit all the Muslims. The incident as a whole is in line with the new complex of policies associated with the 'break with the Jews'. At Mecca everyone had been stunned at the magnitude of the loss of life. Abu Sufyan, who had commanded the caravan, took the lead in rallying the spirits of the Meccans and setting about the repair of the damage. Ten weeks after Badr he led 200 men in a ra2zia into the Medinan oasis—a typical nomadic Arab gesture—but after burning a couple of houses retired before Muhammad could intercept him. To avoid dissipating Meccan energies, Abu Sufyan allowed no caravans to go to Syria; and one which attempted to reach Iraq in Jumada II 3/ November 624 was captured by the Muslims. Nevertheless by March 625 Abu Sufyan had collected a force of 3,000 'infantry' with a camel each, and 200 cavalry, and set out for Medina. They reached Medina in ten days, and entered the oasis from the north-west, camping with the hill of Uhud a little to the north, and the main settlements rather farther to the south. Muhammad was forced to fight, rather against his will, by the fact that the Meccan horses were eating or trampling down some of the cereal crops near the camp. By a night march, he was able to take up a strong position on the lower slopes of the hill of Uhud. At the last moment 'Abd Allah b. Ubayy and his followers withdrew, leaving Muhammad with only about 700 men. The battle began on the morning of 7 Shawwal 3/23 March 625. The main Meccan force advanced on the Muslims, but was soon thrown back in disorder. Meanwhile, however, the Meccan cavalry (commanded by Khalid b. al-Walid) took advantage of some disarray among the advancing Muslims to launch a flank attack. One party of Muslims tried to reach the nearest forts to the south, but was mostly cut down. Muhammad, though he received a wound, was able to withdraw most of his men to their original position on Uhud, where they were safe from the cavalry. Perhaps to the surprise of the Muslims, the Meccans now slowly collected their forces, and marched away along the road to Mecca. The battle of Uhud has sometimes been presented by occidental scholars as a serious defeat for the Muslims. This is certainly not so. It is indeed true that some seventy-five Muslims had been killed as against twenty-seven Meccans; but this barely gave the Meccans a life for a life when the losses at Badr are added, whereas they had boasted they would make the Muslims pay several times over. More important, they had completely failed in their strategic aim of destroying Muhammad. That they withdrew when they did was an admission of weakness. For Muhammad, then, though the loss of life was serious, the military result was not altogether unsatisfactory; the supremacy of his infantry had been clearly demonstrated. For him and the Muslims, however, the battle had also a religious aspect. They had regarded the victory of Badr as given to them by God in sign of his approval; and they had come to think of themselves as, with God's help, virtually invincible. The question for the Muslims was: had their view of Badr been correct, and was God really supporting them, for, if he were, how could he allow them to suffer such a misfortune ? The religious problem was solved by a revelation (3.15 2/45 f.) blaming the reverse on the Muslims' disobedience and desire for booty. In other ways Muhammad went on steadily consolidating his strength. Razzias in various directions made the nomads realize that Muhammad could not be trifled with, though two small expeditions ended in disaster through treachery or an ambush. Some of the razzias brought in booty, and this attracted other nomads to become followers of Muhammad and share in the razzias. In Rabi' I 4/August 625 a second Jewish clan was expelled, al-Nadir, which owned numerous palm-trees. While these events were taking place a new Islamic conception of the family was developing. To provide for the widows made by Uhud, Muslim men were encouraged to take up to four wives. This appears to have replaced not monogamy, but various marital arrangements based on matrilineal kinship, and often involving polyandry. Thus in various ways the strength of Muhammad and his community grew in the two years following Uhud. These two years had been spent by the Meccans in preparations for a supreme effort to destroy the Muslims. Abu Sufyan had no longer an undisputed position of command, and some dissension among the leaders did not help their war effort. Nevertheless, by arming as many as possible of themselves and their immediate confederates, and by using various inducements to interest nomadic tribes in the expedition, they managed to collect from 7,000 to 10,000 men, including 600 cavalry. To meet this large force, Muhammad had only about 3,000 men and no more than a dozen or two horses. His infantry would no doubt be more than a match for the opponents, but their cavalry was a serious threat. To counter it he employed a device said to have been suggested by a Persian convert, namely, the digging of a trench, or khandaq, across the open part of the north side of the oasis—the other sides were protected by lava flows. Muhammad also saw to it that the cereal crops in the region to the north of the trench were harvested in good time. The Meccans and their confederates reached Medina on 8 Dhu'l- Qa'da 5/31 March 627, and began what was in effect a siege. The trench proved an effective barrier to the Meccan cavalry. A few managed to cross, but the defenders were able to concentrate in sufficient numbers to thrust them back with loss. A siege was outside the normal tradition of Arab fighting, and the men soon became restive. Intrigues between the different groups, skilfully fomented by Muhammad's agents, lowered morale further, and, when the weather became exceptionally cold and there was a severe storm of wind, the vast confederacy faded away overnight. The siege had lasted about a fortnight. The remaining large Jewish group in Medina, the clan of Quray?a, had been overtly correct in its behaviour during the siege, but had almost certainly been in contact with the enemy, and would have attacked Muhammad in the rear had there been an opportunity. As soon as the Meccans had departed, Muhammad attacked this clan in their forts. When they eventually surrendered, the men were all killed, and the women and children sold. In Arab eyes this was not barbarous but a mark of strength, since it showed that the Muslims were not afraid of blood reprisals. The failure of the siege was a great victory for Muhammad. The Meccans had committed all their resources to this effort to dislodge or destroy him, and there was no more they could do. Their prestige was gone, and their trade with Syria virtually ruined by the Muslim attacks. Some began to wonder whether they might not have a brighter future as followers of Muhammad and his religion. THE WINNING OF THE MECCANS Long before the siege of Medina, Muhammad may have pondered future possibilities. After the siege these could be discerned more clearly, and he must have begun to take the decisions which shaped the future course of his own career, and indeed of the Muslim community after his death. Once again, however, we find religion and politics intermingled in a way which it is difficult for an occidental to understand. Muhammad thought of himself as a 'messenger of God' and as one sent specially to the Arabs. Thus he had a religious motive for summoning men to acknowledge God throughout Arabia. After the siege of Medina, however, he had also great political power. Just before the siege 'Abd Allah b. Ubayy and other opponents attacked him through an incident which seemed to involve his wife 'A'isha (daughter of Abu Bakr) in scandal, but when it came to a showdown it was evident that they were now relatively weak. After the siege, for several years there is no mention of any opposition in Medina. Thus Muhammad was head of what was in some sense a state, even though it had an unusual form of polity; and many nomads and townsmen doubtless attached themselves to this state for 'political' or non-religious reasons, such as desire for booty. After the siege it was not unreasonable for Muhammad to expect that a large proportion of the Arabs would accept his religion and become his followers. He naturally assumed that his followers would live at peace with one another; but, since much of the energy of the Arabs was expended on razzias against other tribes, an alternative outlet for this energy had to be found. This was already to hand in the conception of the. jihad or 'holy war', which was basically a razzia, might include the capturing of booty, but had to be against non-Muslims and came to an end with the opponents' profession of Islam. In the new perspective after the failure of the siege, it cannot have been too difficult to see that in a few years' time there might be few non-Muslims left in Arabia, and that therefore the jihad would have to be directed outside Arabia into Iraq and Syria. It may also have been apparent to Muhammad that large-scale operations would be involved, requiring men with administrative abilities. The obvious source of such men was Mecca, where there had been experience of large commercial undertakings. Certainly from about the time of the siege, Muhammad's aim ceased to be the destruction of the Meccans. He did all he could to avoid antagonizing them further, and instead tried to win them to his side. He continued to harry their trade with Syria, but made no preparations for a direct assault on Mecca. He also strengthened himself by alliances with various nomadic tribes. In Dhu'l-Qa'da 6/spring 628, presumably to show his power to the Meccans and also his good will, and to test their feeling, he decided to perform the Lesser Pilgrimage or 'Umra. He was disappointed in the response of the nomadic allies, but was able to set out with about 1,500 townsmen and animals for slaughter. The Meccans stopped him, however, on the edge of the sacred territory of Mecca at a spot called al-Hudaybiya. Here, after days of parleying, a treaty was signed. The Muslims were not to be allowed to enter Mecca in this year, but it would be evacuated for them for three days in the following year. There were also provisions about allies and about minors adhering to Islam. The mere signing of a treaty as an equal was a triumph for Muhammad. His followers, who had perhaps been disappointed of booty, were led on a successful expedition a month or two later against the Jews of the oasis of Khaybar, and the capture of Khaybar may be said to have inaugurated the Islamic empire in that the inhabitants were allowed to go on cultivating their lands, provided they gave a proportion of the fruits to the Muslims. In the following year, Muhammad and his followers made the Pilgrimage as arranged, and no doubt impressed the Meccans by their orderliness. The treaty, though superficially more favourable to the Meccans, allowed the attraction of the Islamic religion and the material inducements of the jihad to build up the strength of Muhammad's state. When an incident between allies of the two sides strained relations to breaking-point, Muhammad was ready to act effectively. Abu Sufyan, probably relying on Muhammad's marriage to a daughter of his (herself a Muslim and widow of a Muslim), headed a deputation to Medina seeking some compromise over the incident, but Muhammad persuaded him to work for the peaceful surrender of Mecca; this is not clear in the sources because they are mostly biased against Abu Sufyan as the ancestor of the Umayyad caliphs. Next, Muhammad with a measure of secrecy quickly collected 10,000 men and set out for Mecca. The Meccans were overawed. Abu Sufyan was able to lead out a deputation to make a formal submission. Muhammad agreed that all who claimed Abu Sufyan's protection, or closed their houses and remained indoors, should be unmolested. His troops then entered Mecca in four columns, of which only one met resistance; but that was soon overcome. Two Muslims died, and twenty-eight on the Meccan side. Thus virtually without bloodshed Muhammad entered his native town in triumph. The date was about 20 Ramadan 8/11 January 630. Muhammad remained in Mecca from two to three weeks, making arrangements for the future administration of the town and the surrounding region. Of a dozen or so persons specifically excluded from the general amnesty, several were pardoned. Muhammad's treatment of the Meccans as a whole was so generous that, when a new danger threatening them all appeared in the east, 2,000 of them joined his army as he marched out to deal with the situation. THE UNIFYING OF THE ARABS The danger came from Hawazin, a group of tribes with which was associated Thaqif, the tribe inhabiting Ta'if. It is not clear whether their concentration at Hunayn, an unidentified spot east of Mecca, was aimed primarily against the Muslims or against the Meccans, or whether the leaders hoped to take advantage of the confusion after the expected battle between the two. Whatever the motives of Hawazin, Muhammad decided to oppose them. They were reputed to have 20,000 men against his 12,000. The battle was hotly contested, and for a time a large part of the Muslim army was in flight. Muhammad himself, however, and a few seasoned veterans of the Emigrants and Helpers stood firm, and soon the enemy was fleeing in disarray. Their women and children had been stationed just behind the army, and all these were now captured by the Muslims, as well as vast spoils. The Muslims attempted to besiege the Thaqif in Ta'if, but, when it was seen that there would be no speedy surrender, Muhammad called off the siege. The booty was then divided, but Hawazin were given their women and children back in return for a special payment. The victory of Hunayn meant that, with the exception of tribes on the frontiers of Syria and Iraq, there was no group of tribes in Arabia capable of assembling a force sufficiently strong to meet Muhammad with any prospect of success. In other words he was the strongest man in Arabia. The Arabs have always admired strength, and there now took place what may be described as a rush to climb on the band-waggon. Most of the Arab tribes (with roughly the same exceptions as above) sent deputations to Medina seeking alliance with Muhammad. From an early date in the Medinan period, Muhammad had contracted alliances of different kinds with nomadic tribes. At first some were merely pacts of non-aggression, since Muhammad was in no position to give effective help to tribes close to Mecca. As his strength grew, however, he could both offer more, and also make greater demands in return for the privilege of alliance with himself. In particular he came to demand acceptance of Islam, that is, acknowledgment of his own prophethood, performance of the prayer or worship, and payment of a kind of tithe, the' legal alms' or %akdt. This was probably required of all tribes entering into alliance after the treaty of al-Hudaybiya, and certainly after the conquest of Mecca, though an exception may have been made of some of the strong tribes in the north-east. The polity which thus developed out of the 'city-state' of Medina was, according to Arab ideas, a federation of tribes. This explains why for over a century after Muhammad's death non-Arabs on becoming Muslims had to be attached as ' clients' {mawalt) to an Arab tribe. The polity had also a religious basis in that all the members of the constituent tribes or clans were supposed to be Muslims; but for a long time this religious basis seems to have been secondary in the actual functioning of the polity. It is impossible to say definitely how much of Arabia was under the pax Islamica, as the system might be called. The sources report deputations from most of the tribes, but some deputations may have represented only a small section of a tribe. Where there were rival factions in a tribe, one of them would try to steal a march on the other by gaining Muhammad's support for itself. It seems probable that most of the tribes in the Hijaz and Najd supported Muhammad in their entirety. On the Persian Gulf and the south coast, a faction in each place was in alliance with Muhammad, but this may have been less than half the population. The tribes towards 'Iraq were in alliance with Muhammad, but may not have been Muslims, while those on the Syrian frontier still professed allegiance to the Byzantine empire. The reason for the position on the east and south coasts was that in the various towns there Persian influence had kept a pro-Persian faction in power. About 614 Persia had overrun Syria, Egypt, and other parts of the Byzantine empire, but Heraclius had fought back with grim determination and recovered much ground. In February 6z8 the Persian emperor died, and succession difficulties led in a few years to the complete collapse of the Persian empire. As the need for support from some other source became clear to these pro-Persian factions, they seem to have turned to Muhammad and Islam. Apart from this development of the polity, a feature of Muhammad's last years is the reconnaissance and perhaps softening-up of the routes for expansion beyond Arabia. From the numbers reported as taking part in his earlier expeditions along the route to Syria, the high importance he attached to the route may be inferred, though little is said about the results of the expeditions. Along this route from Rajab to Ramadan 9/October to December 630, Muhammad led the greatest of all his expeditions, the expedition of Tabuk, allegedly comprising 30,000 men and 10,000 horses. This can only properly be understood as a preliminary to the later conquests; and it is also significant that during the expedition treaties were made with Jewish and Christian communities which set the pattern for the later dbimml system of the Islamic empire. What happened along the road to 'Iraq is not so clear. There were strong tribes there, notably Bakr b. Wa'il and Taghlib, both partly Christian, and both capable of sending large forces on raids into 'Iraq. It seems probable that at first Muhammad had alliances with them on equal terms, that is to say, without insisting that they should become Muslims. This arrangement secured the presence of Muslims in the advance into 'Iraq, and gave them an opening for expansion in this direction, while the conception of the jihad transformed what would have been tribal raids for booty into a war of conquest. The continued presence in Arabia of opposition to the pax lslamica is shown by the so-called 'wars of apostasy' (or ridda) which occupied most of the caliphate of Abu Bakr. These had begun, however, before Muhammad's death. Early in 632 or perhaps before that a man called Musaylima had come forward in the largely Christian tribe of Hanlfa in the centre of Arabia, claiming to be a prophet and to receive revelations like Muhammad. About Dhu'l-Hijja 10/March 632 there was another ' prophet' in the Yemen, al-Aswad. The very fact that they claimed to be prophets is a tribute to the soundness of Muhammad's method of transcending the tribal system and dealing with contemporary tensions. The last two and a half years of Muhammad's life were thus occupied in dealing with the vast new problems created by his successes. There were also difficulties in his family life, and great grief at the death of the little son borne to him by his Coptic concubine, Mariya. In March 632 he led the Greater Pilgrimage or Hajj to Mecca, and thereby completed the incorporation into Islam of a complex of pre-Islamic ceremonies. From this time onwards he was in poor health. He ceased to attend to business about the beginning of June, retired to 'A'isha's apartment, and there died on 13 Rabl' 111 /8 June 63 2. Abu Bakr had been appointed to lead the worship in Muhammad's absence, but otherwise there were no arrangements for the succession. For a moment it looked as if the Islamic state might break up, but vigorous action by 'Umar b. al- Khattab led to the acceptance of Abu Bakr as khalifat Rasii/ Allah, ' successor (or, caliph) of the Messenger of God'. MUHAMMAD'S ACHIEVEMENT In attempting to assess what Muhammad achieved, one must take into account not only the events of his lifetime but also the contribution made by these events to subsequent history, and indeed their continuing influence at the present time. In particular one must consider the rapid expansion of the Arab and Islamic state. From a wide historical perspective, it is clear that this expansion was made possible by various factors operative in the world of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Two were specially important: firstly, the power-vacuum following the collapse of the Persian empire and the exhaustion of the Byzantine; and secondly, the rising tide of feeling against Hellenism and the Byzantine Greeks among the peoples of Syria, Egypt, and other provinces. These factors made it certain that, once expansion had begun, it would rapidly spread over a wide area. These two factors, however, even in conjunction with the ever-present desire of the nomad for the comforts and luxuries of the Sown, would not have produced the Arab empire but for the unification of the Arabs achieved by Muhammad. Such unification was in no sense inevitable. It only occurred because Muhammad had a rare combination of gifts. In the first place he had what might be termed the gifts of a seer. He was aware of the deep religious roots of the social tensions and malaise at Mecca, and he produced a set of ideas which, by placing the squabbles of Mecca in a wider frame, made it possible to resolve them to some degree. The ideas he proclaimed eventually gave him a position of leadership, with an authority not based on tribal status but on' religion'. Because of his position and the nature of his authority, clans and tribes which were rivals in secular matters could all accept him as leader. This in turn created a community whose members were all at peace with one another. To prevent their warlike energies from disrupting the community the conception of the jihad or 'Holy War' directed these energies outwards against non-Muslims. Thus internal peace and external expansion were complementary. Internal peace gave the Arabs the unified army and unified command needed for effective expansion, while the expansion was required in order to maintain internal peace. In working out these ideas in actual events and institutions Muhammad showed great gifts as a statesman. He had shrewd insight into the important aspects of any situation, and concentrated on these. He knew when men were ready to accept a decision if it was imposed on them with the help of a little pressure from outside. Altogether he gradually evolved a coherent set of policies, and built up viable institutions which continued to function after his death. Another gift was his great tact and charm in the handling of men, and he was able to smooth over many difficulties among his followers. Their trust in his judgment in itself removed many tensions. In his choice of men for various tasks he showed much wisdom, being aware of the capabilities of each and always ready with the word of encouragement when needed. All in all, the rapid Arab expansion, with the ensuing spread of Islam and growth of Islamic culture, was the outcome of a complex of historical factors; but the set of ideas and the body of men capable of giving a unified direction to the expansion would not have existed but for the unique combination of gifts in Muhammad himself. REFERENCE:Cambridge_History_of_Islam. ZUHAIB AHMED ODHO......... ******* |
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