Mecca
and Muhammad: c.570 - 622
A child, Muhammad, is born in a
merchant family in Mecca. His clan is prosperous and influential, but his
father dies before he is born and his mother dies when the boy is only six.Entrusted
to a Bedouin nurse, Muhammad spends much of his childhood among nomads,
accompanying the caravans on Arabia's main trade route through Mecca.A widow,
Khadija, considerably older than Muhammad, has sufficient faith in him to
entrust him with her business affairs; and when he is twenty-five, they marry.
For the next fifteen years or so he lives the life of a prosperous merchant.
But he develops one habit untypical of merchants.From time to time he withdraws
into the mountains to meditate and pray. In about the year 610 he has a vision
which changes his life; and changes world history.
It is on Mount Hira, according
to tradition, that the archangel Gabriel appears to Muhammad. He describes
later how he seemed to be grasped by the throat by a luminous being, who
commanded him to repeat the words of God. On other occasions Muhammad often has
similar experiences (though there are barren times, and periods of self doubt,
when he is sustained only by his wife Khadija's unswerving faith in him).
From about 613 Muhammad
preaches in Mecca the message which he has received.
Muhammad's message is
essentially the existence of one God, all-powerful but also merciful, and he
freely acknowledges that other prophets - in particular Abraham, Moses and
Jesus - have preached the same truth in the past.
But monotheism is not a popular
creed with those whose livelihood depends on idols. Muhammad, once he begins to
win converts to the new creed, makes enemies among the traders of Mecca. In 622
there is a plot to assassinate him. He escapes to the town of Yathrib, about
300 kilometres to the north.
Muhammad
and the Muslim era: from622
The people of Yathrib, a
prosperous oasis, welcome Muhammad and his followers. As a result, the move
from Mecca in 622 comes to seem the beginning of Islam.
The Muslim era dates from the
Hegira - Arabic for 'emigration', meaning Muhammad's departure from Mecca. In
the Muslim calendar this event marks the beginning of year 1.
Yathrib is renamed Madinat al
Nabi, the 'city of the prophet', and thus becomes known as Medina. Here
Muhammad steadily acquires a stronger following. He is now essentially a
religious, political and even military leader rather than a merchant (Khadija has
died in 619).
He continues to preach and
recite the words which God reveals to him. It is these passages, together with
the earlier revelations at Mecca, which are written down in the Arabic script
by his followers and are collected to become the Qur'an - a word (often
transliterated as Koran) with its roots in the idea of 'recital', reflecting
the oral origin of the text. The final and definitive text of the Qur'an is
established under the third caliph, Othman, in about 650.
The
Muslims and Mecca: 624-630
Relations with Mecca
deteriorate to the point of pitched battles between the two sides, with
Muhammad leading his troops in the field. But in the end it is his diplomacy
which wins the day.
He persuades the Meccans to
allow his followers back into the city, in 629, to make a pilgrimage to the
Ka'ba and the Black Stone.
On this first Muslim pilgrimage
to Mecca, Muhammad's followers impress the local citizens both by their show of
strength and by their self-control, departing peacefully after the agreed three
days. But the following year the Meccans break a truce, provoking the Muslims
to march on the city.
They take Mecca almost without
resistance. The inhabitants accept Islam. And Muhammad sweeps the idols out of
the Ka'ba, leaving only the sacred Black Stone.
An important element in Mecca's
peaceful acceptance of the change has been Muhammad's promise that pilgrimage
to the Ka'ba will remain a central feature of the new religion.
So Mecca becomes, as it has
remained ever since, the holy city of Islam. But Medina is by now where
Muhammad and his most trusted followers live. And for the next few decades
Medina will be the political centre of the developing Muslim state.
Muhammad lives only two years
after the peaceful reconciliation with Mecca. He has no son. His only surviving
children are daughters by Khadija, though since her death he has married
several younger women, among whom his favourite is A'isha.
Muhammad
and the caliphate: from632-656
There is no clear successor to
Muhammad among his followers. The likely candidates include Abu Bakr (the
father of Muhammad's wife A'isha) and Ali (a cousin of Muhammad and the husband
of Muhammad's daughter Fatima). Abu Bakr is elected, and takes the title
'khalifat rasul-Allah'.
The Arabic phrase means
'successor of the Messenger of God'. It will introduce a new word, caliph, to
the other languages of the world.
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