The Qur'an

The Islamic teaching that can be said to come directly from God is contained in this work.

The Qur’an does not prescribe one way of government for all time, however, and this was soon recognised by early Muslims. For one thing, many of the ideas of government in the Qur'an were clearly meant to have application during the lifetime of a prophet-ruler. Once the prophet died there was no way to apply to God for a solution to issues as Muhammad had done so he could receive Qur'anic answers. A new form of government was immediately required to account for this change in circumstances and the period of interpretation had begun. What came to be called Islamic law involved interpretation of the Qur'an and also the acts, words and omissions of Muhammad during his lifetime especially following his first revelation.

In various posts, I will consider what the Qur’an actually can be said to prescribe today. For now, I'll briefly outline in this post aspects of the contents of the Qur'an that may be of especial interest for the typical Western reader.

The first Sura (recited today before any reading from the Qur’an by a Muslim) actually is reminiscent of the Lord’s Prayer.

The Qur’an is literally a recitation but is now a book divided into chapters called Suras of varying length (which are each, roughly, separate revelations, although they are not necessarily revealed in one go). Each Sura has been given a title or titles by which Muslims refer to it that does not form part of the Qur'an itself.

Suras are further subdivided for convenience of referral into verses called ayyat (signs – singular ayya).

There is apparently assumed knowledge of a significant number of Biblical stories, which the Qur'an appears to consciously build upon. Stories of Arab tribes and prophets are also added. Everything from the flood story and the stories of Joseph, Jonah and Job to the story of Mary and Jesus are included.

It was roughly in its current form within a few years of Muhammad’s death. It was written on treated animal skin (known as vellum) at a time when paper was only known in China after having been collected from various more fragmentary sources.

All but one Sura begins, roughly, with the words (in Arabic) "in the name of the God the most gracious the most merciful (Bism allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim)". As a result, it became from the outset and has remained a tradition for Muslims to commence all serious communication that way. Some Muslims believe the Sura without the usual beginning was actually a continuation of the Sura that all other Muslims traditionally consider immediately precedes it.

Some Suras actually commence with letters that have never been understood and are seen as part of God's mystical version of Arabic. That is really just the beginning of problems of interpretation always admitted by Muslim scholars.

Its rhythm makes it relatively easy to memorise large parts of it even for children and many followers did memorise it from its first revelation.

Suras were not compiled in order of revelation.

Excepting the first quite short Sura, the longer Suras tend to be the earliest in the traditional ordering and Suras thus become mercifully shorter fairly reliably as the Qur'an proceeds. Today scholars recognise a kind of division into Meccan and Medinan Suras as useful for some forms of analysis, that is pre- and post-hijra. Meccan Suras tend to be more lyrical and less narrative than Medinan Suras. The reason appears to be the historical circumstances obtaining in the two periods. Some Western scholars have attempted to make a possibly more dubious distinction between early, mid and late Meccan revelations. A large traditional explicatory literature developed in early Islam which I will discuss in later posts.

Several modern English translations (especially those not written by Muslims) appear to deliberately interpret the Qur'an in ways that cast it in a poor light from a modern perspective. Traditionally, no translation from the Arabic can do it justice although translation by non-Muslim non-Arabs with axes to grind has occurred for hundreds of years. There are English versions that many Muslims prefer but as a non-Muslim, I am not going to recommend any versions. I WILL recommend that you double check any interpretation of any of the Qur'an that you don't like for any reason before condemning any particular part of the Qur'an. The following people have either written either sympathetic or accurate translations or commentaries in English: Muhammad Asad, A.J. Arberry, F. Rahman, Majid Fakhry and ‘Abdel Haleem.

Nevertheless, there is a lot I didn't like about the Qur'an, myself, probably due in part though to the, in my view, limited Penguin translation (by a non-Muslim scholar, NJ Dawood) that I read. I may explore some of that later.

I will consider the development of the law that developed based on the Qur’an and the life of Muhammad in more detail in later posts but first I will discuss the political developments following the death of Muhammad (beginning with the next post).

The "new religion" of Islam

Islam (arguably) began with a prophet, Muhammad, and has one major prophet (Muhammad). It holds that he (Muhammad) was favoured by the one true God (called Allah meaning simply 'the God'), who created the world and who was also preached about by and 'spoke to' Moses and Jesus (among others), with the words (and other signs such as 'mystical letters') that became known as the Qur’an (or Koran, especially in the old days). These words and signs are seen as the unaltered and unalterable works of God. As a result, while Islam respects other Holy Books, it sees the Qur’an as the most Holy Book. It also holds that Muhammad’s own words and actions (and omissions) are inspired by this God (as he was so honoured by the one true God as a sufficiently worthy and serious man) and therefore deserve to be taken especially seriously by Muslims. As a result, early Muslims collected examples from his life for the purpose of providing examples for good Muslims. The accepted versions are now called the true Hadith. The validity of many Hadith are widely and hotly disputed.

Islam was a reform of worship but also of social relations. It was a religion that taught a new respect for the rights of women and children as well as new concern for the poor. It taught that all Muslims were equal which also meant that clan allegiance was relatively subordinated to allegiance to the entire Muslim community.

And it taught that justice should no longer be a question of “might makes right” and random clan revenge and it provided a model state with powers of law enforcement directed personally against the actual perpetrator of crimes.

Islam now also has traditions of theological speculation and of mystical, spiritual exercises in order to in some way commune with Allah (Sufi traditions).

The Sufi emphasis on the relationship between one man (or woman) and God is clearly only part of the story of a religion. Islamic theological thinkers thus began to think about a man’s (or woman’s) relationship with the material world and other people. This is a political question. They started by developing two things: a new calendar (used in devotions) and a new legal philosophy (or jurisprudence).

Out of legal philosophy and theology sprung religious requirements, a legal system (or legal systems) of thought and ultimately legal requirements. These ideas about ways of behaving (and ways of requiring behaviour) came to solidify into a material culture or cultures that were therefore inspired by Islam.

Thus Islam has a reach that we can see today is religious, spiritual, intellectual, political, legal, social, environmental, economic, artistic and cultural but it is a religion.

Islamic daily practice from early on thus basically required three things: five prayers properly performed; some sex-based segregation and roles; and Islamic belief (all as determined by the thinkers of Islam).

The main beliefs were that there was one God only (called Allah), that he had sent prophets (including Moses and Jesus), that the Bible was also to be admired (as two Holy Books) and that He made humanity in order to have a relationship with it.

Islamic belief thus determined, required toleration of other ways of thinking and being. However, although quite democratic in spirit, Islam could also be used to justify things like toleration of dictatorship and despotism (provided it permitted Islam to be practiced).

Toleration of non-Muslims and adoption of scientific and technological thought-paradigms were perhaps naturally Islamic because early Islamic thinkers valued two things in particular: toleration and knowledge. This assessment of early Islam may surprise many in the West today and perhaps many modern Muslims. However, toleration was a specific feature of the early centuries of Islam actually not experienced as completely in the ‘Christian’ West at the time. This was not absolute, however.

There were also requirements to (if possible) complete one hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), to give to the less advantaged according to one's earnings and to perform the Ramadan fast and abstention from sex during the day time for the entire (lunar) month of Ramadan.

Belief was thus the foundation stone for the community which would meet together in prayer, in providing for the poor and needy, strangers, debtors and travellers (by means of a kind of voluntary flat income tax of around 2.5%), in fasting together (and then eating together) and in congregating together on pilgrimage.

Many of these kinds of habits will be recognised by Christians to have Christian equivalents. For instance, for some Christians Lent may still represent a period of fasting similar to the Ramadan fast. The requirement to tithe is similar to the zakat ‘voluntary tax’. Prayer is, of course, a common Christian practice and pilgrimages have also been a significant part of Christian history. So I will consider in later posts where the differences lie but also the similarities.

Muhammad and his Islam

The following is roughly the story-in-brief of Muhammad and his Islam (submission to God) as generally believed by Muslims:

Muhammad’s paternal grandfather was 'Abdul Muttalib, a leader of the ruling tribe at Mecca at Muhammad’s birth at Medina, who thus had some responsibility to maintain the Ka’ba. Muhammad was thus regarded as descended from Isma'il via his second son Kedar.

His character was well regarded early, he excelled in some sports and he entered the business of his family (predominantly trading in the Syrian caravan trade). His modest material fortunes commensurate with his family’s respected but not materially wealthy position improved when he was first employed by (in the Syrian trade) and then asked to marry an independent-minded and wealthy older widow named Khadija. She bore him two sons who died in infancy and four daughters of whom the youngest was Fatima (who would become the wife of ‘Ali and the mother of Hasan and Hussain, three important figures in the history of Islam).

Muhammad occasionally practiced retreats into remote locations in order to practice contemplation and prayer and on one of these retreats he apparently believed he had a revelation in a cave and visitation from an angel who mysteriously ordered him to 'recite' and to do it in the name of the creator of man. He was then 40 years of age and the year was 610 CE. The month of this first revelation is now known as Ramadan. He confided in his wife who believed Allah had sent a messenger and who also discussed the meaning of the event with her cousin, a Christian, who decided the visitor was Gabriel, who he said had also visited Moses. Khadija’s cousin also warned Muhammad to be prepared to be rejected by his people. Khadija thereafter became the first believer in the prophethood of Muhammad (perhaps even before Muhammad himself believed in it). She died while Muhammad was still in Mecca aged 65 nevertheless having suffered persecution with him in the meantime.

For three years he preached Islam relatively secretly and he gained around forty followers of Islam.

From there on it is believed he was required by the revelations to preach his monotheism openly and he immediately announced Islam as boldly as he was able in the local place used for major serious announcements. His message became inconvenient to senior people of commerce in Mecca and especially those associated with the worship of idols as well as the polytheism which had become a common tradition. Muslims were soon the object of harsh punishments and boycotts and torture in the desert surrounding Mecca.

Muhammad was even criticised within his sub-tribe, the Bani Hashim, by some of his uncles, one of whom also persecuted less well-connected Muslims more directly.

He had the personal support of the uncle who had raised him since the death of his parents and grandfather, which at first afforded him some protection. He advised several Muslims for whom the persecution had become too great to flee to Ethiopia in 615 CE. The Christian ruler kept around 100 Muslims under his protection there, despite requests for their extradition, as he recognised that the Muslims venerated Mary and Jesus.

Following this first emigration the non-Muslim leading family heads imposed a ban on contact with the Bani Hashim and Muttalib families.

In the year the three-year ban was lifted (620 CE) after the lifting of the ban, both his patron uncle, Talib, and beloved wife, Khadija, died. He remarried two wives in that year, a widow and a young child (Aisha) of a good friend, Abu Bakr, and had no other wives for several years. Having lost a patron, he sought support for his message and himself in the nearby city of Taif (mostly unsuccessfully but not completely). Around this time he claims to have been taken from Mecca to heaven (via Jerusalem, where he led several prophets including Jesus, Moses and Abraham in prayer) and where the requirement for five daily prayers was propounded by God (after some negotiation). He also confirmed the Muslim belief in Jinn after he had preached to a group of them near Taif and following the revelation of a Sura of the Qur’an concerning them and their practice of Islam (the Sura of the Jinn).

In this period he met at Mecca with several men of Yathrib at the time of the regular pilgrimage and six became converts and made specific pledges of loyalty to Muhammad. Before very long, there were nearly a hundred converts from Yathrib (which came to be called Medina by Muslims).

In around 622 CE, a plot to kill Muhammad was well advanced and he made plans to flee. In a cave near Mecca with Abu Bakr, he was close to being found out but was able to build one of the first mosques if not the first mosque nearby in Quba’ and make Medina after around two weeks to a rapturous reception. His other Meccan followers followed as soon as possible.

His leadership position at Medina was secured by a pact among all the inhabitants including Jews and other non-Muslims. Nevertheless, for five years he was forced to confront the warriors sent by Mecca to defeat him in a series of famed battles producing many Muslim martyrs.

A period of uneasy and undeclared truce followed these battles. He remarried several widows of the various battles and other women in around 626 CE thus providing his protection to them. Two, who were effectively slaves, he set free, a practice recommended in Islam.

In this period, the Muslims began to evangelise and fifty of these evangelists were martyred but many converts were made.

In about 628 CE, Muhammad even had the chutzpah to send letters to the rulers of Byzantium and the Persian Empire urging them to convert to Islam after the local truce was made more official. The Emperor, Heraclius, apparently acknowledged his prophethood in some form and the rulers of Ethiopia and Bahrain actually converted to Islam at around this time.

At the end of 629 CE, the Meccans were considered by Muslims to have ended the truce, however, by supporting an attack upon supporters of Islam with the result that Muhammad led an attack on Mecca with an army of three thousand Muslims of Medina and approaching ten thousand other Muslims.

He arrived peacefully in triumph and proceeded to knock down all of the idols in the Ka’ba. He also affirmed the inviolate holiness of Mecca as he had earlier for Medina and renounced any revenge. He declared that Mecca had always been, and would always be, especially holy.

The conversion of Mecca and Arabia in Muhammad’s time happened arguably without compulsion with almost a 100% success rate by about 630 CE including of Christians and Jews. A certain amount of ethnic cleansing of Jews occurred (later the early Caliph, 'Umar, basically banned those that remained from living in Arabia).

One more son was also born to Muhammad who also died in infancy. He now regarded Byzantium as a threat and prepared to defend his northern borders. In 632 CE, he performed his first and last formal pilgrimage to Mecca as a Muslim together with 120,000 other Muslims. He received his final revelation on that pilgrimage. Two months later he died in his home in Medina.

He lived frugally even during his period of rule and lived only to give support to his new Muslim community as well as his family and did not accumulate any substantial wealth to be inherited. He generally taught about respect for the downtrodden including women, the poor, the disenfranchised and slaves while he lived. In this respect he perhaps followed in the Arabic poetic tradition and perhaps extended it. He was not survived by any sons but his son-in-law ‘Ali, the husband of Fatima, and his descendents became prominent in Islam after Muhammad’s death.

Mecca (or Makkah) and Muhammad's life in summary

What kind of town was Mecca when Muhammad first came to live there (according to Ibn Khaldun, the 14th Century historian, it was originally called Bakkah and now many Arabs prefer to use the Romanisation Makkah or something like it)? It was the centre of a major and apparently annual Peninsula-wide poetry contest. Mecca itself did not produce many significant poets as it was a small settlement and certainly not as large as Medina which produced better poets. Poetry competitions had created over a little over a century a ‘competitive pressure’ for a relatively uniform Arabic language and the favoured dialect was centred on Mecca due to its preeminent competition. So Mecca was in a sense the centre of and springboard for a kind of early Arab nationalism.

Muhammad was born in 570 CE and began calling for a new emphasis in religion based upon what he believed were divine revelations to him in 610 CE when he was aged 40. He was forced to emigrate from Mecca (to Medina) in around August 622 CE. In the new lunar Islamic calendar developed about twenty-five years later (which is a few days shorter than our solar year in the West) this year came to be known as 1 AH (after hijra, hijra meaning emigration). Muhammad died in 632 CE (11 AH) thus ending the period of revelations.

So why did the emigration happen and what was Mecca’s religion that Muhammad wanted to reform? I’ve mentioned it was a trading centre and hub and it was on more than one caravan trade route. We know it held a major poetry competition. It was also served by a port near the modern-day port of Jeddah. There are several sea routes from the port to various parts of Africa and the Christian and Jewish faiths were known.

We also know at least three Goddesses were worshipped among other Gods and that Mecca was also associated with Abraham via a ‘miraculous’ and strong spring that is still apparently going strong today.

Abraham is traditionally the father of the Arabs (via his son Isma'il) and the association may well account for some of the prominence of Mecca as a major religious centre although there was also a tendency for all trading centres to also become religious centres in an otherwise rather lawless and ruthless part of Arabia (arguably for the sake of producing conditions conducive to trade). Trade was undertaken occasionally using the coinage of the northern Persian Sasanian and Byzantine Empires and of Egypt.

Traditionally Isma'il (or Ishmael), the son of Abraham and the first Arab, was able to create the spring as an infant (with Allah’s help) thus indicating today to many Muslims God’s favour bestowed on the Arabs and on Mecca. Only some of this tradition is actually contained in the Qur’an. Abraham and Ishmael are supposed to have built (or even re-built) the Ka’ba at Mecca, the latest version now being venerated in Islam as its most holy site.

Some of these events are re-enacted in the hajj period each year by millions of Muslims together. If possible, all Muslims are required to perform the pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

So Muhammad was dealing with a group of monotheisms that were all known of or practiced to some extent in or near Mecca as well as various polytheisms all occurring in one of the recognised homes of Abraham, a determined monotheist, and father of the Arabs. The major groups of monotheists in the area (especially in Yemen and in Medina, Khaybar and the so-called “Fertile Crescent” to the north), who may be expected to have disapproved of the rampant polytheism, included Jews, Christians and practitioners of an Ishmaelite version of Abrahamism, however it is possible that Allah or Yahweh (Jehovah) were more likely to be regarded as a chief rather than the sole God in Mecca itself.

Hence Muhammad's monotheistic teaching initially found more sympathy in Medina to which he fled in what is referred to as the hijra (there was an earlier Muslim hijra to the succour of Christian Ethiopia but Muhammad himself remained in Mecca on that occasion).

So Mecca was an ancient pilgrimage site but was not receptive of Muhammad's beliefs at first. Trade was good for the leaders of its great families, religion itself was profitable and Muhammad really wanted to rock that boat (and also address injustices that he saw (and saw God as asking him to address)). I'll discuss some of the details in the next post.

Arabia and its Neighbourhood in Muhammad's time

This is mainly a post on the significance of politics, social forms, culture and religion in the region in the time of Muhammad for our story.

As Muhammad was being born, the fates of two Empires to the north of Arabia were being decided by wars between them. They were the Persian Empire and Byzantium or the Eastern Roman Empire. The weakening of these empires by their wars was significant for the later military success of Islam.

Arabia was largely beyond the direct ambitions of either of the powers to the north. Nevertheless, they and their African allies attempted to exercise influence on Arabia as a trading and ideological/geopolitical asset. The Nabataeans of Petra who had originated in Yemen attempted for some time to exercise their influence to their south in the northern Hijaz town of Dedan and in other direction but the Romans had defeated that civilisation much earlier in the Common Era leaving Palmyra to the north of Petra independent for a short period. The Arab kingdom centred on Edessa was proud to have produced the first king to convert to Christianity (in the 1^st century). The Arab civilisation centred on Hatra allied itself more with Persia. Hira’s Arab rulers also preferred to deal with Persia as they amassed support in the interior of Arabia. The Kindah rulers of Yemen and the Ghassanid rulers of southern Syria swayed as necessary to maintain some independence.

While both Empires preferred monotheism (the Persians Zoroastrianism from the 3^rd Century CE and Byzantium Christianity from the 4^th Century CE) and the Arab rulers aimed to please their patrons for the time being, many of the people of the Arabian kingdoms continued to practice polytheism along with the monotheistic religions of the Empires and Judaism. Deities included the sun, the moon and stars and agriculture and weather Gods and Goddesses.

Al-Lat (mentioned by Herodotus) was one of the three Goddesses worshipped widely including at Mecca, at-Taif, Hatra, Petra and Palmyra.

Marriage customs varied between regions and polygyny (along with isolated cases of polyandry) were a reasonably common feature of social life on the Peninsula. Women were generally regarded as inferior and the property of their male ‘guardian’, as were children.

The major pre-Islamic art form unique to the Arabs was predominantly a Bedouin desert art: Arabic pre-Islamic poetry. It was generally meant to be sung and accompanied by instruments. There was little writing or literacy at the time these lyrical poems were composed and so poetry was handed down orally between the generations and perhaps refined and/or embellished from generation to generation until modern times. Genealogies were passed down in a similar way and were also prized by the Bedouins. Some of the poets were women whose speciality was often elegy (praise of a dead person).

The Ka’ba in Mecca, which is now the geographical focus of all Islamic prayer, contained hangings of at least seven noted long pre-Islamic poems (called the “mu’allaqāt” or “hangings”) written in gold leaf on calf-skin parchment before the time of Muhammad. Towns like Mecca held poetry contests probably open to all the Arab tribes of which the mu’allaqāt were likely the winners and Mecca’s was a major contest on the Peninsula. Arab high school children continue to learn a few of these poems in modern times.

The poetry had many uses but it was predominantly art, expressing the feelings of the poet and each poem tended to concern several themes rather than being focused on one (themes such as love, ego, eulogy, reconciliation, social criticism, political comedy, the meaning and arbitrariness of human life and death, loss, longing, hunting, justice, the past, wine and journeys through the harsh region). These works of poetry (and the poets) were dynamic and identified with the plight of the poor and the poets often lived their ideals by acting to right poverty or reconcile tribes at war. The Arabic word for poet (sha’ir) means literally “one who has deep feelings”. Muhammad was significantly thought by some of his earliest opponents to be a mere poet rather than a prophet.

Such was the world of 7th Century central Arabia. Open to many religions, trade, discussion of questions of justice and art but dominated by global geopolitical interests and not much more than a lawless land with some settlements (often with religious significance and therefore used as a place of sanctuary from their lawless surroundings) but dominated by itinerant tribes (I may discuss this further in a later post). The generally accepted rules of religious sanctuaries thus exerted a peaceful influence and therefore became useful places for these tribes to safely negotiate, stage caravans and trade.

Arabia in the beginning

The Arab language and Islam as we know it today both began in the Arabian Peninsula. So what did the Greeks know about this area before both spread far from it? Herodotus and Pliny knew of what was called Arabia Felix in Latin (beautiful or fertile/productive Arabia) - a place now occupied by the southern Arabian states of Yemen and Oman. This southern Arabian area experienced high rainfall (it still does) and significant civilisation, using a language and script related to the Arabic used further north, well before the time of Muhammad (indeed well before the Common Era there were significant civilisations there). Frankincense and Myrrh were grown there. Dates and coffee were endemic there and/or nearby. Pearls were also dived for off the southern and eastern seaboards of Arabia (up to around Bahrain in the East) from early times. Arabia was also situated on major sea routes (and land routes) linking great trading civilisations from China, South East Asia and India to Africa, Babylon, Persia and the Mediterranean.

Arabia was thought of as being something of an island bordered by the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Jordan River, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf, hence the news network Al Jazeera (the island).

Arabs well knew how to navigate about this island (pictured above) and beyond. They had occupied the Sinai and Eastern desert regions of Egypt as well as northern Iraq (also called by them al-Jazeera) and Syria and southern Turkey since before the time of Muhammad.

The Bab al-Mandab strait that separates Yemen from Djibouti has a width of about 30 kilometres and it is also dissected by islands thus permitting communion between Arabian and African flora and fauna (including humans) for millennia.

Arabia figures significantly in the culture of the region. There are traditions that both the Apostles (albeit briefly on the day of Pentecost as they spoke in many ‘tongues’) and Cleopatra spoke Arabic.

All in all, Arabia was well placed, once sea routes and land routes (after the Arabs domesticated the camel) became relatively easy, to participate centrally (certainly geographically) in the major Old world trading system and the traders also brought their ideas (and religious beliefs) to Arabia.

Makkah (Mecca), at-Taif, Yathrib (which became Medina) all in the Hijaz (and the Hijaz generally) were the most immediate settings of early Islam so here's a brief overview of this specific part of the Arabian Peninsula:

The Western seaboard of the Arabian Peninsula was watered by rivers, springs and rain which permitted a degree of fertility and trade routes naturally therefore passed through it, of all possibilities in the otherwise somewhat desiccated central part of Arabia, given the position of Arabia on the larger trade routes mentioned above. The name al-Hijaz (the barrier) refers also to the mountain range in western Arabia that somewhat separates the Hijaz region from the rest of Arabia (and prevents rain-laden clouds penetrating to the interior of the Peninsula).

Petra is in this mountain range further north and it also extends south to Yemen where it becomes a more formidable barrier certainly in terms of height. It includes Dedan (north of Medina) - an early major town of the region mentioned in Ezekiel 38:13, Sheba to the south in modern day Yemen and Tarshish (believed to be Tarsus in southern Asia Minor to the north).

The Arabian Peninsula contained settled areas but also the shifting homes of the domesticators of the camel vital for the caravan trade that passed through the Hijaz, the Bedouin tribes.

Mecca, where Muhammad spent much of his youth, was not a typical oasis town of the west of Arabia as it was in a mountainous setting but it possessed a powerful spring with a tradition of being miraculous and traditionally associated with the family of Abraham. By Muhammad’s (the alleged final Prophet of Islam’s) time it was therefore a thriving commercial town, pilgrimage centre and caravan hub under the protection of and in compliant awe of its Gods. I will write more about its religions in later posts.

Muslims Today

The “Islamic World” is a bit more complicated still than the Middle East or the Arab world but it also exists in some sense as a relevant identity (and perhaps region) and it is worth considering what our ideas are before we begin to study a history. The Islamic World can be said to exist today both within and outside the Middle East. However, even Middle Eastern states tend to have a diversity of external orientations according to their geopolitical interests rather than the interest of either Arab or Islamic unity.

Islam is a form of theism and a system of other beliefs derived from the interpretation of and attempt to ‘live out’ the requirements of a set of scriptures. Early on, various Islamic thinkers also developed Islamic legal philosophy which remains important to Islam today and in politics. And it has a politics (and a culture or, more precisely, cultures but, note, many histories, too).

There have been two significant large ‘Islamic’ Empires covering large parts of the Middle East for extended periods: the 'Arab' Caliphate or Caliphates (including even parts of Western Europe for part of its life/their lives) from around 700 CE to around 1,300 CE and a Turkish Empire more recently (which included parts of Eastern but not Western Europe). You will notice that I need to use inverted commas often to hopefully make clear in the long run that any unified understanding of this history may risk oversimplification. Beyond the Middle East there have also been a variety of Islamic Empires and polities.

The Middle East (and beyond) experienced much variety in these Islamic histories but we should also note that most of the Islamic world was ruled in some form by capitalist European colonialists in the 19th and early 20th Centuries (towards the end of the period of the Turkish Ottoman Empire). And that the Islamic world also has exportable oil.

The Islamic World extends, as I've said, far beyond the Middle East. It extends to much of Africa, to Central Asia as far as China and Russia (and including parts of those states), to South East Asia and to various communities (both Arab and non-Arab and both Diaspora and indigenous) throughout the world including in Europe, Australia and the USA.

In some cases, even in minority communities there are huge numbers of Muslims. For example, there are around 200 million Muslims in Hindu India; roughly as many as there are in the entire Arab World. And what makes a Muslim? We need to consider the phenomenon of the ‘nominal’ Muslim as we do the nominal Christian. If we do, there may actually be many more ‘true’ Indian Muslims than there are ‘true’ Muslims in the Arab World.

There are several sub-regions that I will later find convenient to separate for the purposes of discussion of their regional Islamic histories, that have had both an Islamic and Arab influence for many centuries in West Asia and Africa. They are Arabia, the Near East of West Asia (including the 'Fertile Crescent'), Egypt, Nilotic Sudan, the Maghreb (North African states other than Egypt), Central Sudan and Western Sudan. These last two are both to the West of the modern state of Sudan.

This 'central' Islamic group of distinct zones circles and crosses the Sahara and abuts the Mediterranean and Arabia and the Ethiopic and Swahili regions of East Africa bordering the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

I will discuss the development of Islam in these regions in some depth in later posts.

Now let’s begin to concern ourselves with the whys and wherefores of the origins of the Islam we may fear. Islam had a setting that informs it as surely as any set of ideas and its environment engage in a dialogue to arrive at a final compatible mutual synthesis. For our purposes, let’s begin by considering (in the following posts) the nature of the Arabia that Islam came to infuse with itself and in turn be infused with.

Arabs Today

The next set of ideas that I suggest we consider concern who the Arabs, the people we may think brought Islam into the world and may have negative views of, are. We may think of Arabs as being one race and see the Middle East as the Arab East but we would be wrong on both counts.

Arab is more of a cultural/linguistic term as it describes a person of any ethnicity who makes cultural and general use of the Arab language (Iranians mostly speak Farsi, Jews usually speak Hebrew and Turks generally prefer Turkish). Further to that, as I mentioned in the last post, the Middle East also includes Iran, Turkey and Israel and most Iranians, Turks and Jews don't consider themselves Arabs as they don't tend to speak Arabic.

Please also note that Arab also doesn’t necessarily mean Muslim. The language may come from the Arabian Peninsula and so does Islam but not all Arabs today are Muslim. Arabs at the time of Muhammad, the prophet who expounded the religion now called Islam, were Christians or Jews or humanists or worshipped one or more of various deities. This group’s language came to be used far outside Central Western Arabia (where it was mainly restricted at the time of Muhammad, who lived there) for reasons we will soon discuss, by many others who were not Muslim. Many Arabs today are not Muslim. Arabs today are of various Asian, African and European/Mediterranean 'races'.

So there are Arabs of other races and Arabs who are not Muslim but there are also many non-Arabs in the Middle East (just to reiterate and add yet more groups). There are, besides Persians, Turks and Jews, Circassians and many other groups that speak various other languages. So the ‘Arab’ Middle East is made of much more than one race of Arabs, and non-Arabs besides.

I mention here that today the Jews in Israel are a special case for the Arabs, however, as many Arabs see the Jewish state of Israel as a European colony and so hope it will be disbanded as all the others have been, essentially. I will explore this special relationship with those Jews, and whether Arabs (and Muslims) are anti-Semitic, in due course.

So, the 'Arab' Middle East is not uniquely homogeneous or Arab; in fact it tends to not be. But there is an “Arab World” within the Middle East (excluding Turkey, most of Israel and Iran, essentially) and that term refers to the region where a form of Arabic is the usual official language.

Even this area is far from unified and sub-regions are diverse in many ways (not least in (especially oil) wealth).

The Arab League now has 22 member 'states' (including Palestine). A few of the countries (i.e. Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia) are very border-line as to whether they would truly be considered part of the so-called 'Arab World' but it apparently suits all the Arab League members that they are included in the League.

So the Arab world is not a unified region any more than the Middle East is and probably much less than Europe is today in many ways. Nevertheless it shares an identity and history and heritage (along with a variety of religions, sects and cults). We need to bear this in mind when we consider the view that, for example, there is one powerful enemy in it, or in the Middle East, seeking to destroy the West.

The Middle East Today

So, let’s take a look at Islam, what it was when it began and what it became. First, though, in this post, let’s take a look at some of our ideas about a part of the world that has always seemed threatening to Europeans. Islam started in what we call in the West the Middle East and is still largely associated with the Middle East. But why do we call it that and what is it? The idea of the Middle East is quite recent and it is a geopolitical idea. Originally it was possibly used by the British navy for strategy and to mean a much more restricted area than it is now used for (centred on Eastern Arabia). But now it seems a much more loaded term. Why? Perhaps we will need to consider Islam as a political force for reasons both within and outside Islam, in the context of European colonialism and de-colonisation and American policy. Before that we will need to consider the politics of the Crusades and before that the politics of what happened at the very beginning. They will be coming in posts soon. Religion can not be divorced from politics ever, can it? If a God or any prophet comes to earth he or she (or it) still needs to convince people in order to establish a religion and that’s politics. And what becomes of those convinced people?

As an example of how we in the West have a special interest in understanding this region, today the New South Wales police claim to use the descriptor "of Middle Eastern appearance" as an aid to policing. I now want to raise the question, though, can a religiously, linguistically and ethnically diverse population from around 25 modern states in North Africa and West Asia now all be seen from the outside as “of Middle Eastern appearance”? Why do we think it can be?

The Middle East is generally accepted today to mean countries of West Asia and including Turkey and perhaps Egypt but for some it includes the remaining North African states today, too. Some writers include some countries of the Caucasus (the today somewhat troubled region between the Black and Caspian Seas including 'Middle Eastern' Armenia, Nakhchivan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Adjara and Azerbaijan) in their definition of the Middle East (thus up to but not including the also troubled Georgia).

Please note that places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia may be nearby but are not officially Middle Eastern; they are linked by Islam and by regional history, of course, to the today largely Arab but also notably Persian, Turkish and Jewish Middle East. Today in fact the Middle East probably seems to many in the West to refer more or less exclusively to Israel-Palestine and to problems and enemies and friends such as enemy Saddam's Iraq, Ahmadinijad's Iran, perhaps Gaddafi's Libya and friend Israel and, cautiously, Turkey. I will seek in later posts to get behind these common views and to the true state of the region.