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.