Islam – Muhammad’s Influence

You can't understand the religion of Islam unless you understand its Prophet Muhammad who lived from 570 AD until his death in 632 AD. For this post I will discuss the central figure for the religion of Islam Muhammad. Muhammad was the one man who brought the Arab world out of a pagan religious system. He is the visionary who claimed to receive special revelation from God delivered by the angel Gabriel. He was the religious, political, military and judicial leader of the Islamic community, and ruled without challenge. And so, he continues as the strongest influence in the Arab world. His example is what is viewed in the Arab world as the best model.

 

However, although Muhammad is viewed as an ideal of what a man (and not a woman) can accomplish, he also heavily influenced future Muslim generations continuing through today. Some of his actions which continue to be followed in the Islamic world include:

 

• His healthy sexual appetite (he had somewhere between 11 and 16 wives), led to his revelation that Paradise (the Islamic description of Heaven) is a place of sexual delights;
  
• He warred and killed his fellow tribesman, the Meccans. We see this continue as those in Afghanistan and Iraq have no qualms about killing fellow Muslims of different beliefs;
  
• He ordered the killing of hundreds of Jews who refused to accept his revelation as the new revelation from God to replace the Old and New Testaments. And the hatred between Muslims and Jews continues to grow;
  
• His leadership as the religious, political and judicial leader of the community is the basis for today's Islamic nations combining all of these under one leader;
  
• The cities that are most important in the Islamic world are those that were important to Muhammad – Mecca is where he was born, and all Muslims are commanded to make a pilgrimage their at least once in their lifetime. And Jerusalem is also important where he had a dream/vision, see below.
  

 

Muhammad – The last and greatest prophet according to Muslims. He is also viewed in Islam as being the "best model for man in piety and perfection. He is a living proof of what man can be and of what he can accomplish in the realm of excellence and virtue." – Abdalati.

1. Muhammad is not viewed as being divine, nor a Son of God. He is not likened to Christ, which explains the Muslims aversion to a term such as 'Muhammadans'. Although he is not worshipped, he is venerated.
   
   1. But Muslims are more devoted to Muhammad than even to their god Allah. Remember Allah is viewed as being impersonal, and even capricious. "Love of the Prophet runs like blood in the veins of the community…You can deny God, but you cannot deny the Prophet!" – Schimmel.
      
   2. "Muslims will allow attacks on Allah: there are atheists and atheistic publications, and rationalistic societies in Arab cities: but to disparage Muhammad will provoke from even the most 'liberal' sections of the community a fanaticism of blazing vehemence." – Wilfred Cantwell Smith
      
2. Miracles performed by Muhammad? He stated that his only miracle that he performed is the Qur'an itself –When challenged to perform miracles by unbelievers, he could not (3:181-184, 4:153, and 6:8-9). No miracles by Muhammad are in the Qur'an.
   

• But the Hadiths (the
  
• example and tradition of Muhammad) tell stories of many miracles performed by Muhammad, including healing a companion's broken leg, providing water to 10,000 troops, turning water into milk, trees spoke with and saluted him, and feeding of large numbers of people. Reported miracles in the Hadiths were written at least 250 years after the death of Muhammad.
  
• Most Muslim scholars reject the vast majority of Hadith stories of miracles as not being authentic.
  

 

1. The Life of Muhammad.
   

Muhammad was born in 570 AD in Mecca. He was born in a well to do family, but his parents died while he was very young. He was brought up by his grandfather, as a shepherd. Later he became a camel driver, and at age 25 he married a wealthy widow, Khadija. At the age of 40 he claims to have been visited by the angel Gabriel (who is an angel described in Christian/Jewish religion). The message he received is the essence of the Qur'an. At first, he was deathly afraid that it was a visit from an evil spirit. But his wife convinced him that it was a message from Allah.

 

Muhammad's greatest directive was that of monotheism, preaching that there is only one God, named Allah. He also challenged the moral decadence, superstition, and idol worship of Mecca. While in Mecca, he began attracting a small group of followers, which caused the city leaders to begin persecution of Muhammad. It was at this point that Muhammad preached that the favorite deities worshipped in Mecca al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat could be considered divine beings whose intercession was effectual with God. This is what is referred to as the "Satanic Verses", and were later taken out and replaced in the Qur'an with sura 53:19-23.

 

Khadija died in 619 AD. After this Muhammad had a dream/vision where he took a journey into heaven where he was taken there by Gabriel from Mecca to Jerusalem (which explains the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims) and then through the 7 heavens. In the heavens he visited all of the previous prophets (Jesus was in the 2^nd heaven, Moses in the 6^th, and Abraham in the 7^th). Finally he was taken to the presence of Allah and received the specific procedures for Islamic worship of daily prayers. Many Muslim authorities consider this purely a spiritual event.

 

News of the fantastic mystical experience spread, and even many of the faithful began to doubt the prophet's truthfulness. Without much success in Mecca, Muhammad searched for other areas eventually leading him to use Medina, which is 200 miles north of Mecca. Failed assassination attempt upon Muhammad, and his father-in-law Abu Bakr. In 622 AD the Hijra (Flight) was when Muhammad and approx. 150 followers left to Medina. This is the beginning of the Islam calendar.

 

In Medina, this began a new period in Islamic history. He organized raids on caravans travelling to Mecca. Early raids were unsuccessful. This was the period when Jews living in Medina rejected Muhammad's audacious claim of being the true prophet. This was when he instructed his followers to face Mecca rather than Jerusalem. In 624, at the Battle of Badr Muhammad had 300 men to a Meccan force of 950, and was still able to win. This allowed Muhammad to implement a systematic elimination of all opponents in Medina. Included in these eliminations was his ordered assassination of poets who satirized him.

 

But in 625, Muhammad suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Uhud. Again outnumbering Muhammad's forces 3,000:1,000, the Meccans won after the Median archers abandoned their position against Muhammad's order to share in the plunder. This led to Muhammad expelling a 2^nd Jewish tribe, and taking all of their possessions.

 

In 627, Mecca decided to do away with Muhammad by laying siege to Medina. But because of a trench around the city, the Meccans were unable to break into Medina and withdrew after two weeks. This further strengthened Muhammad, and so he attacked the 3^rd and final Jewish tribe in Medina because of a suspected (made up?) plot with the Meccan enemies. All of the Jewish men were killed, and all of the women and children were placed into slavery. This was his greatest disappointment (the rejection by the Jews of his prophetic authority), which led to the fixed axiom that the Jews were the sworn enemies of Allah and His revelation.

 

Finally in 628 the Meccans made a peace treaty with Medina. The treaty was broken due to complex clan wars. Muhammad took advantage of this and attacked Mecca who surrendered to him with little opposition. Muhammad showed great restraint by offering a general amnesty to all of the leaders. After this, Islam quickly spread throughout the entire Arabian area. Muhammad died in June 632, at the age of 63. After this, one of his father-in-law's (Muhammad was married 11-14 times) Abu Bakr became the 1^st Caliph.

 

He won as a convert a man named Ali who later married Muhammad's daughter Fatima. They had two sons Hasan and Husain. Husain later became the third imam of the Shiites, who revere him.

 

That's all for now. May God bless you today in the growing knowledge of His love expressed through His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.