Muhammad and Islam

The prophet
The Arab Conquests
Islamic rule
Religion
 Southern borderlands of the Roman & Persian Pre-Islamic
civilizations
Arabia

Bedouin tribes mixed herding – dates staple

Our business is to make raids on the enemy, on our

neighbors, and on our kinsmen - in case we find
none to raid but kinsmen

Rules about killing and stealing

No written laws, but custom: the vendetta a

“pillar” of Bedouin society

No painting or architecture – poetry

Bedouins practiced infanticide

The veil custom

 The caravan trade with Damascus

mecca
ad 570
The Kaaba

Bedouins were pagan

Name of chief god

Early importance of pilgrimages to

the Kaaba
 Mecca

Artist rendition in 1850

 b. 570 d. 632
The Historical
Muhammad
Sources

Orphaned – joined uncle’s caravans to Syria

Learns of monotheism

Married Khadijah

Children - Fatima
 “Glorious Being”
the First
“Revelation”
610 Reactions: Khadijah and Waraqah

Abu Bakr converts

Preaching, reaction of Meccan elite

Revelations later compiled by Caliph Uthman -

the Koran
 Teaching Early Prophethood
• Apocalyptic prophet – “warner” 610-622
• Monotheism
• Hellfire, paganism condemned
• Wealthy “niggardly”
• Seal of the prophets
• Sons abandon fathers’ religion
• Ancestors attacked

 Meccan reaction
• Amusement
• Anger
• The faithful persecuted

 Abu Talib – protection

The Temple Mount
  Deaths of Khadija & Abu Talib
crisis  The Night Journey (621)

 The Hijra (622)

• The “Flight to Yathrib” 622
• 1 AH (2017 – 1395)

 Al qaeda (caravan raids)

Buraq
“The Beautiful-faced” Creature”

 Medina’s three Jewish clans wooed

• The qibla faced Jerusalem
• Islam’s dietary laws, sabbath, observances

 Jews decline to join new religion

 The city of the prophet
Medina
 First blood shed – (jihad)

 Battle of Badr

 Death of the Poets (Abu Afak, Asma bin Marwan, K’ab al-Ashraf)

 Uhud, 626 – defeat, Muhammad wounded (Khalid al-Walid)

 Raids on surrounding settlements: All of Arabia united in Islam (Jews

expelled)

 Battle of the Trench (execution of the Bani Qurayza)

 Treaty of Hudaybiyya, Khaybar Raid, Surrender of Mecca (630)

 The Kaaba (minus its 360 idols): Islam’s pilgrimage destination

In last two years, Muhammad ordered raids into Syria; beginning of Arab conquests
- three choices: convert, pay jizya (tax), or fight
 Later years
 Wives
• Aisha of
• Um-Habib (sister of Muawiya)
• Zainab (Surah 33:37-38) Muhammad
• Safiya (father the Khaybar chieftain)
• Juwayriya bint al-Harith (Mustaliq raid)
632
• Others

The Koran on succession

Abu Bakr – the first caliph

(Ali objects)

Ali’s claim ultimately creates minority sect (Shia)

Civil war

All Muhammad’s descendants are descended from

Fatima – all killed at the Battle of Karbala
 Debated
 Greater and lesser jihad
 Violent: defensive
 Mandatory or voluntary Jihad
Invite all to the way of your Lord with wisdom and
beautiful preaching (K16:125)
and Let there be no compulsion in religion
(K2:256)

Foundation text of the Muslim conquests:

When the sacred months are past [following a
truce] kill the idolaters wherever you find them,
and seize them, besiege them and lie in wait for
them in every place of ambush; but if they repent,
pray regularly and give the alms tax [convert],
then let them go their way “Sword verse” 9:5 Prophet Muhammad: 622-632
Patriarchal Caliphate: 632-661
Umayyad Caliphate: 661-750
 The Arab Conquests
the patriarchal Caliphate
632-661

Caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar expand “by the sword”

Abu Bakr reestablished control and expands the caliphate

Khalid al-Walid (the “Sword of Islam”) defeated Heraclius at the Yarmuk River

Damascus, Jerusalem, then the cities of Syria and Palestine fall

The Sassanid Empire and Egypt fall to the Arabs

The Umayyad Caliphate, with their capital in Damascus extend conquest to the east, North
Africa and Spain

(In 711, Tariq ibn Ziyad led a force across the Strait of Gibraltar)

contemporary records or descriptions of the Muslim conquests

The battle of the Yarmuk River
636

“Without the leadership of Khalid ibn al-Walid, the ‘Sword of Allah,’ the armies of
Islam may have been destroyed and the religion would have been consigned to
the dustbin of history as a failed heterodox movement.”
 Chronology of the Arab
Conquests
 Muslim era begins
• Heraclius launches Persian expedition
• Muhammad fled Mecca to Medina
 Mecca surrenders to Muhammad
 Patriarchal - Muslim conquests begin
• Damascus
• Jerusalem
• Syria
• Egypt and Armenia
• Sassanid Empire
 Civil War
 Umayyad Calipate
• Afghanistan and Eastern India (the Punjab)
• North Africa
• Spain
• Battle of Poitiers
 Abu Bakr died, Umar assassinated Civil war:
Uthman compiled the first Koran, also assassinated Origin of Shiite
“Heresy”
656-661
Ali - fourth caliph, last Rashidun, first imam of Shia Islam
assassinated

Muawiyah of Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe establishes

(first Arab and Sunni dynasty

The Shiites supported Ali's sons: Hasan and Husayn

Husayn killed by Yazid I at Karbala

Have nothing to do with those who split their

religion into sects. Allah will call them into
account. (K 6:159)
 Conversion – By the sword?
 Non-believers die, convert, or submit (Sura 9:5)
 Arab warriors at first live in garrisons
• Separate from conquered peoples
• Did not seek to convert the native population
 Depopulation not profitable
 Non-Arab inferior
 Jizya - tax for non-believers
 Dhimmi status

 After 750, conquered peoples gradually convert

• Tax relief
• Privileges of Muslims advantageous
• Christian and Jewish minorities remain
Spread of Islam: jihad, plunder, vacuum of power (Byzantium, Persia) – most converts were from Christianity,
especially the Monophysites (i.e. Syria nearly 100%)
 Hidden Imam – Shia doctrine Shiite and
Sunni
The largest of three Shia groups is the
Twelvers

The Mahdi

Twelver Shia - Iran’s Safavid dynasty

and present-day Iran

Shiites the majority in Iraq

Most Muslims are Sunni

(about 90%)
 Capital - Damascus
The Umayyad Byzantine and Persian administrative and tax
Caliphate structures maintained
661-750

“People of the Book” (dhimmis) paid the jizya

The Covenant of Umar

The largest empire to that time in history, with

lands ranging from Spain to the borders of
modern-day China

Arabization
 Salema (Islam) peace and submission

Religion Koran (Quran/Qur’an)

Umma , no priests - ulemas, imams in Shia Islam

Salvation

Infidels to burning hell

Children Muslim at birth

The shahada
Sources of Truth (revealed
by Allah):
Koran Salafism; mansukh; taqiyya
Sirah
Hadith
Sharia

Punishment for apostasy - death

 Islam is theocratic – the umma
Practices of
Twenty-eight prophets before Muhammad
(Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Dhul-Qarnayn) Islam

Day of Judgment - Paradise and Hell

Islam forbids eating pork, drinking alcohol, gambling

(Sura 5:90), lending at interest (usury), homosexuality,
and infanticide

Encourages just treatment of slaves, orphans, and

widows
Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount)
built by Umayyad Caliph Malik in
691
Men permitted four wives, unlimited concubines, and
divorce - women must cover themselves in public
(K 33:59)
The Five Pillars
 The shahada

 Prayer facing Mecca (x5 daily)

 The zakat

 Fasting during Ramadan

 Hajj
 Hadith – oral traditions (i.e. Aisha)
Sunna to
Six sahih collections of hadith
Sharia
Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim
&The
Hadith
Sunna (Hadith + Sirah)

Sharia, from sunna

No civil or human rights – no secular law

Consensus

Shiites reject Sharia and accept only the Koran

 What it is, when compiled

The AD 691 inscriptions (Dome of the Rock)

Koran Al-Fatiha - the basis of Muslim prayer

”This book is not to be doubted … as for unbelievers …
grievous punishment awaits them” (K 2:1)

It is He who has sent forth His apostle with guidance and the
True Faith that he may exalt it above all religion (9:33)

Sura 5:35: As for the man or woman who is guilty of theft, cut
off their hands to punish them for their crimes.

Suras generally
arranged from Only to be read in Arabic
longest to shortest
Arabic the language of the Muslim world and heaven
 The Koran
Unbelievers
Universal love?

“Allah does not love the unbelievers” (3:32)

The unbelievers are like beasts which, call out to them as one may, can
hear nothing but a shout and a cry (2:171)

The Christians – idolaters

Those to whom the burden of the Torah was entrusted and yet refused
to bear it are like a donkey … Wretched [are] ... those who deny
Allah’s revelations (62:5)
 The Koran
women
Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the
other … good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah
has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them,
forsake them in beds apart, and beat them (4:34)

Wives – Muhammad's wives - Aisha*

The woman is not only supposed to cover herself, except with family and slaves, but
to look down, so as to avoid making eye-contact with men:

And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their
private parts and do not display their finery … and let them wear their head-
coverings over their bosoms, and not display their finery except to their husbands or
[list of close family members] or those whom their right hands possess, or the male
servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained
knowledge of what is hidden of women (24:31)
 the Koran
“People of the book”

Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels and those who were given the book
before you (5:56)

The Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say the Messiah is the son of
Allah. Such are the words they utter with their mouths, by which they emulate the
infidels of old. Allah confound them! How perverse they are! (9:27)

They make of their clerics and their monks, and of the Messiah, the son of Mary, Lords
besides Allah; tough they were ordered to serve one Allah only. There is no Allah but
Him Exalted be He above those they deify besides Him. They would extinguish the light
of Allah with their mouths (9:31).

Had it been Allah’s will to adopt a son, He would have chosen whom He pleased out of
this Creation. But Allah forbid. He is Allah, the One, the Almighty (39:7).
 People of the book verses

Allah tells Muhammad. “Say: Shall I tell you who will receive a worse reward from
Allah? Those whom Allah has cursed and with whom he has been angry
[presumably since he gave them the Torah and the Second Commandment for
instance], transforming them into apes and swine, and those who serve the devil.
Worse is the plight of these, and they have strayed farther from the right path.
When they came to you they said: ‘We are believers [as opposed to pagans].
Indeed, infidels they came and infidels they departed” (5:60)

It is He who has sent forth His apostle with guidance and the True Faith that he
may exalt it above all religion, though the idolaters hate it (9:33)
 The Koran
Tolerance

Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out

clear from Error: whoever rejects Evil and believes in Allah
has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never
breaks. (Surah 2:256)

But

Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God’s

religion shall reign supreme (Surah 8:39)
 Jihad verses
You may fight against the idolaters in [the sacred] months, since they
themselves fight against you in all of them (9:36)

Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Days, and who do not
forbid what has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, and those
among the People of the Book who do not acknowledge the religion of
truth until they pay tribute (jizya], after they have been brought low (9:29)

Muhammad is Allah’s apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the
unbelievers, but merciful to one another (48:29)

Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels.
Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers“ (8:12)
 The Koran
paradise
Technically none but good Muslims enter (or martyrs) – open to only those People of
the Book who came BEFORE Muhammad

Allah has promised the men and women who believe in Him gardens watered by running
streams, in which they shall abide for ever: goodly mansions in the ;gardens of Eden:
and, what is more, they shall have grace in Allah’s sight. That is the supreme triumph
(Sura 19:72).

But for those who fear the majesty of their Lord there are two gardens … therein are
bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before (S 55)

But the true servants of Allah shall be well provided for, feasting on fruit, and honored in
the gardens of delight. Reclining face to face upon soft couches, they shall be served with
a goblet filled at a gushing fountain, white, and delicious to those who drink it. It will
neither dull their senses nor befuddle them. They shall sit with bashful, dark-eyed virgins,
as chaste as the sheltered eggs of ostriches (S 37:48)
 Paradise verses
As for the righteous, they shall surely triumph. Theirs shall be gardens
and vineyards, and high-bosomed maidens for companions: a truly
overflowing cup (S 78:31)

O you who believe! Shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from
a painful torment? That you believe in Allah and His Messenger , and
that you strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with your wealth and
your lives … He will forgive you your sins, and admit you into Gardens
under which rivers flow, and pleasant dwellings (S 61:10)
The Peak of Islamic power

Umayyad Caliphate
Moorish Spain
Abbasid Caliphate
Fatimid Egypt
The Seljuk Turks
The Ottoman Empire
The Abbasid Abbasid clan (related to the prophet’s clan)

Caliphate
As-Saffah invites all remaining Umayyads to a
750-1258
feast

Abd al-Rahman establishes independent

Umayyad rule in Spain

Abbasid capital, Baghdad on the Tigris River

Persianization of Islamic civilization - Arab

monopoly on power in Islam broken
Cordoba, the capital, Europe's largest Al-Andalus -
city
Moorish Spain
Cordoba - Greek learning

Averroes and Moses Maimonides

Relative religious tolerance of

Christians and Jews until fanatical
Almohad rule

Moor rule Spain until Columbus

The Alhambra
 Arabic Learning
 Harun al Rashid

 Saracens – civilization; the West in the “Dark Ages”

 Avicenna: Combined Aristotelian and Neoplatonism with Islamic ideas

 Omar Khayyam: polymath (mathematics, astronomy, medicine, poetry, etc.)

 Arabian Nights (Thousand and One Nights)

 Eleventh century Sunni al-Mawardi

• Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb
• Umma to expand

 Jihad
• Warfare
• The Greater Struggle: be a good Muslim; a spiritual fight
 Pastoral nomads from Central Asia
Fatimids
Great Seljuk Sunni sultanate rival of the Fatimid Egypt
and Seljuk
Turks
Hakim “the Insane” - Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Battle of Manzikert

Turkish occupation of Anatolia - the Crusades

Mamluks

Created a bureaucratic system adopted by the Ottoman Turks

- basis of governmental administration in the Middle East until
modern times
 Abbasid caliphs lost religious Political
authority
Breakup
Umayyads continued to rule Spain, in
Egypt a Shiite Fatimid Mamluk caliph
took power

In Baghdad the caliph came under

control of its Seljuk slave soldiers

In 935 the Turkish soldiers held real

political power
 Mongol In 1258, Hulegu destroyed Baghdad

Invasions;
Collapse of
Abbasid
Hulagu's forces were defeated at Ain
Dynasty Jalut

Osman, Seljuk chieftain, founded the

Ottoman Empire
 Islam Today

Muslim population of the world: About 1.7 billion

 Conclusion
Rooted in Judaic and Hellenistic traditions - belief in Allah’s final
truth, duty bring this to all humanity

Islamic identity is RELIGION (not national) and political (the

umma); superior to all other religions

Infidel under Islamic rule

 Christians and Jews (dhimmis pay jizya)
 Polytheists (pagans) – convert or die

Faithful under infidel: taqiyya