A Clash of Civilisations: Christianity & Islam Part 1 – The Life of Muhammed
Dear Reader,
With the recent beheadings and shootings in France, Islam – or at least that radical expression of it known as Islamism - has forced its way back into the headlines and tv news programmes of the western world. Truth be told though, it has never been far from the news for the last fifty years. From the days of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Black September terrorist groups in the 1970s, through to current groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and Al-Shabab, the last fifty years has been peppered with incidents and wars inspired by Islam. These recent iterations of Islamic violence are symptomatic of an approach to advancing the faith that goes back to the earliest days of Islam and the example of their prophet Muhammed himself. Warfare and conquest are in the Islamic DNA.
Islam was born in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century after Christ. The dominant powers of the region were the Roman empire of the East (the Byzantine empire, centred in Constantinople) and the Persian empire of the Sasanian dynasty. These two empires had fought each other to a standstill, exhausting their strength and creating a power vacuum. Christianity was the predominant religion of the Roman empire, as it had been for four centuries. In the Persian empire Zoroastrianism was the official religion, though the Christian church was also widespread and active. Conversely, within the Arabian peninsula polytheism, the worship of many ancestral gods and goddesses, was still prevalent. It was within this political and religious milieu that Muhammed was to develop his message and create his religious community.
Muhammed was born in the city of Mecca circa 570 into a leading family of the prominent Quraysh tribe but was orphaned at the age of six after the deaths of his parents. He was raised first by his grandfather and later by his uncle, with whom he went on trading trips from his early teens onward. Acquiring a good reputation for skill and integrity he received a marriage proposal from a prominent businesswoman named Khadijah in 595. Muhammed accepted the proposal and entered into what is believed to be a happy marriage until her death in 619. Khadijah was the first of Muhammed’s followers to recognise him as a prophet. After the death of Khadijah Muhammed quickly re-married, first Sawda in 619 and eleven more times over the next decade. At the time of his death in 632 he had married thirteen times and had ten living wives. Aisha, the youngest of his wives, was eighteen years old at the time of his death and had been married to Muhammed for nine years. Her father, Abu Bakr, became Muhammed’s successor as first Caliph of the Muslims and she herself was a potent force in early Islamic life, the source of over 2000 sayings (hadiths) of Muhammed, which helped expand and define Islamic customs and practices.
A spiritual man, Muhammed had the practice of retiring to a cave for an extended period every year to pray alone where, in the year 610, he received an angelic revelation. After a three year hiatus the revelations resumed and continued for the rest of his life. These revelations form the basis of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. From 613 Muhammed began to preach in public in Mecca. His message was not well received at first and only a few began to follow him. The disinterest shown by most Meccans turned to hostility when he began to preach monotheism and the abandonment of idols. Mecca was a centre of worship for over 360 local and regional divinities and had grown wealthy on the back of pilgrimage and cult worship. His message cut to the heart of the city’s source of income.
Preaching monotheism, Muhammed drew heavily from the other dominant monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Judaism and placed his new teachings in the Abrahamic traditions, claiming for himself descent from Ismael, the illegitimate elder son of Abraham by the servant woman Hagar. Muhammed accepted the validity of other prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus but claimed that both Jews and Christians had corrupted their message and that he himself was the final prophet of God sent to restore true worship. Examples of Islamic teaching echoing that of Christianity and Judaism can be seen clearly in the Law of Moses being replaced by Islamic Sharia law, the rituals of prayer and fasting following Jewish practices, the Christian confession of faith in Jesus as Lord and risen from the dead by a declaration of faith in Muhammed as the prophet of God, and the Christian concepts of Church and Kingdom with the ummah (trans-national, trans-ethnic community of Muslims) and the territorial – potentially global - Caliphate. Thus Muhammed seated himself within the traditions of the Abrahamic faith but in opposition to its expressions. Inevitably conflict with Christianity and Judaism were sown into the new religion, to succeed and be proven true, Islam has to overcome.
In 620 Muhammed is said to have experienced a miraculous journey, perhaps physically or perhaps spiritually, in which he rode on a winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem, from where he toured heaven and hell and spoke with a number of prophets. At this period the Muslims still said their prayers facing towards Jerusalem and it is clear at this time Muhammed still thought of Jerusalem as the spiritual centre of the world and needed to claim connection with it.
Opposition within Mecca to Muhammed and his early followers intensified to the degree that in 622 the community fled Mecca to find refuge in the town Medina, where they stayed for eight years growing in strength and numbers before returning in 630 to conquer Mecca. During this period Muhammed sent his forces on over 70 raids on trading caravans and tribal forces, including three important battles against forces led by Mecca. He personally led 28 of these engagements. These battles and the conquest of Mecca led to the subjection of the Arabian peninsula to the Muslim forces and the further enhancement of Muhammed’s prestige as both prophet and warlord. During this period of growing military engagement and success the revelations Muhammed received became in turn more warlike and hostile to Christians and Jews . Following internal Medina power struggles between the Muslims and Jews, Muhammed changed the direction in which Muslims made their prayers from towards Jerusalem to towards Mecca in 624. In 628 he led a successful campaign against Jewish tribes in the region. The imposition of penal taxation against non-Muslim subjects was also introduced in this period. In 628 Muhammed also sent an invitation to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius to convert from Christianity to Islam, when this offer was rejected Muhammed sent an army, which was defeated at the Battle of Mu’tah the following year. Muhammed is said to have prophesied that Constantinople would fall to a Muslim army in the wake of this defeat. Warfare (jihad) and oppression had become an integral part of the Muslim way of expanding the faith, with the prophetic sanction of its founder.
Muhammed completed his conquest of Mecca and returned there in 630. Over the next two years he strengthened his hold over the Arabian peninsula, subduing rivals, requiring tribes and cities to convert to Islam, destroy idols and pay tribute in return for peace. In 632 he died of a fever in Mecca, in the house of his wife Aisha, aged 62.
To be continued…
