Читать книгу The Handy Islam Answer Book - John Renard - Страница 9
ОглавлениеWhat is “Islam”?
An Abrahamic monotheistic faith tradition that sees itself as a culmination, completion, and correction of Judaism and Christianity.
Who are Muslims?
Muslims comprise some 1.6 billion people living across the globe, representing scores of ethnicities, nationalities, and major language families.
What’s the basic meaning of the terms “Islam” and “Muslim”?
“Islam” means “surrender to God” and “Muslim” refers to an individual who “does Islam”—note the shared letters S-L-M, signifying a root that connotes a “peace that comes from having all one’s priorities in order.”
Where did Islam originate?
In the west-central Arabian Peninsula region known as the Hijaz, in the city of Mecca.
When did Islam begin?
In the early seventh century, officially beginning Islam’s lunar calendar in 622.
Why is that year significant?
An event called the Hijra (“emigration”), during which the small Muslim community left Mecca for a northwestern Arabian city now known as Medina.
Who is Islam’s central/foundational figure?
Muhammad (c. 570–632), son of a member of the Hashimi clan of the Quraysh tribe. Said to have received a commission as Prophet in 610 with his first auditory revelation. Muhammad is a preeminent example of humanity, but purely human.
Arabic is a Semitic language spoken by about three hundred million people today. It is also the sacred language of the Quran and Islam. This sample of written script reads “Muhammad the Prophet of Allah.”
What is Islam’s principal source?
The Quran (“recitation”), c. 6200 Arabic verses, 114 “chapters,” delivered orally by Muhammad over some twenty-three years (610–632) in the cities of Mecca and Medina.
What’s the language of the Quran?
Arabic, the most important surviving Semitic language, is the language of revelation, Islam’s “sacred” tongue.
Are there any other sacred texts?
Yes, the Hadith (tradition, saying), now many volumes in many authoritative collections enshrining the words and deeds of Muhammad.
What are some central beliefs?
Faith in one transcendent deity (Allah), creator of all things, revealer of divine truth through “signs”—on the “horizons” (creation), in the prophetic scripture, and within the individual soul—and who has communicated via angelic heralds to an unbroken line of “warners” (prophets/messengers) beginning with Adam, including many “Old Testament” figures as well as John the Baptist and Jesus, and culminating in the definitive message through Muhammad. All will be held personally accountable for their choices in judgment, leading either to reward or punishment, and there will be a bodily resurrection. God’s mercy always outweighs the divine wrath/justice.
Are there any core ritual practices?
The so-called Five Pillars—Profession of faith (Shahada), five daily ritual prayers (salat), pilgrimage once in lifetime to Mecca (Hajj), almsgiving (zakat), and fasting (sawm, during lunar month of Ramadan). Central emphasis in all these and other religious and devotional deeds is the priority of intention: without “presence of the heart,” all such acts are spiritually empty.
What country has the largest Muslim population?
Indonesia, a nation of some three thousand islands in Southeast Asia, with a population of over two hundred million people, about 90 percent Muslim.
What countries have the largest Muslim population after Indonesia?
The next three largest Muslim populations are in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India— with a combined total of nearly five hundred million.
Aren’t most Muslims Arabs?
Approximately one in five Muslims are Arabs, the remaining 80 percent represented by dozens of ethnicities, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, as well as scores of different languages.
Are all Middle Eastern Muslims Arabs?
Though Arabs do comprise the ethnic majority of the “Middle East” and North Africa, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians of varied ethnic origins represent important non-Semitic peoples whose languages are unrelated to Arabic.
Do all Muslims believe and express their faith in exactly the same ways?
There is considerable unity concerning the core beliefs and ritual practices but also some variation due to internal diversity. This includes, for example, majority Sunni and minority Shi’i communities, as well as a broad spectrum of attitudes to what additional rules are “essential” and how strictly religious law must be enforced, and considerable variety in the interaction of religion and cultures across the globe.
How did Islam begin?
Five hundred years after the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem dramatically altered the history of Judaism, an equally momentous event occurred in the Arabian Peninsula. According to tradition, Muhammad was born around 570 C.E. in the trading town of Mecca. When he was about twenty-five, Muhammad married a businesswoman named Khadija, fifteen years his senior. Muhammad developed the habit of seeking prayerful solitude in the hills and caves surrounding Mecca. One day around the year 610, he began to undergo some troubling auditory and visual experiences. Encouraged by Khadija not to dismiss the experiences, Muhammad came to understand them as divine revelations that he was meant to communicate to his fellow Meccans. He was to be a messenger of God, a prophet charged with delivering a message that would set straight misinterpretations of earlier revelations given through the prophets God had sent to the Jews and Christians.
What and where is Arabia?
The Arabian Peninsula is an enormous land mass that makes up the south-central portion of western Asia, also known as the Middle East. It is now home to the nations of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and United Arab Emirates, and several other small so-called Gulf States. Arabia is bordered on the west by the Red Sea, on the south by the Arabian Sea, and on the east by the Persian Gulf. Mostly desert, the peninsula is larger than Iran and Iraq combined, twice the size of Egypt, and about 10 percent larger than Alaska. Total population today is just over twenty million. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia, the peninsula’s largest nation state. Jeddah is the Red Sea port that serves the holy city of Mecca, Muhammad’s home town. Medina, the second holy city, is about two hundred miles north of Mecca.
The Arabian Peninsula, just east of Africa, is where the holy city of Mecca is located and where Islam originated.
What was pre-Islamic religion like and did Islam retain any of its features?
Pre-Islamic Arabian tribes believed that the universe was animated by innumerable spirits, each inhabiting its own distinctive elements and natural features. They called each of these minor deities an ilah, “god,” but tribespeople in many regions singled out one particular local power as the chief spiritual force. That power they called the god, al-ilah, or allah (ah-LAH). Mecca was one of several major cultic sites over which such a chief deity ruled.
There, a peculiar cubic-shaped structure called the Ka’ba stood for perhaps centuries at the center of pilgrimage traffic associated with a lively caravan trade. Pre-Islamic beliefs also acknowledged the existence of numerous troublesome beings called jinns, as well as downright diabolical spiritual forces. Muhammad’s ancestors emphasized the importance of following the moral code of tribal custom unquestioningly and did not believe in an afterlife. In his early preaching the Prophet focused on the need to behave morally and justly in light of the coming judgment. He taught that a divine will was more important than tribal custom, however ancient, and gradually increased his condemnation of the cult of many spiritual powers (called polydaemonism). The Ka’ba remained an important symbol, as did the practice of pilgrimage, but Muhammad appropriated those aspects of tradition by underscoring their association with Abraham and Ishmael especially.
Why is Mecca a holy city for Muslims?
Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, is the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad (c. 570) and was his home until the year 622, when those who opposed him forced him to flee to Medina (a city about 200 miles north of Mecca). Muhammad later returned to Mecca and died there in 632. Mecca is also the site of the Great Mosque, which is situated in the heart of the city. The outside of the mosque is an arcade, made up of a series of arches enclosing a courtyard. In that courtyard is the most sacred shrine of Islam, the Ka’ba, a small stone building that contains the Black Stone, which Muslims believe was sent from heaven by Allah (God). When Muslims pray (five times a day, according to the Five Pillars of Faith), they face the Ka’ba. It is also the destination of the hajj, or pilgrimage.
What is the Ka’ba and why is it important?
According to tradition, Abraham and his son Ishmael built (or perhaps rebuilt) a simple cube-like structure in what came to be the center of the city of Mecca. During Muhammad’s time the Ka’ba was a relatively small structure, about fifteen feet tall, with a black stone, the size of a bowling ball, of (perhaps) meteoric origin built into one of its corners. Rebuilt several times since Muhammad’s day, the Ka’ba now stands about forty-three feet high, with irregular sides ranging from thirty-six to forty-three feet. During Muhammad’s lifetime, the building is said to have housed some 360 idols. In 630, Muhammad cleansed the Ka’ba, and it has since remained empty except for some lamps. Its holiness as a symbol of divine presence derives largely from its associations with the lives of Abraham and Muhammad.
Why did Mecca stand out as a religious center?
By the late sixth century, Mecca had achieved the status of the principal cultic center, attracting large numbers of traders and pilgrims to its regular religious and cultural festivities. At the heart of the city was—and still is—the Ka’ba, which in Muhammad’s time was a simple, nearly cube structure of dark stone. In one of its four corners was set a black stone, an ovoid somewhat larger than a bowling ball, now fractured into seven pieces and framed in a collar of silver. Such stones had long been part of local religious centers not only in the Arabian Peninsula, but throughout the greater Middle East. In the Hebrew Scriptures, stone pillars had been both signs of contention, when they were at the center of idolatrous cults, and altogether acceptable symbols of help and witness. When Joshua, for example, gathered the people of Israel together to renew their special relationship with God, he set up a stone and called upon it to witness in its mute integrity how the people had reaffirmed the covenant (Joshua 24). Popular tradition has it that the Ka’ba’s black stone has likewise been taking note of momentous events—the rise and fall of the powerful, the making and breaking of oaths—since the very dawn of Creation. At the appropriate moment, it will reveal all.
The cube-shaped building called the Ka’ba marks the end of the Hajj for many Muslims. Located in the center of Mecca, the inside of the building contains little more than a few lamps, but it serves as a symbol of God’s divine presence.
Where does the word “Muslim” come from? Is it the same as “Moslem”?
Arabic is a Semitic language, as is its distant cousin Hebrew. Both languages are based on roots made up of three consonants. For example, many words can be derived from the root S-L-M (Sh-L-M in Hebrew). Keep your eye on the upper case letters to follow the root. A basic verb from that root, SaLiMa, means to be safe or whole. A related Arabic noun is salaam, meaning “peace” (like the Hebrew ShaLoM), is part of a standard greeting among Muslims. When Arabic speakers want to build further meanings on a particular root, they do so by modifying the root with either prefixes, infixes (modifying interior letters), or suffixes. For example, to convey the notion of “causing someone to be safe or at peace,” one modifies the root SaLiMa so that it becomes aSLaMa. In religious terms, to bring about a state of safety, peace, and wholeness, one has to get one’s relationship to God in perfect order. That means letting God be God and giving up all pretense at trying to do what only God can do—in short, surrendering to the supreme power. That state of surrender is called iSLaaM, and a person who acts in such a way as to cause that state is called a muSLiM. One of the first major non-Semitic languages early Muslim conquerors encountered was Persian, in which the “u” was pronounced as an “o,” and the “i” as an “e.” Hence the variation so common today, “Moslem.” Both mean exactly the same thing; the variations are entirely due to differences in pronunciation.
What was the religious tradition in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam?
At a little over fourteen hundred years old, Islam is one of the world’s younger major religious traditions. It began in the early seventh century near the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula in a city called Mecca, an important stop along the caravan route from Syria to the north to the Yemenite kingdoms of southwestern Arabia. Some Christian and Jewish families and tribes had long before taken up residence in various parts of Arabia, but the prevailing religious climate was a kind of animism sometimes called “polydaemonism,” the worship of “many spiritual beings” thought to inhabit natural phenomena. Features of landscape, such as stones and springs, could take on a numinous aura and gradually become the focus of a sacred place. Some sites developed as the centers of cultic worship and pilgrimage, with one of the several local deities (ilahat) rising to prominence as the chief among them (al-ilah, “the” god, elided into allah).
What were some of the most important things happening in the Mediterranean world and especially the Middle East and the environs of the Arabian Peninsula when Islam began?
In pre-Islamic times the Arabian Peninsula had rarely been at the center of Middle Eastern events. An immense coastline made the land accessible to and from the Red Sea on the west, the Persian Gulf on the east, and the Indian Ocean on the south, but the real estate of that vast, inhospitable ocean of sand held little strategic interest for the regional powers. Local kingdoms had ruled to the north, in Syria, and to the southwest, in Yemen. Although the Greeks and Romans knew about the place and liked its incense, they never set their sights on the territory. Soon after the Roman Empire divided into West and East in the fourth century, Byzantium began to consolidate its power in the Eastern Mediterranean, taking control of much of the central Middle East and North Africa. By the time Rome fell in 476, the Byzantine Empire was well established in its own right. Along its southeastern fringe, a line that ran northeast from southern Egypt through Syria and Iraq and across the Caucasus almost to the Caspian Sea, the Byzantines had developed a “buffer state” in the Monophysite Christian Arab tribe called the Ghassanids. Meanwhile, the Sasanian Persian Empire that ruled from eastern Iraq toward the east across what is now Iran also had its own buffer state in the Arab tribe called the unchurched Lakhmids. Through their Arab surrogates these two powerful “confessional empires” (Christian and Zoroastrian) struggled back and forth across the region to the north of the Arabian peninsula, an area covering much of present-day Syria and Iraq, engaged in a protracted tug-of-war over the Fertile Crescent with its enormous river systems.
Are there any important connections between ancient Middle East and European powers?
The Sasanian Persian empire had supplanted the last major Roman Middle Eastern successor state, the Parthians, in the early third century. Before the end of that century the Sasanians had reestablished Zoroastrianism as the creed of the realm. Just around the time of Muhammad’s birth both of the confessional empires reached the zenith of their powers, Byzantium under Emperor Justinian (527–565) and Sasanian Persia under Nushirvan (531–579). An important trade route ran up and down the western coastal region, a highway for exchange from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Yemen, to Syria and points north by way of Mecca. And as the Muslim community was beginning to grow in size and strength, the Byzantine and Sasanian regimes were embroiled in a protracted war (603–628) via their Arab clients that would virtually exhaust the capability of both empires to project their control over the central Middle East. The resulting political vacuum set the stage for the emergence of the Muslim forces as a dominant power in the region. By the time Muhammad died, Byzantium and Persia had all but spent themselves into bankruptcy and had so worn each other down that neither would mount serious resistance when the Muslim tribes advanced out of Arabia in a conquering mood.
Was there anything like “monotheism” in Arabia at the origins of Islam?
At Muhammad’s time the Meccan cult revolved around a principal deity called Allah (“the” god, or simply God), whose three “daughters” (Allat, Manat, and Uzza) also figured in local piety. The Quraysh tribe had become the ruling authority over the city’s affairs and exercised considerable control over the Ka’ba. The Ka’ba and its stone had many meanings to the Meccans of Muhammad’s day, and they would play an important role, sometimes negative and sometimes more positive, in the Prophet’s life. According to one account, when the structure had to be rebuilt, the Meccans asked Muhammad the Trustworthy to replace the stone in its socket. Ever aware of the symbolic value of his public actions, and looking for ways to unify local factions, Muhammad placed the stone in the center of his cloak and had representatives of the chief interests lift it with him by grabbing a corner of the cloak. Some estimates date that event at around the year 604 C.E., prior to the beginning of Muhammad’s prophetic career. As the Quraysh came more and more to disapprove of his new preaching, they applied the ultimate social pressure, denying Muhammad access to the sacred precincts to pray. Eventually the Ka’ba would become the center of the world of Islam. In the classic Islamic interpretation of history, the birth of Islam marked the death of the “age of ignorance” (jahiliya).
Who was Muhammad? What is known about his early life?
Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 C.E. to a rather poor family of the clan of Hashim, one of the branches of the Quraysh tribe. His father died before Muhammad was born and the boy’s mother died when he was six years old. According to Arabian custom, the child was sent to be reared for a time among the Bedouin. Tradition names his nurse Halima. After his mother’s death, Muhammad grew up in the custody first of grandfather Abd al-Muttalib and later in the house of his uncle Abu Talib, whose son Ali would later become a major religious and political figure as well. Tradition has it that the young Muhammad travelled with his uncle on business. One story tells how in Syria they met an old Christian monk named Bahira, who discerned the marks of prophetic greatness in the boy.
Did Muhammad have any siblings?
He had no “blood” siblings but a total of eight “foster” siblings. His family tree was thus a bit more complex than many, in the sense that very early on Muhammad’s family relations included intertribal connections. The practice of engaging the services of wet nurses from among the Bedouin meant that children often grew up with peers from outside their family of origin’s lineage.
What is known about Muhammad’s family life as an adult? Was polygamy a new development with Islam?
When Muhammad was about twenty-five, he married a widow fifteen years his senior. Khadija ran her own caravan business, and Muhammad went to work for her. They were married for over twenty years, and while Khadija lived, Muhammad married no other women. He remained unmarried, it appears, for another two years after her death. Over the following seven years, Muhammad contracted marriages with a total of eleven other women under a wide variety of circumstances. Polygamy was already a very ancient practice in the Middle East, as is clear from the Hebrew Scriptures. Abraham and subsequent “patriarchs,” as well as David, Solomon, and assorted other kings of Israel, had multiple wives, including some who were very young when first married. Given such a long-standing cultural precedent, Muhammad’s practice was not at all unusual. Muhammad’s subsequent wives were Sawda, Aisha (daughter of major Companion and first Caliph Abu Bakr), Hafsa (daughter of Companion and second Caliph Umar), Zaynab (daughter of Khuzayma), Umm Salama, Zaynab (daughter of Jahsh), Juwayria, Umm Habiba, Safiya, Maymuna, and Maria (a Coptic Christian). Many of these relationships were the result of concerns for the security of individual women as well as means of cementing social bonds within the community.
The Tomb of Abraham in Hebron is a Muslim holy site.
What does tradition tell us about Muhammad’s personal spiritual life?
Apparently Muhammad occasionally liked to retreat to mountain solitude, in a cave on Mt. Hira above Mecca, to meditate and seek within the source of life. He was very likely aware of traditions about previous “seekers after the One God,” stories of whom had long been the shared patrimony of ancient Middle Eastern oral cultures. He may have learned of the practice of solitary meditation, at least indirectly, from Christian monks who lived in the region. Around 610 C.E., when Muhammad had reached the age long considered in the Middle East a necessary precondition for the imparting of wisdom and ministry, he began to experience troubling visitations that sent him in turmoil to ask for Khadija’s counsel. She encouraged Muhammad to pay close heed to these experiences as authentic spiritual encounters, however bewildering they might be.
What’s the Islamic understanding of the origins of Muhammad’s experience of revelation?
Here is the traditional account: On the “Night of Power” in the year 610, now generally commemorated on the twenty-seventh day of Ramadan, the earliest message commanded him to “Recite!” (literally, “make Quran,” i.e., “recitation”) that which no human being could know unaided. The encounter left him confused and uncertain. Not until almost a year later did Muhammad hear a follow-up message of confirmation: “Indeed your Lord is the one who best knows who has strayed from His path, who best knows those who are guided” (Quran 68:7). Assured that he was not losing his sanity, Muhammad persisted in his attitude of attentiveness to the messages from the unseen world. From then on revelations came more frequently. During the next several years, Muhammad slowly gathered a circle of “converts” who would form the nucleus of a faith community. Leaders of the Quraysh grew increasingly unhappy at the effects of Muhammad’s preaching on caravan and pilgrim traffic to the Ka’ba and at the prospect of a rival leader in their midst. Around 615 C.E., under growing pressure and amid threats to the safety of his community, Muhammad sent a group off to seek asylum across the Red Sea with the Christian rule of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Muhammad remained in Mecca.
What were some critical events in Islam’s earliest years?
Over the next twenty-two years or so (610–632), Muhammad continued to preach the word God had spoken directly to him. At the heart of the message was the notion of “surrender” (the root meaning of the Arabic word islam, is-LAAM) to the one true God. His early preaching called for social justice and equality and condemned oppression of the poor by the wealthy and powerful. Muhammad belonged to a powerful tribe called the Quraysh, who exercised considerable control over the lives of the Meccans generally. But Muhammad’s family and the clan of which they were a part were among the poorer and less influential within the tribe. Muhammad’s preaching did not endear him to the Quraysh, who made life difficult for the small community of Muslims. In 622, Muhammad and his followers made the crucial decision to move north to the city of Yathrib, whose representatives had offered the young community sanctuary. This “emigration,” or Hijra, marked the official beginning of the Muslim calendar. Muhammad the prophet became a statesman as well, and Yathrib became known as Madinat an-Nabi, the City of the Prophet, or Medina for short. The Muslim community grew rapidly, doing battle with the Meccans and eventually regaining access to Mecca in 630.
What place does Muhammad occupy in Islamic tradition?
Muslims consider Muhammad the last in a line of prophets commissioned to act as God’s spokesmen to humankind. Beginning with Adam and continuing down through Jesus, the pre-Islamic prophets preached the same fundamental message of belief in one sovereign transcendent God. But because successive generations invariably found the message difficult and inconvenient, people sometimes corrupted or diluted the revelation. Hence, God chose upright individuals to reassert the original revelation. Muhammad was a man singled out for his natural virtue and integrity to fulfill the role of final and definitive intermediary of the divine communication. As a human being, Muhammad naturally had his faults. But Muslims regard him as the finest our species has yet produced, the ideal family man and leader of humanity. Muhammad himself never claimed to be a wonder-worker. His sole miracle was the Qur’an (kur-AAN, and hereafter transliterated as Quran), the Muslim sacred scripture. Popular tradition has nevertheless sometimes idealized Muhammad, expanding his powers and prerogatives to include various kinds of marvels. One dual experience, called the Night Journey and Ascension, stands out. According to tradition, God conveyed Muhammad by night from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there through the various levels of heaven and hell. Popular lore has attributed other wonders to Muhammad, but it is most important to appreciate the enormous affection and reverence Muslims universally feel for their Prophet.
Did Muhammad have any children?
Muhammad and Khadija had six children together, and Khadija had two children from a prior marriage. Muhammad’s first six children included two boys (neither of whom lived past the age of two) and four girls, all of whom lived into young adulthood. Fatima, their fifth child, went on to become the most influential and important of all Muhammad’s children. His seventh child was born to his Coptic wife, Maria, and died at about eighteen months. Fatima was thus the sole offspring of the Prophet to survive his death. Muhammad knew more than his share of parental grief.
Do Muslims worship Muhammad?
Muslims have never considered Muhammad any more than a very special human being, particularly favored by God. They universally revere him, hold him in the greatest esteem, and feel enormous depth of affection for him. Muhammad provides first and foremost the ultimate model of what God wants every human being to strive for. Of course, Muhammad was what he was by God’s grace and power; one can neither aspire to, let alone achieve, the status of prophet by one’s own effort. Muslims are quick to point out that Muhammad himself considered the Quran his only “miracle,” but tradition and popular lore over the centuries have attributed a number of extraordinary experiences to the Prophet.
Do Muslims attribute any special powers to the Prophet? What is his spiritual status?
Nevertheless, in order to understand Muhammad’s lofty spiritual status, one needs to appreciate some of the experiences he is said to have gone through. Tradition reports that on the twenty-seventh night of the month of Rajab in the year 621 C.E., Muhammad underwent a two-fold mystical experience. In the first part, God “carried his servant by night, from the Mosque of the Sanctuary to the Farther Mosque” (Quran 17:1). Later interpreters would equate the first site with the shrine of the Ka’ba in Mecca, the second with the southern end of the temple platform in Jerusalem, where now stands an early eighth-century structure called “the Farther Mosque” (al-masjid al-aqsa). This “Night Journey” (isra) was already clearly a kind of otherworldly experience, for ancient narratives place Muhammad in the company of earlier prophets in the Farther Mosque, and they naturally ask him to lead them in the ritual prayer. The second phase of the journey, however, called the “Ascension” (mir’aj), finds the Prophet riding a winged human-faced steed named Buraq and led by Gabriel toward the very throne of God. Marvelously embellished tales have developed around this experience. Vivid descriptions of Muhammad’s excursion follow him through the various levels of heaven, where he meets all of his major prophetic forebears, down to the dark circles of hell where Gabriel shows him the horrors of the damned. This is truly the picture of a heroic journey of initiation in the mysteries of the unseen world. Many Muslims believe the journey involved physical locomotion, but a strong tradition of non-literalistic interpretation has always regarded it as a spiritual and inward experience. However one interprets these moments in Muhammad’s life, the power of the link tradition forged between the Prophet and Jerusalem remains as great as ever and continues to be part of the mix in current events in the Middle East.
What events led to the Muslim community’s understanding of the “official” beginning of Islam?
Under pressure from the leading Meccans, Muhammad had been investigating the possibility of moving his community from the increasingly hostile environment of Mecca to a safer haven. Hopeful prospects arrived in 621 C.E. with a delegation from Yathrib, a city several hundred miles north of Mecca. Looking for someone to help them negotiate a peaceful settlement to factional problems in their city, the representatives invited Muhammad to come and apply his already renowned talent for arbitration. Arrangements were finalized, and in 622 C.E. the Muslims headed north to Yathrib, whose name would soon change to Madinat an-Nabi (“City of the Prophet”), or simply Medina. That crucial journey was called the Hijra or Emigration. It marked the birthday of Islam, so to speak, and the beginning of the Muslim calendar (with dates marked A.H., “after the Hijra”).
When Muhammad led his followers to the city of Medina it marked the beginning of the Muslim calendar in 621 C.E. Today, Medina is an important city that many pilgrims visit as part of the Hajj.
What are some key events during the Medina period?
Muhammad’s years in Medina, as reflected in the text of the Quran as well as in later historical writing, witnessed major changes in his style of leadership and in the shape of the community of believers. Muhammad’s prominence in the new setting gave prestige to the community. As the group increased, so did the demands on Muhammad’s administrative time and skill, so that what began as spiritual leadership gradually grew into a more comprehensive oversight. During the Medinan period the Muslims also took up arms against the Quraysh and fought a number of serious military engagements with the Meccan forces. After nearly eight years of bitter conflict, the two sides struck a truce. The Muslims would be allowed to return to Mecca without opposition. In 630, Muhammad led a triumphal band to claim the city for the Muslims. Two years later, Muhammad returned to Mecca for what would be his farewell pilgrimage to the Ka’ba. He died in Medina in 632 after an illness of several months.
What happened when Muhammad died? Did Muslims develop religious institutions to carry on the leadership Muhammad had begun?
Muhammad’s death thrust the young community into a protracted debate over the criteria of legitimate succession. According to sources compiled as many as two or three centuries after Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E., two predominant solutions to the problem of succession emerged. One group maintained that the Prophet had explicitly designated his son-in-law Ali to be his Caliph (literally, “successor” or “vicegerent”). The other, convinced that Muhammad had made no such appointment, opted for the procedure of choosing from among a group of elder Companions of Muhammad. They chose Muhammad’s father-in-law, Abu Bakr. The group that supported Ali’s candidacy came to be called the Shia (party, faction, supporters) of Ali, popularly known as Shi’ites. Those who backed Abu Bakr were in the majority and formed the nucleus of what came to be called the “People of the Sunna and the Assembly,” Sunnis for short. Ali’s backers continued to insist that Ali was unfairly passed over three times, gaining only in 656 C.E. the leadership role that had been his by right for nearly thirty-five years. The well-known distinction between Sunni and Shi’i identifies only the largest institutional division within the Muslim community. Muslims are quick to point out that none of these so-called “divisions” indicates any noteworthy variations in belief and practice among the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. Still, major classical sources from within the tradition have seen fit to describe their own history in terms of these allegiances.
Is Mecca the only Islamic holy city?
As the birthplace of Muhammad and the site of the Ka’ba, Mecca, and its immediate environs, is naturally the holiest place on earth for Muslims. According to tradition, other prophets and important holy people passed through Mecca as well. Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Ishmael at Arafat (the valley just outside Mecca) and built the Ka’ba. God rescued Abraham’s consort, Hagar, and their son Ishmael from dying of thirst in the desert by causing the well of Zamzam to bubble forth. In 622 Muhammad traveled with his young community to Medina and there established Islam as an all-encompassing social entity. From Medina, the Prophet secured access to Mecca for Muslims and in Medina he died. Muhammad’s house and earliest mosque remain a regular stop for most pilgrims who make Hajj and Umra. For these reasons and more, Medina ranks as the second-holiest city for Muslims. But Muhammad and a number of the other prophets also have important connections to Jerusalem. Muslim tradition has it that God carried Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem, to the “farther mosque,” where he met and led the other major prophets in prayer. From a spot nearby, Muhammad began his Ascension or Mi’raj (mi-RAAJ). For a time members of the young Muslim community in Medina faced Jerusalem when they prayed, but the orientation for prayer changed to Mecca in connection with a falling-out with the local Jewish tribes. Nevertheless, Jerusalem has retained a lofty place in Muslim piety and remains politically sensitive real estate.
What is the principal Muslim sacred text?
In about the year 610, Muhammad began to deliver orally the messages he believed were of divine origin. His “recitation” (qur’an) of the revelation was initially held in memory by his followers, and, according to traditional accounts, was not produced in full written form until some years after Muhammad’s death in 632. Scholars distinguish between the “Meccan period” (610–622) and the “Medinan period” (622–632), and they note various significant differences in the tone and content of the revelations from one to the other. What began as “an Arabic recitation” retained that name even after it was written down, and the resulting book is still known as “The Recitation” or Quran.
How have Muslims preserved the teachings of Muhammad? Is the Hadith literature anything like the New Testament Gospels in which the words of the founding figure are enshrined?
Second only to the Quran in sacred authority are the “sayings” of Muhammad, enshrined in a large body of literature called Hadith. The Hadith literature is similar to the Gospels to the extent that it preserves the words and deeds of the religious founder. But the two sources are very different in a number of ways. First of all, the four Gospels developed as conscious literary-theological endeavors. Their authors (or schools of thought associated with individuals whose names the Gospels bear) carefully designed works that would convey the meaning of Jesus’s life from a particular perspective. They include many things Jesus is reported to have said, but those sayings are woven into the fabric of a larger narrative structure. They depended a great deal on oral reports, to be sure, but the written record was complete by about seventy years after Jesus’s death.
The Quran (sometimes spelled Koran or Qur’an) is the holy book of Islam. It was delivered orally by the Prophet Muhammad as divine revelation.
How did the process of formalizing “tradition” about Muhammad unfold?
A remarkable enterprise known as the “search for Hadith” took scholar-collectors across the central Islamic lands, interviewing countless individuals known for reliable powers of recollection. But collecting was not the end of the process. Scholars then subjected the material to intense scrutiny, inquiring into the background and trustworthiness of every individual named among the “chains” of transmitters (isnad) associated with each saying. Analysis of such personal characteristics as veracity, intellect, uprightness, and devotion, along with other data concerning the times and places individuals had lived, allowed scholars to classify transmitters as part of the emerging “science of men.” A single weak link in a chain would indicate an unreliable Hadith.
What were the first major results of the “search for the Hadith”?
By the end of the ninth century, a group of six major collections had come to be regarded as authoritative among Sunni Muslims, each containing thousands of sayings with assessments of their reliability. There are dozens of others, as well, and Shi’i Muslims also developed several major collections of their own. Like the Gospels, the Hadith are considered divinely revealed. But whereas Muslims consider the Quran the direct literal word of God, the Hadith represent content of divine origin couched in Muhammad’s own unique expression.
Who were the Companions of the Prophet and why are they important?
Muslims have long known their tradition’s earliest stalwart and exemplary figures as the Companions (sahaba [sa-HAA-ba]) of the Prophet. Classical sources from biographical dictionaries such as Ibn Sad’s Greater Book of Generations identify fifty or sixty as the most intimately acquainted with the Prophet. Tradition credits some with being key sources of oral tradition, and thus with preserving the Sunna of the Prophet. Representing high Muslim ideals, the Companions are listed prominently among religious authorities following Muhammad in Quranic interpretation.
Did the Hadith material come into being in as short a time as the Quran?
The record of Muhammad’s words and deeds evolved more gradually. For several generations at least, Muslims hesitated to put the words into writing, perhaps out of concern that the words of the Prophet be kept separate from the Word of God in the Quran. Some Hadiths were written down, but memory of Muhammad’s sayings and actions remained alive largely through oral transmission, recollections passed on from one generation to another. Curiously, the early Muslims sought to remember not only what Muhammad had said and done, but who transmitted the material as well. Some members of local communities came to be known as particularly important living repositories of the tradition. Several generations along, religious scholars were becoming increasingly concerned that the living link might eventually weaken to the breaking point. So toward the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, nearly two hundred years after Muhammad’s death, traditionists mounted a vast concerted effort to gather all available evidence of the living record.
Are there any important honorific distinctions among the Companions?
Of the total group, tradition further identifies a group of the “Ten Blessed Companions,” among whom are the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. The remaining six are: Zubayr ibn al-Awwaam, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf, Sad ibn Abi Waqqas, Sayyidina Said ibn Zayd, Talha ibn Ubaydallah, and Amr ibn Abu Ubayda. The Companions included, naturally, the elect cadre of first converts to Islam, but eventually embraced a much broader variety of people. Beneath the retrospective listing of Companions that began to take shape some seventy to eighty years after Muhammad’s death (632) lies a skein of inter-related criteria that characterize an authentic Companion. In addition to having “seen” the Prophet, Companions were ranked first in terms of chronological order in conversion (the earliest known as the sabiqun, SAA-bi-koon, the predecessors). Other criteria included, for example, accompanying Muhammad in the Hijra to Medina (622), fighting in the Battle of Badr (624), participation in the treaty of Hudaybiya (628), or presence among the early converts in Medina known as the Prophet’s “Helpers” (Ansā r, an-SAAR). A host of other qualifications, mostly related to pin-pointing date of conversion, include participation in the battles of Uhud and the Ditch, for example, and relatively late conversion to Islam during Muhammad’s visit to Mecca after the Muslims reclaimed it in 630. These were such signal events in the life of Muhammad and the early community that participation in them became roughly analogous to the presence of leading first-generation Christians at major moments in Christ’s life.
Christians talk about an “apostolic age” that extended beyond the lifetime of Jesus. Do Muslims have anything similar, a kind of idealized period that lives on as a time uniquely informed by the spirit of the founder?
Islamic tradition early on developed an intense interest in the importance of direct links to the Prophet. First generation Muslims, who had enjoyed the great blessing of living in Muhammad’s presence, came to be called the Companions (sahaba, sa-HAA-ba). Their authority in matters of religious judgment ranks second only to that of the Prophet. In matters of dispute about how to interpret the Quran and sayings of Muhammad, the views of the Companions became the first recourse. As a group, the Companions have come to be revered much as Christians revere the apostles of Jesus. Christians need only recall how eager Paul was to establish his rank among the apostles, even though he had never met Jesus, to appreciate the importance of such a socio-religious classification.
Was there a core group among the Companions?
Four of the most important Companions are those who, in the Sunni view, were Muhammad’s earliest successors in leadership—the first “caliphs.” Muhammad’s father-in-law Abu Bakr (d. 634) was chosen first. His first task was to bring back to the Islamic fold a number of Bedouin tribes for whom Muhammad’s death triggered a return to their ancestral ways. Already advanced in age, Abu Bakr was among the few to hold his rank who died of natural causes. Umar ibn al-Khattab succeeded Abu Bakr and ruled for about ten years (d. 644). Umar was especially noted for his firm administrative style and is perhaps most famous for wresting the city of Jerusalem from Byzantine control. (The Dome of the Rock is popularly but erroneously called “The Mosque of Umar.”) After Umar was killed, a council appointed Uthman ibn Affan, a member of the Quraysh family, and he administered the growing Islamic sphere of influence until he was murdered in 656. During the twenty-four years following Muhammad’s death, the caliphs administered from the city of Medina, but that would soon change.
How did Ali’s life end?
Ironically, it was a dissident who had originally been among Ali’s Shia who would murder this fourth and last of the “Rightly Guided” caliphs, thus effectively ending the Islamic analog to Christianity’s “apostolic age.” Lest anyone be shocked at the sanguinary nature of some of these early events, it may help to recall that Peter and Paul both died violent deaths as well. The immediate descendants of the Companions came to be known as the Followers (tabiun, taa-bee-OON), and their views on substantive issues rank next in authority. Together with the previous and succeeding generations (called the “Followers of the Followers”), they comprise the category of the “predecessors” (salaf, SA-laf). As in most traditional views of religious history, Muslims regard the time of Muhammad himself as the pinnacle after which all else is spiritual entropy.
How did Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ali rise to prominence?
Muhammad’s cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib came to the fore definitively about twenty-four years after the Prophet’s death. His supporters, the “Shia” or “faction” of Ali now known collectively as Shi’i Muslims, would argue that the first three caliphs had been usurpers. At last, they believed, the man who should have been the first caliph could assume his rightful place. Ali’s stormy five-year tenure witnessed deepening fissures within the community and a heightened level of strife. Ali had built a base of support in the Iraqi garrison town of Kufa and so moved the capital there. Stiffest opposition came from Muawiya, the recently appointed governor of Damascus, who was a cousin of Uthman, the third caliph. Muawiya and his clan were convinced Ali had been complicit in the murder of Uthman and determined to avenge their kinsman’s death.
ISLAM IN THE CENTURY AFTER MUHAMMAD
What were the first great Muslim dynasties?
Relatives of Uthman, called the Umayyads, brought Ali down for his complicity in the murder of Uthman. They established a new seat of power in the ancient city of Damascus (Syria), thus inaugurating the first of a series of Muslim dynasties. Under the Umayyads the map of Islamdom expanded dramatically. By the year 711, Muslim armies had claimed ground across North Africa to Spain, and as far east as the Indus River in present-day Pakistan. Consolidation and some further expansion continued under the Abbasid dynasty, which ruled from its newly founded capital, Baghdad, after supplanting the Umayyads in 750. But the early plan for a single unified Islamic domain soon began to unravel. Increasingly aware that Baghdad could not continue to hold its far-flung empire together, regional governors and princes at the fringes began to declare independence. Although the Abbasid caliph would continue to claim nominal allegiance until 1258, the future belonged to countless successor states, from Spain to central and south Asia.
How did Islam spread under Mohammad’s immediate successors?
Muhammad’s immediate successors, called caliphs (KAY-liffs), inherited an expanding but loose-knit social fabric. The Prophet had united the Bedouin tribes under the banner of Islam, but tribal loyalties cooled quickly when the leader died. When Muslim elders in Medina chose Muhammad’s father-in-law, Abu Bakr, as the first caliph, the initial challenge was to regather the tribes already reverting to their pre-Islamic ways. Umar (reigned 634–644), the second caliph, then mobilized tribal forces to move northward into Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq), westward into Egypt, and eastward into Persia. Next, Umar instituted important policies in the conquered lands, allowing the subjected peoples to retain their religion and law, and levied taxes often lower than what had been paid previously to Byzantium and Persia. Muslim armies remained apart in garrisons that eventually became cities in their own right. Umar’s successors, Uthman (reigned 644–656) and Ali (reigned 656–661), compassed the downfall of the last Sasanian emperor but had to deal with disastrous internal strife as well.
Azem palace in Damascus, Syria, the city where the Umayyads established power in the mid-seventh century C.E.
How else did Islam develop and spread during those first decades after Muhammad’s death?
Very soon after the Prophet’s death, in 632, Muslim forces began to move out of the Arabian Peninsula effectively for the first time. After Abu Bakr managed to unite most of the Arab tribes under the banner of Islam, Umar spent much of his ten-year rule conquering the regions that now constitute the heart of the central Middle East. To the north, his forces ended the Byzantine domination of the Fertile Crescent, including Iraq, greater Syria, and the holy city of Jerusalem. Further to the west, Umar established garrisons in Egypt. And to the east, he made serious inroads into the realm of the Zoroastrian Sasanian dynasty of Persia. Umar was responsible for the initial establishment of the military and financial mechanisms that would form the basis of subsequent expansion. This included the practice of setting up garrison cities in the subjugated territories. Growing out of a policy designed to allow maximum self-determination of the subject populations, the use of garrison cities was meant to keep the conquering forces apart except when needed to keep order. Two ancient garrisons that went on to become important Iraqi cities, for example, are Kufa and Basra. Conquered peoples were allowed to continue practicing their ancestral faiths; the Muslims did not follow a policy of forced conversion. There is considerable evidence that Christian communities fed up with oppressive Byzantine rule cooperated broadly with the invading Muslims.
Was there steady progress under the early caliphs?
During the twelve-year tenure of Uthman, Muslim forces made further decisive gains against the Byzantine empire to the north as far as the Caucasus. To the west he expanded into what is now Libya and developed naval forces capable of challenging Byzantine control of the Mediterranean. He brought an end to the Sasanian empire and pushed the Eastern border of Islamdom well into Persia. At Uthman’s order, an official “standardized” written version of the Quran was produced. When Uthman was murdered in 656, the first of two disastrous civil wars that would mark the second half of the seventh century broke out. For the next five years or so, Ali fought a losing battle to establish his legitimacy as universal Muslim leader. His power base gradually eroded while that of his chief rival, Muawiya, grew to such an extent that Muawiya had himself proclaimed caliph in Jerusalem in 660. The following year Ali was murdered by a disaffected former supporter, Ali’s son Hasan capitulated to Muawiya, and the first of the great dynasties, the Umayyad, came to birth with its capital in Damascus.
Did Muslims found Damascus?
In the mid-seventh century, Damascus had already been inhabited for at least two mil-lennia. At the center of the region called Syria, Damascus had long been an important stop on north-south caravan routes originating all over Southwest Asia, also called the Middle or Near East. Stories of early Muslim origins provide accounts of trading jour neys to the environs of Damascus, including one in which a Christian monk recognized prophetic greatness in the boy Muhammad, who had traveled there with his relatives. During Old Testament times the city had figured in the political history of several major Near Eastern powers such as the kingdom of Aram, whose two-century rule of the region left the Semitic language of Aramaic as one of its legacies. During the early Christian era, Damascus figured prominently in the lives of various apostles of Jesus, and perhaps most notably St. Paul. Damascus was a natural choice for Muslim administrative purposes and Muslims had begun to rule Syria from there by the mid-seventh century. Among the many interesting features of Muslim appropriation of the ancient Christian city is that governors and eventually caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty enlisted the services of old Christian families for high administrative office alongside Muslim officialdom. John of Damascus, often called the last Father of the Church, was one such figure, whose father and grandfather had also served in earlier Muslim administrations.
What is known about how the Muslim conquerors treated those whom they conquered?
Early documents from the seventh century suggest that Muslim administrators allowed non-Muslims in the conquered territories to live unmolested, provided they rendered the taxes required of non-Muslim inhabitants of the territories and abided by the terms of a peace accord. One early document records the agreement of the Christians of Syria, an accord in which they listed the conditions to which they acquiesced. They would not teach the Quran to their children, build new institutions of religion, harbor anyone who intended harm to Muslims, make public displays of religion, engage in proselytizing, dress as Muslims did, carry weapons, sell intoxicating beverages, display crosses or books or other religious symbolism in Muslim public spaces, or attack a Muslim. They agreed that they would give lodgings for three days to any traveler, including Muslims, and dress in recognizably Christian attire. And in exchange for these and a handful of other very benign considerations, the Christians would receive “safe conduct” in all aspects of their daily lives. These contents of the so-called Pact of Umar, the caliph who was then in power, represent a policy remarkably similar in its general terms to European Christian treatment of non-Christians.
What was the general picture of Islam’s westward spread?
Rapid as Islam’s spread was during the reigns of Muhammad’s four immediate successors, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, it enjoyed still more dramatic expansion during the subsequent fifty years or so. Under the earliest caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty, Muslim armies pushed westward across North Africa, rooting out the last vestiges of Byzantine power in Carthage, and had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar by 711. In Spain they encountered and defeated the Arian Visigoths of King Roderick. Within eight years they had established an administrative center in the city of Cordoba, and by 732 the Muslim armies had crossed the Pyrenees into France. There Charles Martel halted their advance at the Battle of Tours and Poitiers and forced an eventual retreat into Spain. But the Muslim foothold in Andalusia (Southern Iberia) was firm and marked the beginning of a significant presence lasting nearly eight centuries.
Makkah Masjid is one of the oldest mosques in Hyderabad, India. Islam expanded quickly into what is now Pakistan, and over several centuries into much of present-day India.
What are some key events in Islam’s eastward expansion?
The very year the Muslims crossed into Spain, far to the east the Umayyad armies had conquered Sind in present-day Pakistan. The eastern campaign had consolidated earlier gains in Persia and moved further into Central Asia and on east through what is now Afghanistan. Muslim armies stood near the northwestern quarter of present-day India, but it would be several centuries before Islam would become a presence in India proper. Most importantly the process of Islamization was well under way in ancient urban centers of West and Central Asia such as Samarqand and Bukhara along the Great Silk Road.
Why were the early Muslims so successful in spreading Islam? Was it a political rather than “missionary” movement?
Back in the center of the caliphate, the Umayyads, buoyed by their capture of Sicily and the historic city of Chalcedon, laid a protracted but unsuccessful siege to Constantinople. Surviving yet another Umayyad attack thirty years later, that city would stand for more than another seven centuries. The first great Muslim dynasty had made extraordinary gains in one of the most spectacular three-front advances ever mounted. However, the rapidity of military conquest and expansive political domination should not lead one to conclude that suddenly the whole of the known world had converted to Islam. It was not primarily missionary zeal that motivated the troops, but the promise of adventure and booty. That is not to say that their leaders entirely avoided the rhetoric of heavenly reward for bringing the world into the embrace of Islam. But on the whole, desire for conversion was secondary at best. In fact the Umayyads established a system of taxation under which non-Muslims paid a revenue over and above that expected of Muslims; while it may have encouraged non-Muslims to convert for financial reasons, it gave the conquerors a like incentive to leave the subject (conquered) peoples a measure of religious liberty.
How did the early Muslim administrations deal with non-Muslim subjects? Did they allow freedom of religion?
Under the Umayyads Muslim rule developed a policy begun under Umar that defined the socio-religious category of dhimmi (also ahl adh-dhimma, protected minority). Non-Muslims who chose not to convert enjoyed basic rights and freedom of worship so long as they paid a “poll tax” (jizya, JIZ-ya) in addition to the universally levied land tax (kharaj, KHA-raj). The poll tax was a carryover from both the Roman and Sasanian practices. In addition, Muslims were required to pay the zakat, legally prescribed alms and one of the “Five Pillars,” while non-Muslims were not. For legal purposes this protected status meant that Jews and Christians were answerable to their own religions’ jurisdictions rather than to Islamic religious law. In the Iranian territories, the dhimmis included Zoroastrians as well, and eventually Hindus too were brought under the umbrella of “dhimmitude” because they possessed their own sacred scriptures.
The Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus was built on the site where once stood a Christian basilica dedicated to John the Baptist (whose shrine is the small domed structure). Muslims consider John the Baptist to be a prophet.
How much freedom did non-Muslims enjoy under Muslim rule?
Non-Muslims were—and still are in some places—under a number of significant restrictions. They were forbidden to proselytize and had to wear clothing that identified their confessional membership. They could repair their ritual sites but could not build new ones, ride horses, or bear arms. In some historical settings the restrictions were enforced onerously, but in many cases dhimmis enjoyed considerable latitude. Dhimmis were distinguished from idolaters, who were indeed treated without religious toleration and left the choice of fleeing, converting, or fearing for their lives. Jews and Christians did not enjoy what is now considered wide open religious freedom under Islamic rule. Even so, it was in general a far better state of affairs than what Jews or even Christian minority groups often experienced at the hands of majority Christian regimes such as the Byzantine or Spanish Catholic.
What specific role did the Shia play in the fortunes of the Umayyad dynasty?
Animosity intensified between the Umayyads and the Shia, those who had supported the caliphate of Ali. Problems dated back at least to the suspicion that Ali had been involved in the murder of the third caliph, Uthman, who belonged to the Umayyad clan. But in 680, Shia-Umayyad relations degenerated still further. Ali’s son Husayn had decided to press his claim to rule by marching a small armed band out to meet the troops of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid. The Umayyad army slaughtered the badly outnumbered Shia entourage at Karbala just south of Baghdad and in the process made Husayn the Shi’i protomartyr.
Were the Shia the only major opposition to the Umayyad dynasty?
Still another faction had earlier separated from the Shia and were becoming a thorn in the side of the Umayyads. When Ali had contested the original Umayyad governor of Syria, Muawiya, to establish his legitimacy as fourth caliph in 657, the two sides fought to an apparent draw. At that point Ali decided to submit the case to human arbitration, inciting the ire of a group that insisted that the conflict should be decided by God through an appeal to the Quran alone. In anger the group decided to withdraw its support and came to be known as the “Seceders” (khawarij, kha-WAA-rij, plural of khariji, “those who secede”). The Kharijites had argued a hard line on membership in the community, claiming only non-sinners were true Muslims. They would come to regard the Umayyads as godless rulers, and hence as un-Muslim and unfit to lead.
After such a spectacular beginning, why did the first major dynasty last less than a century?
Amazing as the Umayyad dynasty was in so many ways, it suffered an untimely demise because it ultimately failed to contend with a number of social, religious, and political constituencies. The players in the drama of the fall of the Umayyad dynasty represent a fascinating cross-section of religious interests that have remained alive virtually throughout Islamic history in some form or another. First, the Umayyads had come to power largely as a result of their Meccan connections and were thus associated with a kind of Arab aristocracy. As the Muslim sphere expanded, however, the status of non-Arabs who chose to convert to Islam soon became a thorny issue. As a class they were known as “clients” (mawali), and as such they did not quite enjoy equality with Arab Muslims. According to some sources, Ali and the Shia had rejected such ethnic distinctions, thus winning the allegiance of some of the mawali and reinforcing their discontent with the Umayyads.
What other forces worked to undermine the Umayyad dynasty?
In their military operations, the Umayyads had always had to depend on Arab tribal forces. But that in turn meant choosing sides between traditionally implacable enemies, the northern Qays tribes and the southern Kalb tribes. Opting to bring the Qays with them to Damascus, the Umayyads earned the undying enmity of the Kalb forces then encamped in the garrison cities of Iraq. One of those garrisons was Kufa, a stronghold of the Shia; another was Basra, a stronghold of the Khawarij. In such places discontent fed on itself. Medina, meanwhile, remained the home of prophetic tradition and of religionists convinced they had inherited the custody of Muhammad’s authentic legacy. They looked on the Umayyads with suspicion and shared the view of other groups that the rulers were religiously unfit. So, for very different reasons, did small but increasingly important groups of ascetics. From their perspective, the Umayyads had assumed the mantle of royalty and attempted to justify a lifestyle utterly incompatible with the simplicity they associated with Muhammad’s leadership. Add to this volatile mix a new group of claimants to authority, and the die was cast for the Umayyads. The Abbasids, a faction that traced its lineage to an uncle of Muhammad’s named Abbas, now emerged to take advantage of the internal strife. Using a network of propagandists spread across the impossibly extended Umayyad realm, the Abbasids succeeded in making allies among enough of the disaffected parties to eventually undermine the caliphate. By the mid-740s, the caliphate was doomed and in 750 the Abbasids stepped in to inaugurate a regime that would last, at least nominally, for over five centuries.
Were there any other important internal conflicts during the very early years of Islamic history?
Transitions in leadership are rarely orderly.
That is especially true when the struggle involves forging the very institutions that alone can insure orderly transfer of power. Early Islamic history saw the development of numerous factions squaring off with claims to succession. Most notably, a series of four “civil wars” were testimony to considerable intra-Muslim fragmentation during the seventh and early eighth centuries. Lasting some five years (656–661), the “first fitna” (“dissension”) began with the death of Uthman (third “rightly guided” caliph) and saw protracted struggle between his relatives and supporters over Ali’s legitimacy as fourth caliph. An even more extended conflict (second fitna) began in 680 when a resurgent Shi’i community sought to overthrow the second caliph of the (Sunni) Umayyad dynasty (661–750). After the Shia suffered a catastrophic defeat at Karbala (southern Iraq), and the martyrdom of Ali’s son Husayn, twelve years of strife saw further conflict both between the Shia and the Umayyads and within the Shia, with the Kharijites continuing their rebellious ways. This war ended in 692, and for the next fifty years or so, the Umayyad caliphs in Damascus managed to hold the expanding Muslim realm together. But as their ability to maintain control over an increasingly far-flung administration dwindled, the Umayyads came under duress from various Muslim factions in the third civil war (744–750). The result was the rise of the Abbasids, ruling from their newly founded capital, Baghdad. But within seventy years or so, the Abbasids too began to suffer from internal factionalism, involving vicious infighting within the caliph’s own family as well as rebellion featuring the Shia, the Kharijites, and a host of other special interests. The fourth civil war had begun in 809, with the death of the famous Caliph Harun ar-Rashid and ended in 819 when his son Mamun wrested power from the rebels as well as his own brother.
An early forteenth-century folio from the Book of History by Balami shows the election of Uthman ibn Affan as the third “rightly guided caliph.” Under his leadership, Islam spread into Iran, Afghanistan, and Armenia.
How did early leadership of the Shia unfold?
Major differences between what evolved into the two largest segments of Shi’ites began to crystallize around the second half of the eighth century. Until that time, Shi’i Muslims were in general agreement in recognizing the leadership authority of a hereditary succession of six descendants of Muhammad, beginning with Ali and his two sons, Hasan and Husayn. They called these figures imams. All Shi’ites acknowledged these first three imams, as well as the following three. Jafar as-Sadiq, the sixth in that line, designated his son Ismail to be his successor, but when Ismail pre-deceased his father (in 760), a crisis arose. Despite the fact that Jafar then designated a younger son, Musa, some continued to insist on Ismail’s legitimacy even though he had died. Others pledged their allegiance to Musa and a rift in the Shi’ite community opened. Followers of Ismail regarded him as the “final” imam and saw his death as a temporary departure. This group came to be called the “Seveners” or “Ismailis.” They in turn eventually divided into more than one subgroup. Today Seveners live, for example, in East Africa, Pakistan, and India. The largest of the groups acknowledges the Aga Khan as its leader.
How did the alternative interpretation of Shia history develop?
The majority of Shi’ites hold another interpretation of the events of the 760s, arguing that Jafar’s designation of younger son Musa abrogated his earlier designation of the deceased Ismail. Those who acknowledged Musa’s leadership would follow a line of succession all the way to a twelfth imam. Their theological interpretation of history says that in about 874 C.E., the twelfth imam went into a “lesser concealment,” a period during which he communicated to his followers through a series of four representatives (wakil, wa-KEEL). In 940 C.E., the last of those spokespersons died without having appointed a successor. Since the imam was no longer actively communicating, Twelver Shi’ites call that date the beginning of the “greater concealment,” a condition that obtains to this day. These Twelvers, also called imamis or Jafaris, constitute by far the largest Shi’ite group and account for over ninety per cent of Iran’s population and just over half the population of Iraq. Twelver Shi’ism became the state religion of Iran in the early sixteenth century.
What major features do all Shia groups share?
In addition to the central notion of spiritual descendants from the Prophet (imams), both Twelver and Sevener views of history are distinctly millennialist in tone. Though there are some important differences in how they have elaborated their theologies, both have historically looked forward to the return or reemergence of the last (i.e., seventh or twelfth) imam. He will establish then an age of justice in which all believers will reap the rewards of the redemptive suffering of the imam’s extended family (especially for Twelvers) or from the imam’s healing arcane knowledge (a classical Sevener notion). Sunni tradition also looks forward to the advent of a Mahdi (guided one) at the end of time, but there the idea is not so fundamental as in Shi’i tradition.
In brief, what are the most important early Islamic sectarian movements?
Immediately upon Muhammad’s death Muslims had to face the question of succession to leadership of the community. One faction claimed that the Prophet had designated his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as his successor. They were to become known as the Party or Faction (Shi’a) of Ali, and today their various sub-communities are called Shi’i Muslims or Shi’ites. But a majority held that Muhammad had made no such appointment and that it was up to the elders to choose from among themselves. They considered their course of action to be both in keeping with the example of Muhammad (called his Sunna, SUN-na) and in the spirit of the needs of the whole community (jama’a, ja-MAA-ah) of Muslims. This majority group came to be known as the People of the Sunna and the Assembly (Ahl as-sunna wa-l’jama’ah), or Sunni Muslims for short.
Several other sects made their views known early on. When Ali was doing battle with the Umayyads to claim his rights to the caliphate, a number of his troops seceded on the grounds that Ali was too lax in his appeal to religious principles in the conduct of battle. They judged Ali a serious sinner who was no longer worthy of the name Muslim. That group became known as the Kharijites (or Khawarij, “those who secede”), and a small remnant of their several factions live today largely in Oman on the Persian Gulf. A variety of other groups also expressed their opinions as to how far one might go in judging another person’s suitability for true membership in the Muslim community. One of the more influential believed that only God could judge a person’s soul and that it was therefore best to postpone judgment on the matter. They were known as the Murji’ites or “Postponers,” because they “put off” until God’s judgment any attempt to evaluate other people’s spiritual status before God.
| Major Figures in Early Islamic History | |
| Name | Significance |
| Muhammad (d. 632) | Son of Amina and Abd Allah, clan of Hashim, last prophet |
| Khadija (d. 619) | Muhammad’s first wife (and only wife during her lifetime), mother of Fatima |
| Fatima (d. 633) | Most important of Muhammad’s children, wife of Ali, matriarch of the Shia, mother of the first two imams (Hasan, Husayn) |
| Abu Bakr (d. 634) | Father-in-law of Muhammad, first Rightly Guided Caliph |
| Aisha (d. 678) | Daughter of Abu Bakr, youngest wife of the Prophet, influential in early “civil war” episodes |
| Ali (d. 661) | Cousin of Muhammad, husband of Fatima, first Shia imam, fourth Rightly Guided Caliph (Sunni view) |
| Umar (d. 644) | Important Companion, second Rightly Guided Caliph |
| Uthman (d. 656) | Important Companion, third Rightly Guided Caliph |
| Muawiya (d. 680) | Brother-in-law of Muhammad, “founder” of Umayyad dynasty in Damascus |
| Husayn (d. 680) | Grandson of Muhammad, most-revered Shia martyr killed at Karbala (Iraq) |
