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[Taken from Introduction to Islam by Muhammad Hamidullah (Centre
Culturel Islamique, Paris, 1969), with some changes to make it more
readable. The changes are marked by pairs of brackets like around this
paragraph. Dr. Hamidullah's present address is: 9 Beaver Court, Wilkes
Barre PA, 18702, USA.]
IN
the annals of men, individuals have not been lacking who conspicuously
devoted their lives to the socio-religious reform of their connected
peoples. We find them in every epoch and in all lands. In India, there
lived those who transmitted to the world the Vedas, and there was also
the great Gautama Buddha; China had its Confucius; the Avesta was
produced in Iran. Babylonia gave to the world one of the greatest
reformers, the Prophet Abraham (not to speak of such of his ancestors
as Enoch and Noah about whom we have very scanty information). The
Jewish people may rightly be proud of a long series of reformers:
Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and Jesus among others.
2.
Two points are to note: Firstly these reformers claimed in general to
be the bearers each of a Divine mission, and they left behind them
sacred books incorporating codes of life for the guidance of their
peoples. Secondly there followed fratricidal wars, and massacres and
genocides became the order of the day, causing more or less a complete
loss of these Divine messages. As to the books of Abraham, we know
them only by the name; and as for the books of Moses, records tell us
how they were repeatedly destroyed and only partly restored.
3.
If one should judge from the relics of the past already brought to
light of the homo sapiens, one finds that man has always been
conscious of the existence of a Supreme Being, the Master and Creator
of all. Methods and approaches may have differed, but the people of
every epoch have left proofs of their attempts to obey God.
Communication with the Omnipresent yet invisible God has also been
recognised as possible in connection with a small fraction of men with
noble and exalted spirits. Whether this communication assumed the
nature of an incarnation of the Divinity or simply resolved itself
into a medium of reception of Divine messages (through inspiration or
revelation), the purpose in each case was the guidance of the people.
It was but natural that the interpretations and explanations of
certain systems should have proved more vital and convincing than
others.
3/a. Every system of metaphysical thought develops its own
terminology. In the course of time terms acquire a significance hardly
contained in the word and translations fall short of their purpose.
Yet there is no other method to make people of one group understand
the thoughts of another. Non-Muslim readers in particular are
requested to bear in mind this aspect which is a real yet unavoidable
handicap.
4.
By the end of the 6th century, after the birth of Jesus Christ, men
had already made great progress in diverse walks of life. At that time
there were some religions which openly proclaimed that they were
reserved for definite races and groups of men only, of course they
bore no remedy for the ills of humanity at large. There were also a
few which claimed universality, but declared that the salvation of man
lay in the renunciation of the world. These were the religions for the
elite, and catered for an extremely limited number of men. We need not
speak of regions where there existed no religion at all, where atheism
and materialism reigned supreme, where the thought was solely of
occupying one self with one's own pleasures, without any regard or
consideration for the rights of others.
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5.
A perusal of the map of the major hemisphere (from the point of view
of the proportion of land to sea), shows the Arabian Peninsula lying
at the confluence of the three great continents of Asia, Africa and
Europe. At the time in question. this extensive Arabian subcontinent
composed mostly of desert areas was inhabited by people of settled
habitations as well as nomads. Often it was found that members of the
same tribe were divided into these two groups, and that they preserved
a relationship although following different modes of life. The means
of subsistence in Arabia were meagre. The desert had its handicaps,
and trade caravans were features of greater importance than either
agriculture or industry. This entailed much travel, and men had to
proceed beyond the peninsula to Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, Iraq, Sind,
India and other lands.
6.
We do not know much about the Libyanites of Central Arabia, but Yemen
was rightly called Arabia Felix. Having once been the seat of the
flourishing civilizations of Sheba and Ma'in even before the
foundation of the city of Rome had been laid, and having later
snatched from the Byzantians and Persians several provinces, greater
Yemen which had passed through the hey-day of its existence, was
however at this time broken up into innumerable principalities, and
even occupied in part by foreign invaders. The Sassanians of Iran, who
had penetrated into Yemen had already obtained possession of Eastern
Arabia. There was politico-social chaos at the capital (Mada'in =
Ctesiphon), and this found reflection in all her territories. Northern
Arabia had succumbed to Byzantine influences, and was faced with its
own particular problems. Only Central Arabia remained immune from the
demoralising effects of foreign occupation.
7.
In this limited area of Central Arabia, the existence of the triangle
of Mecca-Ta'if-Madinah seemed something providential. Mecca, desertic,
deprived of water and the amenities of agriculture in physical
features represented Africa and the burning Sahara. Scarcely fifty
miles from there, Ta'if presented a picture of Europe and its frost.
Madinah in the North was not less fertile than even the most temperate
of Asiatic countries like Syria. If climate has any influence on human
character, this triangle standing in the middle of the major
hemisphere was, more than any other region of the earth, a miniature
reproduction of the entire world. And here was born a descendant of
the Babylonian Abraham, and the Egyptian Hagar, Muhammad the Prophet
of Islam, a Meccan by origin and yet with stock related, both to
Madinah and Ta'if.
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8.
From the point of view of religion, Arabia was idolatrous; only a few
individuals had embraced religions like Christianity, Mazdaism, etc.
The Meccans did possess the notion of the One God, but they believed
also that idols had the power to intercede with Him. Curiously enough,
they did not believe in the Resurrection and Afterlife. They had
preserved the rite of the pilgrimage to the House of the One God, the
Ka'bah, an institution set up under divine inspiration by their
ancestor Abraham, yet the two thousand years that separated them from
Abraham had caused to degenerate this pilgrimage into the spectacle of
a commercial fair and an occasion of senseless idolatry which far from
producing any good, only served to ruin their individual behaviour,
both social and spiritual.
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9. In spite of the comparative poverty in natural resources, Mecca
was the most developed of the three points of the triangle. Of the
three, Mecca alone had a city-state, governed by a council of ten
hereditary chiefs who enjoyed a clear division of power. (There was
a minister of foreign relations, a minister guardian of the temple,
a minister of oracles, a minister guardian of offerings to the
temple, one to determine the torts and the damages payable, another
in charge of the municipal council or parliament to enforce the
decisions of the ministries. There were also ministers in charge of
military affairs like custodianship of the flag, leadership of the
cavalry etc.). As well reputed caravan-leaders, the Meccans were
able to obtain permission from neighbouring empires like Iran,
Byzantium and Abyssinia - and to enter into agreements with the
tribes that lined the routes traversed by the caravans - to visit
their countries and transact import and export business. They also
provided escorts to foreigners when they passed through their
country as well as the territory of allied tribes, in Arabia (cf.
Ibn Habib, Muhabbar). Although not interested much in the
preservation of ideas and records in writing, they passionately
cultivated arts and letters like poetry, oratory discourses and folk
tales. Women were generally well treated, they enjoyed the privilege
of possessing property in their own right, they gave their consent
to marriage contracts, in which they could even add the condition of
reserving their right to divorce their husbands. They could remarry
when widowed or divorced. Burying girls alive did exist in certain
classes, but that was rare.
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21. The Prophet began by preaching his mission secretly first among
his intimate friends, then among the members of his own tribe and
thereafter publicly in the city and suburbs. He insisted on the
belief in One Transcendent God, in Resurrection and the Last
Judgement. He invited men to charity and beneficence. He took
necessary steps to preserve through writing the revelations he was
receiving, and ordered his adherents also to learn them by heart.
This continued all through his life, since the Quran was not
revealed all at once, but in fragments as occasions arose.
22. The number of his adherents increased gradually, but with the
denunciation of paganism, the opposition also grew intenser on the
part of those who were firmly attached to their ancestral beliefs.
This opposition degenerated in the course of time into physical
torture of the Prophet and of those who had embraced his religion.
These were stretched on burning sands, cauterized with red hot iron
and imprisoned with chains on their feet. Some of them died of the
effects of torture, but none would renounce his religion. In
despair, the Prophet Muhammad advised his companions to quit their
native town and take refuge abroad, in Abyssinia, "where governs a
just ruler, in whose realm nobody is oppressed" (Ibn Hisham). Dozens
of Muslims profited by his advice, though not all. These secret
flights led to further persecution of those who remained behind.
23. The Prophet Muhammad [was instructed to call this] religion
"Islam," i.e. submission to the will of God. Its distinctive
features are two: A harmonius equilibrium between the temporal and
the spiritual (the body and the soul), permitting a full enjoyment
of all the good that God has created, (Quran 7:32), enjoining at the
same time on everybody duties towards God, such as worship, fasting,
charity, etc. Islam was to be the religion of the masses and not
merely of the elect. A universality of the call - all the believers
becoming brothers and equals without any distinction of class or
race or tongue. The only superiority which it recognizes is a
personal one, based on the greater fear of God and greater piety (Quran
49:13).
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24. When a large number of the Meccan Muslims migrated to Abyssinia,
the leaders of paganism sent an ultimatum to the tribe of the
Prophet, demanding that he should be excommunicated and outlawed and
delivered to the pagans for being put to death. Every member of the
tribe, Muslim and non-Muslim rejected the demand. (cf. Ibn Hisham).
Thereupon the city decided on a complete boycott of the tribe:
Nobody was to talk to them or have commercial or matrimonial
relations with them. The group of Arab tribes called Ahabish,
inhabiting the suburbs, who were allies of the Meccans, also joined
in the boycott, causing stark misery among the innocent victims
consisting of children, men and women, the old and the sick and the
feeble. Some of them succumbed yet nobody would hand over the
Prophet to his persecutors. An uncle of the Prophet, Abu Lahab,
however left his tribesmen and participated in the boycott along
with the pagans. After three dire years, during which the victims
were obliged to devour even crushed hides, four or five non-Muslims,
more humane than the rest and belonging to different clans
proclaimed publicly their denunciation of the unjust boycott. At the
same time, the document promulgating the pact of boycott which had
been hung in the temple, was found, as Muhammad had predicted, eaten
by white ants, that spared nothing but the words God and Muhammad.
The boycott was lifted, yet owing to the privations that were
undergone the wife and Abu Talib, the chief of the tribe and uncle
of the Prophet died soon after. Another uncle of the Prophet, Abu-Lahab,
who was an inveterate enemy of Islam, now succeeded to the headship
of the tribe. (cf. lbn Hisham, Sirah).
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25. It was at thIs time that the Prophet Muhammad was granted the
mi'raj (ascension): He saw in a vision that he was received on
heaven by God, and was witness of the marvels of the celestial
regions. Returning, he brought for his community, as a Divine gift,
the [ritual prayer of Islam, the salaat], which constitutes a sort
of communion between man and God. It may be recalled that in the
last part of Muslim service of worship, the faithful employ as a
symbol of their being in the very presence of God, not concrete
objects as others do at the time of communion, but the very words of
greeting exchanged between the Prophet Muhammad and God on the
occasion of the former's mi'raj: "The blessed and pure greetings for
God! - Peace be with thee, O Prophet, as well as the mercy and
blessing of God! - Peace be with us and with all the [righteous]
servants of God!" The Christian term "communion" implies
participation in the Divinity. Finding it pretentious, Muslims use
the term "ascension" towards God and reception in His presence, God
remaining God and man remaining man and no confusion between the
twain.
26. The news of this celestial meeting led to an increase in the
hostility of the pagans of Mecca; and the Prophet was obliged to
quit his native town in search of an asylum elsewhere. He went to
his maternal uncles in Ta'if, but returned immediately to Mecca, as
the wicked people of that town chased the Prophet out of their city
by pelting stones on him and wounding him
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27. The annual pilgrimage of the Ka'bah brought to Mecca people from
all parts of Arabia. The Prophet Muhammad tried to persuade one
tribe after another to afford him shelter and allow him to carry on
his mission of reform. The contingents of fifteen tribes, whom he
approached in succession, refused to do so more or less brutally,
but he did not despair. Finally he met half a dozen inhabitants of
Madinah who being neighbour of the Jews and the Christians, had some
notion of prophets and Divine messages. They knew also that these
"people of the Books" were awaiting the arrival of a prophet - a
last comforter. So these Madinans decided not to lose the
opportunity of obtaining an advance over others, and forthwith
embraced Islam, promising further to provide additional adherents
and necessary help from Madinah. The following year a dozen new
Madinans took the oath of allegiance to him and requested him to
provide with a missionary teacher. The work of the missionary,
Mus'ab, proved very successful and he led a contingent of
seventy-three new converts to Mecca, at the time of the pilgrimage.
These invited the Prophet and his Meccan companions to migrate to
their town, and promised to shelter the Prophet and to treat him and
his companions as their own kith and kin. Secretly and in small
groups, the greater part of the Muslims emigrated to Madinah. Upon
this the pagans of Mecca not only confiscated the property of the
evacuees, but devised a plot to assassinate the Prophet. It became
now impossible for him to remain at home. It is worthy of mention,
that in spite of their hostility to his mission, the pagans had
unbounded confidence in his probity, so much so that many of them
used to deposit their savings with him. The Prophet Muhammad now
entrusted all these deposits to 'Ali, a cousin of his, with
instructions to return in due course to the rightful owners. He then
left the town secretly in the company of his faithful friend, Abu-Bakr.
After several adventures, they succeeded in reaching Madinah in
safety. This happened in 622, whence starts the Hijrah calendar
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28. For the better rehabilitation of the displaced immigrants, the
Prophet created a fraternization between them and an equal number of
well-to-do Madinans. The families of each pair of the contractual
brothers worked together to earn their livelihood, and aided one
another in the business of life.
29. Further he thought that the development of the man as a whole
would be better achieved if he co-ordinated religion and politics as
two constituent parts of one whole. To this end he invited the
representatives of the Muslims as well as the non-Muslim inhabitants
of the region: Arabs, Jews, Christians and others, and suggested the
establishment of a City-State in Madinah. With their assent, he
endowed the city with a written constitution - the first of its kind
in the world - in which he defined the duties and rights both of the
citizens and the head of the State - the Prophet Muhammad was
unanimously hailed as such - and abolished the customary private
justice. The administration of justice became henceforward the
concern of the central organisation of the community of the
citizens. The document laid down principles of defence and foreign
policy: it organized a system of social insurance, called ma'aqil,
in cases of too heavy obligations. It recognized that the Prophet
Muhammad would have the final word in all differences, and that
there was no limit to his power of legislation. It recognized also
explicitly liberty of religion, particularly for the Jews, to whom
the constitutional act afforded equality with Muslims in all that
concerned life in this world (cf. infra n. 303).
30. Muhammad journeyed several times with a view to win the
neighbouring tribes and to conclude with them treaties of alliance
and mutual help. With their help, he decided to bring to bear
economic pressure on the Meccan pagans, who had confiscated the
property of the Muslim evacuees and also caused innumerable damage.
Obstruction in the way of the Meccan caravans and their passage
through the Madinan region exasperated the pagans, and a bloody
struggle ensued. 31. In the concern for the material interests of
the community, the spiritual aspect was never neglected. Hardly a
year had passed after the migration to Madinah, when the most
rigorous of spiritual disciplines, the fasting for the whole month
of Ramadan every year, was imposed on every adult Muslim, man and
woman
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32. Not content with the expulsion of the Muslim compatriots, the
Meccans sent an ultimatum to the Madinans, demanding the surrender
or at least the expulsion of Muhammad and his companions but
evidently all such efforts proved in vain. A few months later, in
the year 2 H., they sent a powerful army against the Prophet, who
opposed them at Badr; and the pagans thrice as numerous as the
Muslims, were routed. After a year of preparation, the Meccans again
invaded Madinah to avenge the defeat of Badr. They were now four
times as numerous as the Muslims. After a bloody encounter at Uhud,
the enemy retired, the issue being indecisive. The mercenaries in
the Meccan army did not want to take too much risk, or endanger
their safety.
33. In thc meanwhile the Jewish citizens of Madinah began to foment
trouble. About the time of the victory of Badr, one of their
leaders, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, proceeded to Mecca to give assurance of
his alliance with the pagans, and to incite them to a war of
revenge. After the battle of Uhud, the tribe of the same chieftain
plotted to assassinate the Prophet by throwing on him a mill-stone
from above a tower, when he had gone to visit their locality. In
spite of all this, the only demand the Prophet made of the men of
this tribe was to quit the Madinan region, taking with them all
their properties, after selling their immovables and recovering
their debts from the Muslims. The clemency thus extended had an
effect contrary to what was hoped. The exiled not only contacted the
Meccans, but also the tribes of the North, South and East of Madinah,
mobilized military aid, and planned from Khaibar an invasion of
Madinah, with forces four times more numerous than those employed at
Uhud. The Muslims prepared for a siege, and dug a ditch to defend
themselves against this hardest of all trials. Although the
defection of the Jews still remaining inside Madinah at a later
stage upset all strategy, yet with a sagacious diplomacy, the
Prophet succeeded in breaking up the alliance, and the different
enemy groups retired one after the other.
34. Alcoholic drinks, gambling and games of chance were at this time
declared forbidden for the Muslims.
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35. The Prophet tried once more to reconcile the Meccans and
proceeded to Mecca. The barring of the route of their Northern
caravans had ruined their economy. The Prophet promised them transit
security, extradition of their fugitives and the fulfillment of
every condition they desired, agreeing even to return to Madinah
without accomplishing the pilgrimage of the Ka'bah. Thereupon the
two contracting parties promised at Hudaibiyah in the suburbs of
Mecca, not only the maintenance of peace, but also the observance of
neutrality in their conflicts with third parties.
36. Profiting by the peace, the Prophet launched an intensive
programme for the propagation of his religion. He addressed
missionary letters to the foreign rulers of Byzantium, Iran,
Abyssinia and other lands. The Byzantine autocrat priest - Dughatur
of the Arabs - embraced Islam, but for this, was lynched by the
Christian mob; the prefect of Ma'an (Palestine) suffered the same
fate, and was decapitated and crucified by order of the emperor. A
Muslim ambassador was assassinated in Syria-Palestine; and instead
of punishing the culprit, the emperor Heraclius rushed with his
armies to protect him against the punitive expedition sent by the
Prophet (battle of Mu'tah).
37. The pagans of Mecca hoping to profit by the Muslim difficulties,
violated the terms of their treaty. Upon this, the Prophet himself
led an army, ten thousand strong, and surprised Mecca which he
occupied in a bloodless manner. As a benevolent conqueror, he caused
the vanquished people to assemble, reminded them of their ill deeds,
their religious persecution, unjust confiscation of the evacuee
property, ceaseless invasions and senseless hostilities for twenty
years continuously. He asked them: "Now what do you expect of me?"
When everybody lowered his head with shame, the Prophet proclaimed:
"May God pardon you; go in peace; there shall be no responsibility
on you today; you are free!" He even renounced the claim for the
Muslim property confiscated by the pagans. This produced a great
psychological change of hearts instantaneously. When a Meccan chief
advanced with a fulsome heart towards the Prophet, after hearing
this general amnesty, in order to declare his acceptance of Islam,
the Prophet told him: "And in my turn, I appoint you the governor of
Mecca!" Without leaving a single soldier in the conquered city, the
Prophet retired to Madinah. The Islamization of Mecca, which was
accomplished in a few hours, was complete.
38. Immediately after the occupation of Mecca, the city of Ta'if
mobilized to fight against the Prophet. With some difficulty the
enemy was dispersed in the valley of Hunain, but the Muslims
preferred to raise the siege of nearby Ta'if and use pacific means
to break the resistance of this region. Less than a year later, a
delegation from Ta'if came to Madinah offering submission. But it
requested exemption from prayer, taxes and military service, and the
continuance of the liberty to adultery and fornication and alcoholic
drinks. It demanded even the conservation of the temple of the idol
al-Lat at Ta'if. But Islam was not a materialist immoral movement;
and soon the delegation itself felt ashamed of its demands regarding
prayer, adultery and wine. The Prophet consented to concede
exemption from payment of taxes and rendering of military service;
and added: You need not demolish the temple with your own hands: we
shall send agents from here to do the job, and if there should be
any consequences, which you are afraid of on account of your
superstitions, it will be they who would suffer. This act of the
Prophet shows what concessions could be given to new converts. The
conversion of the Ta'ifites was so whole hearted that in a short
while, they themselves renounced the contracted exemptions, and we
find the Prophet nominating a tax collector in their locality as in
other Islamic regions.
39. In all these "wars," extending over a period of ten years, the
non-Muslims lost on the battlefield only about 250 persons killed,
and the Muslim losses were even less. With these few incisions, the
whole continent of Arabia. with its million and more of square
miles, was cured of the abscess of anarchy and immorality. During
these ten years of disinterested struggle, all thc peoples of the
Arabian Peninsula and the southern regions of Iraq and Palestine had
voluntarily embraced Islam. Some Christian, Jewish and Parsi groups
remained attached to their creeds, and they were granted liberty of
conscience as well as judicial and juridical autonomy.
40. In the year 10 H., when the Prophet went to Mecca for Hajj
(pilgrimage), he met 140,000 Muslims there, who had come from
different parts of Arabia to fulfil their religious obligation. He
addressed to them his celebrated sermon, in which he gave a resume
of his teachings: "Belief in One God without images or symbols,
equality of all the Believers without distinction of race or class,
the superiority of individuals being based solely on piety; sanctity
of life, property and honour; abolition of interest, and of
vendettas and private justice; better treatment of women; obligatory
inheritance and distribution of the property of deceased persons
among near relatives of both sexes, and removal of the possibility
of the cumulation of wealth in the hands of the few." The Quran and
the conduct of the Prophet were to serve as the bases of law and a
healthy criterion in every aspect of human life.
41. On his return to Madinah, he fell ill; and a few weeks later,
when he breathed his last, he had the satisfaction that he had well
accomplished the task which he had undertaken - to preach to the
world the Divine message.
42. He bequeathed to posterity, a religion of pure monotheism; he
created a well-disciplined State out of the existent chaos and gave
peace in place of the war of everybody against everybody else; he
established a harmonious equilibrium between the spiritual and the
temporal, between the mosque and the citadel; he left a new system
of law, which dispensed impartial justice, in which even the head of
the State was as much a subject to it as any commoner, and in which
religious tolerance was so great that non-Muslim inhabitants of
Muslim countries equally enjoyed complete juridical, judicial and
cultural autonomy. In the matter of the revenues of the State, the
Quran fixed the principles of budgeting, and paid more thought to
the poor than to anybody else. The revenues were declared to be in
no wise the private property of the head of the State. Above all,
the Prophet Muhammad set a noble example and fully practised all
that he taught to others.
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