Why was Islam both very appealing to the people of the Arabian Peninsula at the end of the 6th century CE and why would others feel threatened by Muhammad and his message? Use this information:
;The Messenger and the Message
The catalyst for those events and for the birth of this new religion was a single
individual, Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (570—632 C.E.), who was born in Mecca to a
Quraysh family. As a young boy, Muhammad lost his parents, came under the care
of an uncle, and worked as a shepherd to pay his keep. Later he became a trader and
traveled as far north as Syria. At the age of twenty-five, he married a wealthy

widow, Khadija, herself 2 prosperous merchant, with whom he fathered six chil-
dren. A highly reflective man deeply troubled by the religious corruption and social

inequalities of Mecca, he often undertook periods of withdrawal and meditation in
the arid mountains outside the city. There, like the Buddha and Jesus, Muhammad
had a poweråll, overwhelming religious experience that left him convinced, albeit
reluctantly, that he was Allah's messenger to the Arabs, commissioned to bring to
them a scripture in their own language. (See Working with Evidence: The Life of
the Prophet, page 399, for images from the Life of Muhammad.)
According to Muslim tradition, the revelations began in 610 and continued
periodically over the next twenty-two years. Those revelations, recorded in the
Quran, became the sacred scriptures of Islam, which to this day most Muslims
regard as the very words of God and the core of their faith. Intended to be recited
rather than simply read for information, the Quran, Muslims claim, when heard in
its original Arabic, conveys nothing less than the very presence of the Divine. Its
unmatched poetic beauty, miraculous to Muslims, convinced many that it was
indeed a revelation from God. One of the earliest converts testifled to its power.
"When I heard the Quran, my heart was softened and I wept and Islam entered

Guided Reading
Question
DESCR$PTiON
What did the Quran expect
from those who followed
its teachings?

into me. "3
In its Arabian setting, the Quran's
message, delivered through Muhammad,
vvras revolutionary. Religiously, it was
radically monotheistic, presenting Allah as
the only God, the all-powerful Creator,
good, just, and ever merciful. Allah was
the "Lord sustainer of the worlds, the
Compassionate, the Caring, master of the
day of reckoning" and IQown to human
beings "on the farthest horizon and within
their own selves." 4 Here was an exalted
conception of Deity -that drew heavily on

traditions of Jewish and Christian mono-
theism. As "the Messenger of God, "

Muhammad presented himself in the line
of earlier prophets—Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and many others. He was the last,
"the seal of the prophets," bearing God's

Muslims, Jews, and Christians
The close relationship of three Middle Eastern monotheistic traditions is illustrated in this
fifteenth-century Persian painting, which ponrays Muhammad leading Moses, Abraham,
and Jesus in prayer. The fire surrounding the Prophet's head represents his religious fervor.
The painting reflects the Islamic belief that the revelations granted to Muhammad built on
and completed those given earlier to Jews and Christians. (From Miradj, by Mir Haydar, Royal
workshop of the Timurid Dynasty in Herat, Afghanistan, 1436. C BnF, Dist. RMN—Grand Palais/Art
Resource, NY)

368 CHAPTER 9 / THE WORLDS OF ISLAM, 600-1450

You must know that
the major religions
had core rules of
behavior, like the
Pillars of Islam, and
that they developed
more expansive
rules that developed
over time.

final revelation to humankind. It was not so much a call to a new faith as an invi_
tation to return to the old and pure religion of Abraham from which Jews, Chris_
tians, and Arabs alike had deviated. Jews had wrongly conceived of themselves as
a uniquely "chosen people"; Christians had made their prophet into a god; and
Arabs had become wildly polytheistic. To all of this, the message of the Quran was
a corrective.
Submission to Allah ("Muslim" means "one who submits") was the primary
obligation of believers and the means of achieving a God-conscious life in this

world and a place in Paradise after death. According to the Quran, hOwever, sub-
mission was not merely an individual or a spiritual act, for it involved the creation

ofa whole new society. Over and again, the Quran denounced the prevailing social

practices of an increasingly prosperous Mecca: the hoarding of wealth, the exploita-
tion of the poor, the charging of high rates of interest on loans, corrupt business

deals, the abuse of women, and the neglect of widows and orphans. Like the Jewish
prophets of the Old Testament, the Quran demanded social justice and laid out a
prescription for its implementation. It sought a return to the older values of Arab

tribal life—solidarity, equality, concern for the poor—which had been under-
mined, particularly in Mecca, by growing wealth and commercialism.

The message of the Quran challenged not only the ancient polytheism of Arab

religion and the social injustices of Mecca but also the entire tribal and clan struc-
ture of Arab society, which was so prone to war, feuding, and violence. The just

and moral society of Islam was the umma (OOM-mah), the community of all believ-
ers, replacing tribal, ethnic, or racial identities. Such a society would be a "witness

over the nations," for according to the Quran, "You are the best community
evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. "5 In this

community, women too had an honored and spiritually equal place. "The believ-
ers, men and women, are protectors of one another," declared the Quran-6 The

umma, then, was to be a new and just community, bound by coninon belief rather
than by territory, language, or tribe.
The core message of the Quran—the remembrance of God—was effectively
summarized as a set of five requirements for believers, known as the Pillars of Islam.
The first pillar expressed the heart of the Islamic message: "There is no god but
God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." The second pillar was ritual prayer,
performed five times a day. Accompanying practices, including cleansing, bowing,
kneeling, and prostration, expressed believers' submission to Allah and provided a

frequent reminder, amid the busyness of daily life, that they were living in the pres-
ence of God. The third pillar, almsgiving, reflected the Quran's repeated demands

for social justice by requiring believers to give generously to support the poor and
needy of the community. The fourth pillar established a month of fasting during
Ramadan, which meant abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations from the
first light of dawn to sundown. It provided an occasion for self-purification and a
reminder of the needs of the hungry. The fifth pillar encouraged a pilgrimage to
Mecca, known as the haj (HAHJ), during which believers from all over the Islamic

THE BIRTH OF A NEW RELIGION 369

world assembled once a year and put on identical simple white clothing as they
reenacted key events in Islamic history. For at least the few days of the haj, the
many worlds of Islam must surely have seemed a single realm.
A further requirement for believers, sometimes called the sixth pillar, was
"struggle, " or jihad in Arabic. Its more general meaning, which Muhammad referred
to as the "greater jihad, " was an interior personal effort of each believer against greed
and selfishness, a spiritual striving toward living a God-conscious life. In its "lesser"
form, the "jihad of the sword," the Quran authorized an-ned struggle against the
forces of unbelief and evil as a means of establishing Muslim rule and of defending
the umma from the threats of infidel aggressors. The understanding and use of the
jihad concept have varied widely over the many centuries of Islamic history and
remain a matter of much controversy among Muslims in the twenty-first century.