Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Charles Taylor - A Secular Age, Session 1A


Amazon Link



Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Jason Blakely Lecture 2020


44 seconds
Jason Blakely - From Atheist to Catholic
Jason Blakely Professor at Pepperdine University
specializing in political theory and hermeneutics.



8:13 min
Was Monotheism the First Great Secularizer?
Charles Taylor's A Secular Age (1/4)
Jason W Blakely



11:35 min
How Catholics *and* Protestants Built a Secular Age 
Philosopher Charles Taylor (2/4)
Jason W Blakely



10:25 min
Why Conservatives Are Wrong about Secularism:
Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (3/4)
Jason W Blakely



11:59 min
How to Find God in A Secular Age
Charles Taylor's Conception of Re-Enchantment (4/4)
Jason W Blakely



Conversation with Charles Taylor
Jun 16, 2012





The Godless Delusion

by John Patrick Diggins
Dec. 16, 2007

We haven’t yet solved the problem of God,” the Russian critic Belinsky once shouted across the table at Turgenev, “and you want to eat!”

Charles Taylor would prefer that we feast upon the 874 pages of his new book “A Secular Age,” which offers musings and perceptions from every field of knowledge except knowledge of God, which he leaves off the menu. Taylor’s quarrel is with secularism — the idea that as modernity, science and democracy have advanced, concern with God and spirituality has retreated to the margins of life. Calling this thesis “very unconvincing,” Taylor seeks to prove that God is still very much present in the world, if only we look at the right places and allow the mind to open itself to moral inquiry and aesthetic sensibility rather than traditional theology as the gateway to religion.

Taylor, an emeritus professor of philosophy at McGill University, is the author of “Hegel” (1975) and “Sources of the Self” (1989) and the winner of this year’s prestigious Templeton Prize, awarded for advancement and research of spiritual matters. A Roman Catholic who is convinced that life lacks meaning without belief in God, Taylor is also a communitarian who questions the value of an individualism supposedly indifferent to the concerns of the larger society. He commands wide admiration for his ecumenical attitude toward world religions, his favorable view of identity politics and his commitment to the idea of human beings as contesting agents, always situated in conflict and thereby deserving of rights. He also appeals to postmodernist thinkers who trust less in the power of philosophy to prove the existence of truth than in the power of language to persuade us of the possibility of belief.

Some postmodernists speak of the “end of philosophy,” since it supposedly can no longer tell us anything about the world independent of its relation to us — about that which exists “out there” and derives, as Taylor puts it, “from a power which is beyond me.” At present, he writes, “we live in a condition” in which we suspect our own beliefs as having been influenced by sources other than the self and its reasons, with the human subject the mere effect of forces alien to our being. “We cannot help looking over our shoulder from time to time,” he writes, “looking sideways, living our faith also in a condition of doubt and uncertainty.” Has religion, then, come to end in doubts about ourselves?

In “A Secular Age,” Taylor answers with a resounding no. He argues for “the ‘deconstruction’ of the death of God view” proclaimed by Nietzsche. To see secularization as simply the separation of church and state, the alienation of truth from power, and the rise of skepticism and worldliness, he writes, is to miss the deeper and more enduring residues of religion and the spiritual life, the true “bulwarks of belief” that in his view have hardly eroded. Taylor argues against the “subtraction stories” of modernity, in which religious belief and other “confining horizons” are “sloughed off,” leaving the mind without faith or piety. Instead, he argues, “Western modernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of human life.” Even the old distinction between the sacred and the profane has taken on new meaning. Instead of disappearing, God is now “sanctifying us everywhere,” including “in ordinary life, our work, in marriage, and so on.”

Philosophy, in Taylor’s estimate, also enjoys a certain sanctification of mind and will. He cites Descartes to suggest how we are rational beings demanding to be ruled by reason governed by will. Freud’s sense of the proud solitariness of the ego is also an example of the inner truth of the emotions asking to be controlled apart from formal religion, and William James’s “Varieties of Religious Experience” indicates how people everywhere have a need to believe that can be determined by the will.

Taylor’s case for the moral authority of “self-sufficient reason” may claim too much for mind and will. Descartes could scarcely break free from the Calvinist conviction that the will, rather than exercising sovereign control over the body, remained in bondage to the sins of the flesh. Freud saw religion as an illusion born of the need to deny death; and James gave us the right to believe, but not necessarily the reasons for it. The most Taylor succeeds in arguing is that secularization did not kill off religion, since the depths of humanism have survived as spiritual values.

Taylor’s deconstruction of the death-of-God thesis rests on his conviction that “the arguments from natural science to Godlessness are not all that convincing.” He has no patience with atheists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who argue that science, particularly the theory of evolution, has consigned religion to the ash heap of history. Taylor, in contrast, sees science as reinforcing religion, since God is implicated in a social existence where the contemplation of meaning and order suggests “something divine in us.” For Taylor, belief is not what science finds but what religion hopes for. Yet, in the larger perspective of intellectual history, the validity of belief may turn less on the clash of science and religion than on a concept of a deity in all its paradoxes. “An omniscient and omnipotent God who does not even take care that his intentions shall be understood by his creatures,” Nietzsche wrote, “could he be a God of goodness?” But Taylor seems uninterested in explaining the ways of God, and he argues that religion needs no justification on the basis of its good works while secularization, which some thinkers argue is necessary for tolerance, endangers the religious values that may save us from the temptations of our selfish desires.

A word repeated in Taylor’s book is “disenchantment,” derived from Max Weber, who saw Enlightenment reason turning into modern rationalization as intelligence is used not to get to the bottom of things but to organize life from the top down, through structures of hierarchy, specialization, regulation and control. Taylor agrees that this “disenchantment of the world” leaves us with a universe that is dull, routine, flat, driven by rules rather than thoughts, a process that culminates in bureaucracy run by “specialists without spirit, hedonists without heart” — what Weber called the “iron cage” of modern life.

The Weberian outlook is bleak, and Taylor puts it aside to find a far more hopeful vision in the sociology of Emile Durkheim. In contrast to Weber, Durkheim saw the forms of society as containing not impersonal functions but deeply implanted sacred practices, and he saw religion rooted in the roles and rules of modern social systems resisting the chill of alienation. Whatever intellectuals may think, people value religion as providing a framework of meaning, a realm of unifying symbols and a sense of belonging. Some observers have been surprised by the resurgence of religion in recent years. “In a sense,” Taylor observes, “part of what drove the Moral Majority and motivates the Christian right in the U.S.A. is an aspiration to re-establish something of the fractured neo-Durkheimian understanding that used to define the nation, where being American would once more have a connection with theism, with being ‘one nation under God.’”

Contrary to Taylor, the American founders felt they had to deal with a young republic consisting not of one nation but of a series of contending factions. Religion, in their view, would do more to divide the country into zealous sects than to unify it under “God,” who, after several polite appearances in the Declaration of Independence, is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Jefferson, in fact, subscribed to the “subtraction” theory of history that Taylor denies. “Priests,” wrote the author of the Declaration, “dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.”

“A Secular Age” is a work of stupendous breadth and erudition, even if repetitious. While Taylor’s main purpose is to salvage religion from the corrosive effects of modern secularism, he would also like to see the Anglo-American world reconsider its liberal legacy. The Federalist authors taught that government was about safeguarding life, liberty and land. “The transcendent law of nature and of nature’s God,” James Madison wrote, “declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.”

Taylor believes that Western liberal thought, beginning with Hobbes and Locke, Hume and Adam Smith, is on the wrong track. For some Catholics in the intellectual tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, the meaning of history is not the preservation of life but the salvation of the soul, not the right to labor and own property but the duty to abide by moral order, not the greed of the market but the grace of the cathedral. To resist the ubiquity of liberal individualism, Taylor draws on such dubious historical sources as classical republicanism, in which citizens subordinate private interest to public virtue, and the theory of public space, where citizens supposedly long gathered to discuss the issues of the day and render politics an act of conversation and dialogue. Taylor also draws upon the literature of Romanticism to demonstrate that spirit lives on in the imaginations of mind whatever the material forces of secularization. “A new poetic language can serve to find a way back to the God of Abraham,” he exhorts.

Some 19th-century New England Transcendentalists may have felt the presence of God in a blade of grass, but they sought to escape the Abraham who would have murdered his own son at God’s command, along with America’s own killer of innocence in the name of authority, Captain Ahab. Taylor’s effort to resurrect intellectual respect for religion is commendable without being credible. A new poetic language led Emerson to see American religion as “corpse-cold” as the sublime gave way to the mundane and the

“thingification” of life. What threatened religion was not only secularization but society itself, with its anxieties about status and lack of self-reliance. Yet Taylor looks to society for religious redemption, one possibility being “to recover a sense of the link between erotic desire and the love of God, which lies deep in the biblical traditions.” Whatever our desires, we are drawn to God. “Our access to the will of God, through his design,” Taylor writes, “is crucial to the story of the modern moral order and to the new neo-Durkheimian understanding of God’s presence among us.” Taylor assumes that we can “find a way back” to God by re-enchanting society with the mysteries of spirit and even sensuality. Since we cannot get to God by means of philosophy, Taylor sees the Deity’s “design” in the social world as we experience it in its moral and erotic dimensions. Can the same faith be trusted to history as to society? To insist that the “will of God” can be seen in history, one would have to deal with thinkers from Thucydides to Tolstoy, who saw “design” as the domination of reason by power and freedom by fate.

Emerson called society “a conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members,” its material pleasures the very soil of secularism itself. Durkheim expected that such insatiable pleasures would be restrained by society, the role once assumed by religion. Taylor, for his part, promises an understanding of “God’s presence among us” in the fullness of ordinary life. But the belief that God inheres in life itself suggests Taylor’s Hegelianism and the dialectical fantasy that an indwelling “spirit” governs the material world. To see the sacred within the profane, to derive God from the sentiments of society, does little to relieve us of Weber’s secularized world where politics is no longer an ethical calling and religion no longer an ascetic ideal. Taylor may locate the drama of the soul in society, but the meaning and mystery of God remain as elusive as the enigma of existence and religious morality becomes little more than social convention. There are many reasons to read the profound meditations in “A Secular Age,” but waiting for God to show up is not one of them.


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Index - Islam & Christianity




Index to Islam & Christianity

The articles indexed below are developing thoughts on Christianity & Islam. What has yet to be looked at is how Christianity and Islam might meet in processual conformity with one another through Whitehead's  Process Philosophy (e.g. Process Christianity) and both together with a process version of Judaism. For simplicity let's refer to all three faiths in terms of a developing religious triptych of Process Theology. - res

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Monday, June 7, 2021

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Friday, June 16, 2017

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Monday, November 14, 2011

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Monday, August 22, 2011

Monday, June 13, 2011
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Wikipedia - Muhammad in Islam


Muhammad in Islam

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For an overview of all perspectives, see Muhammad.
Nabiyy (Arabic: نَبِيٌّ‎, Prophet)
Rasūl (Arabic: رَسُولٌ‎, Messenger)

Muhammad
مُحَمَّدٌ
Calligraphic representation of Muhammad's name.jpg
Calligraphic representation of
Muhammad's name
Messenger of God
BornMonday, 12 Rabi' al-awwal c. 53 BH/ c. 570 CE
Mecca, Hejaz, Arabia
DiedMonday, 12 of Rabi' al-awwal c. 11 AH/ 8 June, 632 CE (aged 62 or 63 years)
Medina, Hejaz, Arabia
Resting placeUnder the Green Dome in al-Masjid an-Nabawi
Venerated inIslam
Major shrineAl-Masjid an-Nabawi, Medina, Saudi Arabia
Major works

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
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Islam
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History
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Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbdul-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim (Arabic: بْنِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عَبْدِ ٱللهِ بْنِ عَبْدِ ٱلْمُطَّلِبِ بْنِ هَاشِمٍ‎) (c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE), commonly known as Muhammad, is believed to be the seal of the Messengers and Prophets of God in all the main branches of Islam. Muslims believe that the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, was revealed to Muhammad by God, and that Muhammad was sent to restore Islam, which they believe did not originate with Muhammad but is the true unaltered original monotheistic faith of Adam, Ibraham, Musa, Isa, and other prophets.[1][2][3][4] The religious, social, and political tenets that Muhammad established with the Quran became the foundation of Islam and the Muslim world.[5]

Born about 570 into a respected Qurashi family of Mecca, Muhammad earned the title "al-Amin" (اَلْأَمِينُ, meaning "the Trustworthy").[6][7] At the age of 40 in 610 CE, Muhammad is said to have received his first verbal revelation in the cave called Hira, which was the beginning of the descent of the Quran that continued up to the end of his life; and Muslims hold that Muhammad was asked by God to preach the oneness of God in order to stamp out idolatry, a practice overtly present in pre-Islamic Arabia.[8][9] Because of persecution of the newly converted Muslims, upon the invitation of a delegation from Medina (then known as Yathrib), Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina in 622 CE, an event known as the Hijrah.[10][11] A turning point in Muhammad's life, this Hegira also marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, Muhammad sketched out the Constitution of Medina specifying the rights of and relations among the various existing communities there, formed an independent community, and managed to establish the first Islamic state.[12] Despite the ongoing hostility of the Meccans, Muhammad, along with his followers, took control of Mecca in 630 CE,[13][14] and ordered the destruction of all pagan idols.[15][16] In his later years in Medina, Muhammad unified the different tribes of Arabia under Islam[17] and carried out social and religious reforms.[18] By the time he died in 632, almost all the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.[19]

Muslims often refer to Muhammad as Prophet Muhammad, or just "The Prophet" or "The Messenger", and regard him as the greatest of all Prophets.[1][20][21][22] He is seen by the Muslims as a possessor of all virtues.[23] As an act of respect, Muslims follow the name of Muhammad by the Arabic benediction sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam, (meaning Peace be upon him),[24] sometimes abbreviated as "SAW" or "PBUH".

In the Quran

Further information: Muhammad in the Quran
The name Muhammad written in Thuluth, a script variety of Islamic calligraphy

The Quran enumerates little about Muhammad's early life or other biographic details, but it talks about his prophetic mission, his moral excellence, and theological issues regarding Muhammad. According to the Quran, Muhammad is the last in a chain of prophets sent by God (33:40). Throughout the Quran, Muhammad is referred to as "Messenger", "Messenger of God", and "Prophet". Some of such verses are 2:101, 2:143, 2:151, 3:32, 3:81, 3:144, 3:164, 4:79-80, 5:15, 5:41, 7:157, 8:01, 9:3, 33:40, 48:29, and 66:09. Other terms are used, including "Warner", "bearer of glad tidings", and the "one who invites people to a Single God" (Quran 12:108, and 33:45-46). The Quran asserts that Muhammad was a man who possessed the highest moral excellence, and that God made him a good example or a "goodly model" for Muslims to follow (Quran 68:4, and 33:21). The Quran disclaims any superhuman characteristics for Muhammad,[25] but describes him in terms of positive human qualities. In several verses, the Quran crystallizes Muhammad's relation to humanity. According to the Quran, God sent Muhammad with truth (God's message to humanity), and as a blessing to the whole world (Quran 39:33, and 21:107). In Islamic tradition, this means that God sent Muhammad with his message to humanity the following of which will give people salvation in the afterlife, and it is Muhammad's teachings and the purity of his personal life alone which keep alive the worship of God on this world.[26]

Traditional Muslim account

The birthplace of Muhammad. After his migration, the house was taken and sold by Aqil ibn Abi Talib. In modern times, the house was demolished and converted into a library in 1951.

Early years

See also: Muhammad in Mecca, Mawlid, and Family tree of Muhammad

Muhammad, the son of 'Abdullah ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib ibn Hashim and his wife Aminah, was born in 570 CE, approximately,[n 1] in the city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula. He was a member of the family of Banu Hashim, a respected branch of the prestigious and influential Quraysh tribe. It is generally said that 'Abd al-Muttalib named the child "Muhammad" (Arabic: مُحَمَّد‎).[27]

Orphanhood

Muhammad was orphaned when young. Some months before the birth of Muhammad, his father died near Medina on a mercantile expedition to Syria (Arabic: اَلشَّام‎, "Ash-Shām").[28][29][30] When Muhammad was six, he accompanied his mother Amina on her visit to Medina, probably to visit her late husband's tomb. While returning to Mecca, Amina died at a desolate place called Abwa, about half-way to Mecca, and was buried there. Muhammad was now taken in by his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, who himself died when Muhammad was eight, leaving him in the care of his uncle Abu Talib. In Islamic tradition, Muhammad's being orphaned at an early age has been seen as a part of divine plan to enable him to "develop early the qualities of self-reliance, reflection, and steadfastness".[31] Muslim scholar Muhammad Ali sees the tale of Muhammad as a spiritual parallel to the life of Moses, considering many aspects of their lives to be shared.[32] The Quran said about Moses: "I cast (the garment of love) over thee from Me, so that thou might be reared under My eye. ... We saved thee from all grief, although We tried thee with various trials. ... O Moses, I have chosen thee for Mine Own service" (20:39-41). Taking into account the idea of this spiritual parallelism, together with other aspects of Muhammad's early life, it has been suggested that it was God under Whose direct care Muhammad was raised and prepared for the responsibility that was to be conferred upon him.[31] Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan argued that Muhammad's orphan state made him dependent on God and close to the destitute – an "initiatory state for the future Messenger of God".[33]

Early life

Lineage of several prophets
according to Islamic tradition

 
Adam
Shīth (Seth)
Nūḥ (Noah)
Ibrāhīm (Abraham)
Ismāʿīl (Ishmael)Iṣḥāq (Isaac)
Mūsa (Moses)
ʿĪsā (Jesus)
Muhammad
Dotted lines indicate multiple generations

According to Arab custom, after his birth, infant Muhammad was sent to Banu Sa'ad clan, a neighboring Bedouin tribe, so that he could acquire the pure speech and free manners of the desert.[34] There, Muhammad spent the first five years of his life with his foster-mother Halima. Islamic tradition holds that during this period, God sent two angels who opened his chest, took out the heart, and removed a blood-clot from it. It was then washed with Zamzam water. In Islamic tradition, this incident signifies the idea that God purified his prophet and protected him from sin.[35][36]

Islamic belief holds that God protected Muhammad from getting involved in any disrespectful and coarse practice. Even when he verged on any such activity, God intervened. Prophetic tradition narrates one such incident in which it is said on the authority of Ibn Al-Atheer that while working as herdsman at early period of his life, young Muhammad once told his fellow-shepherd to take care of his sheep so that the former could go to the town for some recreation as the other youths used to do. But on the way, his attention was diverted to a wedding party, and he sat down to listen to the sound of music only to soon fall asleep. He was awakened by the heat of the sun. Muhammad reported that he never tried such things again.[37][38][39]

Around the age of twelve, Muhammad accompanied his uncle Abu Talib in a mercantile journey to Syria, and gained experience in commercial enterprise.[40] On this journey Muhammad is said to have been recognized by a Christian monk, Bahira, who prophesied about Muhammad's future as a prophet of God.[9][41]

Around the age of twenty five, Muhammad was employed as the caretaker of the mercantile activities of Khadijah, a distinguished Quraysh lady.

Attracted by his noble ethics, honesty and trustworthiness, she sent a marriage proposal to Muhammad through her maid-servant Meisara. As Muhammad gave his consent, the marriage was solemnized in the presence of his uncle.

Social welfare

Between 580 CE and 590 CE, Mecca experienced a bloody feud between Quraysh and Bani Hawazin that lasted for four years, before a truce was reached. After the truce, an alliance named Hilf al-Fudul (The Pact of the Virtuous)[42] was formed to check further violence and injustice; and to stand on the side of the oppressed, an oath was taken by the descendants of Hashim and the kindred families, where Muhammad was also a member.[40] In later days of his life, Muhammad is reported to have said about this pact, "I witnessed a confederacy in the house of 'Abdullah bin Jada'an. It was more appealing to me than herds of cattle. Even now in the period of Islam I would respond positively to attending such a meeting if I were invited."[43]

Islamic tradition credits Muhammad with settling a dispute peacefully, regarding setting the sacred Black Stone on the wall of Kaaba, where the clan leaders could not decide on which clan should have the honor of doing that. The Black stone was removed to facilitate the rebuilding of Kaaba because of its dilapidated condition. The disagreement grew tense, and bloodshed became likely. The clan leaders agreed to wait for the next man to come through the gate of Kaaba and ask him to choose. The 35-year-old Muhammad entered through that gate first, asked for a mantle which he spread on the ground, and placed the stone at its center. Muhammad had the clans' leaders lift a corner of it until the mantle reached the appropriate height, and then himself placed the stone on the proper place. Thus, an ensuing bloodshed was averted by the wisdom of Muhammad.[9][44][45]

Prophethood

Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last and final messenger and prophet of God who began receiving direct verbal revelations in 610 CE. The first revealed verses were the first five verses of sura Al-Alaq that the archangel Jibril brought from God to Muhammad in the cave Mount Hira.[46][47]Main article: Muhammad's first revelation

After his marriage with Khadijah and during his career as a merchant, although engaged in commercial activities and family affairs, Muhammad gradually became preoccupied with contemplation and reflection.[9][48] and began to withdraw periodically to a cave named Mount Hira, three miles north of Mecca.[49] According to Islamic tradition, in the year 610 CE, during one such occasion while he was in contemplation, Jibril appeared before him and said 'Recite', upon which Muhammad replied: 'I am unable to recite'. Thereupon the angel caught hold of him and embraced him heavily. This happened two more times after which the angel commanded Muhammad to recite the following verses:[46][47]

Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created-
Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,-
He Who taught (the use of) the pen,-
Taught man that which he knew not.

— Quran, chapter 96 (Al-Alaq), verse 1-5[50]

This was the first verbal revelation. Perplexed by this new experience, Muhammad made his way to home where he was consoled by his wife Khadijah, who also took him to her Christian cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal. Waraqah was familiar with scriptures of the Torah and Gospel. Islamic tradition holds that Waraka, upon hearing the description, testified to Muhammad's prophethood.[9][51] It is also reported by Aisha that Waraqah ibn Nawfal later told Muhammad that Muhammad's own people would turn him out, to which Muhammad inquired "Will they really drive me out?" Waraka replied in the affirmative and said "Anyone who came with something similar to what you have brought was treated with hostility; and if I should be alive till that day, then I would support you strongly."[52][53] Some Islamic scholars argue that Muhammad was foretold in the Bible.[54][55][56]

Divine revelation

Main article: Wahy

In Islamic belief, revelations are God's word delivered by his chosen individuals – known as Messengers—to humanity.[57] According to Islamic scholar Muhammad Shafi Usmani, God created three media through which humans receive knowledge: men's senses, the faculty of reason, and divine revelation; and it is the third one that addresses the liturgical and eschatological issues, answers the questions regarding God's purpose behind creating humanity, and acts as a guidance for humanity in choosing the correct way.[58] In Islamic belief, the sequence of divine revelation came to an end with Muhammad.[58] Muslims believe these revelations to be the verbatim word of God, which were later collected together, and came to be known as Quran, the central religious text of Islam.[59][60][61][62]

Early preaching and teachings

During the first three years of his ministry, Muhammad preached Islam privately, mainly among his near relatives and close acquaintances. The first to believe him was his wife Khadijah, who was followed by Ali, his cousin, and Zayd ibn Harithah. Notable among the early converts were Abu Bakr, Uthman ibn Affan, Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib, Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqas, Abdullah ibn Masud, Arqam, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, Ammar ibn Yasir and Bilal ibn Rabah. In the fourth year of his prophethood, according to Islamic belief, he was ordered by God to make public his propagation of this monotheistic faith (Quran 15:94).

Muhammad's earliest teachings were marked by his insistence on the oneness of God (Quran 112:1), the denunciation of polytheism (Quran 6:19), belief in the Last judgment and its recompense (Quran 84:1–15), and social and economic justice (Quran 89:17–20).[5] In a broader sense, Muhammad preached that he had been sent as God's messenger;[63] that God is One who is all-powerful, creator and controller of this universe (Quran 85:8–9, Quran 6:2), and merciful towards his creations (Quran 85:14);[64] that worship should be made only to God;[63] that ascribing partnership to God is a major sin (Quran 4:48); that men would be accountable, for their deeds, to God on last judgment day, and would be assigned to heaven or hell (Quran 85:10–13); and that God expects man to be generous with their wealth and not miserly (Quran 107:1–7).[64]

Opposition and persecution

Main articles: Persecution of Muslims by the Meccans and Migration to Abyssinia

Muhammad's early teachings invited vehement opposition from the wealthy and leading clans of Mecca who feared the loss not only of their ancestral paganism but also of the lucrative pilgrimage business.[65] At first, the opposition was confined to ridicule and sarcasm which proved insufficient to arrest Muhammad's faith from flourishing, and soon they resorted to active persecution.[66] These included verbal attack, ostracism, unsuccessful boycott, and physical persecution.[65][67] Biographers have presented accounts of diverse forms of persecution on the newly converted Muslims by the Quraysh. The converted slaves who had no protection were imprisoned and often exposed to scorching sun. Alarmed by mounting persecution on the newly converts, Muhammad in 615 CE directed some of his followers to migrate to neighboring Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia), a land ruled by king Aṣḥama ibn Abjar famous for his justice, and intelligence.[68] Accordingly, eleven men and four women made their flight, and were followed by more in later time.[68][69]

Back in Mecca, Muhammad was gaining new followers, including notable figures like Umar ibn Al-Khattāb. Muhammad's position was greatly strengthened by their acceptance of Islam, and the Quraysh became much perturbed. Upset by the fear of losing the leading position, and shocked by continuous condemnation of idol-worship in the Quran, the merchants and clan-leaders tried to come to an agreement with Muhammad. They offered Muhammad the prospect of higher social status and advantageous marriage proposal in exchange of forsaking his preaching. Muhammad rejected the both, asserting his nomination as a messenger by God.[70][71][72] Unable to deal with this status quo, the Quraysh then proposed to adopt a common form of worship, which was denounced by the Quran: 'Say: O ye the disbelievers, I worship not that which ye worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. To you be your Way, and to me mine' (109:1).

Social boycott

Thus frustrated from all sides, the leaders of various Quraysh clans, in 617 CE, enacted a complete boycott of Banu Hashim family to mount pressure to lift its protection on Muhammad. The Hashemites were made to retire in a quarter of Abu Talib, and were cut off from outside activities.[9][73] During this period, the Hashemites suffered from various scarcities, and Muhammad's preaching confined to only the pilgrimage season.[74][75] The boycott ended after three years as it failed to serve its end. This incident was shortly followed by the death of Muhammad's uncle and protector Abu Talib and his wife Khadijah.[9][76] This has largely been attributed to the plight to which the Hashemites were exposed during the boycott.[77][78]

Last years in Mecca

The death of his uncle Abu Talib left Muhammad somewhat unprotected, and exposed him to some mischief of Quraysh, which he endured with great steadfastness. An uncle and a bitter enemy of Muhammad, Abu Lahab succeeded Abu Talib as clan chief, and soon withdrew the clan's protection from Muhammad.[79] Around this time, Muhammad visited Ta'if, a city some sixty kilometers east of Mecca, to preach Islam, but met with severe hostility from its inhabitants who pelted him with stones causing bleeding. It is said that God sent angels of the mountain to Muhammad who asked Muhammad's permission to crush the people of Ta'if in between the mountains, but Muhammad said 'No'.[80][81] At the pilgrimage season of 620, Muhammad met six men of Khazraj tribe from Yathrib (later named Medina), propounded to them the doctrines of Islam, and recited portions of Quran.[79][82] Impressed by this, the six embraced Islam,[9] and at the Pilgrimage of 621, five of them brought seven others with them. These twelve informed Muhammad of the beginning of gradual development of Islam in Medina, and took a formal pledge of allegiance at Muhammad's hand, promising to accept him as a prophet, to worship none but one God, and to renounce certain sins like theft, adultery, murder and the like. This is known as the "First Pledge of al-Aqaba".[83][84] At their request, Muhammad sent with them Mus‘ab ibn 'Umair to teach them the instructions of Islam. Biographers have recorded the success of Mus'ab ibn 'Umair in preaching the message of Islam and bringing people under the umbrella of Islam in Medina.[85][86]

The next year, at the pilgrimage of June 622, a delegation of around 75 converted Muslims of Aws and Khazraj tribes from Yathrib came. They invited him to come to Medina as an arbitrator to reconcile the hostile tribes.[10] This is known as the "Second Pledge of al-'Aqaba",[83][87] and was a 'politico-religious' success that paved the way for his and his followers' emigration to Medina.[88] Following the pledges, Muhammad ordered his followers to migrate to Yathrib in small groups, and within a short period, most of the Muslims of Mecca migrated there.[89]

Emigration to Medina

Main article: Hegira
Inside view of Quba Mosque

Because of assassination attempts from the Quraysh, and prospect of success in Yathrib, a city 320 km (200 mi) north of Mecca, Muhammad emigrated there in 622 CE.[90] According to Muslim tradition, after receiving divine direction to depart Mecca, Muhammad began taking preparation and informed Abu Bakr of his plan. On the night of his departure, Muhammad's house was besieged by men of the Quraysh who planned to kill him in the morning. At the time, Muhammad possessed various properties of the Quraysh given to him in trust; so he handed them over to 'Ali and directed him to return them to their owners. It is said that when Muhammad emerged from his house, he recited the ninth verse of surah Ya Sin of the Quran and threw a handful of dust at the direction of the besiegers, rendering the besiegers unable to see him.[91][92] After eight days' journey, Muhammad entered the outskirts of Medina on 28 June 622,[93] but did not enter the city directly. He stopped at a place called Quba', a place some miles from the main city, and established a mosque there. On 2 July 622, he entered the city.[93] Yathrib was soon renamed Madinat an-Nabi (Arabic: مَدينة النّبي‎, literally "City of the Prophet"), but an-Nabi was soon dropped, so its name is "Medina", meaning "the city".[94]

In Medina

Main article: Muhammad in Medina
The place where the people of Medina welcomed Muhammad when he came from Mecca

In Medina, Muhammad's first focus was on the construction of a mosque, which, when completed, was of an austere nature.[95] Apart from being the center of prayer service, the mosque also served as a headquarters of administrative activities. Adjacent to the mosque was built the quarters for Muhammad's family. As there was no definite arrangement for calling people to prayer, Bilal ibn Ribah was appointed to call people in a loud voice at each prayer time, a system later replaced by Adhan believed to be informed to Abdullah ibn Zayd in his dream, and liked and introduced by Muhammad.

The Emigrants of Mecca, known as Muhajirun, had left almost everything there and came to Medina empty-handed. They were cordially welcomed and helped by the Muslims of Medina, known as Ansar (the helpers). Muhammad made a formal bond of fraternity among them[96] that went a long way in eliminating long-established enmity among various tribes, particularly Aws and Khazraj.[97]

Establishment of a new polity

See also: Constitution of Medina

After the arrival of Muhammad in Medina, its people could be divided into four groups:[98][99]

  1. The Muslims: emigrants from Mecca and Ansars of Medina.
  2. The hypocrites; they nominally embraced Islam, but actually were against it.
  3. Those from Aws and Khazraj who were still pagans, but were inclined to embrace Islam.
  4. The Jews; they were huge in number and formed an important community there.

In order to establish peaceful coexistence among this heterogeneous population, Muhammad invited the leading personalities of all the communities to reach a formal agreement which would provide a harmony among the communities and security to the city of Medina, and finally drew up the Constitution of Medina, also known as the Medina Charter, which formed "a kind of alliance or federation" among the prevailing communities.[90] It specified the mutual rights and obligations of the Muslims and Jews of Medina, and prohibited any alliance with the outside enemies. It also declared that any dispute would be referred to Muhammad for settlement.[100]

Persistent hostility of Quraysh

Before the arrival of Muhammad, the clans of Medina had suffered a lot from internal feuds and had planned to nominate Abd-Allah ibn Ubaiy as their common leader with a view to restoring peace. The arrival of Muhammad rendered this design unlikely, and from then Abd-Allah ibn Ubaiy began entertaining hostility towards Muhammad. Soon after Muhammad's settlement in Medina, Abd-Allah ibn Ubaiy received an ultimatum from the Quraysh directing him to fight or expel the Muslims from Medina, but was convinced by Muhammad not to do that.[9][101][102] Around this time, Sa'ad ibn Mua'dh, chief of Aws, went to Mecca to perform Umrah. Because of mutual friendship, he was hosted and escorted by a Meccan leader, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, but the two could not escape the notice of Abu Jahl, an archenemy of Islam. At the sight of Sa'ad, Abu Jahl became angry and threatened to stop their visit to Kaaba as his clan had sheltered the Muhammad. Sa'ad ibn Mua'dh also threatened to hinder their trading caravans.[9][102]

Thus, there remained a persistent enmity between the Muslims and the Quraysh tribe.[103] The Muslims were still few and without substantial resources, and fearful of attacks.[9][104]

Causes of and preparation for fighting

Following the emigration, the Meccans seized the properties of the Muslim emigrants in Mecca.[105] The Quraysh leaders of Mecca persecuted the newly converted Muslims there, and they migrated to Medina to avoid persecution, abandoning their properties. Muhammad and the Muslims found themselves in a more precarious situation in Medina than in Mecca.[9][106] Besides the ultimatum of the Quraysh they had to confront the designs of the hypocrites, and had to be wary of the pagans and Jews also.[107] The trading caravans of Quraysh, whose usual route was from Mecca to Syria, used to set the neighboring tribes of Medina against the Muslims, which posed a great danger to the security of Muslims of Medina[108] given that war was common at that time. In view of all this, the Quran granted permission to the persecuted Muslims to defend themselves: "Permission to fight is granted to those against whom war is made, because they have been wronged, and God indeed has the power to help them. They are those who have been driven out of their homes unjustly only because they affirmed: "Our Lord is God"" (Quran 22:39-40). The Quran further justifies taking defensive measures by stating that "And if God had not repelled some men by others, the earth would have been corrupted. But God is a Lord of Kindness to (His) creatures" (Quran 2:251). According to Quranic description, war is an abnormal and unenviable way which, when inevitable, should be limited to minimal casualty, and free from any kind of transgression on the part of the believers.[109] In this regard, the Quran says, "Fight in the cause of God with those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loveth not transgressors" (2:190), and "And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression" (2:193).

Thus, to ensure the security of the Ansars and Muhajirun of Medina, Muhammad resorted to the following measures:

  1. Visiting the neighboring tribes to enter into non-aggression treaty with them to secure Medina from their attacks.[110][111]
  2. Blocking or intercepting the trading caravans of the Quraysh to compel them into a compromise with the Muslims. As these trading enterprises were the main strength of the Quraysh, Muhammad employed this strategy to reduce their strength.[9]
  3. Sending small scouting parties to gather intelligence about Quraysh movement, and also to facilitate the evacuation of those Muslims who were still suffering in Mecca and could not migrate to Medina because of their poverty or any other reason.[108] It is in this connection that the following verse of the Quran was revealed: "And why should you not fight in the cause of God and for those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from Thee one who will protect; and raise for us from Thee one who will help!"" (Quran 4:75).

Battle of Badr

Main article: Battle of Badr
A map of the Badr campaign

A key battle in the early days of Islam, the Battle of Badr was the first large-scale battle between the nascent Islamic community of Medina and their opponent Quraysh of Mecca where the Muslims won a decisive victory. The battle has some background. In 2 AH (623 CE) in the month of Rajab, a Muslim patrolling group attacked a Quraysh trading caravan killing its elite leader Amr ibn Hazrami. The incident happening in a sacred month displeased Muhammad, and enraged the Quraysh to a greater extent.[9][112] The Quran however neutralizes the effect saying that bloodshed in sacred month is obviously prohibited, but Quraysh paganism, persecuting on the Meccan converts, and preventing people from the Sacred Mosque are greater sins (Quran 2:217). Traditional sources say that upon receiving intelligence of a richly laden trading caravan of the Quraysh returning from Syria to Mecca, Muhammad took it as a good opportunity to strike a heavy blow on Meccan power by taking down the caravan in which almost all the Meccan people had invested.[113][114] With full liberty to join or stay back, Muhammad amassed some 313 inadequately prepared men furnished with only two horses and seventy camels, and headed for a place called Badr. Meanwhile, Abu Sufyan, the leader of the caravan, got the information of Muslim march, changed his route towards south-west along Red Sea, and send out a messenger, named Damdam ibn Umar, to Mecca asking for immediate help. The messenger exaggerated the news in a frenzy style of old Arab custom, and misinterpreted the call for protecting the caravan as a call for war.[115][116]

The Quraysh with all its leading personalities except Abu Lahab marched with a heavily equipped army of more than one thousand men with ostentatious opulence of food supply and war materials.[115][117] Abu Sufyan's second message that the trading caravan successfully had escaped the Muslim interception, when reached the Quraish force, did not stop them from entering into a major offensive with the Muslim force, mainly because of the belligerent Quraysh leader Abu Jahl.[9][118] The news of a strong Quraysh army and its intention reaching the Islamic prophet Muhammad, he held a council of war where the followers advised him to go forward. The battle occurred on 13 March 624 CE (17 Ramadan, 2 AH) and resulted in a heavy loss on the Quraysh side: around seventy men, including chief leaders, were killed and a similar number were taken prisoner. Islamic tradition attributes the Muslim victory to the direct intervention of God: he sent down angels that emboldened the Muslims and wreaked damage on the enemy force.[119]

Treason, attacks, and siege

Main articles: Battle of Uhud, Expedition of Al Raji, and Battle of the Trench

The defeat at the battle of Badr provoked the Quraysh to take revenge on Muslims. Meanwhile, two Quraysh men – Umair ibn Wahb and Safwan ibn Umayya – conspired to kill Muhammad. The former went to Medina with a poisoned sword to execute the plan but was detected and brought to Muhammad. It is said that Muhammad himself revealed to Umair his secret plan and Umair, upon accepting Islam, began preaching Islam in Mecca.[120][121] The Quraysh soon led an army of 3,000 men and fought the Muslim force, consisting of 700 men, in the Battle of Uhud. Despite initial success in the battle, the Muslims failed to consummate victory due to the mistake of the strategically posted archers. The predicament of Muslims at this battle has been seen by Islamic scholars as a result of disobedience of the command of Muhammad: Muslims realized that they could not succeed unless guided by him.[122]

The Battle of Uhud was followed by a series of aggressive and treacherous activities against the Muslims in Medina. Tulaiha ibn Khuweiled, chief of Banu Asad, and Sufyan ibn Khalid, chief of Banu Lahyan, tried to march against Medina but were rendered unsuccessful. Ten Muslims, recruited by some local tribes to learn the tenets of Islam, were treacherously murdered: eight of them being killed at a place called Raji, and the remaining two being taken to Mecca as captives and killed by Quraysh.[9][123] About the same time, a group of seventy Muslims, sent to propagate Islam to the people of Nejd, was put to a massacre by Amir ibn Tufail's Banu Amir and other tribes. Only two of them escaped, returned to Medina, and informed Muhammad of the incidents.[9][124] Around 5th AH (627 CE), a large combined force of at least 10,000 men from Quraysh, Ghatafan, Banu Asad, and other pagan tribes was formed to attack the Muslims mainly at the instigation and efforts of Jewish leader Huyayy ibn Akhtab, and it marched towards Medina. The trench dug by the Muslims and the adverse weather foiled their siege of Medina, and they left with heavy losess. The Quran says that God dispersed the disbelievers and thwarted their plans (33:5). The Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza, who were allied with Muhammad before the Battle of the Trench, were charged with treason and besieged by the Muslims commanded by Muhammad.[125][126] After Banu Qurayza agreed to accept whatever decision Sa'ad ibn Mua'dh would take about them, Sa'ad pronounced that the male members be executed and the women and children be considered as war captives.[127][128][129][130]

Treaty with the Quraysh

Main article: Treaty of Hudaybiyyah

Around 6 AH (628 CE) the nascent Islamic state was somewhat consolidated when Muhammad left Medina to perform pilgrimage at Mecca, but was intercepted en route by the Quraysh who, however, ended up in a treaty with the Muslims known as the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.[131] Though the terms of the Hudaybiyyah treaty were apparently unfavorable to the Muslims of Medina, the Quran declared it as a clear victory (48:1). Muslim historians mention that through the treaty, the Quraysh recognized Muhammad as their equal counterpart and Islam as a rising power,[132] and that the treaty mobilized the contact between the Meccan pagans and the Muslims of Medina resulting in a large number of Quraysh conversion into Islam after being attracted by the Islamic norms.[9]

Victory

Artifact of Muhammad's letter to the Muqawqis, ruler of Egypt- actual document on the right with transcription on the left- Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul

Around the end of the 6 AH and the beginning of the 7 AH (628 CE), Muhammad sent letters to various heads of state asking them to accept Islam and to worship only one God.[133] Notable among them were Heraclius, the emperor of Byzantium; Khosrau II, the emperor of Persia; the Negus of Ethiopia; Muqawqis, the ruler of Egypt; Harith Gassani, the governor of Syria; and Munzir ibn Sawa, the ruler of Bahrain. In the 6 AH, Khalid ibn al-Walid accepted Islam who later was to play a decisive role in the expansion of Islamic empire. In the 7 AH, the Jewish leaders of Khaybar – a place some 200 miles from Medina – started instigating the Jewish and Ghatafan tribes against Medina.[9][134] When negotiation failed, Muhammad ordered the blockade of the Khaybar forts, and its inhabitants surrendered after some days. The lands of Khaybar came under Muslim control. Muhammad however granted the Jewish request to retain the lands under their control.[9] In 629 CE (7 AH), in accordance with the terms of the Hudaybiyyah treaty, Muhammad and the Muslims performed their lesser pilgrimage (Umrah) to Mecca and left the city after three days.[135][136]

Conquest of Mecca

Main article: Conquest of Mecca

In 629 CE, Banu Bakr tribe, an ally of the Quraysh, attacked the Muslims' ally tribe Banu Khuza'a, and killed several of them.[137] The Quraysh openly helped Banu Bakr in their attack, violating the terms of Hudaybiyyah treaty. Of the three options now advanced by Muhammad, they decided to cancel the Hudaybiyyah treaty.[138] Muhammad started taking preparation for Mecca campaign. On 29 November 629 (6th of Ramadan, 8 AH),[139] Muhammad set out with 10,000 companions, and stopped at a nearby place from Mecca called Marr-uz-Zahran. When Meccan leader Abu Sufyan came to gather intelligence, he was detected and arrested by the guards. Umar ibn al-Khattab wanted the execution of Abu Sufyan for his past offenses, but Muhammad spared his life after he converted to Islam.[140] On 11 December 629 (18th of Ramadan, 8 AH), he entered Mecca almost unresisted, and declared a general amnesty for all those who had committed offences against Islam and himself.[13][14] He then destroyed the idols – placed in and around the Kaaba – reciting the Quranic verse: "Say, the truth has arrived, and falsehood perished. Verily, the falsehood is bound to perish" (Quran 17:81).[15][16] William Muir comments, "The magnanimity with which Muhammad treated a people who had so long hated and rejected him is worthy of all admiration."[141]

Conquest of Arabia

Main articles: Battle of Hunayn and Battle of Tabouk

Soon after the Mecca conquest, the Banu Hawazin tribe together with the Banu Thaqif tribe gathered a large army, under the leadership of Malik Ibn 'Awf, to attack the Muslims.[142][143] At this, the Muslim force, which included the newly converts of Mecca, went forward under the leadership of Muhammad, and the two armies met at the valley of Hunayn. Though at first disarrayed at the sudden attack of Hawazin, the Muslim force recollected mainly at the effort of Muhammad, and ultimately defeated the Hawazin. The latter was pursued at various directions.[144][145] After Malik bin 'Awf along with his men took shelter in the fort of Ta'if, the Muslim army besieged it which however yielded no significant result, compelling them to return Medina. Meanwhile, some newly converts from the Hawazin tribe came to Muhammad and made a plea to release their women and children who had been captivated from the battlefield of Hunayn. Their request was granted by the Muslims.[146][147]

After the Mecca conquest and the victory at the Battle of Hunayn, the supremacy of the Muslims was somewhat established throughout the Arabian peninsula.[148][149] Various tribes started to send their representatives to express their loyalty to Muhammad. In the year 9 AH (630 CE), Zakat – which is the obligatory charity in Islam – was introduced and was accepted by most of the people. A few tribes initially refused to pay it, but gradually accepted.[150]

Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

In October 630 CE, upon receiving news that the Byzantine was gathering a large army at the Syrian area to attack Medina, and because of reports of hostility adopted against Muslims,[151] Muhammad arranged his Muslim army, and came out to face them. On the way, they reached a place called Hijr where remnants of the ruined Thamud nation were scattered. Muhammad warned them of the sandstorm typical to the place, and forbade them not to use the well waters there.[9] By the time they reached Tabuk, they got the news of Byzantine's retreat,[152] or according to some sources, they came to know that the news of Byzantine gathering was wrong.[153] Muhammad signed treaties with the bordering tribes who agreed to pay tribute in exchange of getting security. It is said that as these tribes were at the border area between Syria (then under Byzantine control) and Arabia (then under Muslim control), signing treaties with them ensured the security of the whole area.[154] Some months after the return from Tabuk, Muhammad's infant son Ibrahim died which eventually coincided with a sun eclipse. When people said that the eclipse had occurred to mourn Ibrahim's death, Muhammad said: "the sun and the moon are from among the signs of God. The eclipses occur neither for the death nor for the birth of any man".[155][156] After the Tabuk expedition, the Banu Thaqif tribe of Taif sent their representative team to Muhammad to inform their intention of accepting Islam on condition that they be allowed to retain their Lat idol with them and that they be exempted from prayers. Given that there were inconsistent with Islamic principles, Muhammad rejected their demands and said "There is no good in a religion in which prayer is ruled out".[157][158][159] After Banu Thaqif tribe of Taif accepted Islam, many other tribes of Hejaz followed them and declared their allegiance to Islam.[160][161]

Final days

Farewell Pilgrimage

Main article: Farewell Pilgrimage

In 631 CE, during the Hajj season, Abu Bakr led 300 Muslims to the pilgrimage in Mecca. As per old custom, many pagans from other parts of Arabia came to Mecca to perform pilgrimage in pre-Islamic manner. Ali, at the direction of Muhammad, delivered a sermon stipulating the new rites of Hajj and abrogating the pagan rites. He especially declared that no unbeliever, pagan, and naked man would be allowed to circumambulate the Kaaba from the next year.[162][163] After this declaration was made, a vast number of people of Bahrain, Yemen, and Yamama, who included both the pagans and the people of the book, gradually embraced Islam. Next year, In 632 CE, Muhammad performed hajj and taught Muslims first-hand the various rites of Hajj.[164][165] On the 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah, from Mount Arafat, he delivered his Farewell Sermon in which he abolished old blood feuds and disputes based on the former tribal system, repudiated racial discrimination, and advised people to "be good to women". According to Sunni tafsir, the following Quranic verse was delivered during this event: "Today I have perfected your religion, and completed my favours for you and chosen Islam as a religion for you" (Quran 5:3).[164][165][166]

Death

Soon after his return from the pilgrimage, Muhammad fell ill and suffered for several days with fever, head pain, and weakness. During his illness, he appointed Abu Bakr to lead the prayers in the mosque.[167][168] He ordered to donate the last remaining coins in his house as charity. It is narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari that at the time of death, Muhammad was dipping his hands in water and was wiping his face with them saying "There is no god but God; indeed death has its pangs."[169] He died on 8 June 632, in Medina, at the age of 62 or 63, in the house of his wife Aisha.[170][171]

In Islamic thought

Final prophet

Main article: Khatam an-Nabiyyin

Muhammad is regarded as the final messenger and prophet by all the main branches of Islam who was sent by God to guide humanity to the right way (Quran 7:157).[1][25][165][172][173] The Quran uses the designation Khatam an-Nabiyyin (33:40) which is translated as Seal of the Prophets. The title is generally regarded by Muslims as meaning that Muhammad is the last in the series of prophets beginning with Adam.[174][175][176] The belief that a new prophet cannot arise after Muhammad is shared by both Sunni and Shi'i Muslims.[177][178] Believing Muhammad is the last prophet is a fundamental belief in Islamic theology.[179][180]

Moral character

Muslims believe that Muhammad was the possessor of moral virtues at the highest level, and was a man of moral excellence.[23][165] He represented the 'prototype of human perfection' and was the best among God's creations.[23][181] The 68:4 verse of the Quran says: 'And you [Muhammad] are surely on exalted quality of character'. Consequently, to the Muslims, his life and character are an excellent example to be emulated both at social and spiritual levels.[165][181][182] The virtues that characterize him are modesty and humility, forgiveness and generosity, honesty, justice, patience, and, self-denial.[23][183] Muslim biographers of Muhammad in their books have shed much light on the moral character of Muhammad. Besides, there is a genre of biography that approaches his life focusing on his moral qualities rather than discussing the external affairs of his life.[23][165]

According to biographers, Muhammad lived a simple and austere life often characterized by poverty.[184][185] He was more bashful than a maiden, and was rare to laugh in a loud voice; rather, he preferred soft smiling.[186] Ja'far al-Sadiq, a descendant of Muhammad and an acclaimed scholar, narrated that Muhammad was never seen stretching his legs in a gathering with his companions and when he would shake hands, he would not pull his hand away first.[187] It is said that during the conquest of Mecca, when Muhammad was entering into the city riding on a camel, his head lowered, in gratitude to God, to the extent that it almost touched the back of the camel.[16][186][188] He never took revenge from anyone for his personal cause.[186][189] He maintained honesty and justice in his deeds.[190][191] When an elite woman in Medina was accused of theft, and others pleaded for the mitigation of the penalty, Muhammad said: "Even if my daughter Fatima were accused of theft, I would pronounce the same verdict." He preferred mildness and leniency in behavior and in dealing with affairs,[184][192] and is reported as saying: "He who is not merciful to others, will not be treated mercifully (by God)" (Sahih al-Bukhari, 8:73:42). He pardoned many of his enemies in his life.[193] Biographers especially mention his forgiving the Meccan people after the Conquest of Mecca who at the early period of Islam tortured the Muslims for a long time, and later fought several battles with the Muslims.[13][14]

Muslim veneration

See also: Durood, Mawlid, Na`at, Madih nabawi, Haḍra, and Dala'il al-Khayrat

Muhammad is highly venerated by the Muslims,[194] and is sometimes considered by them to be the greatest of all the prophets.[1][20][21] But Muslims do not worship Muhammad as worship in Islam is only for God.[21][195][196] Muslim understanding and reverence for Muhammad can largely be traced to the teachings of Quran which emphatically describes Muhammad's exalted status. To begin with, the Quran describes Muhammad as al-nabi al-ummi or unlettered prophet (Quran 7:158), meaning that he "received his religious knowledge only from God".[197] As a result, Muhammad's examples have been understood by the Muslims to represent the highest ideal for human conduct, and to reflect what God wants humanity to do. The Quran ranks Muhammad above previous prophets in terms of his moral excellence and the universal message he brought from God for humanity. The Quran calls him the "beautiful model" (al-uswa al-hasana) for those who hope for God and the last day (Quran 33:21). Muslims believe that Muhammad was sent not for any specific people or region, but for all of humanity.[198][199]

Muslims venerate Muhammad in various ways:

Sunnah: A model for Muslims

For more than thirteen hundred years Muslims have modeled their lives after their prophet Muhammad. They awaken every morning as he awakened; they eat as he ate; they wash as he washed; and they behave even in the minutest acts of daily life as he behaved.

— S. A. Nigosian

In Muslim legal and religious thought, Muhammad, inspired by God to act wisely and in accordance with his will, provides an example that complements God's revelation as expressed in the Quran; and his actions and sayings – known as Sunnah – are a model for Muslim conduct.[202] The Sunnah can be defined as "the actions, decisions, and practices that Muhammad approved, allowed, or condoned".[203] It also includes Muhammad's confirmation to someone's particular action or manner (during Muhammad's lifetime) which, when communicated to Muhammad, was generally approved by him.[204] The Sunnah, as recorded in the Hadith literature, encompasses everyday activities related to men's domestic, social, economic, political life.[203] It addresses a broad array of activities and Islamic beliefs ranging from the simple practices like, for example, the proper way of entering into a mosque, and private cleanliness to the most sublime questions involving the love between God and humans.[205] The Sunnah of Muhammad serves as a model for the Muslims to shape their life in that light. The Quran tells the believers to offer prayer, to fast, to perform pilgrimage, to pay Zakat, but it was Muhammad who practically taught the believers how to perform all these.[205] In Islamic theology, the necessity to follow the examples (the Sunnah) of Muhammad comes from the ruling of the Quran which it describes in its numerous verses. One such typical verse is "And obey God and the Messenger so that you may be blessed" (Quran 3:132). The Quran uses two different terms to denote this: ita’ah (to obey) and ittiba (to follow). The former refers to the orders of Muhammad, and the latter to his acts and practices.[206] Muhammad often stressed the importance of education and intelligence in the Muslim Ummah because it removes ignorance and promotes acceptance and tolerance. This can be illustrated when Muhammad advises his cousin Ali that, "No poverty is more severe than ignorance and no property is more valuable than intelligence."[187]

Pre-existence

Muslims also venerate Muhammad as the manifestation of the Muhammadan Light.[207] Accordingly, Muhammad's spirit already existed before the creation of the world and he was actually the first prophet created, but the last who was sent.[208] A hadith from Al-Tirmidhi states, that Muhammad was once asked, when his prophethood was decreed and he answered: "When Adam was between the spirit and the body." A more popular, but less authenticated version states,[208] that Muhammad answered: "when Adam was between water and mud."[209] Both Sunni and Shia sources later elaborated cosmogonic scenarios in which the world emanated from the light of Muhammad.[208] According to a Sunni tradition, when Adam was in heaven, he read an inscription on the throne of God of the Shahada, Muhammad already mentioned. There also exists an extended version in Shia traditions. Therefore, the Shahada does not only mention Muhammad, but also Ali.[210]

However the idea of Muhammad's pre-existence was also a controversial one and disputed by some scholars like Al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyyah.[211] Although the notion of the pre-existing Muhammad takes some resemblance of the Christian doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ, in Islam there can not be found any trace of Muhammad as a second person within the Godhead.[212]

Muhammad as lawgiver

In Islamic Sharia, the Sunnah of Muhammad is regarded a vital source for Islamic law, next in importance only to the Quran.[213][214] Additionally, the Quran in its several verses authorizes Muhammad, in his capacity as a prophet, to promulgate new laws. The 7:157 verse of the Quran says, "those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet whom they find written down in the Torah and the Injil, and who (Muhammad) bids them to the Fair and forbids them the Unfair, and makes lawful for them the good things, and makes unlawful for them the impure things,... So, those who believe in him, and honor him, and help him, and follow the light that has been sent down with him (Muhammad) – they are the ones who acquire success." Commenting on this verse, Islamic scholar Muhammad Taqi Usmani says, "one of the functions of the Holy Prophet (saaw) is to make lawful the good things and make unlawful the impure things. This function has been separated from bidding the fair and forbidding the unfair, because the latter relates to the preaching of what has already been established as fair, and warning against what is established as unfair, while the former embodies the making of lawful and unlawful".[215] Taqi Usmani recognizes two kinds of revelations – the "recited" one which is collectively known as Quran, and the "unrecited" one that Muhammad received from time to time to let him know God's will regarding how human affairs should be – and concludes that Muhammad's prophetic authority to promulgate new laws had its base on the later type. Therefore, in Islamic theology, the difference between God's authority and that of his messenger is of great significance: the former is wholly independent, intrinsic and self-existent, while the authority of the latter is derived from and dependent on the revelation from God.[216][217]

Muhammad as intercessor

Muslims see Muhammad as primary intercessor and believe that he will intercede on behalf of the believers on Last Judgment day.[218] This non-Qur'anic vision of Muhammad's eschatological role appears for the first time in the inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 72/691-692.[219] Islamic tradition narrates that after resurrection when humanity will be gathered together and they will face distress due to heat and fear, they will come to Muhammad. Then he will intercede for them with God and the judgment will start.[220] Hadith narrates that Muhammad will also intercede for the believers who for their sins have been taken to hell. Muhammad's intercession will be granted and a lot of believers will come out of hell.[221] In Islamic belief, intercession will be granted on conditions: the permission of God, God's being pleased with the intercessor, and his being pleased with the person for whom intercession is made.[222] In Islamic tradition, the facility of getting Muhammad's intercession has been linked, to some extent, to Darood – sending blessing upon Muhammad that generally reads "May God give him blessing and peace".[218]

Muhammad and the Quran

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To Muslims, the Quran is the verbatim word of God which was revealed, through Gabriel, to Muhammad[223] who delivered it to people without any change (Q53:2-5,[224] 26:192-195),[225] Thus, there exists a deep relationship between Muhammad and the Quran. Muslims believe that as a recipient of the Quran, Muhammad was the man who best understood the meaning of the Quran, was its chief interpreter, and was granted by God "the understanding of all levels of Quran's meaning".[226] In Islamic theology, if a report of Muhammad's Quranic interpretation is held to be authentic, then no other interpretative statement has higher theoretical value or importance than that.[214]

In Islamic belief, though the inner message of all the divine revelations given to Muhammad is essentially the same, there has been a "gradual evolution toward a final, perfect revelation".[227] It is in this case that Muhammad's revelation excels the previous ones as Muhammad's revelation is considered by the Muslims to be "the completion, culmination, and perfection of all the previous revelations".[227] Consequently, when the Quran declares that Muhammad is the final prophet after which there will be no future prophet (Q33:40),[228] it is also meant that the Quran is the last revealed divine book.

Names and titles of praise

See also: Names and Titles of Muhammad, Islamic honorifics, Durood, Mawlid, Naat, Madih nabawi, Haḍra, and Dala'il al-Khayrat

Muhammad is often referenced with these titles of praise or epithet:

He also has these names:

Miracles

Main article: Miracles of Muhammad
Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Old City of Jerusalem, is said to be the location to which Muhammad traveled in his night journey. The location is the third holiest place for the Muslims.[230]

Several miracles are said to have been performed by Muhammad.[231] Muslim scholar Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti, in his book Al Khasais-ul-Kubra, extensively discussed Muhammad's various miracles and extraordinary events. Traditional sources, indicate that Sura 54:1-2 refers to Muhammad splitting the Moon in view of the Quraysh.[232][233]

Isra and Mi'raj

Main article: Isra and Mi'raj

The Isra and Mi'raj are the two parts of a "Night Journey" that, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad took during a single night around the year 621. It has been described as both a physical and spiritual journey.[234] A brief sketch of the story is in Sura (chapter) 17 Al-Isra of the Quran,[235] and other details come from the hadith.[236] In the journey, Muhammad riding on Buraq travels to the Al-Aqsa Mosque (the farthest mosque) in Jerusalem where he leads other prophets in prayer. He then ascends to the heavens, and meets some of the earlier prophets such as Abraham, Joseph, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus.[236] During this Night Journey, God offered Muhammad five-time daily prayer for the believers.[237][238][236] According to traditions, the Journey is associated with the Lailaṫ al-Isrā' wal-Mi'rāj (Arabic: لَيلَة الإِِسرَاء والمِعرَاج‎), as one of the most significant events in the Islamic calendar.[239]

Splitting of the moon

Main article: Splitting of the moon

Islamic tradition credits Muhammad with the miracle of the splitting of the moon.[240][241] According to Islamic account, once when Muhammad was in Mecca, the pagans asked him to display a miracle as a proof of his prophethood. It was night time, and Muhammad prayed to God. The moon split into two and descended on two sides of a mountain. The pagans were still incredulous about the credibility of the event but later heard from the distant travelers that they also had witnessed the splitting of the moon.[240][241] Islamic tradition also tends to refute the arguments against the miracle raised by some quarters.[242]

During the Battle of the Trench

On the eve of the Battle of the Trench when the Muslims were digging a ditch, they encountered a firmly embedded rock that could not be removed. It is said that Muhammad, when apprised of this, came and, taking an axe, struck the rock that created spark upon which he glorified God and said he had been given the keys of the kingdom of Syria. He struck the rock for a second time in a likewise manner and said he had been given the keys of Persia and he could see its white palaces. A third strike crushed the rock into pieces whereupon he again glorified God and said he had been given the keys of Yemen and he could see the gates of Sana. According to Muslim historians, these prophesies were fulfilled in subsequent times.[243][244]

The Spider and the Dove

When Muhammad and his companion Abu Bakr had been persecuted by the Quraysh, on their way to Medina, they hid themselves in a cave. The cave had been concealed by a spider building a web and a dove building a nest at the entrance after they entered the cave,[245] therefore killing a spider became associated with sin.[246]

Visual representation

Main article: Depictions of Muhammad
See also: Depictions of Muhammad in film and List of films about Muhammad

Although Islam only explicitly condemns depicting the divinity, the prohibition was supplementally expanded to prophets and saints and among Arab Sunnism, to any living creature.[247] Although both the Sunni schools of law and the Shia jurisprudence alike prohibit the figurative depiction of Muhammad,[248] visual representations of Muhammad exist in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish texts and especially flourished during the Ilkhanate (1256-1353), Timurid (1370-1506), and Safavid (1501-1722) periods. But apart from these notable exceptions and modern-day Iran,[249] depictions of Muhammad were rare, and if given, usually with his face veiled.[250][251]

Most modern Muslims believe that visual depictions of all the prophets of Islam should be prohibited[252] and are particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad.[253] One concern is that the use of images can encourage idolatry, but also creating an image might lead the artist to claim the ability to create, an ability only ascribed to God.[254]

Gallery

  • A view of Taif with a road at the foreground and mountains at the background. Muhammad went there to preach Islam

    •  
    •  

  • Inside view of Masjid an-Nabawi

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  • The Green Dome built over Muhammad's tomb

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  • Sunshade umbrellas over the terrace at Masjid an-Nabawi

    •  

  • Part of Al-Masjid an-Nabawi where Muhammad's tomb is situated

    •  

  • Masjid an-Nabawi at sunset

    •  

  • Facsimile of a letter sent by Muhammad to the Munzir Bin Sawa Al-Tamimi, governor of Bahrain

    •  

  • Muhammad's letter To Heraclius

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Opinions about the exact date of Muhammad's birth slightly vary. Shibli Nomani and Philip Khuri Hitti fixed the date to be 571 CE. But August 20, 570 CE is generally accepted. See Muir, vol. ii, pp. 13–14 for further information.

References

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  2. ^ Esposito (2002b), pp. 4–5.
  3. ^ Peters, F.E. (2003). Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians. Princeton University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-691-11553-5.
  4. ^ Esposito, John (1998). Islam: The Straight Path (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 9, 12. ISBN 978-0-19-511234-4.
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  55. ^ "The Absolute Truth About Muhammad in the Bible With Arabic Titles". Truth Will Prevail Productions. Archived from the original on 2016-09-09. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
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  59. ^ Juan E. Campo, ed. (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. pp. 570–573. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=OZbyz_Hr-eIC&pg=PA570. The Quran is the sacred scripture of Islam. Muslims believe it contains the infallible word of God as revealed to Muhammad the Prophet in the Arabic language during the latter part of his life, between the years 610 and 632… (p. 570). Quran was revealed piecemeal during Muhammad’s life, between 610 C.E. and 632 C.E., and that it was collected into a physical book (mushaf) only after his death. Early commentaries and Islamic historical sources support this understanding of the Quran’s early development, although they are unclear in other respects. They report that the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656) ordered a committee headed by Zayd ibn Thabit (d. ca. 655), Muhammad’s scribe, to establish a single authoritative recension of the Quran… (p. 572-3). Missing or empty |title= (help)
  60. ^ Oliver Leaman, ed. (2006). The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 520. ISBN 9-78-0-415-32639-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=isDgI0-0Ip4C&pg=PA520. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  61. ^ Matt Stefon, ed. (2010). Islamic Beliefs and Practices. New York City: Britannica Educational Publishing. pp. 39–40. ISBN 978-1-61530-060-0.
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  63. ^ Jump up to:a b Campo (2009), "Muhammad", Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 492.
  64. ^ Jump up to:a b Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  65. ^ Jump up to:a b Juan E. Campo, ed. (2009). "Muhammad". Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. p. 493. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1.
  66. ^ Hitti, Philip Khuri (1946). History of the Arabs. Macmillan and Co. pp. 113–4.
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  68. ^ Jump up to:a b Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  69. ^ Hitti, Philip Khuri (1946). History of the Arabs. Macmillan and Co. p. 114.
  70. ^ Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. pp. 36–37. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  71. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 36–37. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  72. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 98 & 105–6. ISBN 9789839154177.
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  74. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 144–5. ISBN 9789839154177.
  75. ^ William Muir (1861). Life of Mahomet. vol. vol. 2, p.181
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  77. ^ Armstrong, Karen (2002). Islam: A Short History. New York City: Modern Library. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-8129-6618-3.
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  79. ^ Jump up to:a b Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  80. ^ Brown, Jonathan A.C. (2011). Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-19-955928-2. Archived from the original on 2017-02-16.
  81. ^ Al-Mubarakpuri (2002). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. p. 165. ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8.
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  83. ^ Jump up to:a b Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  84. ^ Sell, Edward (1913). The Life of Muhammad. Madras: Smith, Elder, & Co. p. 71.
  85. ^ Husayn Haykal, Muhammad (2008). The Life of Muhammad. Selangor: Islamic Book Trust. pp. 169–70. ISBN 978-983-9154-17-7. Archived from the original on 2016-05-01.
  86. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 70–1. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  87. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  88. ^ Sell, Edward (1913). The Life of Muhammad. Madras: Smith, Elder, & Co. p. 76.
  89. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3. Accordingly, within a very short period, despite the opposition of the Quraysh, most of the Muslims in Mecca managed to migrate to Yathrib.
  90. ^ Jump up to:a b Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  91. ^ Ibn Kathir (2001). Stories of the Prophet: From Adam to Muhammad. Mansoura, Egypt: Dar Al-Manarah. p. 389. ISBN 978-977-6005-17-4.
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  99. ^ Sell (1913), pp. 86-87.
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  101. ^ Al Mubarakpuri, Safi ur Rahman (2002). "The attempts of the Quraysh to provoke the Muslims". The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8. Archived from the original on 2013-05-27. Retrieved 2011-11-11.
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  103. ^ "Muhammad". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2013. Archived from the original on 16 May 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
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  107. ^ Armstrong (2002), p. 19
  108. ^ Jump up to:a b Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  109. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  110. ^ Al Mubarakpuri (2002), "Permission to fight"
  111. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  112. ^ Haykal (2008), pp. 225–26
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  114. ^ Watt, W. Montgomery (1956). Muhammad at Medina. Oxford University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-19-577307-1.
  115. ^ Jump up to:a b Muhammad Shafi Usmani (1986). Tafsir Maariful Quran. 4. Lahore. p. 163.
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  117. ^ Al-Mubarakpuri (2002). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. p. 253. ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8.
  118. ^ Watt, W. Montgomery (1956). Muhammad at Medina. Oxford University Press. p. 11.
  119. ^ Muhammad Shafi Usmani (1986). Tafsir Maariful Quran. 4. Lahore. pp. 169–70.
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  121. ^ Al Mubarakpuri (2002). "An Attempt on the Life of the Prophet". The Sealed Nectar. ISBN 9789960899558. Archived from the original on 2013-05-27.
  122. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  123. ^ Al Mubarakpuri (2002). "Ar-Raji Mobilization". The Sealed Nectar. ISBN 9789960899558. Archived from the original on 2013-05-27.
  124. ^ Muhammad Husayn Haykal (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 297. ISBN 9789839154177. Archived from the original on 2015-10-25.
  125. ^ Peterson, Muhammad: the prophet of God, p. 125-127.
  126. ^ Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet, p. 140.
  127. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. New York, NY : Oxford University Press. pp. 146. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8.
  128. ^ Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, p. 191.
  129. ^ Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, p. 81.
  130. ^ Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International Limited. pp. 231–232. ISBN 978-0-89281-170-0.
  131. ^ Nigosian, S. A. (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-253-21627-4.
  132. ^ Haykal (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 380–81. ISBN 9789839154177. Archived from the original on 2015-10-25.
  133. ^ Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International Limited. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-89281-170-0.
  134. ^ Muhammad Zafrullah Khan (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. p. 225. ISBN 9780710006103. Archived from the original on 2015-10-25.
  135. ^ Nigosian, S. A. (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-253-21627-4.
  136. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. Islamic Book Trust. pp. 408 & 411. ISBN 978-983-9154-17-7.
  137. ^ Khan, Majid Ali (1998), p. 274
  138. ^ Khan, Majid Ali (1998), p. 274-5
  139. ^ Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001). Chronology of Prophetic Events. London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. p. 72.
  140. ^ Haykal (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 388, 432–33. ISBN 9789839154177. Archived from the original on 2015-10-25.
  141. ^ "An Outline of the Life of Muhammad". Archived from the original on 3 January 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
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  146. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 456–7. ISBN 9789839154177.
  147. ^ Al-Mubarakpuri (2002). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. p. 487. ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8.
  148. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 461. ISBN 9789839154177.
  149. ^ Holt, P. M.; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis, eds. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. IA. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  150. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 477. ISBN 9789839154177.
  151. ^ Al-Mubarakpuri (2002). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. p. 495. ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8.
  152. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 482. ISBN 9789839154177.
  153. ^ Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International Limited. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-89281-170-0.
  154. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 484. ISBN 9789839154177.
  155. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 488–9. ISBN 9789839154177.
  156. ^ Al-Huseini, Syed Farouq M. (2014). Islam and the Glorious Kaabah. United States: Trafford Publishing. pp. 103–4. ISBN 978-1-4907-2912-1.
  157. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. pp. 493–4. ISBN 9789839154177.
  158. ^ Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International Limited. p. 321. ISBN 978-0-89281-170-0.
  159. ^ Al-Mubarakpuri (2014). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. Darussalam. pp. 280–1.
  160. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. Malaysia: Islamic Book Trust. p. 495. ISBN 9789839154177. With the destruction of al Lat and the conversion of al-Thaqif, the conversion of the Hijaz was complete. Muhammad's power expanded from the frontiers of Byzantium in the north to al Yaman and Hadramawt in the south. The territories of South Arabia were all preparing to join the new religion and integrate themselves into a system of defense. That is why delegations from all corners proceeded to Madinah to declare allegiance to the new order and to convert to the new faith.
  161. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 247. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3. The adhesion of Taif and the destruction of its famous idol had enhanced the Holy Prophet’s fame throughout the south and east of the peninsula. A stream of submissive embassies from all quarters now flowed uninterruptedly towards Medina.
  162. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 500. ISBN 9789839154177.
  163. ^ Peters, F. E. (1994). Muhammad and the origins of Islam. SUNY Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-7914-1875-8.
  164. ^ Jump up to:a b Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 522. ISBN 9789839154177.
  165. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Juan E. Campo, ed. (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. p. 494. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=OZbyz_Hr-eIC&pg=PA494. Archived from the original on 2015-09-30. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  166. ^ Muhammad Shafi Usmani (1986). Tafsir Maariful Quran. 3. English Translation by Muhammad Shamim. Lahore. p. 45.
  167. ^ Haykal, Muhammad Husayn (2008). The Life of Muhammad. p. 534. ISBN 9789839154177.
  168. ^ Lings, Martin (1987). Muhammad: His Life Based on Earliest Sources. Inner Traditions International Limited. p. 339. ISBN 978-0-89281-170-0.
  169. ^ Oliver Leaman, ed. (2006). The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-415-32639-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=isDgI0-0Ip4C&pg=PA171. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  170. ^ Nigosian, S. A. (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-253-21627-4.
  171. ^ Shaikh, Fazlur Rehman (2001). Chronology of Prophetic Events. London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. pp. 78–79.
  172. ^ Clark, Malcolm (2003). Islam for Dummies. Indiana: Wiley Publishing Inc. p. 100. ISBN 9781118053966. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24.
  173. ^ "Muhammad". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2013. Archived from the original on 2 February 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  174. ^ Esposito, John L., ed. (2003). "Khatam al-Nabiyyin". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 171. Khatam al-Nabiyyin: Seal of the prophets. Phrase occurs in Quran 33:40, referring to Muhammad, and is regarded by Muslims as meaning that he is the last of the series of prophets that began with Adam.
  175. ^ Mir, Mustansir (1987). "Seal of the Prophets, The". Dictionary of Qur'ānic Terms and Concepts. New York: Garland Publishing. p. 171. Muḥammad is called "the seal of the prophets" in 33:40. The expression means that Muḥammad is the final prophet, and that the institution of prophecy after him is "sealed."
  176. ^ Hughes, Thomas Patrick (1885). "K͟HĀTIMU 'N-NABĪYĪN". A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion. London: W. H. Allen. p. 270. Archived from the original on 2015-10-04. K͟HĀTIMU 'N-NABĪYĪN (خاتم النبيين). "The seal of the Prophets." A title assumed by Muhammad in the Qur'ān. Surah xxxiii. 40: "He is the Apostle of God and the 'seal of the Prophets'." By which is meant, that he is the last of the Prophets.
  177. ^ Goldziher, Ignác (1981). "Sects". Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law. Translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori from the German Vorlesungen über den Islam (1910). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 220–21. ISBN 0691100993. Archived from the original on 2015-10-05. Sunnī and Shī'ī theology alike understood it to mean that Muhammad ended the series of Prophets, that he had accomplished for all eternity what his predecessors had prepared, that he was God's last messenger delivering God's last message to mankind.
  178. ^ Martin, Richard C., ed. (2004). "'Ali". Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. 1. New York: Macmillan. p. 37.
  179. ^ Coeli Fitzpatrick; Adam Hani Walker, eds. (2014). "Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God [2 volumes]". Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God. ABC-CLIO. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-61069-178-9. Archived from the original on 2016-04-27.
  180. ^ Bogle, Emory C. (1998). Islam: Origin and Belief. University of Texas Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-292-70862-4. Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  181. ^ Jump up to:a b Nigosian, S. A. (2004). Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-253-21627-4.
  182. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8.
  183. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 264. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  184. ^ Jump up to:a b Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. p. 266. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3.
  185. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. New York, NY : Oxford University Press. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8.
  186. ^ Jump up to:a b c Shibli Nomani. Sirat-un-Nabi, vol 2. Lahore
  187. ^ Jump up to:a b al-Kulayni, Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub (2015). Al-Kafi (Volume 6 ed.). NY: Islamic Seminary Incorporated. ISBN 9780991430864.
  188. ^ Ibn Kathir (2001). Stories of the Prophets: From Adam to Muhammad. English Translation by Sayed Gad et all. Mansura: Dar Al-Manarah. p. 423. ISBN 978-977-6005-17-4.
  189. ^ Khan, Muhammad Zafrullah (1980). Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-7100-0610-3. He was most forgiving and forbearing in respect of personal wrongs suffered by him.
  190. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. New York, NY : Oxford University Press. pp. 77. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8. He scrupulously applied the principles of honesty and justice that Islam had taught him, whomever he dealt with, be they Muslims or non-Muslims.
  191. ^ Khadduri, Majid (1984). The Islamic Conception of Justice. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8018-6974-7.
  192. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. Oxford University Press. pp. 111–13. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8.
  193. ^ Ramadan, Tariq (2007). In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad. Oxford University Press. pp. 194. ISBN 978-0-19-530880-8.
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Bibliography




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