All about prophet Muhammad 'peace be upon him'

Adnan · **مرسل:** السبت مايو 03, 2008 5:46 pm

[english]All about prophet Muhammad 'peace be upon him'

INTRODUCTION

Muhammad (c. 570-632)

Muhammad (c. 570-632), chief prophet of Islam. He is sometimes described as the founder of Islam but that is an oversimplification from both a religious and an historical point of view. In a religious perspective, Islam is understood by Muslims as the original pure monotheism which Allah (God) has made known to mankind since the Creation and which was revealed through many prophets before Muhammad. Historically, Islam as we know it is a complex religion which should not be seen as the creation of one man.
The sources for the life of Muhammad are texts written in Arabic by Muslim scholars. The earliest of them date, in the form in which we have them, from more than 100 years after his death (632). The earliest account of his life to have survived is that compiled by Ibn Ishaq, who died in 768. All the versions of this work we have come from a generation or so later than Ibn Ishaq.
The accounts given in such works are not always consistent or uniform. They often contain different accounts of the same event, sometimes contradicting one another. Any attempt to summarize the life of Muhammad as it is given in Muslim tradition, is in effect a selection from the mass of available details.
THE TRADITIONAL LIFE OF MUHAMMAD
In Mecca
Muhammad is said to have been born in Mecca in western Arabia (the region known as Al Ḩijāz). The date of his birth is given variously. A commonly accepted tradition places it in “the year of the Elephant”, which is understood as a reference to the year in which an Abyssinian ruler of the Yemen sent an expedition to destroy the Kaaba at Mecca. The expedition, which was a disastrous failure, is said in Muslim tradition to have included an elephant. Modern scholars have suggested that this took place around AD 570.
Muhammad's family belonged to the clan of Hashim, part of the Quraysh people. Quraysh dominated Mecca and made up most of its population. Hashim was not one of its more important clans but had some religious prestige derived from its hereditary right to certain offices attached to the Kaaba. Muhammad's father, Abdallah, died before he was born, and his mother, Amina, died while he was still a young child.
The traditional lives of Muhammad report certain supernatural signs and portents in connexion with his conception and birth. The name Muhammad is said to have been given to him as a result of a dream his grandfather had. He is also said to have had other names, such as Abul-Qasim, Ahmad, and Mustafa.
As a young man he is reported to have visited Syria as part of a caravan from Mecca for purposes of trade. While there, he was recognized by Jewish and Christian holy men and scholars as a prophet whose coming had been foretold in their own scriptures. His future prophetic status was indicated by certain marks on his body and by miraculous signs in nature.
The people of Mecca, the Quraysh, have a reputation as great traders. One of them, a widow called Khadija, recruited the young Muhammad to manage her affairs and, impressed with his honesty and acumen, then offered him marriage. Muhammad is said to have been about 25 when he married Khadija (who may have been as old as 40 at the time), and so long as she lived he had no other wife. After her death he had several others, perhaps the best known of whom was the young Aisha.
Muhammad is said to have been about 40 when he had his first prophetic experience. It is not always described in the same way, but one of the most widespread traditions is that it occurred while he was in a state of solitary withdrawal in a cave on Mount Hira outside Mecca. Here he had a vision of the angel Gabriel and an experience of great pain and pressure, so that he thought he was going to die. Commanded to “recite” (iqra), he felt incapable and did not know what to recite. Eventually he was told to recite what is now the beginning of Chapter 96 of the Koran:

Recite in the name of your Lord who created,
created man from blood congealed.
Recite! Your Lord is the most beneficent,
who taught by the pen,
taught men that which they did not know.

After a short period during which he received no further revelations, they then began again and continued until the end of his life.
In order to understand the development of Muhammad's teaching it is necessary to have some idea of the order in which the revelations came to him. When the revelations were collected together after his death to form the Koran, they were not organized according to any order of revelation: revelations thought to come from different times in his life were placed together to form the chapters of the Koran. Traditional Muslim scholars and some modern ones developed various ideas about the relationship of particular parts of the Koran to Muhammad's life, but, generally speaking, it is widely accepted that the first revelations were short, marked by vigorous semi-poetic language, and concerned with warnings that men would inevitably be judged by God for their behaviour in this world and severely punished if they did not mend their ways. As time passed, and especially as Muhammad established himself in authority over the first Muslim community in Medina, it is judged that the revelations became longer, less urgent in tone, and more concerned with the solution of practical problems facing him and his followers.
There are two stories which, in the traditional accounts, are placed after the beginning of Muhammad's career as a prophet but which some modern scholars have seen as typical narratives about the beginning of prophet hood. One concerns the visit to the sleeping Muhammad by two angels who opened his breast and removed all traces of unbelief or sin which they found. The second reports how Muhammad was taken by night from the place in Mecca where he was sleeping, through the heavens to the throne of God. In the morning he found himself again back in Mecca. This is the famous story of the Night Journey (Isra) which provided the theme for much allegory in mystical (Sufi) Islam and which may have influenced the story of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Traditions about who were Muhammad's first followers in Mecca other than his wife Khadija vary. All agree, however, that Muhammad's supporters were not numerous or powerful and that he was opposed by the majority of the Meccans, who accused him of subverting the religion of their forefathers.
One controversial episode which is reported in some of the traditional sources but which many Muslims reject as a fabrication is that of the “Satanic Verses” (a name coined by modern scholars and not used in the traditional accounts). The story is that Muhammad, despairing of winning over the Meccans to his preaching, was tempted by Satan to proclaim as divine revelation certain verses which were in fact a perversion of the truth. These verses recognized three goddesses whom the Meccans worshipped and gave them a place in Islam as intermediaries between men and God. Upon hearing this, the Meccans were overjoyed and all accepted Islam. Subsequently, however, Gabriel came to Muhammad, told him that the alleged revelation came from Satan and not from God, and revealed the true wording (which we now find in the Koran). In the correct version the goddesses were dismissed as “mere names” without power or reality. When the true verses were revealed to the Meccans they abandoned Islam and relapsed to their old pagan religion.
In Medina

Opposition to Muhammad and his followers in Mecca was so strong that, after sending many of his followers to seek refuge across the Red Sea in Christian Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and after an unsuccessful attempt to find support in the neighbouring mountain town of Aţ Ta'if, he was persuaded to move with some followers to the predominantly agricultural settlement of Yathrib, about 200 miles to the north. This was in 622. The event, which is known as the Hijra (or Hegira), was a turning point in the fortunes of Muhammad. It was followed by the establishment of the first Muslim community (umma) in Yathrib, and later was seen as the start of the Muslim calendar, which is known as the era of the Hijra. Yathrib soon came to be known as Medina.
Muhammad, according to some traditions, had been invited to come to Medina by some of its inhabitants to act as a peacemaker between various factions. That is the most common explanation of why he was accepted as a figure of authority there so quickly. The community which he headed contained at first pagans as well as Muslims, together with a large Jewish population which lived in the settlement. In the years following the Hijra the community became more and more Muslim, although it is understood that many of its members did not accept Islam by conviction. In tradition they are often referred to as “hypocrites” (munafiqun). A few of the Jews accepted Islam, but most of them were eventually expelled or executed on Muhammad's orders as his relationship with them soured. They were believed to have sided with his enemies.

One reason for the growing acceptance of Muhammad's authority in Medina was his military success. Attacks on Meccan caravans led to a major victory over a large Meccan force at Badr in 624. Meccan attacks on Medina were narrowly repulsed at the battle of Uhud (625) and that of the Ditch (627). As Muhammad's prestige increased, groups in the neighbourhood began to enter into agreements with him and accept Islam, and by 628 he was able to conclude the treaty of al-Hudaybiyya with the Meccans. Although this treaty involved some concessions on his part, in effect it made the status of his community equal to that of Mecca. By 630 he was able to take over control of Mecca virtually unopposed. Those Meccans who thus far had held out against him now accepted Islam. The Meccan Kaaba, which had already become central to the ideas of Islam, was now at last physically accessible to the Muslims.
Following his conquest of Mecca, Muhammad's prestige and authority continued to expand in Arabia and Muslim forces reached southern Syria. In 632 Muhammad came to Mecca from Medina for the last time to perform the pilgrimage (hajj) ceremonies. This is known as the Pilgrimage of Farewell for, not long afterwards, having returned to Medina, he died. He was buried in his house in Medina, and the second most important mosque in Islam grew up there around his tomb.
MODERN VIEWS
Many modern scholars have been willing to accept the traditional accounts of Muhammad's life as basically accurate (allowing for a certain amount of legendary material, and discounting miraculous and supernatural elements). They have tried to explain his emergence as a prophet and his success in terms acceptable to modern historians by isolating relevant economic, political, social, and psychological factors. Non-Muslim scholars have particularly stressed the importance of trade routes in western Arabia for creating social conditions conducive to the rise of a new religion, and for allowing Jewish and Christian influences to penetrate the region. Some, however, have argued that the evidence is not suitable for a recreation of events and conditions in western Arabia at the beginning of the 7th century. Instead, it is suggested that before the historical accuracy of the traditional accounts can be assessed it is necessary to understand more about how, when and why the traditional material on Muhammad's life came into existence.[/english]

Peace and blessing of God be upon Him

LATEST_POSTS

قوانين المنتدى

All about prophet Muhammad 'peace be upon him'

الموجودون الآن