The controversies that swirled between Muhammad and the established communities of Jews and Christians helped to establish the identity of Islam, which was in the tradition of Judaism and Christianity, but it was God’s original revelation, without the distortions that accumulated in those two communities. The doctrine emerged that the Prophet had brought the original version of both Judaism and Christianity—the version held by Abraham, revered by both Jews and Christians—and this time the Arabs would be the first to hear it. The new faith was vehement in its rejection of polytheism, and its uncompromising monotheism would force even Christians, who considered themselves to be monotheists, to rethink their doctrines and practices in the face of Islamic criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity and the use of icons and statuary. If differences existed between the Qur’an on the one hand and the Torah and the Gospel on the other, it was because Jews and Christians had distorted the revelation. This sense of having completed the revelation and of having corrected the errors of previous generations would be an inspirational force that would generate a profound sense of self-confidence to the new Islamic community. Arab Muslims were no longer Arab polytheists who lived on the periphery of superior civilizations. They were bearers of the original and authentic revelation from the one true God, and their neighbors could only benefit from their counsel.
Conclusion
The sense of mission that the Arabs of the Hijaz gained from Islam would have dissipated rapidly without an institution to channel it. Muhammad’s monumental political achievement was to create a polity in western Arabia that served in effect as a substitute for tribal membership. Just as the Monophysites and Nestorians of the Byzantine Empire had expressed their dissatisfaction with the economic, political, and theological developments within their society through the medium of divergent religious claims, so Muhammad’s critique of his society took a religious form. When Muhammad donned the prophetic mantle in the streets of Mecca, criticizing the polytheism, greed, and selfishness of the people of his hometown, his opponents perceived an implicit claim for political and religious leadership of the community. Unlike the Monophysites and Nestorians, Muhammad was able to overthrow the old order and establish both a new religion and a new polity in Arabia.
As we have seen, no state had existed in northern Arabia before Muhammad’s time, and yet his success seems to have filled a yearning felt by tribesmen scattered over a vast area. Over the centuries, northern Arabia had witnessed the rise of impressive, but ephemeral, tribal confederations. Only in Yemen had there existed a political and revenue system such as Muhammad created. In Medina, Muhammad had created an umma, or a community that agreed on certain standards of behavior and certain fundamentals of governance. In his original agreement with the inhabitants of Medina, Muhammad had meant by umma everyone in the city, not just the Muslims, but by the end of his career, he had restricted the use of the term to Muslims only. Perhaps the most novel feature that the Umma entailed was the concept of a law to which all members of the polity were bound. As we shall see, Islamic law later developed into a complex science, but even during the early years of Islamic history, the standards of behavior and the obligatory acts that are detailed in the Qur’an constituted a concept of law that, at least in theory, transcended tribal custom and tribal competition. All who called themselves Muslims were expected to obey God’s revealed standards. Tribal loyalties and customs were clearly secondary in this understanding. As subsequent history shows all too clearly, tribal identities and antagonisms did not fade away. But the idea that one’s ultimate loyalty was to God, rather than to one’s tribe, contained powerful latent possibilities. Oppression no longer had to be viewed as simply a fact of life in a cruel world; it was an affront to God and a violation of his law against which his community should take a stand. Tribal, regional, and ethnic obligations had now become, at least theoretically, subject to the greater claims of a divine and universal law. The foundations had been laid for a new human community. The superstructure would be built by subsequent generations of Muslims.
NOTES
1.
Bulliet, Richard. The Camel and the Wheel. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975, 110.
FURTHER READING
Southwestern Asia in the Seventh Century
Bulliet, Richard. The Camel and the Wheel. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Cameron, Averil. The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: A.D. 395–600. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987.
Frye, Richard N. The Golden Age of Persia. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1975.
Jenkins, Romilly, James Heald. Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, AD 610–1071. Toronto: Published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Medieval Academy of America, 1987.
Hoyland, Robert G. Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
Morony, Michael G. Iraq After the Muslim Conquest. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Shahid, Irfan. Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995.
Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1996.
Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3, The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
The Rise of Islam
Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An Introduction to Islam, 2d ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994.
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates. London and New York: Longman, 1986.
Peters, F.E. Muhammad and the Origins of Islam. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1994.
Ruthven, Malise. Islam in the World, 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953.
Watt, W. Montgomery. Muhammad at Medina. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.
There are several good English translations of the Qur’an. It is important to understand that, unlike the Bible, the Qur’an in any language other than the original is not considered to be the Qur’an itself, but only a translated version: The Qur’an is to be found only in the Arabic language. As is the case with translations of the Bible, however, one can choose from a wide variety of prose styles. The following are two popular styles:
Ali, Ahmed, tr. Al-Qur’ ān: A Contemporary Translation. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Dawood, N.J. tr. The Koran. London: Penguin Books, 2000.
Many features of the early history of Islam are controversial. This chapter is based on the work of scholars who try to discover the historical events behind the (often problematic) traditional Muslim accounts. Another, quite different, approach of the past twenty-five years has been to consider the traditional accounts to be of almost no historical value and to suggest new chronological and geographical frameworks within which to understand the origins of Islam. Some scholars suggest that Islam did not arise in Mecca and Medina, but that it arose within a dominant monotheistic—rather than polytheistic—society, and that the Qur’an was collected over the course of a century, rather than two decades. For an introduction into this line of historical revisionism, consult the following works:
Crone, Patricia, and Michael Cook. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Hawting, G.R. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Wansbrough, John. Qur’anic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
For a thoughtful critique of this revisionist approach, consult the following text: Do
nner, Fred M.Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing. Princeton, New Jersey: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1998.
CHAPTER 2
Arab Imperialism
Islam bestowed on the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula an irresistible dynamism just at the moment that the two great civilizations to the north had exhausted each other. In less than a decade after Muhammad’s death, the Arabs came into possession of the territories of what had been the Sasanian Empire and took over the wealthy Syrian and Egyptian provinces of the Byzantine Empire. Within the lifetime of some of the children who had met Muhammad and sat on the Prophet’s knees, Arab armies controlled the land mass that extended from the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe to the Indus River valley in South Asia. In less than a century, Arabs had come to rule over an area that spanned five thousand miles.
The leaders of this unprecedented achievement included some men of remarkable ability, but, on the whole, their effectiveness was handicapped by their inability to transcend their provincial attitudes. Because their Arab identity was so strong, they could rarely see the conquered territories as the arena for the continued expansion of a universal Islamic society; instead, they saw it as a cash cow to be exploited. When the pace of conquest slowed and the revenues from the pillaging began to dry up, they were unable to prevent tribal factionalism from developing as their followers began to compete for scarce resources. Perhaps an even greater failure was their refusal to receive into their society the non-Arabs who converted to Islam. The discrimination the new Muslims experienced contrasted sharply with the ideals of justice and equality that had attracted the converts in the first place, and opened the Arabs to charges of hypocrisy and oppression. The inability of the leadership to resolve these problems led to a revolution that overthrew the Arab empire after only a century of spectacular expansion.
Arab Conquests
During the last few years of his life, the Prophet gradually expanded his sphere of influence within the Arabian Peninsula by means of military campaigns and peaceful alliances. In the aftermath of his death, the Muslim leadership at Medina began a series of conquests that still have the power to amaze the observer. Taking place over a period of ninety years, these conquests swept away the imperial forces of the Arabs’ proud neighbors to the north and resulted in a permanent cultural transformation of the societies that came under Muslim control.
Arabia and the Fertile Crescent
The Prophet’s sudden death in 632 was a stunning and disorienting experience for his followers. Having become dependent upon him to serve as both the channel of God’s revelation and the political and military leader of the new state, the community was bereft of its religious and political leadership at a stroke. That the despair and confusion in the wake of his death did not cause the collapse of his nascent movement is a testimony to the strength of the institutions and the ideals that Muhammad had left behind and to the quality of the leadership that succeeded him.
According to the most commonly accepted version of events, several factions emerged among the Muslims, each advocating its own solution to the leadership vacancy. The three primary groups were the original Muslim migrants to Medina, the natives of Medina who converted to Islam, and the Meccans who converted after the conquest of their city in 630. Two of the first converts to Islam, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab and Abu Bakr, played leading roles during the decision-making days after the Prophet’s death. In the heat of the debate over the course of action to be taken, ‘Umar made a passionate speech that convinced those present to accept Abu Bakr as the leader of the Umma. Abu Bakr was a pious, highly respected confidant of Muhammad who was famous for his knowledge of the genealogy of the region’s tribes, a valuable asset for the politics of the day. He and the Prophet had solidified their relationship by Muhammad’s marriage to Abu Bakr’s nine-year-old daughter, ‘A’isha, soon after the Hijra. The young wife became Muhammad’s favorite, and he died in her arms. The title of the position that Abu Bakr now held came to be known as that of the caliph, although as we shall see later, it is not clear whether Abu Bakr himself was addressed by this title. There is evidence, in fact, that ‘Umar and Abu Bakr worked together closely during the latter’s short administration.
With the loss of the Prophet, the new leader’s most pressing challenge was that many of the tribes that had subjected themselves to Medina no longer considered themselves under Medina’s control. Interpreting the situation in traditional fashion, they felt that the terms that they had contracted with Muhammad had been of a personal nature, and that it was incumbent upon his successor to renegotiate the terms. They failed to pay their tax and waited for Medina to react. A reversion to paganism does not appear to have played a major role in this challenge to Medina’s authority. There were, indeed, certain “false prophets” leading challenges to Islam’s dominance among tribes in central and northeastern Arabia, but these were not areas within Medina’s sphere of influence. In most cases, the revolt represented a residual tribal antipathy toward unfamiliar centralized control, and it is clear that in some cases the affected tribes were divided, with significant factions wishing not to break with the Umma. Abu Bakr’s stature as a leader, however, lay in his recognition that to allow tribes to secede from the union would doom the newly emerging society and allow a relapse into the polytheistic and violent tribalism of the recent past. He perceived that Muhammad’s polity inextricably combined religious expression with political authority. Islam was not a religion that could recognize a difference between what belonged to God and what belonged to Caesar. In the Prophet’s vision, any distinction between the “religious” and the “political” was fatuous. Political infidelity would result in religious infidelity.
The military campaign that Abu Bakr ordered to bring the recalcitrant tribes back under Medina’s control is known in Islamic history as the ridda wars, or the Wars of Apostasy. The campaign is important historically because it marks the transition to the Arab wars of conquest outside the peninsula. The campaign to coerce rebel groups to resubmit to Medinan hegemony made two seamless shifts in policy. The first was a transition from pacification of the rebellious tribes to one of subduing Arabian communities that had never had a treaty with the Prophet. The subjugation of the rebels was a short affair, which may be explained in part by evidence that many of the secessionist tribes and settlements were experiencing internal divisions over the issue of rebellion and put up only a half-hearted resistance. In the process of coercing rebel groups back under Medinan hegemony, the Muslim army at some point began to subdue the Arabian tribes that had not made submission. Despite fierce resistance from a handful of tribes, Medina won an overwhelming victory and was master of the peninsula by 634. Augmented by the manpower of the forces that it had conquered in the Ridda wars, the Muslim army was large and confident, whereas its opponents could never unite against Medina. The decisive victory by the diverse coalition that made up the Islamic state made a deep impression on many Arabs regarding the inadequacy of a purely tribal identity.
Just as the Ridda wars are impossible to distinguish from the war for the conquest of the peninsula, so the latter evolved imperceptibly into invasions of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. The specific reasons for this evolution into major international military expeditions are lost to history, but scholars have suggested three factors that may have converged precisely when the two empires were at their weakest. The first was a geopolitical motivation on the part of the Muslim leadership. As Medina’s campaign moved into the northern part of the peninsula, the objectives of the Muslim elite may well have expanded. Muhammad himself had already attempted to gain control of the Arabian tribes and settlements on the route from the Hijaz to Syria; now Abu Bakr seems to have been concerned about the threat posed to the Umma by nomads and rival settlements situated on important trade routes. He was concerned with bringing under his control any potential security threat to the trade of the new state, and he used a combination of force, cajolery, and material incentives to do
so.
The second factor was the inspiration of religion itself. Many of the soldiers who fought for Medina throughout the Arabian campaigns were genuinely motivated by religious concerns. The Qur’an repeatedly enjoins believers to engage in a struggle (jihad) against unbelievers until God’s rule is established on this earth. Muslims who refuse to help either by fighting, or by helping the cause by contributing to it financially, are called hypocrites. On the other hand, those who fight are rewarded not only spiritually (in the afterlife), but also materially (the troops are to share four-fifths of the loot captured in fighting the infidels). The scriptures, the promise of material reward, and social pressure all combined to create a polity that offered powerful ideological motivations for participation in warfare.
Which of these motivations was most important to the typical rank-and-file soldier? It would be interesting to know. Few of the fighters could have been knowledgeable regarding the nature of societies beyond their own, and no doubt initially envisioned fighting and converting only pagan Arabs. As it turned out, they chose to tolerate the existence of the huge number of Christians and Jews in the lands west of Iran, and nowhere did they welcome non-Arab converts to Islam. What, then, was the nature of God’s rule that they hoped to establish as a result of their efforts? Unfortunately, it is as impossible to know the answer to this question as it is to know the exact motivations of the Frankish crusaders who went off to Palestine or of the conquistadores with Cortes who claimed to be engaging in a mission for God against the Aztecs.
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