No God But God

by Reza Aslan

  The sound of Muhammad and his followers, unarmed and dressed in pilgrim’s clothes, loudly proclaiming their presence to their enemies, must have rung like a death knell in Mecca. Surely the end was near if this man could be so audacious as to think he could walk into the sacred city unmolested. The Quraysh, who rushed out to halt Muhammad before he could enter Mecca, were confounded. Meeting him just outside the city, in a place called Hudaybiyyah, they made one last attempt to preserve their control of Mecca by offering the Prophet a cease-fire, the conditions of which were so against Muhammad’s interests that it must have appeared to the Muslims to be a joke.

  The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah proposed that in return for his immediate withdrawal and the unconditional cessation of all caravan raids in the vicinity of Mecca, Muhammad would be allowed to return in the following pilgrimage season, when the sanctuary would be evacuated for a brief time so that he and his followers could perform the pilgrimage rites undisturbed. Adding insult to injury, Muhammad would be required to sign the treaty not as the Apostle of God but only as the tribal head of his community. Given Muhammad’s rapidly growing position in the Hijaz, the treaty was preposterous; more than anything, it demonstrated the certainty of Mecca’s impending defeat. Perhaps that is why Muhammad’s followers, who sensed victory lingering only a few kilometers in front of them, were so incensed when the Prophet actually accepted the terms.

  Umar—ever the impetuous one—could barely contain himself. He jumped up and went to Abu Bakr. “Abu Bakr,” he asked, pointing to Muhammad, “is he not the Messenger of God?”

  “Yes,” Abu Bakr replied.

  “And are we not Muslims?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are they not polytheists?”

  “Yes.”

  At this Umar shouted, “Then why should we grant what is detrimental to our religion?”

  Abu Bakr, who probably felt the same way, replied with the only words in which he could take solace: “I bear witness that he is the Messenger of God.”

  It is difficult to say why Muhammad accepted the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. He may have been hoping to regroup and wait for an opportune time to return and conquer Mecca by force. He may have been observing the Quranic mandate to “fight until oppression ends and God’s law prevails. But if [the enemy] desists, then you must also cease hostilities” (2:193). Whatever the case, the decision to accept the cease-fire and return the following year turned out to be the most decisive moment in the battle between Mecca and Medina. For when ordinary Meccans saw the respect and devotion with which their supposed enemy and his band of “religious zealots” entered their city and circled the Ka‘ba, there seemed little incentive to continue supporting the war. Indeed, a year after that pilgrimage, in 630 C.E., after Muhammad interpreted a skirmish between the Quraysh and some of his followers as a breach of the cease-fire, he marched once more toward Mecca, this time with ten thousand men behind him, only to find the city’s inhabitants welcoming him with open arms.

  After accepting Mecca’s surrender, Muhammad declared a general amnesty for most of his enemies, including those he had fought in battle. Despite the fact that tribal law now made the Quraysh his slaves, Muhammad declared all of Mecca’s inhabitants (including its slaves) to be free. Only six men and four women were put to death for various crimes, and no one was forced to convert to Islam, though everyone had to take an oath of allegiance never again to wage war against the Prophet. Among the last of the Quraysh to take that oath were its Shaykh, Abu Sufyan, and his wife, Hind, who, even as she formally converted to Islam, remained proudly defiant, barely masking her disgust with Muhammad and his “provincial” faith.

  When this business was complete, the Prophet made his way to the Ka‘ba. With the help of his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, he lifted the heavy veil covering the sanctuary door and entered the sacred interior. One by one, he carried the idols out before the assembled crowd and, raising them over his head, smashed them to the ground. The various depictions of gods and prophets, such as that of Abraham holding divining rods, were all washed away with Zamzam water; all, that is, except for the one of Jesus and his mother, Mary. This image the Prophet put his hands over reverently, saying, “Wash out all except what is beneath my hands.”

  Finally, Muhammad brought out the idol representing the great Syrian god, Hubal. As Abu Sufyan watched, the Prophet unsheathed his sword and hacked the idol into pieces, forever ending the worship of pagan deities at Mecca. The remains of Hubal’s statue Muhammad used as a doorstep leading up to the new, sanctified Ka‘ba, the sanctuary that would henceforth be known as “the House of God,” the seat of a wholly new and universal faith: Islam.

  5. The Rightly Guided Ones

  THE SUCCESSORS TO MUHAMMAD

  A STIRRING AT THE rear of the congregation, and every head turns to see Muhammad emerge from Aisha’s apartment to stand in the courtyard of the mosque just as the Friday prayers begin. It has been some time since anyone has seen him out of doors. Rumors about his health have been circulating throughout Medina for weeks. During his long absence, Abu Bakr has been leading the Friday services, while the rest of the Companions have kept busy leading expeditions, managing the state, dispensing the tithes, and instructing new converts in the ethics and rituals of the Muslim faith. No one would give voice to what everyone was thinking: the Messenger is dying; he may already be dead.

  The year is 632 C.E. Two years have passed since Muhammad walked triumphantly into Mecca and cleansed the Ka‘ba in the name of the one God. At that time, he was a robust man at the peak of his political and spiritual power, unquestionably the most dominant leader in Arabia. Ironically, the movement that had begun as an attempt to reclaim the tribal ethic of Arabia’s nomadic past had, in many ways, struck the final dagger into the traditional tribal system. Soon there will be only the Muslim community, the enemies of the Muslim community (including the Byzantine and Sasanian empires), the client tribes of the Muslim community, and the dhimmi (Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims, protected by the Muslim community). Yet despite the enormous power that accompanied his defeat of the Quraysh, Muhammad refused to replace the Meccan aristocracy with a Muslim monarchy; he would be the Keeper of the Keys, but he would not be the King of Mecca. Thus, once the administrative affairs had been settled and delegations—both military and diplomatic—dispatched to inform the rest of the Arab tribes of the new political order in the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad did something completely unexpected: he went back home to Medina.

  Muhammad’s return to Medina was meant to acknowledge the Ansar, the “helpers” who had provided him with refuge and protection when no one else would. But it was also a statement to the entire community that while Mecca was now the heart of Islam, Medina would forever be its soul.

  It is in Medina that deputations will gather from all over the Peninsula with their pledge that “there is no god but God” (though as we shall see, for many, this oath is addressed not so much to God as to Muhammad). It is in Medina that the pillars of the Muslim faith and the foundations of Muslim government will be constructed and debated. And it is in Medina that the Prophet will breathe his last.

  But now, the sight of Muhammad standing at the entrance of the mosque, a smile wrinkling his bronzed face, dispels all those anxious rumors about his health. He looks lean, but surprisingly hearty for a man of his age. The long back hair he keeps twisted into plaits is thin and silver. His back bows a bit and his shoulders droop. But his face is as radiant as ever, and his eyes still smolder with the light of God.

  When Abu Bakr catches sight of Muhammad shuffling between the seated bodies, grasping the shoulders of friends for support, he immediately rises from the minbar—the elevated seat that serves as the pulpit in mosques—to allow the Prophet to take his rightful place at the head of the congregation. But Muhammad signals to his old friend to remain seated and continue with the service. The prayers resume, and Muhammad finds a quiet corner in which to sit down. He wraps his cloak tightly around his body and watches
his community pray together in the manner he had taught them to so many years ago: moving as one body and speaking with one voice.

  He does not stay long. Before the congregation disperses, Muhammad stands and quietly makes his way out of the mosque and back to Aisha’s room, where he collapses on the bed. Even this short trip to the mosque has weakened him. He has trouble catching his breath. He calls for his beloved wife.

  When Aisha finally arrives, Muhammad is barely conscious. She quickly clears the room of people and drapes the doors for privacy. She sits beside her husband and places his head on her lap, gently stroking his long hair, whispering soothing words to him as his eyes flicker, then slowly close.

  News of Muhammad’s death spreads rapidly through Medina. For most, it is inconceivable that the Messenger of God could have died. Umar, for one, refuses to believe it. He is so distraught that he immediately runs to the mosque, where the community has gathered for news, and threatens to pummel anyone who dares say Muhammad is dead.

  It is up to Abu Bakr to calm the situation. After seeing Muhammad’s corpse with his own eyes, he too goes to the mosque. There, he sees Umar rambling incoherently about the Prophet still being alive. He only appears to be dead, Umar bellows. He has been taken to heaven, like Moses; he will return shortly.

  “Gently, Umar,” Abu Bakr says, stepping to the front of the mosque. “Be quiet!”

  But Umar will not be silenced. In a firm voice, he warns those who have accepted Muhammad’s death that they will have their hands and feet cut off for their disloyalty when the Prophet returns from heaven.

  Finally, Abu Bakr can take no more. He raises his hands over the congregation and shouts over Umar, “O men, if anyone worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead; if anyone worships God, God is alive, immortal!”

  When Umar hears these words, he crumples to the ground and weeps.

  * * *

  Part of the reason for the community’s anxiety over Muhammad’s death was that he had done so little to prepare them for it. He had made no formal statement about who should replace him as leader of the Ummah, or even what kind of leader that person should be. Perhaps he was awaiting a Revelation that never came; perhaps he wanted the Ummah to decide for themselves who should succeed him. Or perhaps, as some were whispering, the Prophet had appointed a successor, someone whose rightful place at the head of the community was being obscured by the internecine power struggles already beginning to take place among the Muslim leadership.

  Meanwhile, the Muslim community was growing and expanding faster than anyone could have imagined and was in serious danger of becoming unmanageable. Muhammad’s death had only complicated matters, so that some client tribes were now openly rebelling against Muslim control and refusing to pay the tithe tax (zakat) to Medina. As far as these tribes were concerned, Muhammad’s death, like the death of any Shaykh, had annulled their oath of allegiance and severed their responsibility to the Ummah.

  Even more disconcerting, Muhammad’s vision of a divinely inspired state was proving so popular that throughout the Arabian Peninsula other regions had begun to replicate it using their own indigenous leadership and their own native ideology. In Yemen, a man named al-Aswad, who claimed to receive divine messages from a god he called Rahman (an epithet for Allah), had set up his own state independent of Mecca and Medina. In eastern Arabia, another man, Maslama (or Musaylama), had so successfully imitated Muhammad’s formula that he had already gathered thousands of followers in Yamama, which he had declared to be a sanctuary city. To contemporary scholars like Dale Eickelman, the sudden upsurge of these “false prophets” is an indication that Muhammad’s movement had filled a definite social and religious vacuum in Arabia. But to the Muslims, they signaled a grave threat to the religious legitimacy and political stability of the Ummah.

  And yet the greatest challenge facing the Muslim community after Muhammad’s death was neither rebellious tribes nor false prophets, but rather the question of how to build a cohesive religious system out of the Prophet’s words and deeds, the majority of which existed solely in the memories of the Companions. There is a tendency to think of Islam as having been both completed and perfected at the end of Muhammad’s life. But while that may be true of the Revelation, which ended with the Prophet’s last breath, it would be a mistake to think of Islam in 632 C.E. as being in any way a unified system of beliefs and practices; far from it. As with all great religions, it would take generations of theological development for what Ignaz Goldziher calls “the unfolding of Islamic thought, the fixing of the modalities of Islamic practice, [and] the establishment of Islamic institutions” to take shape.

  This is not to say, as the controversial American historian John Wansbrough has famously argued, that Islam as we know it originated outside Arabia hundreds of years after the death of Muhammad (if such a person even existed). Wansbrough and his colleagues have done remarkable work in tracing the evolution of Islam as it developed in the Judeo-Christian sectarian milieu of seventh- to ninth-century Arabia and its environs. But Wansbrough’s persistent exaggeration of the non-Arabic (mostly Hebrew) sources regarding early Islam, and his unnecessary disregard of the historical Muhammad, has too often made his arguments seem more like “a disguised polemic seeking to strip Islam and the Prophet of all but the minimum of originality,” to quote R. B. Sarjeant.

  Polemical arguments aside, there can be no doubt that Islam was still in the process of defining itself when Muhammad died. By 632, the Quran had neither been written down nor collected, let alone canonized. The religious ideals that would become the foundation of Islamic theology existed only in the most rudimentary form. The questions of proper ritual activity or correct legal and moral behavior were, at this point, barely regulated; they did not have to be. Whatever questions one had—whatever issue was raised either through internal conflict or as a result of foreign contact—any confusion whatsoever could simply be brought before the Prophet for a solution. But without Muhammad around to elucidate the will of God, the Ummah was left with the nearly impossible task of figuring out what the Prophet would have said about an issue or a problem.

  Obviously, the first and most urgent concern was to choose someone to lead the Ummah in Muhammad’s stead, someone who could maintain the community’s stability and integrity in the face of its many internal and external challenges. Unfortunately, there was little consensus as to who that leader should be. The Ansar in Medina had already taken the initiative of choosing a leader from among themselves: a pious early Medinan convert named Sa‘d ibn Ubayda, the Shaykh of the Khazraj. But while the Medinans may have thought their sheltering of the Prophet had given them a preeminent position within the Ummah, the Meccans, and especially the former Qurayshi aristocracy who still held sway in Mecca, would never submit to being ruled by a Medinan. Some members of the Ansar tried to offer a compromise by choosing co-leaders, one from Mecca and one from Medina, but that too was unacceptable to the Quraysh.

  It quickly became clear that the only way to maintain both a sense of unity and some measure of historical continuity in the Ummah was to choose a member of the Quraysh to succeed Muhammad, specifically one of the Companions who had made the original Hijra to Medina in 622 (the Muhajirun). Muhammad’s clan, the Banu Hashim—now dubbed the ahl al-bayt, or the “People of the House [of the Prophet]”—agreed that only a member of the Quraysh could lead the Ummah, though they believed the Prophet would have wanted one of them to succeed him. Indeed, quite a large number of Muslims were convinced that during his final pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad had publicly designated his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, to be his successor. According to traditions, on his way back to Medina, Muhammad had stopped at an oasis called Ghadir al-Khumm and declared, “Whoever has me as his patron, has Ali as his patron (mawla).” Yet there were perhaps an equal number of Muslims who not only denied the events at Ghadir al-Khumm but who also vehemently rejected the privileged status of the Banu Hashim as the “People of the House of the Prophet.”

  To settle
matters once and for all, Abu Bakr, Umar, and a prominent Companion named Abu Ubayda met with a group of Ansar leaders for a traditional shura, or tribal consultation (actually, the three men “crashed” a shura that was already taking place among the Ansar). And while an enormous amount of ink has been spilled over this historic meeting, it is still not clear exactly who was present or what took place. The only thing about which scholars can be certain is that at its conclusion, Abu Bakr, spurred on by Umar and Abu Ubayda, was selected to be the next leader of the Muslim community and given the apt but rather vague title Khalifat Rasul Allah, “the Successor to the Messenger of God”—Caliph, in English.

  What made Abu Bakr’s title so appropriate was that nobody was sure what it was supposed to mean. The Quran refers to both Adam and David as God’s Caliphs (2:30; 38:26), meaning they served as God’s “trustees” or “vice-regents” on earth, but this does not seem to be how Abu Bakr was viewed. Despite the arguments of Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds to the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Caliphate was not meant to be a position of great religious influence. Certainly, the Caliph would be responsible for upholding the institutions of the Muslim faith, but he would not play a significant role in defining religious practice. In other words, Abu Bakr would replace the Prophet as leader of the Ummah, but he would have no prophetic authority. Muhammad was dead; his status as Messenger died with him.

  The deliberate ambiguity of his title was a great advantage for Abu Bakr and his immediate successors because it gave them the opportunity to define the position for themselves, something they would do in widely divergent ways. As far as Abu Bakr was concerned, the Caliphate was a secular position that closely resembled that of the traditional tribal Shaykh—“the first among equals”—though with the added responsibility of being the community’s war leader (Qa‘id) and chief judge (Hakam), both of which were positions inherited from Muhammad. However, even Abu Bakr’s secular authority was severely limited. Like any Shaykh, he made most of his decisions through collective consultation and, throughout his Caliphate, he continued his activities as a merchant, occasionally supplementing his meager income by milking a neighbor’s cow. Abu Bakr’s chief responsibility, as he seemed to have understood it, was to maintain the unity and stability of the Ummah so that the Muslims under his care would be free to worship God in peace. But because the restriction of his authority to the secular realm kept him from defining exactly how one was to worship God, the door was opened for a new class of scholars called the Ulama, or “learned ones,” who would take upon themselves the responsibility of guiding the Ummah on the straight path.