Muhammad

Life of Mohammed

Mohammed (A.D. 570-632) or Muhammad was the founder of Islam. He began life as a wealthy tradesmen, one of the elite of his city of Mecca. He claimed to be privy to certain revelations in middle age, speaking of a need to abandon worship of the many gods who dominated Mecca's religion at the time, and worship the one God, Allah.

These early revelations spoke of a need to return to the monotheism of Abraham; in this way, at an early age, Mohammed saw himself as reviving an ancient faith, a perceived correction to Christianity and Judaism, and restoring his people to what he saw as their rightful position as the true founders and heirs of monotheism. In these revelations, submission to the will of God - Allah - was critical. Mohammed's fledgling religion continued to develop throughout his life, through periodic revelations often relating directly to events currently facing his new faith.

The faith caught on slowly, winning only a few converts in Mecca (the first being his wife). Under increased pressure and ostracism from elders in Mecca, Mohammed began the hijra, an organized exodus of his followers from Mecca to the city of Medina. Muslims date the formation of their religion to the hijra itself, even beginning their dating system at this point.

At Medina, the new Muslims immediately adopted an aggressive stance, seeking to coexist with the Jews living in Medina on his terms. The encounter ended badly, though, with Mohammed dividing and conquering the Jewish groups in Medina, ordering the massacre of the Qurayza Jewish tribe, as they refused changing their religion to his submission, after (possibly) fabricating a cause to break what is called by modern historians the Compact of Medina.

The tribes around the Muslims began to convert to Islam out of self-preservation. Those that didn’t were gradually defeated in battle in a pattern that became the blueprint for the successful establishment of Islam as a world religion. Typically, the enemy’s trust would be gained by non-intrusive measures in which the Muslims would insert themselves into the foreign community while professing their respect for local traditions and political structures. As they began to gain power, however, they would divide loyalties and exercise violence to acquire local hegemony.

This is demonstrated most plainly by the brutal conquest of the people of Khaybar, a peaceful farming community that was not at war with the Muslims. Muhammad marched against them anyway, taking them by surprise and easily defeating them. He had many of the men killed, simply for defending their town, and enslaved the women and children.

Muhammad's personal life became the picture of hedonism and excess, all justified by frequent “revelations.”

The man, who earlier in his career had justified his claims as a prophet by saying that he "asked for no reward" from others, reversed course and began to demand a fifth of all booty taken from conquered tribes. According to his biographers, he became fat from living off this enormous share of ill-gotten gain.

In the span of a dozen years, he married eleven women and had access to an array of sex slaves. When he wanted a woman, even if she were the wife of another man, his own daughter-in-law, or a child as young as 6, he was able to justify his lust and inevitable consummation with an appeal to Allah’s revealed will for his sex life - which was then preserved forever in the Qur'an, to be faithfully memorized by future generations for him whom it has no possible relevance.

(For the Muslim faithful, it must surely be a source of embarrassment that Allah evidently had more interest in Muhammad's personal sex life than he did about tolerance. There are also far more open-ended verses that advocate "fighting in the cause of Allah" than in showing love for all people. Allah encourages sex with slaves as well)

Muhammad also had personal critics executed, including poets. One of these was a mother of five children, who was stabbed to death by Muhammad's envoy after a suckling infant was removed from her breast. Other innocent people were killed merely because they were of a different religion).

The double standards of Islam that are so recognizable today were ingrained by the prophet of Islam during his lifetime. An example would be the death of Um Kirfa, a middle-aged woman who had the bad fortune to be the aunt of a tribal leader who raided one of Muhammad's caravans (in the same fashion that Muhammad raided others).

Missing the apparent irony, Muhammad did not take kindly to having done to him what he had been doing to non-Muslims. He had the woman's legs tied separately to two camels, then set the camels off in opposite directions, tearing the woman's body in two. He also killed her two young sons - presumably in gruesome fashion - as well.

Today's Muslims inherent this legacy of self-interest and disregard for those outside the faith. They may or may not agree with terrorist attacks on non-Muslims, but they are nearly united in their belief that the victims have no right to strike back, even if it is in self-defense.

After Mohammed's Death

Mohammed's death at an early age caused the splintering of his religion into new sects, over the question of succession. The groups called themselves the Sunnis and the Shi'as. Many attribute this split to the high degree to which authority was centered in the powerful character of Mohammed himself: without his powerful personality, the movement could not survive intact.

The failure or splintering of movements built around a charismatic leader is a recurring sociological problem, often studied by psychologists, and referred to as the problem of the routinization of charisma. Christianity faced the same problem, and many attribute the conquest of this problem to the leadership of the apostle Paul..

See Also

• Islam
• Muhammad cartoons controversy

Notes

HIR | Muhammad's massacre of the Jewish tribe Banu Qurayzah [1]