Compiled from Karen Armstrong's book about Muhammad, this series gives an overview of Muhammad. As a highly respected scholar, the elder former Roman Catholic nun, who is recognized as one of the world's great religious historians, tells best why we need this prophet's story.

Muhammad - A Biography of the Prophet, Karen Armstrong, 1993

On September 11^th, 2001, Muslim extremists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York together with a wing of the Pentagon, killing over five thousand people. This hideous crime endorsed all the negative Western notions of Islam as a fanatical faith that encourages murder and terror. In the West, we have never been able to cope with Islam; our ideas about this faith have been crude, dismissive, and arrogant, but now we cannot remain in an attitude of such ignorance and prejudice.

During the endless discussions that followed the tragedy of 911, critics of Islam frequently quoted out of context the more ferocious passages of the Koran, arguing that these verses could easily inspire and endorse extremism, while ignoring the fact that both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures can be just as bellicose. But nobody accused Christianity of being an inherent and violent faith, because most people knew enough about this complex religion to understand that it would be quite inappropriate to make such an accusation.

We need the Prophet’s story at this dangerous time. Muslim extremists must not be allowed to hijack the biography of Muhammad and twist it to suit their own ends, like that of Christianity and Judaism. Furthermore, there is much that we can learn from the Prophet about how we should conduct ourselves in our utterly changed world.

Muhammad Series

Conditions of Arabia at the Time of Muhammad

Muhammad: Birth to Young Manhood

Muhammad the Prophet

Birth of Islam

Emigration to Medina -- The Pledge of War

Mecca Marches on Medina, 624

Siege of Medina, 627 -- Judgment of the Jews

Muhammad Conquers Mecca

The Women of Muhammad

The Satanic Verses and the Daughters of God

Interview with Religious Scholar Karen Armstrong

Bedouin Arabs of Arabia Desert

Arabia was considered a god-less region and none of the more advanced religions, which were associated with modernity and progress, had managed to penetrate the area. The intractable steppes of Arabia were a terrifying wilderness, inhabited by a wild race of men to whom the Greeks had given the name ‘Sarakenoi’, the people who dwell in tents.

The nomads formed themselves into autonomous groups, on the basis of blood and kinship. Only the tribe could ensure the personal survival of its members, but that meant that. Everything had to be subordinated to the interests of the group. An individual on his own stood no chance at all. There was no room for individualism

To cultivate this communal spirit, the Arabs evolved an ideology of courage in battle, patience and endurance in suffering, and a dedication to the chivalrous duties of avenging wrong done to the tribe, protecting its weaker members and defying the strong. The tribe looked after its own. It encouraged an indifference to material goods, which was essential in a region where there were not enough of the basic necessities to go round.

Its chief was expected to take care of the weaker members of his group and to distribute its possessions and goods equally. To protect the tribe and its members a chief had to be prepared to avenge each and every injury. Outside the tribe, obligation ceased.

Vendettas

Life was cheap and there was nothing immoral about killing per se: it was only wrong to kill your own tribesmen or their allies. Each tribe had to avenge the death of a single one of its members by killing somebody in the murderer’s tribe. One vendetta bred another if a tribe felt that revenge had been disproportionate. Robbery was not considered immoral unless you stole the goods of kinsmen. What food and goods were available were shared between the tribes.

Women / Infanticide

Only the strong could survive and that meant the weak were eliminated and grievously exploited. Infanticide was the normal means of population control: female babies survived infancy more frequently than boys and, since no tribe could support more than a certain number of women, female babies were killed. Women, like slaves, had no human or legal rights, and could expect no amelioration of their lot. Men could take as many wives as they wanted.

Poets and Illiteracy

Poets were of crucial importance in the political and social life of Arabia. As illiteracy was the rule in the peninsula, poets would recite their verses aloud. They fulfilled the function of the responsible press in our own society, disseminated information and interoperated events. The poet fulfilled many of the functions of a priest or prophet in other communities. Poetry was considered superhuman and to have magical qualities.

Arabic Spirituality / Rituals

The most important shrine was the Kaaba. The granite boxlike shrine is extremely ancient. Embedded in its eastern corner was the sacred Black Stone. Around the Kaaba was a circular area where pilgrims gathered to perform the seven ritual circumambulations of the shrine. The circumambulation induces a meditation performed in a kind of ‘trot’.

The shrine was surrounded by 360 effigies of the gods of all the different tribes that came to worship there during the appointed month. The land around Mecca [on a twenty-mile radius from the Kaaba] was a sacred area, a sanctuary where all violence and fighting was forbidden.

Persia and Byzantium Empire Conflict

In the sixth century, Persia and Christian Byzantium were locked in a debilitating struggle with one another. The Persians favored Judaism. Both were anxious to cultivate the Southern Arabs. Southern Arabia [Yemen] had the benefit of the monsoon rains, so it was rich, fertile and had an ancient and sophisticated culture. Having affiliated Abyssinia, Byzantium encouraged its ruler to infiltrate Southern Arabia to bring it under the suzerainty of Constantinople.

In 570, Persia invaded Southern Arabia and made Southern Arabia a colony of Persia.

Arabian Desert Remains Neutral

The Bedouin Arabs of Arabia Desert were suspicious of both Judaism and Christianity. The Bedouin Arabs had been intensely proud of their southern Arab neighbors and saw their fall as a catastrophe. They knew that the great powers of Persia and Byzantium were ready to use both faiths as a means of imperial control. In order to avoid the fate of the kingdom of the South, they remained strictly neutral in the struggle between Persia and Byzantium.

The Quraysh Tribe

The nomads gradually penetrated the desert regions of the Fertile Crescent and the Arabian Peninsula. They were followed by pioneering farmers, who settled in the oases, irrigated the surrounding area and made the desert bloom. The agriculturists depended on the nomads’ greater mobility, which provided them with goods from abroad. The nomads were more skilful warriors; they provided the settled Arabs with protection in return for a portion of the harvest.

The tribal system and the old paganism had served the Bedouin well for centuries, but during the sixth century life had changed. The Arabs had begun to engage in trade with the civilized countries.

Mecca was ideally situated for long-term business ventures. The prestige of the Kaaba brought many Arabs on the hajj to the city each year and the Sanctuary created a climate that was favorable to trade. Mecca stood conveniently at the crossroads of the two major trade routes of Arabia: the Hijaz Road, which linked the Arabs with Syria, Palestine and Transjordan, and the Najd Road which linked them with Iraq.

The Quraysh tribe had become the greatest power in Arabia during the sixth century. They ensured the security of the city by building alliances with the Bedouin in the area. In return for military help, the Bedouins had shares in various Meccan companies.

Muhammad 

In 570, Abdullah [Muhammad’s father] died while Amina [Muhammad’s mother] was still pregnant. He left her in straitened circumstances with only five camels and a young slave girl named Bahira. Muhammad was born fatherless in Mecca about 570 into the tribe of Quraysh, into the clan of Hashim, which had declined in power. Children were often given out to foster parents in the desert, because it was believed to be healthier for them than in the city. Bedouin women were willing to take a Quraysh babe to foster because they could expect presents and help from the family, but because Amina was so poor, nobody was very interested in Muhammad.

The tribe of Bani Sa’d were desperate and Halima, a member of one of the poorest families, decided to take Muhammad anyway. But Halima was so hungry herself that she had no milk to give her own baby, the milk of her camel had dried up and even the donkey on which she had ridden to Mecca was on its last legs. But this is what happened as soon as she took the baby Muhammad:

I took him to my baggage, and as soon as I put him to my bosom, my breasts overflowed with milk, which he drank until he was finished, as also did his foster brother. Then both of them slept. My husband got up and went to the old she-camel and lo, her udders were full; he milked it and he and I drank of her milk until we were completely satisfied, and we passed a happy night. In the morning my husband said: “Do you know, Halima, that you have taken a blessed creature!” Then we set out and I was riding my she-ass and carrying him with me, and she went at such a pace that the other donkeys cold not keep up.

Amina died when he was six years old. He went to live in the house of his grandfather, who made quite a favorite of him. He died when Muhammad was about eight, so the boy went to live in the household of his uncle Abu Talib, who had become the chief of Hashim, and had the companionship of his cousins Talib and Aqil.

Young Manhood

He grew up to be a very able young man. He had a decisive and wholehearted character and gave his full attention to whatever he was doing. In Mecca he was known as al-Amin, the reliable one: able to inspire confidence in others. He was good-looking, with a compact, solid body of about average height. His hair and beard were thick and curly and he had a luminous expression, which was particularly striking and is mentioned in all the sources.

His uncles made sure that he had good military training. He became a skilled archer, competent swordsman, and wrestler. His uncle Abbas was a banker, and Muhammad became a merchant whose job was to lead caravans to Syria and Mesopotamia. Despite his ability, his orphaned status held him back.

Muhammad the Merchant

Like all Meccans, Muhammad, now an Arab merchant, was very proud of his city, a center of finance and the most powerful settlement in Arabia. The Meccan merchants had become wealthier than any other Arabs and enjoyed a security that was inconceivable two generations earlier, living the grim nomadic life of the Arabian steppes. The Meccans were fiercely proud of the Kaaba, the ancient cube-shaped shrine in the center of the city, the Temple of Allah, the High God of the Arabs.

People acquired a wider perspective and an entirely new view of the world, which made the local gods seem petty and inadequate. The Arabs believed that Allah, whose name simply meant ‘the God’, was a deity who was also worshipped by the Jews and the Christians. But unlike the ‘people of the scriptures’, as the Arabs called these two venerable faiths, the Arabs were painfully aware that He had never sent them a revelation or a scripture of their own, even though they had had His shrine in their midst from time immemorial.

Muhammad’s Year of Sadness: 619

Muhammad had been pushed beyond his original preconceptions and had come to the end of his own natural resources. He had the greatest mystical experience in the year 620, very close to the experience of mysticism in the Jewish tradition, which flourished from the second to the tenth century CE. They would fast, read special hymns that induced receptivity, and use special physical techniques. They had discovered a new path to God and risked personal danger while doing so. The Night Journey showed that Muhammad was more than just a humble Warner of the Quraysh. This religious experience has been immensely important in the evolution of Islamic spirituality. It is celebrated each year and over the centuries, mystics, philosophers and poets have speculated its significance.   

Mohammed Appeals to the Medina Bedouins

Muhammad began to preach to the Bedouin pilgrims who came for the annual hajj, hoping to find a more permanent protector among them. When Muhammad presented himself to the pilgrims from Medina during the hajj of 620, they immediately saw he would be a much more impartial leader. They were not shocked by his monotheistic message. They had lived for so long beside the Jews that they were used to the idea that there was only one God. For a very long time they had felt inferior to the Jews because they had no scriptures of their own and were ‘a people without knowledge’. They were thrilled to Muhammad’s claim that he was a prophet for the Arabs

Emigration to Medina – Pledge of War – The Helpers

During July and August 622, about seventy Muslims set off with their families for Medina.  The emigration was not just a geographical change. The Muslims of Mecca were about to abandon the Quraysh and accept the permanent protection of a tribe to whom they were not related by blood.

The Muslims of Medina promised that they would give protection and help on a permanent basis to people who were not kin to them. Henceforth they would be known as the Ansar, the people who gave help to the Prophet and his Companions. ‘Ansar’ is usually translated ‘the Helpers’, which meant that you had to be ready to back up your ‘help’ and support with force if necessary.

Muhammad was aware that people were plotting against his life. The Muslims of Medina made a pledge known as the Pledge of War: ‘We pledge ourselves to war in complete obedience to the apostle, in weal or woe, in ease and hardship and evil circumstances; that we will not wrong anyone; that we will speak the truth at all times; and that in God’s service we will fear the censure of none.’ The Pledge of War did not mean that Islam had suddenly become an aggressive and martial religion; it was simply required by the step Muhammad was about to take. The Koran teaches that war is always abominable. Muslims must never open hostilities, for the only just war is a war of self-defense, but, once they have undertaken a war, Muslims must fight with absolute commitment in order to bring the fighting to an end as soon as possible.

Relations with the Jews

He reached out eagerly to the Jews in the oasis. The Koran adopted the Aramaic name that the Jews gave to Medina. Muslims now turned toward Jerusalem three times a day in prayer, they had the same aims as the People of the Book.

At first the Jews had been prepared to give Muhammad the benefit of the doubt, especially since he seemed so clearly inclined towards Judaism. Muhammad never asked them to accept his religion of Allah unless they particularly wished to convert.

They vociferously refused to accept Muhammad as a genuine prophet and jeeringly exclaimed how odd it was that a man who was supposed to have revelations from God could not even find his camel when it went missing. These snide criticisms upset the Muslims so much that fighting often broke out and there were disreputable scenes in which the Jews were forcibly ejected from the mosque after some particularly vicious jibe.

PrayTowards Mecca

Muhammad found a way of rebutting the Jews. In late January 624, Muhammad was leading the Friday prayers in the mosque. Muhammad made the whole congregation turn around and pray facing Mecca instead of Jerusalem. The change of direction was a sign of a proud new Muslim identity. Now, wherever they were, they would all prostrate themselves three times a day in the direction of Mecca. This new independence was made at a time when the Muslims were in an embattled position, surrounded by enemies on all sides.

The Jews of Medina interpreted the change of direction as an act of defiance. They became determined to get rid of Muhammad; Medina was expecting an attack from the powerful city of Mecca.

No radical social and political change has ever been achieved without bloodshed, and, because Muhammad was living in a period of confusion and disintegration, peace could be achieved only by the sword. The Koran began to urge the Muslims of Medina to participate in a jihad.

The Koran was beginning to evolve a theology of the just war: it might sometimes be necessary to fight to preserve decent values. But the revelation should not be taken to imply that Muhammad was envisaging a full-scale war with Mecca at this early stage. That would have been pure madness.

About a thousand men marched out of Mecca and took to the road of Badr. When Muhammad heard of this frightening news, he called a council of war. The Muslims were strictly disciplined and desperate and had been carefully drilled by Muhammad. Suddenly he emerged as a good military tactician. He had lined them up in close formation and they began by bombarding the enemy with arrows, drawing their swords for hand-to-hand fighting only at the last moment.

Despite their superior numbers, the Quraysh soon found to their astonishment that they were getting the worst of it. They fought in the old Arab style with careless bravado and each chief led his own men, so the army lacked a unified command. By midday, the Quraysh who had expected to only have to make a show of force, panicked and fled in disarray, leaving about fifty of their leading men dead on the field.

Victory for Muhammad

The Muslims were jubilant. They began to round up prisoners and, in the usual Arab fashion, started to kill them, but Muhammad put a stop to this. A revelation came down saying that the prisoners of war were to be ransomed. He also stopped the Muslims squabbling over the booty, and the camels, horses, armor and equipment were divided up equally. Muhammad had no wish to eliminate the Quraysh. Somehow he would have to win them over; to this end, even in the first flush of victory, he treated the Quraysh prisoners fairly.

The Koran developed a humane policy towards prisoners of war. It decreed that they must not be ill-treated in any way and must be either released or returned for ransom. If there were no ransom forthcoming, the prisoner must be allowed to earn money to buy his freedom: his captor is urged to help him with the payments out of his own resources and the freeing of captives praised as a virtuous and charitable act. The humane and fair treatment paid off. Some of the prisoners were so impressed by life in the umma that they converted to Islam.

The victorious army began the trek home. For years Muhammad had been the butt of scorn and insults, but after this spectacular and unsought success everybody in Arabia would have to take him seriously. This unexpected victory of a sudden reversal of fortune seemed like an act of God, filling the people with new confidence and conviction.

Not all the Helpers were enthusiastic about his enhanced prestige. Despite the euphoria and pride in the victory, most thoughtful Muslims knew very well that it might not be so easy to defeat the Quraysh another time. The Quraysh would have to retaliate to retrieve their honor and prestige, on which their success was based.

Jews Support Quraysh

The army was welcomed ecstatically when it marched into Medina, to the great discomfiture of the three main Jewish tribes. The Jewish tribes were horrified by Muhammad’s new standing in Medina and saw Mecca as a natural ally. The Jewish tribes were formidable. They had sizable armies and impressive fighting power and, in the event of a Meccan attack, might well join the Quraysh to get rid of the upstart.

Siege of Medina, 627

In March 627, the Quraysh left Mecca with an army of 10,000. Muhammad could muster only about 3,000 men from Medina and his Bedouin allies. The Muslims barricaded themselves into their city. Medina was not difficult to defend. It was surrounded on three sides by cliffs and plains of volcanic rock and it was relatively easy to man the roads that ran through this difficult terrain into the oasis. It was from the north that Medina was most vulnerable, and Muhammad hit on an expedient, which his contemporaries found extraordinary.

They were to gather the crops from the outlying areas, so that the besieging army would find no fodder as they had last time, and then work to build a huge trench around the northern part of the oasis. The trench effectively stymied the whole massive offensive. The cavalry was completely useless because the horses cold not get over the trench.

The Quraysh leaders decided to try a more wily method and get the Jewish tribe in the south of the oasis, to let them into the city. When the Jewish tribe saw the huge army that the Quraysh had brought to Medina, they agreed to help the Quraysh.

It was always difficult to maintain a siege in Arabia; the Quraysh exhausted their provisions, and men and horses became hungry. Their resolve snapped when the weather suddenly changed. The Koran speaks of the drop in the temperature, the wind and rain as an act of God. When the Muslims peered over the top of the escarpment the next morning, the vast plain was entirely empty.

Judgement of the Jews

But what was Muhammad to do about the Jews who had brought the umma to the brink of destruction? This is a grim and horrible story and has hideous overtones for most of us today. Muhammad summoned the Muslim army to the village. When they heard Muhammad was advancing on their territory, the Jews duly barricaded themselves into their fortress and managed to hold out against the Muslims for twenty-five days. They knew that as unfaithful allies they could expect no mercy.

The Jews finally agreed to accept Muhammad’s judgment and opened their gates to the Muslim army. The Jews begged Muhammad to be merciful. Muhammad asked them if they would accept the decision of one of their own leading men, Sa’d, and they agreed.

Sa’d judged that all the 700 men should be killed, their wives and children into slavery and their property divided among the Muslims. Muhammad cried aloud: ‘You have judged according to the very sentence of Allah above the seven skies!’ Muhammad ordered a trench to be dug. They were tied together in groups and beheaded; their bodies were thrown into the trench. One woman was executed.

In Perspective

It is probably impossible for us to dissociate this story from nazi atrocities and it will inevitably alienate many people irrevocably from Muhammad. This was a very primitive society – far more primitive than the Jewish society in which Jesus had lived and promulgated his gospel of mercy and love some 600 years earlier. At the time of Muhammad, Medina was a mighty slayer of the enemies of God and who on one occasion massacred two hundred Philistines, castrated them and sent the grisly pile of foreskins to their king.

The Jews had nearly destroyed Medina. If Muhammad had let them go they would have swelled the Jewish opposition at Khaybar and would have organized another offensive against Medina. The summary executions impressed Muhammad’s enemies. Nobody seems to have been shocked by the massacre, and the Jews themselves seem to have accepted its inevitability. The executions sent a grim message to the Jews at Khaybar, and the Arab tribes noted that Muhammad was not afraid of any friends or allies of Mecca.

In January 630, Muhammad set out at the head of the largest army ever to leave Medina. Along the road, their Bedouin allies joined the expedition, bringing the numbers up to 10,000 men. The Muslim army entered Mecca without striking a single blow. Muhammad’s red tent was pitched near the Kaaba.

He had come to Mecca not to persecute the Quraysh but to abolish the religion which had failed them. Mounted on Qawsa, he rode around the Kaaba seven times, touching the Black Stone each time and crying ‘Allah Akbar!’ The shout was taken up by his 10,000 soldiers and soon the whole city resounded with the words that symbolized the final victory of Islam. Next Muhammad turned his attention to the 360 idols around the shrine. Crowded on the roofs and balconies, the Quraysh watched him smash each idol. Lastly, Muhammad issued a general amnesty.

By conquering Mecca, Muhammad had vindicated his prophetic claim. This conquest had been achieved without bloodshed, and Muhammad’s peaceful policy paid off.

Death of Muhammad, June 8, 632

His son fell ill at the beginning of 632 and it was clear that he would not recover. Muhammad was with his son when he died and, weeping bitterly, took him into his arms at the last moment. Not long afterwards, Aisha felt that he was lying more heavily in her lap and that he seemed to be losing consciousness. Carefully she laid his head on the pillow and began to beat her breast, slap her face and cry aloud in the time-honored Arab way.

The shock of Muhammad’s death was one of the gravest crises that the Muslim community had ever had to face. There was a real danger that Arabia would lapse into its old tribal divisions.