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.