ISLAM (part 2) Allah (God) is the focus in Islam, the sole authority, not Muhammad. But Muhammad’s life story is important to Muslims, for his character is considered a model of the teachings in the Qur’an. The stories of Muhammad’s life and his sayings are preserved in a vast, not fully authenticated literature called the Hadith, which reports on the Prophet’s Sunnah (sayings and actions). When he was a teenager, on a trip to Syria with his uncle, Muhammad was noticed by a Christian monk who identified marks on his body indicating his status as a prophet. As a young man, Muhammad managed caravans for a beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy woman named Khadijah. When she was forty and Muhammad was twenty-five, she offered to marry him. Khadijah became Muhammad’s strongest supporter during the difficult and discouraging years of his early mission. With Khadijah’s understanding of his spiritual propensities, Muhammad began to spend periods of time in solitary retreat. These retreats were not uncommon in his lineage. They were opportunities for contemplation, away from the world. When Muhammad was forty years old, he made a spiritual retreat during the month called Ramadan. An angel in human-like form, Gabriel, reportedly came to him and insisted that he recite. Three times Muhammad demurred that he could not, for he was unlettered, and three times the angel forcefully commanded him. In desperation, Muhammad at last cried out, “What shall I recite?” and the angel began dictating the first words of what became the Qur’an: Proclaim! (or Recite!) In the name Of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created— Created man, out of A (mere) clot Of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord Is Most Bountiful,— He Who taught (The use of) the Pen,— Taught man that Which he knew not. Muhammad returned home, deeply shaken. Khadijah comforted him and encouraged him to overcome his fear of the responsibilities and ridicule of prophethood. The revelations continued intermittently, asserting the theme that it was the One God who spoke and who called people to Islam (which means complete, trusting surrender to God). According to tradition, Muhammad described the form of these revelations thus: Revelation sometimes comes like the sound of a bell; that is the most painful way. When it ceases I have remembered what was said. Sometimes it is an angel who talks to me like a human, and I remember what he says. The Prophet shared these revelations with the few people who believed him: his wife, Khadijah; his young cousin, ’Ali; his friend, the trader Abu Bakr; and the freed slave, Zayd. After three years, Muhammad was instructed by the revelations to preach publicly. He was ridiculed and stoned by the Qurayshites, the aristocrats of his tribe who operated the Ka’bah as a pilgrimage center and organized profitable trading caravans through Mecca. While Muhammad was somewhat protected by the influence of his uncle, his followers were subject to persecution. A dark-skinned Abyssinian slave named Bilal, who was among the first converts, was imprisoned and brought out daily under the hot sun, pinned to the ground with a heavy stone on his chest, and ordered to deny the Prophet and worship the old gods. He staunchly refused, saying, “One, one.” Once bought by the Prophet’s friend Abu Bakr, Bilal became the first muezzin (one who calls the people to prayer from a high place), illustrating the Prophet’s discarding of racial and social class distinctions. Finally, according to some accounts, Muhammad and his followers were banished for three years to a desolate place where they struggled to survive by eating wild foods such as tree leaves. The band of Muslims was asked to return to Mecca, but the persecution by the Qurayshites continued. Muhammad’s fiftieth year, the “Year of Sorrows,” was the worst of all: he lost his beloved wife Khadijah and his protective uncle. With his strongest backers gone, persecution of the Prophet increased. According to tradition, at the height of his trials, Muhammad experienced the Night of Ascension. He is said to have ascended through the seven heavens to the far limits of the cosmos, and thence into the Divine Proximity. There he met former prophets and teachers from Adam to Jesus, saw paradise and hell, and received the great blessings of the Divine Presence. Pilgrims to Mecca from Yathrib, an oasis to the north, recognized Muhammad as a prophet. They invited him to come to their city to help solve its social and political problems. Still despised in Mecca as a potential threat by the Qurayshites, Muhammad and his followers left Mecca secretly. Their move to Yathrib, later called al-Medina (“The City [of the Prophet]”), was not easy. The Prophet left last, accompanied (according to some traditions) by his old friend Abu Bakr. To hide from the pursuing Meccans, it is said that they took refuge in a cave, where the Prophet taught his friend the secret practice of the silent remembrance of God.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 00:00:07 +0000
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