UNDERSTANDING MUHAMMAD’S MIND – via #Ali_Dashti An introvert personality, prone to musing and dreaming un-distracted by clatter and deprived of normal pleasures, would become more introverted with the passage of every year spent alone in the desert (herding camels). Then, suddenly, a ghost(Jinni) might appear or a splashing of waves on an unknown sea might be heard. After several years in the same routine, a new experience made a deep mark on Mohammads mind. At the age of eleven he accompanied his uncle Abu Talib on a journey to Syria. There he saw a different and brighter world with no signs of the ignorance, superstition, and rudeness prevalent among the Meccans. The people whom he met were politer, the social atmosphere was happier, and the accepted customs were of a higher order. These observations must have added to the turmoil in his inner soul. It was probably there that he first perceived how primitive and rough and superstitious his own people were; perhaps there also that he began to wish that they might have a better ordered, less superstitious, and more humane society. It is not known for certain whether he first came into contact with followers of monotheistic religions on this journey, and it would seem that he was then too young to learn anything from such contacts; but the experience must have made an impression on his perceptive and uneasy mind, and perhaps moved him to make another journey. Some of the transmitted reports state that on the second journey he was no longer too young and that he eagerly listened to religious informants. It is not difficult to understand why so little is known about the Prophet Mohammads childhood and youth. There was nothing important in the life of an orphan brought up under the guardianship of an uncle. Nobody took enough notice to have any recollection of him as he was at that time. Most of what has been written here is only conjecture based on the theory that the solitude and monotony of daily camel-tending in a desert would make a child introspective, imaginative, and visionary. It is possible that many of the Qur’anic verses which at a later time were to flow from his anguished lips echo his youthful musings and impressions of nature and its creation. For instance: Do they never consider the camels, how they were created? And the sky, how it was raised? And the mountains, how they were erected? And the earth, how it was spread out? (Surah 88, verses 17-20). Study of the Meccan surahs gives glimpses into the vision-filled soul of a person remote from lifes material blessings and given to communion with himself and with nature. These suras also express indignation at the boasting of vain men such as Abu Lahab and AbuI-Ashadd. In later times, when the success of Mohammads preaching had exalted his prestige, believers turned to the fertile fields of their imaginations and invented fables such as those which are found in Tabaris, Bukhari and Waqidis works.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 02:00:00 +0000