08/26/2020 – Basic History of Early Islam
What do historians say about the Prophet Muhammad? Come give this a few minutes. This is TenOnReligion.
Hey peeps, it’s Dr. B. with TenOnReligion. As with all religions, there’s a little bit of a difference (often a big difference) between what religious adherents believe about their religion and what historians can actually demonstrate through the historical process of understanding the past. We’re going to take a few minutes and look at what a few historians have written about Islam.
First, a few quick basics about early Islam for those unfamiliar with this tradition. Islam is the submission one makes to the will of Allah, or God, through a series of ritual actions and behaviors, basically a lifestyle that permeates both society and politics. The end result is that one is to have peace with both God and other humans.
The prophet Muhammad was born in the year 570 in what is now modern-day Arabia in Mecca not far from the coast of the Red Sea. Arabia then was a tribal society with various tribes fighting and warring over land and natural resources, basically the same things that countries fight over today. Religiously, it was far from monotheism with tribes having their own tribal gods and deities. It is unclear exactly when this happened, but at some point in the past, the city of Mecca came to be viewed as a holy geographical area, where people were not allowed to hunt or fight. A central shrine area was established known as the Kaaba, where people worshipped. Over the centuries this was expanded with the worship of many tribal gods and people would make pilgrimage to worship at these shrines, even including, for a time, shrines to the Virgin Mary and Jesus for Christians.
We don’t have enough time to detail the life of the prophet Muhammad, but the general narrative is that over the course of a roughly 22-year period he received revelations from the angel Gabriel starting at a cave in a hill above the city of Mecca in 610 all the way until the year he died in 632. A few years before he died he gained political control of Mecca, abolished idol worship at the Kaaba, and called on people to worship the one god, Allah. In the succeeding decades after his death, the Islamic tradition became firmly established.
Now a few quick things about Allah. First, this is just an Arabic language word for God. When the Bible, for example, is translated into the Arabic language, every time the English word “God” is in the text, it is translated with the word “Allah.” Historically, Allah was sort of like the god above the other gods. Early Islam, like early Judaism, was not monotheistic, but henotheistic. There were other gods, but the people only worshipped their one god whom they believed was the highest god. This belief was traced back to the literary figure of Abraham. Ironically, there actually was a painted figure of Abraham inside the Kaaba until Muhammad ordered it to be erased. During the time period of Muhammad, many Jews and Christians all worshipped the same god, Allah, or the god of Abraham. Many things have happened in the 1400 years since that time frame and the three traditions have diverged significantly from each other in their respective interpretations of who or what God is, and so today it is more of a theological question than a historical one whether or not it is the same God.
On to some historical tidbits that you might find interesting. The prophet Muhammad is often said to be illiterate, but this is not likely the case. He was responsible for overseeing a constitutional agreement in Medina and later in life, was largely acknowledged as the leader for nearly the entire Arabian peninsula. The consensus is that he was only later written as being illiterate to make the revelation of the Qur’an to be seen as more miraculous. He also learned Christianity from the Jews in the surrounding area and that’s why the version of Christianity seen in the Qur’an and some of early Islam is inaccurate. Early Islam had a closer relationship with Jewish thought because of the relationship with the Jewish tribes there and this can be seen in the parallels between the shema, and the shahadah, the two main prayers of each group. In fact, Muslims originally faced Jerusalem when they prayed, the location of the ancient Jewish temples, until the prophet Muhammad failed to obtain Jewish support while he was in Medina, and then the direction of the prayers were changed to the Kaaba in Mecca.
The text of the Qur’an focuses on the “prophethood” of other prophets more than Muhammad. After he passed away there was further contact with other groups of Jews and Christians. Apparently, these early Muslims had a harder time convincing some of them, so Muhammad’s “prophethood” and other abilities became expanded in the later literature known as the hadiths in order to establish the rightful claim to Abrahamic spiritual heritage.
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was first built around 691 and has large inscriptions inside which are verses from the Qur’an. For centuries, this was the earliest historical data for the existence of the Qur’an, but other texts have come to light recently which possibly may be dated earlier. Some of the inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock have been construed as anti-Trinitarian, which some have suggested indicates that Islam was trying to establish itself over against Christianity when these inscriptions were selected for the structure.
Now just a few final thoughts on Islam and history. Early Muslims were likely more focused on piety, their spiritual devotion to Allah, than on recording history in the modern sense that we understand it today. Because of that, it’s difficult to get a fix on a lot of details in early Islam. The Constitution of Medina, composed in the 620’s, represents the first hard evidence of the existence of the prophet Muhammad with little other hard evidence from his actual lifetime as biographies about Muhammad did not appear until the mid to late 700’s, well over a century after he died. Dating the production of the Qur’an is also tricky. After the mid-650’s, Islam splintered into two main groups with multiple others following in the centuries after that. The text of the Qur’an does not mention any of this, so the text likely was completed prior to those events.
Islam is a fascinating tradition with a long and varied history so we’ll be revisiting it from time to time on this channel. Well I hope this vlog has helped you better understand this topic. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, please like this video and subscribe to the channel. This is TenOnReligion.