The following is a continuation of our original six part Global Jihad study, whereby we investigate here by analyzing the original writings, that is what is considered the original version (although even there varying opinions exist) of Islam, the submission to the will of God as described in the Qur’an (various spellings exist), usually is often defined as (1) a religious movement that begins with the life and work of the man Muhammad, in the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century C.E.; (2) the natural religion of humanity; and (3) the driving force behind a great world civilization. We may think of (1) as focused on the story of Muhammad and his followers; of (2) in terms of Islamic theology, particularly in terms of notions of the nature and destiny of human beings as creatures of God; and of (3) as expressing the cultural and political significance of Islam currently considered the dominant religion in a region stretching from North Africa to China and from south-central Europe to the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, and beyond.

According to the traditional view, Muhammad, son of 'Abdullah, was born in the Year of the Elephant. In the standard scholarly estimation, this would be equivalent to 569 or 570 C.E. The terminology of Muslim biographers makes it clear that we are dealing with "holy history." Such biographers relate the story of Muhammad in ways familiar in the history of religion. Like the founding narratives of Judaism, Christianity, and other long-standing religious traditions, the available sources are not crafted in the framework of the "scientific history" practiced in academic departments since the mid-nineteenth century. Rather, they are "proclamatory biographies;” the purpose of which is to build faith.

Translator of the Qur’an in Dutch (here called “Koran”), Hans Jansen refers to a number (between 40 and 80) of political murders Mohammed ordered in the case of people that didn’t agree with him. (H.Jansen, De Historische Mohammed/transl. ‘The Historical Mohammed’, 2007, p.269). But while Jansen in his 2007 book points out to a considerable amount of discrepancies (with a number of dates outright wrong dates so he argues); there is no reason to doubt the broad outlines of the stories associated with Muhammad and the early Muslims, even as there is no reason to doubt the historical basis of the broad outlines of the gospel narrative concerning Jesus of Nazareth, or of reports concerning sayings of the rabbis of the Talmud. But in these cases as in the case of Jansen (2007) and several other books recently written by non-Muslims, one better does not to push the details.
Another problem is of course that there are several versions of the Qur’an, an issue we already covered in our comprehensive World Jihad investigation.

Written a number of years after the death of their prophet, there furthermore is no doubt that Muslim writers related the stories of Muhammad and his companions, as an account of the work of God in the world-and such they argue (not unlike the case of Christians and the so called ‘New Testament’), is believed to reach beyond scientific history. Another problem is of course that there are several versions of the Qur’an an issue we have already covered in our “World Jihad” whereby in case of the issue we extract focus on the version of the Qur’an that is currently in use. And this the answer of Muslim biographers is clear: Muhammad, son of 'Abdullah, was born in order to fulfill the plan of God for humanity. Just as that plan included the birth and career of Moses, prophet to the "tribe of Israel;' and Jesus, son of Mary, prophet to the "followers of the messiah;' so it was to be that, at the end of days, God would send a prophet to the Arabic-speaking tribes living in Hijaz (the Arabian Peninsula, including the area we know as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the other Gulf states). This prophet would call the tribes, and with them all humanity, to faith, even as Moses and Jesus had done in other places and times. Thus the oldest extant biography of Muhammad begins with a genealogy by which we learn that the Arabic-speaking prophet was descended from Abraham, and hence ultimately from Adam, the first human being. There follows a narrative of kings and prophets, centered on relations between Mecca, city of Muhammad's birth, and men, site of a powerful kingdom in the fifth and sixth centuries.

We learn that the rulers of Yemen eventually came under the sway of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and that the allied kingdoms repeatedly tried to extend their dominance to Mecca. In every case, however, they were foiled because of God's protection of the (eventual) birthplace of the Prophet. In fact, they were warned to leave Mecca alone:  10 from Qurayza came A rabbi wise, among the Jews respected. "Stand back from a city preserved;' said he, "For Mecca's prophet of Quraysh true-guided:'4 Muhammad, we are told, was born in the Year of the Elephant. This nomenclature derives from a story in which the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula repelled an Abyssinian/Yemeni invasion. The invaders made use of an elephant or elephants, which the Arabs perceived as providing an overwhelming advantage.5 The Arabs' only hope was that God, the "defender of the Ka'ba (the "Cube;' a building in Mecca), might intervene. And indeed, this is what happened: the elephant refused to march in the direction of Mecca, and a flock of stone-throwing birds executed an aerial bombardment, causing the invaders to retreat.

This episode yields some valuable information about the context of early Islam-the political, social, and religious life of Arab tribes in the sixth and early seventh centuries. First, it is clear that at this time the Arabian Peninsula was a political backwater. Prominent Jewish tribes had established a small imperial state in Yemen in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, but by 550 any power it retained depended on the maintenance of good relations with the Abyssinian ruler in East Africa. The Abyssinian ruler combined religious and political power. He bore a staff resembling a bishop's crosier, signifying his status as the head of a very ancient Christian church. At the same time he ruled over an empire, which was from time to time a player in the great-power rivalry between the Byzantines and the Sassanids. That rivalry provides at least a partial explanation for the Abyssinian involvement in south and central Arabia. Byzantine and Sassanid rulers fought over and dominated the heartland of the Middle East, which the Arabs called al-shams-Syro-Palestine, the region in which late Hellenistic kings like Antiochus Epiphanes reigned supreme after the death of Alexander the Great. The Romans added the area to their vast holdings by the late first century B.C.E. By the Year of the Elephant, the great cities of Damascus and Jerusalem were solidly under Byzantine (and thus Christian) control, although the Sassanids, based in Iran and organized around Zoroastrianism, maintained enough strength in Iraq to threaten these Byzantine holdings.

In late antiquity as today, trade was a major interest of great powers. This interest brought the Byzantines and Sassanians into frequent conflict, particularly with respect to the travel of merchant caravans between Damascus, Jerusalem, and the shoreline of the Arabian Sea, where several ports provided access to ships traveling to and from India. Most of the conflicts between the great powers played out north of the vast deserts of the Arabian Peninsula; no ruler wanted to send fighting forces there. But by the early to mid-sixth century the great powers began hiring the "uncivilized" tribes living in the Peninsula to raid rival caravans and thus disrupt trade. As the activities of these mercenaries affected merchant traffic through the desert, reducing the flow of people with goods and money to the southern ports in Yemen, and thereby threatening Abyssinia's revenues from Middle Eastern trade, Abyssinian interest in the region increased.

The Arabian Peninsula of the sixth and early seventh centuries was a bit player in the drama of great-power politics, and social organization there was based on a tribal order. The sources are filled with names like Banu Qurayza (tribe of Qurayz), Banu Hasaniyyah, and, above all, Banu Quraysh. In each case, the name is tied to a clan  ancestor, an indication that the tribes were understood as extended family units. Arab tribes divided themselves along the lines of "settled" and "plain," the former referring to those whose ancestral traditions established them as living in one place, the latter to the more stereotypical nomads (Bedouins, al-badu). Tribal units provided Arabs with a notion of territorial and social boundaries. Members of the Banu Quraysh, for example, were immediately associated with "settled" Arabs whose habitual territory included the city of Mecca and its environs. "City" is really an exaggeration; during the sixth and seventh centuries, Mecca was a kind of outpost with a few buildings and a well, which served as a way-station for merchant caravans. One of the buildings-the Ka'ba, or "Cube"-and the well, which in the stories is identified as Zamzam, the well from which Hagar and Ishmael drank, loom large in the story of the Abyssinian/Yemeni invasion. As Ibn Ishaq has it, 'Abd al-Muttalib, the grandfather of the Prophet, tried to dissuade the invading forces from attacking Mecca. When asked why he did not rather appeal to them to avoid harm to the Ka 'ba, which the invaders identified as a holy site, 'Abd al-Muttalib replied that the shrine had its own protector (that is, God), who might fight for it if he wished. This account reveals not only a strong sense of tribal identity and vocation, but also the eminence of the Quraysh, and within it, the family of the Prophet, among the Arab tribes.

Most of the sources indicate that the tribes were fiercely devoted to living out patterns identified with their clan ancestors. As the Islamic narrative has it (with some support in the historical record), the tribal order might also be viewed as a loose confederation, in which groups speaking mutually recognizable dialects shared enough in the way of culture and religion that they could be rallied against a common enemy. In the story of the Year of the Elephant, leaders among the Quraysh apparently developed policies intended to foster unity among the tribes by describing the Ka 'ba as a "house of prayer for all Arabs" and by referring to Mecca as a cultural center for all Arab tribes. The various tribes were encouraged to observe a tradition of pilgrimage to the Ka’ba during months set apart for this purpose. During these months Mecca was considered a zone of peace, with no fighting allowed. The various tribes were encouraged to bring along, and to place within the Kacba, symbols of their patron deities. Observances included ceremonies of animal sacrifice, circumambulation of the Ka’ba, and ritual feasting, the last accompanied by songs celebrating the muruwwa, or manliness, of the great tribal ancestors.

From these reports, we learn much about the religious and moral aspects of Arab tribal culture. Thus, the stories recounting that each tribe was to set a talisman of its favorite deity in the Ka’ba point to a kind of polytheism. Each tribe had its favorite or patron deity, but all were part of a pantheon of gods and goddesses, and the special powers of some apparently made them attractive across tribal lines. For example, al-lat (the goddess) had her sphere of influence in the field of fertility; al-uzza (the mighty) had power over health; and almanat, whose name may be translated as "fate" or even "death:' controlled the time and means of that reality. These three are depicted as special intermediaries between human beings and the powerful, distant Creator, known simply as al-lah (the god).

The central moral value of the tribes seems to have been muruwwa. The remnants of tribal poetry cited by biographers of Muhammad suggest that we should think of muruwwa in terms of the set of virtues associated with a tribal chief. Thus, the notion includes bravery in battle, for the chief leads his tribe into battle. It includes wealth and generosity, for the chief holds large numbers of livestock, and is thus able and willing to put on great feasts for the members of his tribe, who are best construed as "clients" under the patronage of the "big man." Along with his holdings in livestock and other goods, the muruwwa of the chief appears in the number of women (wives and concubines) and children he maintains.6 Such virtue is worthy of remembrance, in the sense that those whose lives show them as great men are celebrated in songs. Our sources suggest that the tribes did not dwell much on life after death. For them, the goal was to live life to the fullest, and the greatest tragedy occurred when it might be said that someone died "too soon;' that is, before taking a proper measure of the goods associated with manliness.

 Finally, Arab tribal culture placed great importance on the sunna (literally, "beaten path"), or way of the ancestors. Indeed, acknowledgment of tribal deities, the bravery and generosity associated with manliness, and the hope that one might be remembered come together in connection with this sunna. The stories of attempts by the Quraysh to foster connections among the tribes by means of the symbol of the Ka'ba point to such a cultural system, as do songs like the following: But for three things, that are the joy of a young fellow, I assure you I wouldn't care when my deathbed visitors arrive. First, to forestall my charming critics with a good swig of crimson wine that foams when the water is mingled in; Second, to wheel at the call of the beleaguered a curved-shanked steed Streaking like the wolf of the thicket you've startled lapping the water; And third, to curtail the day of showers, such an admirable season, Dallying with a ripe wench under the pole-propped tent, Her anklets and her bracelets seemingly hung on the boughs of a pliant, unriven gum-tree or a castor-shrub. So permit me to drench my head while there's still life in it, For I tremble at the thought of the scant draught I'll get when I'm dead.

As the Muslims would have it, the culture of the tribes provided an illustration of al-jahiliyya, a term variously translated as "heedlessness" or "ignorance:' Islam stood in opposition to this system at every point, replacing the pantheon of deities with the claim that there is no god but al-lah; the virtue of manliness with the notion of al-taqwa, meaning "piety" or "godly fear"; the ideal of remembrance with pictures of a Final Judgment and an afterlife filled with rewards and punishments; and the beaten path of the ancestors with a call to judge by "that which God has sent down;' that is, by revelation. This constitutes the challenge of Muhammad to Arab tribal culture; as our sources have it, just before his death in 632 Muhammad could claim that "Arabia is now solidly for Islam." Thus the foundational narrative of Islam is one in which Muhammad and his companions participate in a kind of cultural revolution, by which the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula are transformed into the umma, or community of faith.7

The story of Muhammad and the early Muslims thus begins in the context of Arab tribal culture, and ends in a claim that this culture has been transformed by the movement of Islam. The Muslim proclamatory biographies presume God's preparation of the Peninsula for the coming of the Arab Prophet. The invasion in the Year of the Elephant, the moves by the Quraysh to emphasize the Ka'ba as a house of prayer for all Arabs-these are not random developments. Rather, they occur within the plan of God. And thus, the birth of Muhammad comes "in the fullness of time:' Grandson of 'Abd al-Muttalib, son of 'Abdullah, Muhammad comes into the world accompanied by signs. According to Ibn Ishaq, it is alleged in popular stories (and only God knows the truth) that Amina d. Wahb, the mother of God's messenger, used to say when she was pregnant with God's messenger that a voice said to her, "You are pregnant with the lord of this people and when he is born say, 'I put him in the care of the One from the evil of every envier; then call him Muhammad:" As she was pregnant with him she saw a light come forth from her by which she could see the castles of Busra in Syria.9

Such signs would be a continuing part of the life of the Prophet. The biographies tell us that, in his teens, Muhammad accompanied a caravan to Damascus. On the way, the experienced drivers were startled when Bahira, a well-known Christian monk, stopped them on the road and invited them to his hermitage for a meal. The drivers had passed by many times; until that day, Bahira, unwilling to interrupt his devotion of prayer and fasting, had not acknowledged their presence. On this day, however, he brought the caravan into his hermitage, provided the travelers with food, and examined Muhammad carefully. As the story goes, Bahira identified Muhammad as the one whose appearance and life story matched the descriptions "in the Christian books." He then directed Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and guardian: "Take your nephew back to his country and guard him carefully against Jews, for by God, if they see him and know about him what I know, they will do him evil; a great future lies before this nephew of yours, so take him home quickly."10

Such interactions with a Christian or warnings about Jews are at this point simply a means of affirming the role of God's providence. As we learn from other reports, there were other, more immediate challenges for Muhammad to deal with. The deaths of his father (before Muhammad's birth), his mother (shortly after), and his grandfather (before he turned eight) left the boy an orphan. Abu Talib became his guardian. As with everything else in the story, the protection of Abu Talib came as a gift of God: By the morning brightness and by the night when it grows Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He hate you. The future will be better for you than the past. Your Lord will give you so much that you will be well satisfied. Did He not find you an orphan and shelter you? Did he not find you lost and guide you? Did He not find you in need and make you self-sufficient? So do not be harsh with the orphan and do not chide the one who asks for help. Talk about the blessings of your Lord. (Qur'an 93)11

The Prophet grew up, God protecting him and keeping him from the vileness of heathenism [that is, the religiosity of the tribes] because he wished to honor him with the role of prophet, until he grew up to be the finest of his people in manliness, the best in character, most noble in lineage, the best neighbor, the most kind, truthful, reliable, the furthest removed from filthiness and corrupt morals, through loftiness and nobility, so that he was known among his people as "the trustworthy" because of the good qualities which God had implanted in him.12

The way was thus well prepared, and Muhammad with it. Once he married Khadija, a somewhat older woman of means, Muhammad -slogan to engage in retreats, perhaps in imitation of the hermetic practices of monks like Bahira.13 It was during one of these retreats that Muhammad heard the call to prophesy. The story is worth quoting at length:  And when he completed the month and returned from his seclusion, first of all before entering his house he would go to the Ka’ba and walk round it seven times or as often as it pleased God; then he would go back to his house until in the year when God sent him, in the month of Ramadan in which God willed concerning him what He willed of His grace, the prophet set forth to Hira as was his wont, and his family with him. When it was the night on which God honored him with his mission and showed mercy on His servants thereby, Gabriel brought him the command of God. "He came to me;' said the prophet of God, "while I was asleep, with a coverlet of brocade whereon was some writing, and said, 'Read!' I said, 'What shall I read?' He pressed me with it so tightly that I thought it was death; then he let me go and said, 'Read!' I said, 'What shall I read?' He pressed me with it again so that I thought it was death; then he let me go and said 'Read!' I said, 'What shall I read?' He pressed me with it the third time so that I thought it was death and said 'Read' I said, 'What then shall I read?'-and this I said only to deliver myself from him, lest he should do the same to me again. He said: Read in the name of your Lord who created, Who created the human creature from a clot of blood. Read! Your Lord is the most beneficent. He taught by the pen. Taught humanity that which it did not know." (Qur'an 96:1-5)14

The report continues, indicating Muhammad's confusion, even despair, with respect to comprehension of what had happened, until the angel Gabriel returned to confirm that this was a call to prophesy. Khadija encouraged Muhammad, as did her cousin, Waraqa. In keeping with the notion that Muhammad's mission fulfilled a prior plan of God, we learn that Waraqa "had become a Christian and read the scriptures and learned from those that follow the Torah and the Gospel." Waraqa also indicated that Muhammad would find the way of prophecy difficult: "You will be called a liar, and they will use you despitefully and cast you out and fight against you."15

From this point, the story of Muhammad may be described as a dialectic between struggle and hope. By tradition, the date of the encounter with Gabriel is 610. Over the next twenty-two years, until his death in 632, Muhammad received periodic visitations by the divine spirit, and with these, revelations that make up the Qur' and any of these revelations are, by tradition, correlated with specific challenges posed by the residents of Mecca, that is, the Quraysh. Leading men of the tribe perceived a challenge in Muhammad's preaching. And, as any impartial reader would admit, in this perception they were not mistaken. We should now return to the tribal structure of Arab society. Here, our sources indicate that many who heard Muhammad preach understood him to accuse their ancestors, the great men whose deeds constituted a legacy for and identity of particular tribes, of error. Thus, Ibn Ishaq relates that the great men of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca said to Muhammad's uncle: "0 Abu Talib, your nephew has cursed our gods, insulted our religion, mocked our way of life and accused our forefathers of error. Either you must stop him or you must let us get at him." Or again, Muhammad is one who "brought a message by which he separates a man from his father, or from his brother, or from his wife, or from his family"16

Such characterizations are common in the history of religions. New religious movements constitute an attack on established lifeways, which in some sense have their own sacred legitimacy. At the heart of Muhammad's preaching was a call for his kin to renounce the ties of ancestry and to constitute a new community. This community would be defined by its worship of one god, allah, the Creator and Lord of all. Say to the ingrates: I do not worship what you worship, and you do not worship what I worship. I will never worship what you worship, and you will never worship what I worship. You have your religion, and I have mine. ( Qur' an 109)

The story Muslims tell reflects a steady effort on the part of the Prophet, with small numbers of converts at first. The community of Muslims meets with resistance; its members must endure the opprobrium of their Arab kin. At times the resistance breaks out in acts of violence; for some period, some of the leading men of the Quraysh sustain a boycott of the families of the Muslims. Throughout the early years of the Prophet's ministry, Muhammad counseled his followers to endure and to preach, but never to fight. They were to bear witness to the "clear evidence" of the Qur' an regarding the judgment of God: When the sky is ripped apart, in rightful obedience to its Lord's command; When the earth is leveled out, casts out its contents, and becomes empty, in rightful obedience to its Lord's command; You humans, toiling laboriously towards your Lord, will meet Him. Whoever is given his record in his right hand will have an easy reckoning and return to his people well pleased. Whoever is given his record from behind his back will cry out for destruction, and will burn in the blazing fire. (84:1-12)

In later years, the Qur' an would remind the Muslims of the "grace" by which God called them into a new community and gave them a mission: to command the right and forbid the wrong. In this early stage, though, their ability to carry out the mission was limited. Not only were they few in number; when persecuted, they were not allowed to fight back. That stance would change in 622 -in Islamic terms, the year I-when Muhammad moved his followers to a new location. The migration to Medina, al-hijra, constitutes a defining moment in the story. For the time being, the community would carry out its mission not only by means of preaching and worship, but by means of fighting and other political activity. From this point, Muhammad is to be regarded as both prophet, in the sense of one who proclaims a religious message, and statesman, in the sense of one who exercises leadership in connection with the aims of a community competing for power.

Traditional biographies symbolize this shift, first, by giving an account of agreements between Muhammad and the tribes living in Medina. We are told that certain of the great men of these tribes came to Mecca and entered into negotiations with Muhammad. The ostensible reason for this was their need to arbitrate an intertribal conflict in Medina, and their hope that the ''Arab prophet" might provide assistance. The negotiations took place over several years, and by time of the migration, a few of Muhammad's companions were already living in Medina, acquainting its residents with Islam. When the move finally took place, representatives of the Medinan tribes took an oath that bound them to Muhammad. They were to support him, respect his orders, and, above all, to fight with him against the Meccans. Why the stress on fighting? As the biographers have it, God gave the order, specifically by revealing the verses recorded in Qur'an 22:39-40:

Those who have been attacked are permitted to take up arms because they have been wronged. God has Lord is God." If God did not repel some people by means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God's name is much invoked, would have been destroyed. Fighting is thus justified, in the sense of permitted, in order to resist injustice. And the accounts of the agreements between Muhammad and the Medinan tribes suggest that the Prophet understood this permission to fight as requiring preparation for the coming campaign.l7

Thus Muslim biographies present a second signification of Muhammad's move toward politics, by way of accounts of his approach to intertribal relations in Medina. Of these, the most significant had to do with relations between the followers of Muhammad and Medinan Jews. Although we do not know much about the practice of Judaism (or, for that matter, of Christianity) in Medina, Muslim biographers provide names of Jewish leaders who interacted with the Prophet. These are typically listed along with some indication of tribal affiliation; from this evidence, it appears there was a Jewish presence in a number of the Medinan tribes, with particular strength in three or four. The account of Muhammad's relations with these begins with presentations of the agreement Muslims call the Medinan Constitution, which is striking in its stipulations of parity between Muslims and Jews. According to the document, each community maintained its independence; each was to fight alongside the other, to bear its own costs and keep its own war prizes; each one to observe its own customs and patterns of worship.

Such parity did not last long, however. The account of the constitution leads into a tale of the steady degeneration of relationships between Muslims and Jews. Ibn Ishaq, for example, moves quickly to stories of Jewish criticism of the Prophet, followed by a long account of the revelation of surat al-baqara, chapter 2 of the Qur'an, in which the recalcitrance of the Jews of Medina is interpreted as consistent with the ways the people of Israel treated Moses. Christians, too, are criticized for their errors with respect to the religion of Jesus. Both Moses and Jesus, we are told, practiced the religion of Abraham, and that is al-islam. They say, "Become Jews or Christians, and you will be rightly guided: Say: "No, ours is the religion of Abraham, the upright, who did not worship any god besides God:' Say: "We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to God:' (Qur'an 2:135-136)19

Hereafter the story is all downhill with respect to Muslim-Jewish relations, to the point where the Jewish tribes were accused of violating their agreement with Muhammad by providing assistance to the Meccans. Those tribes with particularly large concentrations of Jews were either banished or, in one memorable episode, treated as a conquered foe, with all adult males executed, and women and children taken by the Muslims as slaves.20

The charge that Medinan Jews provided assistance to the Meccans leads to the third and most prominent way by which traditional biographers signified the Prophet's political authority: the campaign against the Meccans. Here the major accounts focus on battles between the Muslims, their Medinan allies, and the Meccans. Those who fight under Muhammad's command are praised as true Muslims who obey God and God's Prophet. These make sacrifices, for which they will receive rewards: Do not think of those who have been killed in God's way as dead. They are alive with their Lord, well provided for, happy with what God has given them of his favor; Rejoicing that for those they have left behind who have yet to join them there is no fear, nor will they grieve; Rejoicing in God's blessing and favor, and that God will not let the reward of the believers be lost. (Qur' an 3:169-171)

Why should you not fight in God's cause and for those oppressed men, women, and children who cry out, "Lord, rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors! By your grace, give us a protector and helper!"? (Qur'an 4:75)

Those who fail to answer the call or who (as in the case of the Meccans) actively resist are variously described as hypocrites, ingrates, or idolaters.

The story of the Prophet's campaign against the Meccans is not only military. Diplomacy plays a part, as the stories depict Muhammad cultivating and solidifying relations with tribes throughout the region by means of treaties of mutual protection and, in a number of cases, marriage. In the end, the Meccans are isolated and defeated, and the Prophet concludes his life with the pronouncement: "Arabia is nOW solidly for Islam." In the place of tribal loyalties, the stories tell us, there is now a community of those who submit to God. In the place of the pantheon of patron deities, there is the worship of alah, the Creator and Lord of all. In the place of manliness and associated virtues, there are piety and obedience to God and God’s Prophet. In the place of fame, there is the promise of resurrection and judgment. And finally, in the place of the sunna of the ancestors, there are the Qur'an and the example of the Prophet.

In one sense, the story of Muhammad is self-contained. The narrative by which Muslims speak of the Prophet's call and his struggles with the Meccans is one that needs no additional data. If one asks the question "Why this story?" or "What justified Muhammad in this campaign to bring the Arabian Peninsula under the influence of Islam?" one has only to look at the reports of the Prophet's call His was a divine mandate, and from the standpoint of the faithful, that fact is sufficient.

In another sense, though, the story reaches beyond the career of Muhammad. We have already seen how traditional biographers stressed the role of providence in preparing the way for the Arab Prophet. We have also seen how accounts of his relations with Medinan Jews correlate with Qur'anic texts that stress the continuity of Muhammad's mission with those of Moses, Jesus, and, behind them both, Abraham. This is, indeed, one of the more striking features of the story of Muhammad: from the Muslim point of view, his is the latest, and perhaps the last, great chapter in the story of God's dealings with human beings. To put this in the language of theologians, we might say that the mission of Muhammad rests on the fact that he is proclaiming the "natural" religion of humanity. Muslims say that every child is born a Muslim, and that the child's parents then make him or her into a Jew, a Christian, a Zoroastrian-or a member of the umma of the Prophet.2l For an explanation of this claim, we may turn to the Qur'an, beginning with the chapter called "Heights" (7:172-173): When your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, "Am I not your Lord?" And they replied, "Yes, we bear witness." So, you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, "We were not aware of this," Or, "It was our forefathers who, before us, ascribed partners to God, and we are only the descendants who came after them: Will you destroy us because of falsehoods they invented?"

On first reading, these verses relate something very strange, and Muslim commentaries devote many pages to explaining the process by which God "took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam:' Nevertheless, the import is clear. These verses proclaim that all human beings are responsible to worship the one God-that is, to practice Islam. They cannot escape this responsibility, nor can they cite their inherited traditions as an excuse for failure to fulfill it. One might speak of the verses as depicting a kind of primordial covenant between God and humanity. Thus, to speak of God as taking the offspring from the loins of the children of Adam is to suggest that all generations, all peoples, and all individuals are rightly called to bear witness to the God from whom they come, and to whom they will return.

To elaborate further, we may turn to other verses in the Qur' an.
The claim is that al-islam, submission to the will of God, is natural to humanity. Submission describes the proper disposition of creatures whose life and capacities have their source in the power L.'': will of a divine other. Thus, in Qur'an 30:30, God exhorts the prophet to "stand firm" in devotion to al-din ("the religion;' means Islam). This, the verse continues, "is the natural disposition God instilled in humankind:' Or again, at 33:72, a verse reminiscent of 7:172-2-173, we read that God offered aI-amana, or the trust, to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, but they refused to undertake it. Only human beings were bold enough to do so. As Muslim commentators suggest, this verse points to a notion of humankind as the "vice-regent" of God.22 Acceptance of the trust involves a responsibility of stewardship, in accord with which God will call each human being to account. The world, and with it humankind, was not created "for play. If We had wished for a pastime, We had it in Us." Rather, God created the world, and set humankind within it, as a demonstration of God's glory, and to that end "We hurl the truth against falsehood, and truth obliterates it ... Everyone in the heavens and the earth belongs to God, and those that are with God are never too proud to worship God, nor do they grow weary; they glorify- God tirelessly, night and day" (21:16-20).

The notion of Islam as natural to humanity has as its corollary the  claim that human beings are capable of acknowledging God. Here, the Qur'an insists that the capacity to "reflect" or to engage in dialectical reasoning provides access to the divine. In particular, human beings are able to reflect on a variety of "signs" by which creation points to its maker.

There truly are signs in this for those who reflect. Another of God's signs is that He created the heavens and the earth, the diversity of your languages and colors. There truly are signs in this for those who know. Among His signs are your sleep, by night and by day, and your seeking God's bounty. There truly are signs in this for those who can hear. Among His signs, too, are that God shows you the lightning that terrifies and inspires hope; that God sends water down from the sky to restore the earth to life after death. There truly are signs in this for those who use their reason. Among God's signs, too, is the fact that the heavens and the earth stand firm by His command. In the end, you will all emerge when He calls you from the earth. Everyone in the heavens and earth belongs to Him, and all are obedient to Him. He is the One who originates creation and will do it again-this is even easier for Him. God is above all comparison in the heavens and the earth; God is the Almighty, the all wise. (Qur'an 30:20-27)23

The power and scope of the capacity for reflection is shown, above all, in the story of Abraham, to which the Qur'an recurs sixty-nine times, in twenty-five chapters; these constitute almost one-fourth of the chapters of the Qur'an. In chapter 2, Abraham proves his faithfulness by obeying God's commandments (122-124). He and his son, Ishmael, build the Ka 'ba as a sanctuary dedicated to worship of Allah (125-129). Such exemplary behavior lends itself to the rhetorical question of 130-132: Who but a fool would forsake the religion of Abraham? We have chosen him in this world and he will rank among the righteous in the Hereafter. His Lord said to him, "Devote yourself to me." Abraham replied, "I devote myself to the Lord of the universe;' and commanded his sons to do the same.

But what is the religion of Abraham, and how did he come to practice it? At 3:65-67, Jews and Christians listening to the Qur'an are challenged: "Why do you argue about Abraham when the Torah and the Gospels were not revealed until after his time?  Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian. He was upright, in a condition of submission [hanifan musliman]." That Abraham's submission is to God is indicated by what immediately follows: "and he was not with the idolaters." That the submission is not mediated by Jewish or Christian sources is important, as is the obvious fact that Abraham's religion is also not mediated by the Qur' an. All these texts come after Abraham's discovery of true faith, which provides the paradigmatic example of the religious potential of human reflection.

At 6:74-82 we read a brief account of what might be called Abraham's religious quest. The account begins at night, when Abraham sees a star and says, "This is my Lord:' When the star sets, however, he is not satisfied with it as an object of devotion. The moon rises and soon replaces the star in Abraham's estimation: "This is my Lord:' It also sets, of course, and is then replaced by the sun. Only now does the seeker exclaim: "My people, I disown all that you worship besides God. I have turned my face as a true believer towards Him who created the heavens and the earth:' As the Qur' an has it, "In this way We showed Abraham a mighty dominion over the heavens and the earth, so that he might be a firm believer:' God, in other words, is guiding the process. But Abraham's understanding comes through the exercise of his capacity to reflect. He does not hear a prophet; he does not read or recite a sacred text. His quest exemplifies the natural capacity of human beings to interpret the evidence of creation as requiring the acknowledgment of that One which is the true source of all. That One, al-lah, exercises dominion over the creation. Whereas the creation is contingent, that One is eternal. Whereas the creation is finite, that One is infinite.

The natural state of human beings, as of all creation, with respect to God is submission. But the Qur' an indicates that most humans do not realize this. While Abraham exemplifies the human potential, most do not reflect, and thus do not acknowledge the right of their Lord. As the Qur' an states at 30:30, although submission is the "natural disposition" of humankind, "most people do not realize it." More typically, the Qur'an indicates that human beings "do not reflect"; that is, they fail to exercise the capacity by which their religious potential becomes active. The reason for this failure? "Rivalry in worldly increase distracts you;' says the Qur'an at 102:1. Human beings seek security. To that end, they strive for goods that enable them to negotiate the realities of the natural, and especially the social, world. Such striving yields some success. But "some success" is never "enough"; someone else always has more, and this state of affairs means that no one is ever really secure. And, in the end, the quest for security must be futile, because all human beings must die.

The quest for security inhibits reflection and, with it, the kind of awareness of God associated with submission. Given this circumstance, it seems that human beings are doomed. Created in order to serve God, placed in a world conceived as a theater for God's glory, the this-worldly existence of humanity is best construed as a test, at the end of which comes the Day of Judgment. The Qur' an holds that on that day each and all will stand before God, who will distribute rewards and punishments according to what each has done.

The crashing blow!
What is the crashing blow?
What will explain to you what the crashing blow is?
On a Day when people will be like scattered moths, and the
mountains like tufts of wool,
The one whose good deeds are heavy on the scales Will have a pleasant life.
But the one whose good deeds are light will have the bottomless pit for a home.
What will explain to you what that is? Blazing fire. ( Qur' an 10 1 : 1-11 )

Humankind, it seems, is in a troublesome situation. Created to serve God, and thus responsible for their deeds, they are nonetheless blinded by their striving for worldly security. For most, the kind of God-consciousness advocated by the Qur'an involves a radical departure from the activities they experience as normal. Most suffer from a "sickness of he are' Is there a cure?

To this question, the Qur' an poses an answer: God sends prophets as an act of divine mercy. God is not required to provide assistance with the human plight. Nevertheless, God does so, and this fact is one of the reasons for the persistent Qur' anic description of God as "the merciful, the compassionate." Prophets come in order to remind human beings of their situation. In accord with the emphasis on submission as the religious disposition natural to humanity, they do not reveal anything new. Rather, the point of prophecy is to state that which is obvious upon reflection. The uniqueness of prophets consists in the clarity and power by which they convey this truth. Prophecy is thus a matter of restating that religion which is natural to humankind. And God, in his mercy, sends prophets to every nation. Each brings the message of submission to a particular people, proclaiming it in their language. Thus any list of prophets is theoretically quite extensive. The Qur' an is most interested, however, in recalling the names of those familiar to its audience: heroes from biblical tradition and others (such as Thamud) whose preaching formed part of Arab lore. The message of all prophets is the same: human beings come from God and will return to God. God is one, unique, not to be confused with any creature. Human beings are created to serve God and will be held accountable for what they have done. God, responsibility, and judgment-these constitute the threefold theme of the natural religion. One might put it this way: the history of humanity is the history of God's attempts to remind human beings of their true nature, and to warn them of the consequences flowing from a lack of attention.

We can sharpen the Qur'anic notion of prophecy if we attend to its most characteristic formulations of the mission of Muhammad. He is the prophet who speaks Arabic; the Qur' an is an ''Arabic scripture:' Muhammad's vocation is to perform for his people the same task performed, for other communities, by Moses and Jesus. Moses brought the Torah to the people of Israel. Later, Jesus brought the Injil, or Gospel, to this same people; their rejection of his mission led to the division between the people of Israel and the people of the messiah. Even so, Muhammad brings the Qur' an to the Arabs. We must go further, however. When Moses brought the Torah to the people of Israel, he did not found a religion called Judaism. Moses proclaimed al-islam, that submission which is the natural or appropriate condition of God's creatures. Judaism is an add-on, created by later generations who inherited the preaching of Moses, and then added to or took away from the Torah. Similarly, Jesus brought the Gospel to the people of the messiah, but he did not found Christianity. That term refers to the practice of followers of Jesus, some of whom were faithful, while others interpreted the Gospel in ways that mixed error with the truth that Jesus proclaimed-that is, the truth of submission. Thus, when Muhammad brings the Qur' an to the Arabs, he also provides a fresh statement of the natural religion. Muhammad calls Jews and Christians, as well as Arab idolaters, to practice submission. The Qur'an presents itself as a "criterion" (25 and elsewhere) by which differences between previous religions may be adjudicated. And the followers of Muhammad have, as their mission, the continuing task of reminding Jews, Christians, and others of the truth of Islam. Faced with error, or more particularly with the kind of stubborn resistance to truth illustrated in the behavior of the Jews of Medina, the umma of Muhammad is called to command right and forbid wrong by appropriate means; as an old and prominent tradition has it, to correct error by the hand (signifying political and, if necessary, military action), the tongue (preaching and instruction), and the heart (disapproval).24

Muhammad died in 632. Still flush with the surrender of Mecca, it seems the Muslim community was at first confused. Should the movement continue? If so, who would succeed the Prophet? And how should that person, or persons, direct the community?25 Traditions preserved by Muslims are fascinating in this regard, suggesting a considerable disagreement among those attached to Muhammad.26 For our purposes, however, it is more important to describe the resolution than the range of disagreement. In brief, the answers were (1) yes, the movement should continue; (2) leadership, in the sense of al-khilafat, the succession or in some sense continuation of the Prophet's role, should fall to outstanding companions of Muhammad; and (3) the leadership, in the first instance assigned to Abu Bakr (d. 634) and 'Umar (d. 644), should direct the Muslim community in a sustained mission of commanding right and forbidding wrong, by the hand, tongue, and heart. As Abu Bakr puts it in a standard report: "0 people, those who worshipped Muhammad [must know that] Muhammad is dead; those who worshipped God [must know that] God is alive [and] immortal." The statement continues, with Abu Bakr quoting Qur'an 3:144:

Muhammad is only a messenger; and many a messenger has gone before him. So if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? He who turns back on his heels will do no harm to God; and God will reward the grateful.27

Practically speaking, this statement meant two things. First, Abu Bakr made sure that Muhammad's consolidation of Arab tribes held. In the most famous instance, the new leader ordered military action designed to compel the payment of taxes used to fund the Muslim mission.28 When several of the tribes indicated they considered their duty to pay, and thus to provide material support for the Muslim mission, null and void, Abu Bakr declared that their agreement was not simply with the man Muhammad, but with God. In that sense, failure to pay constituted a special mix of religious and political wrongdoing, which was termed al-ridda. Usually translated as "apostasy;' the term is in fact more suggestive of renegade behavior, by which one harms the ability of a community to fulfill legitimate goals, while at the same time violating a contract with God. Al-ridda, in other words, is neither a simple matter of treason nor a matter of changing one's mind about matters of religious belief. Abu Bakr's campaign constitutes an important precedent, pointing to a special relationship between religion and politics-in Arabic, between aldin (religion, law, custom, that to which one is obligated, and which connects one to others) and al-dunya (the affairs of this world, including economics, ordinary political activity, and the like).

Having secured the religious solidarity of Arabia, Abu Bakr and 'Umar turned to spreading Islam to the rest of the world. The speed and expanse of the Muslim "conquest" are well known. By the time of 'Umar's death, Muslim forces dominated Egypt, Syro-Palestine, and most of Iraq. Under two subsequent leaders, 'Uthman (d. 656) and 'Ali (d. 661), the remainder of Iraq and much ofIran came under the sway of Islam.29 In later centuries, northern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Anatolia (or Turkey), and portions of southern and central Europe came under Islamic control; at the outer edges, Muslim influence stretched into sub-Saharan Africa, throughout the realm of Mongols and Turks (including portions of China), to Indonesia and the Philippines. 3D Such geographic scope prohibits generalizations about the influence of Islam on religious and political behavior. Nevertheless, certain ways of speaking about the expansion of Islam became common. We may speak of these as precedents, in that subsequent generations of Muslims would recur to them as modeling important-because legitimate-values. One of the standard reports concerning Muhammad's last days has the Prophet dictating letters to the rulers of the great empires of his day-the Byzantine Caesar, the Sassanid great king, the Abyssinian negus-and summoning them to al-islam. It will be best, he writes, if these rulers accept Islam, and they may do so by bearing witness that there is no god but God, with Muhammad as God's prophet. In this way, they may avoid strife and bring blessings to their people. If the rulers in question will not accept Islam, they should at least enter into a tributary relationship with the community of Muhammad. In this way they will acknowledge the supremacy of Islam, and in some sense point their people toward Islam as the true religion. Failing this, however, these rulers should understand that Muhammad is the recipient of a divine mission, which he will carry out using all necessary and appropriate measures. That mission is to call people to al-islam; for this purpose, God gave the Prophet the Book (that is, the Qur'an) and a sword.31

We may set aside questions about the historical accuracy of this report, in the sense of questions like "Did Muhammad really write such letters?" For our purposes, the important datum is that this report provided a precedent for subsequent generations of Muslims. For the vast majority of Muslims, the expansion of Islam was an act of divine providence. It established governments that acknowledged Islam as the true and natural religion of humanity and replaced regimes that, by reason of their religious and moral errors, could be described as tyrannical. The expansion of Islamic government thereby increased the chances for groups of human beings to live together in (relative) peace and to attain a degree of justice. Such expansion also provided an opening by which people liberated from tyranny might hear the message of Islam and accept it, should they wish to do so. Alternatively, the recipients of liberation might continue in their inherited religion, provided they accepted the protection of Islamic government and observed certain proprieties. In all, the way in which Muslims spoke about the territorial expansion of Islam suggests an intention one might describe as "beneficent paternalism." This perspective casts the expansion as a matter of "opening" territory to Islam, rather than of "conquest." Similarly, the Muslims did not consider that they were bringing something foreign or strange to other lands. Islam is natural to humankind. It is not a thing that one human being gives to another, but is the gift of God, to be acknowledged as such. Bringing human beings into a right relationship with their Creator is the purpose of God; it is the reason why God sends prophets. In this sense, then, Muslims came to speak of the early expansion as aI-jihad, an aspect of the struggle "to make God's cause succeed" (Qur'an 8:39).

Islamic expansion thus involved a systematic program of regime change, in which jihad became the symbol for Muslim effort. Notions of honorable combat developed in connection with this, as did notions of martyrdom and sacrifice for the cause of God. We shall return to these notions. More significant at this point is that the story Muslims tell about their community suggests that the Islamic notion of "regime change" involved replacing tyrannical governments with something better, that is, with Islamic government, or rule by al-shari'a. Usually translated as "Islamic law;' alshari'a is more appropriately rendered as "the path" or "the way." The term suggests that there is a right way to live, and that is the way associated with Islam, the natural religion. As we are using it here, al-shari'a indicates an Islamic version of the "rule of law;' that is, of the notion that there is a standard by which rulers and ruled alike must be judged. Through centuries of Islamic expansion and dominance, rulers and ruled appealed to this notion as a way to debate questions of legitimacy. What are the obligations of a legitimate ruler? That person should possess many attributes-a good character, physical health and strength, a sound mind, proper ancestry.32 Above all, however, a ruler is obligated to govern by the Shari'a. In essence, this is what is meant by speaking of government as alkhilafat, and the ruler as al-khalifa. Both terms imply succession. The system of government "succeeds" or "follows in the path of" the Prophet, as does the ruler or, in some cases, the ruling class or governing elite. Rule by the Shari'a also speaks to the obligations of citizens in an Islamic state: they should pay taxes, participate in the jihad in an appropriate manner, honor the ruler in all legitimate claims. This constellation of duties gave rise to a large and continuing debate over the legitimacy of rebellion. Should citizens in an Islamic state depose a ruler who strays from the divine path? At the very least, it is clear that the duty of citizens to obey or honor the claims of the leader is limited to policies that are legitimate, that is, associated with the Shari'a.33

The phrase "obligations of citizens" applies, in the first place, to Muslims living under an Islamic government. Under the new regime of Islam, non-Muslims had obligations, too. The phrase "people of the Book" which applied primarily to Jews and Christians, but was eventually enlarged to include Hindus and others living in the territories that came under the sway of Islam, correlated with a standing signified by the term ahl al-dhimma, "protected people." Such people lived as recognized minority communities, with their own structures of authority, religious observances, and laws. Yet their status was set by, and Muslims recognized it in terms of, the overarching rule of Shari'a. According to this norm, the non-Muslim communities paid special taxes, were required to observe restrictions on public demonstrations of worship, experienced limits on their ability to build churches and synagogues, and in general were required to behave in ways deemed respectful of the priority of Islam. Thus, in one sense, the Shari'a did not apply to them-for example, in terms of laws of marriage and divorce. In another sense, it certainly did, for the terms of their protection were set according to the Shari'a standard. Thus, if we were to highlight one feature of Islamic civilization as central, we could make a strong case for the notion of "governance by the Shari'a." But what was the Shari'a? And how is it ascertained? That is the subject of the next chapter. Before turning to those questions, let us return briefly to the quotations at the beginning of this chapter. Who is right? Is it the religion of "Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign supreme"? If we attend to the story of the Prophet Muhammad, to claims about Islam as the natural religion of humanity, and to the development of Islamic civilization as built on the notion of deposing tyrants in the name of a kind of rule of law, then we must in some sense grant the first and last characterizations. Islam promises peace to those who follow the natural religion of humanity. It commands its followers to strive for peace. It does not, of course, understand peace as a simple matter of the absence of conflict. Rather, Islam is associated with the idea that peace requires justice, and that these terms signify a condition best served when human societies are ordered in ways that may be described as legitimate.

Similarly, Islam is the religion of jihad, in the sense of struggle. That is the premise of Islamic mission. Through the ministry of Muhammad and the proclamation of the Qur' an, God created a community dedicated to commanding right and forbidding wrong. The community fulfills this duty by spreading the blessings of legitimate government, and by calling humanity to return to the natural religion. The claim that Islam is a "very evil and very wicked" religion emanates from a different kind of discussion, one that is not well adjudicated by historical or sociological description. Perhaps, though, we might change the question slightly, and instead ask whether Islam presents anything very different from other religions of the world. The evidence suggests that the answer is no, whether one is thinking about notions of deity or revelation or political order. Christians and Jews, at least, will find strongly familiar elements in the story of Muhammad, the claims of Islamic theology, and the motifs of Islamic civilization outlined here. The familiarity stems from the fact that Islam is built upon a set of ideas common throughout the ancient Near East. These traditions all taught, and still teach, that there is one God, Creator and Lord of the universe; that human beings are accountable to this God, who fills the earth with signs of his power and beneficence; that this accountability is to be measured by a divine standard, an "instruction" or "law." They teach that human beings should order their common life by that standard, and that they will be judged by its terms. To speak of such commonalities is not to deny important differences between faiths. For those who are Christians, for example, the identification of intimacy between God and Jesus the Christ suggested by the designation "son of God" is critical to understanding the relationship that obtains between God and humanity. Islam denies this identification, and indeed sees it as an error. For those who are Jews, participation in the continuing life of a particular people, with its special history of God's providence and election, is not to be denied. But Islam does deny this, at least in the sense of criticizing Judaism as fostering a kind of ethnic consciousness that runs contrary to the universality of God's judgment and mercy. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not the same religion. They are, however, close relations. To speak of Islam, in particular, as "very evil and very wicked" is to separate it from its obvious moorings in the history of the ancient Near East, and to deny facts that are obvious to any objective reader of the Qur'an or of the story of Muhammad. In assessing the value of Islam, we do well to defer judgment until we know more about the ways Muslims, as people involved in an attempt to ascertain and submit to God's will, have conducted themselves over time. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim a special revelation that serves to orient the lives of believers. In this, they claim a kind of superhuman status for certain notions about the world and about human responsibility. In working out the meaning of these notions, however, these three faiths are very much an affair of human beings, involved in an attempt to negotiate existence in diverse historical and political contexts.

Case Study P.1: Violence in Mohammed’s Life:

The Islam Code P.2 of 3

The Islam Code P.3 of 3

1. We used The Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed., 12 vols., ed. E. van Donzel, Bernard Lewis, and Charles Pellat (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), as a standard reference work, plus the Arabic-English Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic by Hans Wehr, 4th ed., ed. J. Milton Cowan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 495-496; Edward William Lane, An ArabicEnglish Lexicon, 8 vok (New York: F. Ungar, 1955-1956); and Ibn Mansur, Lisan aI-Arab, 15 vols. (Beirut: Dar Nadir, 1992).

2. One of the best-known ahadith, or reports, about Muhammad puts this in terms of an encounter between Muhammad and Jibril (Gabriel), the angel of God:
As related by 'Umar [one of the "companions" of the Prophet and, after his death, the second khalifa]: One day as we were sitting with the Messenger of God there appeared before us a man whose clothes were exceedingly white and whose hair was exceedingly black. He showed none of the signs of a traveler, though none of us had previously seen him. He walked up and sat down by the Prophet. Resting his knees against those of the Prophet, and placing the palms of his hands on the Prophet's thighs, he said: "Oh Muhammad! Tell me about Islam."

The Messenger of God said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God; to perform the obligatory prayers; to pay zakat; to fast in Ramadan; and to make the pilgrimage to the Ka 'ba if one is able:'
[Gabriel] said: "You have spoken rightly ... "

The report continues, indicating the amazement of 'Umar and others present at the seeming audacity of this stranger's testing of Muhammad. In turn, Gabriel asks Muhammad about the meaning of faith (al-iman), of right action (al-ihsan), and of "the Hour:' meaning the Last Day. Muhammad successfully completes the test, following which his examiner leaves and Muhammad says to 'Umar: "This was Gabriel, who came to you to teach you your religion:' Cf. Annawawi's Forty Hadith, trans. Ezzedin Ibrahim and Denys Johnson Davies (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1997),28-33.

3. Precise data are difficult to come by, not least because the U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation. A source like adherents.com (URL http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By _Adher- ents.html) estimates the number of Muslims at 1.3 billion but notes that in this, as with all estimates, the site's numbers go toward the high side. It is also not clear that this is a scientifically sound estimate; it is based on estimates of the percentage of Muslims in various countries, which relies on data collected and published by those countries' equivalents of the U.S. Census Bureau.

4. As related in the biography attributed to Ibn Ishaq (d. 775 C.E.), in A.Guillaume, trans., The Life of Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), 11. The Quraysh were one of the most prominent Arab tribes. Their great influence in Mecca established them as guardians of the Ka'ba and other holy sites. Qurayza indicates one of several tribes in the Arabian Peninsula associated with Judaism; these come back into the story following Muhammad's migration to Medina in 622. The genealogy with which the biography begins rests on legends in which Abraham and his son Ishmael (cf. Genesis 12-22) migrate to the Arabian Peninsula. They build the Ka'ba (at Mecca) as the first house of worship dedicated to God. In a striking (and probably deliberate) parallel to the biblical stories, Ishmael fathers twelve sons, who become the patriarchs of twelve Arabic-speaking tribes, one of which gives rise to the family of the Prophet.

5. In ancient warfare elephants were typically deployed as bearers of towers from which several archers could rain down arrows on the enemy.

6. On these points, Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, 2 vols., ed. S. M. Stern, trans. Stern and C. R. Barber (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), is still useful. But see also F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994); Martin Hinds, Studies in Early Islamic History (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin, 1996); G. H. A. Juynboll, ed., Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982); M. J. Kister, Studies in Jahiliyya and Early Islam (London: Variorum Reprints, 2002); Gordon Darnell Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); idem, A History of the Jews of Arabia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988).

7. A. J. Arberry, trans., The Seven Odes (London: Allen and Unwin, 1957),86. In addition to the sources cited in note 8, see the studies of W. M. Watt, especially Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956) and Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). These, in turn, rest on Watt's careful study of the relevant portions of al-Tabari's history of prophets and kings, now available in English translation as The History of al- Tabari, 39 vols., ed. Ihsan Abbas et al., with various translators (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989-1998).

9. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 69.

10. Ibid., 80, 81.

11. Quotations from the Qur'an are influenced by the translations of Abu Yusuf, A. J. Arberry, and Muhammad A. S. Abd al-Haleem; sometimes I follow one more closely, sometimes another. The translations reflect my own sense of the Arabic text.

12. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 81.

13. Traditional biographers set Muhammad's age at twenty-nine and Khadija's at forty. On the possible relation of Muhammad's spirituality to that of Syriac Christian monks, see the older but still interesting biography by Tor Andrae, Muhammad: The Man and His Faith, trans. T. Menzel (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960).

14. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 105-106.

15. Ibid., 107.

16. Ibid., 119, 121.

17. Qur'an 3:102-110.

18. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, 212-213.

19. The account of the Medina Constitution is at ibid., 231-233. At 239269 we read of growing Jewish opposition to Muhammad; the account of the chapter of the Cow is at 247-264.

20. Ibid., 363-364, 437-439, 461-470.

21. This reflects a report of a saying of Muhammad, which may be found in Sahih Muslim (one of the standard collections of such reports). In the English translation by Abdulhamid Siddiqi (Delhi: Adam Publishers and Distributors, 2000), this is report 2658, which is reproduced in several versions; see 4a: 216.

22.  Cf. the discussion in Abdulaziz Sachedina, "Human Viceregency: A Blessing or a Curse? The Challenge to Be God's Caliph in the Qur'an;' in Humanity before God, ed. William Schweiker et al. (Minneapolis:
Augsburg-Fortress, 2006), 31-54.

23. The Arabic term for reflection ("those who reflect;' in the text quoted) is fikr, thought. The term translated as "reason" is aql. Both cover the same idea, namely, that an ordinary human capacity lends itself to interpretation of various aspects of creation as bearing witness to the power and glory of the Creator.

24. An-Nawawi's Forty Hadith, 110 (report 34).

25. On this matter, as on so many others, the analysis by Marshall G. S.
Hodgson is remarkably insightful. See The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 1: 197-199.

26. The History of al- Tabari, vol. 10, trans. Fred M. Donner, 1-17.

27. Ibid., vol. 9, trans. Ismail K. Poonawala, 185.

28. Ibid., 10: 55-59.

29. See the account in Fred M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

30. For these later conquests, see Hodgson, The Venture of Islam.

31. See The History of al- Tabari, vol. 8, trans. Michael Fishbein, 98 ff.

32. See Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); and E. 1. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), which remain standard surveys of these matters. These must be supplemented by Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); and above all by Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God's Caliph: Political Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

33. See the very important studies by Khaled Abou El Fadl, Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Cook has produced a shorter, popular version of this work under the title Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

34. For a brief introduction to Islamic philosophy, see Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 1: 410-443. The volume edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, History of Islamic Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1996), contains a number of useful entries. Again, Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, provides a good introduction at 1: 444-472. Al-Jahiz's Book of Misers is available in an English translation by R. B. Serjeant (New York: Garnet Education, 1998). See also The Life and Works of al-Jahiz, ed. Charles Pellat, trans. David Martin Hawke (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government, or, Rules for Kings, 2d ed., trans. Hubert Darke (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), provides a good example of the "mirrors of princes" genre.

For updates click homepage here