Once a year, people from all over Arabia came to Mecca
for a religious fair. Many of them began to hear of Mohammed and wished to hear
him preach. In this way he gained new followers from outside of Mecca. One
group came from Medina, which is a town to the North of Mecca.
Medina contained five tribes, three were Jewish and two
Arab. The Jewish tribes were generally better educated and wealthier. There
were quarrels between the Arab tribes and also between Arabs and Jews. This had
spilled over into bloodshed.
Some of the Medinan Arabs who had converted to Islam
invited Mohammed and his followers to come to Medina. They thought that he
might be a unifying influence who would bring peace to their tribes.
The next year when the annual fair came around again,
Mohammed took the Medinans to a hillside outside of Mecca, called Aquaba. There
he had them swear an oath to him, which became known as the Oath of Aquaba.
This oath included a promise to fight to the death in the service of Mohammed. In
return for this, he promised them paradise. This was the first time that
Mohammed's teachings included the threat of killing; it is also the beginning
of the Islamic calendar.
The Quraysh soon heard about this and hatched a plot to
kill Mohammed. They figured that if they did not take action now, he would
return from Medina with an army and make war on them.
Mohammed's followers had
mostly left for Medina already and his uncle had died. Now he had no one to
protect him. Mohammed heard of the plot and fled Mecca. He hid in a cave for
three days until the heat had died down and then continued on the 10-day trip
to Medina.
Author’s Comments:
At this point in time Mohammed had been a prophet for
13 years. He was slightly more than half way through his career as a religious
leader. He had acquired around 150 followers, the majority of whom were poor
and uneducated and had made many powerful enemies.
Mohammed had made many
threats to his enemies, (i.e. anyone who would not accept that he was God’s
only prophet) about punishments in the afterlife. His teachings however, were
essentially of a religious nature. In other words, they were about how Muslims
should interact with Allah, or with other Muslims.
They were not however, political
in nature (how Muslims should interact with non-Muslims). Islam has a habit of
dividing things in two. The Koran is no exception and is divided into two
separate halves. There is the Koran of Mecca, which is mostly religious and the
Koran of Medina, which is essentially political in nature.
In the last chapter I laboured the point that Muslims
are obliged to follow Mohammed’s teaching and traditions. I would like to add
some important caveats here, because you may soon be thinking something like “I
know a Muslim who doesn’t do that” or “how come most Muslims don’t do that.”
1)
Not all Muslims follow their
religion devoutly any more than followers of any other religion. Some are very
devout but many are not. A Muslim may behave in a way which is against the
teaching of Islam such as drinking alcohol. This doesn’t mean that Islam
permits drinking alcohol. It just means that not everyone follows the rules all
the time. Islam can affect Muslims but Muslims cannot affect Islam.
2)
Muslims are supposed to follow
the example of Mohammed. There are however, a number of different ways in which
Mohammed behaved in order to achieve his aims. These methods depended largely
on the circumstances. If I wanted to be kind I would describe him as
“opportunistic.” I’ll be explaining this in more detail down the track as it is
important. Whilst many Muslims do not follow Mohammed’s more unpleasant
methods, most of them seem to share his goals.
3)
Muslims in general are very
ignorant of the details of their religion, this is not an accident. Most
Muslims don’t speak Arabic and yet their books are written in an archaic form
of it. Islamic scholars insist however, that these books cannot be translated.
This is just one reason why, until recently, it was incredibly difficult to understand
these books, (or even to know which books were important) unless you were
taught by Islamic scholars.
No comments:
Post a Comment