Muhammad
Muhammad (in Arabic, محد, romanized:Mujámmad; Arabic pronunciation:/mu'/ammad/(
listen)(La Meca, c. April 26, 570-Medina, June 8, 632) was the founder of Islam. Its full name in Arabic is Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Abd al-Muṭalib ibn Hāšim al-Qurayšī (ابو القاسم محمد ابن عبد الله ابن عبد المبن ابن هاشم القريش), which is known as "Mahoma". In the Muslim religion, Mohammed is considered “the last of the prophets” (أنبياء, jātim al-anbiyā'), who is the culmination of a long chain of messengers sent by God to update his message, among whose predecessors are Abraham, Moses and Jesus of Nazareth.
Bahá'ís venerate him as one of the prophets or "Manifestation of God", whose teachings would have been updated by those of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of this religion.
Life of Muhammad
Life before preaching
Birth and childhood
Arab of the tribe of Quraysh, born in Mecca (مكة) around 570. Mecca was It is located in the Hijaz region of present-day Saudi Arabia. He was the posthumous son of Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muttalib, a member of the Hashemite clan.
The custom of the most honorable of the Quraysh tribe was to send their children to Bedouin nannies so that they would grow up free and healthy in the desert, so that they could also strengthen themselves and learn from the Bedouin, who were renowned for their honesty and lack of numerous vices, and Muhammad was entrusted to Bani S'ad.
Miracles
The first miracle narrated about Muhammad in the compilation of hadiths is that the archangel Gabriel descended and opened his chest to take out his heart. He extracted a black clot from it and said "This was the part where Satan could seduce you." Then he washed it with water from the well of Zamzam in a golden bowl and returned the heart to his place. The children and playmates he was with ran to his nurse and said, "Mohammed has been killed"; they all went to him but found that he was alive.Muslims see this event as a protection for him to turn away from idol worship from his childhood and probably the reason why he was returned to his mother.
He was orphaned at an early age and, due to an Arab custom that says that minor children cannot inherit from their parents, he did not receive either his father's or his mother's.[ citation needed] It is said that she died when he was six years old, so he was taken in and educated first by his grandfather Abd al-Muttálib and then by his paternal uncle Abu Tálib, a leader of the Quraysh tribe, the most powerful in Mecca, and father of his cousin and future caliph Ali.
Meeting with the monk Bahira
At that time, Mecca was a prosperous commercial center, mainly because there were several temples containing different idols, which attracted a large number of pilgrims. Merchants from different tribes visited Mecca at the time of the pilgrimage, when tribal warfare was prohibited and they could count on safe travel. In his teens, Muhammad accompanied his uncle on his trips to Syria and other places. Therefore, he soon became a person with extensive experience in the customs of other regions.
At the age of twelve he went to Bosra with his uncle Abu Tálib and they had an encounter with a monk named Bahira. Some orientalists say that this shows that Muhammad learned the holy books from him, but Muslim scholars refute this view, arguing that he could not have learned this knowledge at mealtime and that a second meeting with this monk is not recorded. In the hadiths it is narrated that Bahira recognized some signs of Muhammad's prophecy and warned his uncle about taking him to Syria for fear of the Jews and Romans (then Byzantines).
Marriage to Khadijah
Muhammad did not have a specific job in his youth, but it has been reported that he worked as a herdsman for Bani Sad and in Mecca as a wage earner. At the age of 25, Muhammad worked as a merchant on the caravan route between Damascus and Mecca under the command of Khadijah, daughter of Juwáylid (خديجة بنت خويلد), a wealthy merchant widow, who was impressed and he proposed to her in the year 595. Ibn Ishaq gives Khadija's age as twenty-eight, and Al-Waqidi gives forty. Some say that Khadijah begetting two males and four females from Muhammad makes the stronger opinion that of Ibn Ishaq, for it is known that women reach the age of menopause before the age of fifty, despite the fact that these The information is not established in a hadith but circulated among historians. All of his descendants were born before Muhammad received the first revelation. His sons Al-Qásim and Abdullah died during their childhood in Mecca. His four daughters were called Záinab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad and Fatima.
The first revelations
Muhammad was thoughtful by nature and routinely spent nights meditating in the cave of Hira near Mecca. Muslims believe that in 610 at the age of forty, while he was meditating, Muhammad had a vision of the archangel Gabriel. The first revelations made Muhammad come to believe that he was under the influence of a demonic presence, leading him close to suicide. The mediation of his wife avoided such an outcome and encouraged Muhammad to listen to the revelations. Muhammad later described this visit as a command to memorize and recite the verses sent by God. During his lifetime, Muhammad entrusted the preservation of the word of God (Allah الله), transmitted by Gabriel (Jibril, جبريل), to the retentive of the memories, who memorized it by reciting it tirelessly that after their death would be compiled in writing in the Quran due to the paramount importance of preserving the original message in all its purity, without the slightest change in substance or form. For this they used materials such as camel scapulae, on which they engraved the verses of the Koran. The archangel Gabriel told him that he had been chosen as the last of the prophets and as such he preached the word of God on the basis of strict monotheism, predicting the Day of Judgment.
According to the Qur'an and the narrations, Muhammad was illiterate (ummi), a fact that Muslim tradition considers a proof that authenticates the Qur'an (Al-Qur'ān, القران), Muslim holy book, as bearer of revealed truth. However, there are at least two hadiths that show that Muhammad was not illiterate. 'Abdullah bin 'Abbas said: "The Prophet's illness worsened on a Thursday." Then the Prophet said: "Bring me something to write and I will write a writing for you and you will not be lost after that."
Al-Bara' he said: «So the Messenger of Allah, he took the document, and although he could not write it well he wrote:“ This is what Muhammad ibn & # 39; Abdullah concludes... ”» (This happened during the negotiations of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah).
Rejection
As Muhammad's followers began to increase in number, his criticism of polytheism made him a threat to local tribal chiefs. The wealth of these tribes was based on the Kaaba, the sacred place of idols for the Arabs and the religious main point of Mecca. If they rejected these idols, as Muhammad preached, there would be no pilgrims to Mecca, no trade, no wealth. The repudiation of polytheism that Muhammad denounced was particularly offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, since they were the guardians of the Kaaba. This is why Muhammad and his followers found themselves persecuted.[citation needed ]
In the year 619, Khadijah, Muhammad's wife, and her uncle Abu Talib died. This year is known as the 'year of sadness'. The clan to which Muhammad belonged disowned him and his followers suffered from hunger and persecution.
Isra and Mirach
In the year 620 AD, according to the hadith, Muhammad made a journey in one night that is known as Isra and Miraj. Isra is the Arabic word that refers to a miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, specifically to the place known as Masjid al-Aqsa. Isra was followed by the Mi'rāj, his ascension to Heaven, where according to the hadith he traversed the seven heavens and communicated with prophets who preceded him, like Abraham, Moses or Jesus.
The Hijra
Life for the small Muslim community in Mecca was not only difficult, but also dangerous. Arab traditions state that there were several attempts on the life of Muhammad,[citation needed] who finally decided to move to Yazrib (present-day Medina) in 622, a great oasis farm where there were his followers. By severing his ties to tribal and family loyalties, Muhammad demonstrated that these ties dwarfed his commitment to Islam, a revolutionary idea in Arabia's tribal society. This migration to Medina marks the beginning of the year in the Islamic calendar. The Islamic calendar counts dates from the Hijri (هجرة), which is why Islamic dates are prefixed AH (year of the Hijra).
Muhammad came to Medina as a mediator, invited to settle disputes between the Arab factions of Aws and Khazraj. He achieved this end by absorbing both factions into the Muslim community and forbidding bloodshed among Muslims. However, Medina was also the place where various Jewish tribes lived. Muhammad hoped that these tribes would recognize him as a prophet, which did not happen. Some scholars claim that Muhammad gave up hope of being recognized as a prophet by all the Jewish tribes. The qiblah, that is, the direction in which Muslims pray, was changed from the old temple in Jerusalem to the Kaaba in the year 624.
Muhammad issued a document known as The Medina Constitution (in 622-623), which specified the terms on which other factions, particularly the Jews, could live within the new Islamic State. According to this system, Jews and Christians were allowed to maintain their religion by paying a tribute: Ŷizya or ŷizyah (not so for practitioners of religions considered pagans). This system would come to typify the relationship between Muslims and dhimmis, and this tradition is the reason for the relative stability that normally existed in Arab caliphates. The main Jewish tribe of Medina (Banu Qurayza or Banu Nadir) was not cited by The Medina Constitution due to their betrayal, subsequent disintegration, and withdrawal from The Medina Charter.
War
Relations between Mecca and Medina deteriorated rapidly. All Muslim property in Mecca was confiscated,[citation needed] while in Medina Muhammad made alliances with neighboring tribes.
Followers of Muhammad began raiding caravans heading to Mecca. In March 624, Muhammad led three hundred warriors in an assault on a merchant caravan headed for Mecca. The members of the caravan managed to dodge the attack by changing the usual route to one closer to the coast, thanks to some information that reached Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the head of the caravan. Subsequently the rulers of Mecca decided to lead a retaliation against the Muslims,[citation needed] sending a small army to invade Medina. On March 15, 624, at a place called Badr, the two sides clashed. Although Muhammad's followers were numerically three times inferior to their enemies (three hundred against a thousand), the Muslims won the battle. This was the first in a series of military achievements by the Muslims.
Muhammad's rule is consolidated
For Muslims, the victory at Badr was divine confirmation that Muhammad was a legitimate prophet. After the victory, and once the Banu Qainuqa Jewish clan was expelled from Medina, most of the citizens of this place adopted the Muslim faith[citation needed] while some retained their old pre-Islamic monotheistic faith and Muhammad established himself as the regent of the city.
After the death of his wife, Muhammad married Aisha, the daughter of his friend Abu Bakr (who would later become the leader of the Muslims after Muhammad's death). In Medina he also married Hafsah, daughter of Úmar (later to be Abu Bakr's successor). These marriages would seal the alliances between Muhammad and his main followers.
Muhammad's daughter, Fatima, married Ali, Muhammad's cousin. Another daughter, Ruqayyah, married Uthman but she passed away and later Uthman married his sister Umm Kulthum. These men would emerge in subsequent years as Muhammad's successors (caliphs) and political leaders of the Muslims. Therefore, the first four caliphs were linked to Muhammad by different marriages. Muslims regard these caliphs as the rāshidūn (الخلفاء الراشدون), which means "led by ».
The war continues
In 625 a Meccan chief, Abu Sufyan, marched against Medina with 3,000 men. In the battle of Uhud, which took place on March 23, neither side was victorious. The Meccan army claimed to have won the battle, but was too decimated to pursue the Muslims from Medina and occupy the city.
In April 627, Abu Sufyan undertook another attack on Medina, but Muhammad had dug trenches around the city and was able to successfully defend it in what is known as the Battle of the Trench. In this battle, the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza had allied with the Meccan army, so the Muslims waged war against them, defeating them.
After the victory of the Battle of the Trenches, the Muslims expanded their influence through conversions or conquests of several cities and tribes, applying the same warlike concept of Jihad.
The Conquest of Mecca
In the year 628, Muhammad's position was strong enough to decide his return to Mecca, this time as a pilgrim. In March of that year, he proceeded to Mecca followed by 1,600 men. After various negotiations, a treaty was signed in a town near Mecca called al-Hudaybiyyah. Although Muhammad was not allowed to enter Mecca that year, hostilities ceased and Muslims were granted access to the city the following year. The treaty lasted only two years, as Muhammad broke it in 630. Muhammad marched on the city with an army of more than 10,000 men and conquered it without resistance. Muhammad amnestied the inhabitants of the city except those who had wronged him. and apostate Muslims. He had these killed “even if they were found under the curtains of the Kaaba.” [citation needed ] Many inhabitants converted to Islam. Muhammad destroyed the 360 idols placed around the Kaaba and had the pagan paintings removed from its inner walls, although he preserved those of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. He also forbade non-Muslims to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, thus making it a holy place. of Islam and the main pilgrimage site of the new religion. Despite the fact that Muhammad was not present at the assault on the city, he managed a fifth of the booty to distribute it among the most needy. The remaining four fifths always belonged to the combatants. He collected a ransom of 45 ounces of silver for each prisoner, a ransom that was divided among the needy. Muhammad never got enough of any food, in his house there was only what was necessary to spend the day and for the guests who came to it.
The capitulation of Mecca and the defeat of the enemy tribes at Hunayn allowed Muhammad to assert his rule over all of Arabia. However, Muhammad did not form any government, preferring to rule through personal relationships and treaties with the different tribes.
Mohammed's Family Life
From 595 to 619, Muhammad was married to Khadijah, a wealthy woman from Mecca who was twenty-seven (40 according to other sources) when she married.
After his death, he married Sawdah, and soon after with Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr —who would later succeed Muhammad. According to some hadiths, Aisha was six years old when she was betrothed to the prophet, who was fifty-four, although the marriage was consummated when she was nine. There are, however, Muslim scholars from the 20th century century who believe that these data are erroneous and that Aisha was considerably older. Despite these modern reinterpretations of the hadiths that would give Aisha a more mature age, a large part of Muslims continue to accept the traditional interpretations today. The latter has been used by critics of Islam, such as Ibn Warraq, to argue that child marriages that continue to be practiced today in Islamic countries find a favorable argument in these possible hadith accounts.
He later married Hafsa, Záynab bint Yahsh (whom he married for less than a year to his adoptive son Zaid, whom he divorced), Ramlah, daughter of a leader who fought Muhammad, and Umm Salama, widow of a Muslim fighter.
He also married[citation needed] a Christian woman named Mariyah al-Qibtíyah (Maríyah, the Coptic), had another child with her after moving to Medina. That seventh and last son was named Ibrahim ibn Muhammad. Like his male brothers, Ibrahim died in his childhood; it is said that he died at 17 or 18 months of age. One of the sunas or hadiths, 153 of Book 18 of Eclipses, narrates that the sun eclipsed the day Ibrahim died, although Muhammad remembers that an eclipse of the Sun is not a sign of someone's death (or birth).. Ibrahim is the same name as that of the patriarch of Jews and Christians (and Muslims), Abraham, of whom one of the sunnas or hadiths, 314 of the Muslim Book 1 of Faith, narrates that he was found by Muhammad in the seventh heaven during his journey through the heavens, and Ibrahim is the name of Muhammad's seventh son.
He married a Jew named Safiyya bint Huyayy. He had several other wives, an imprecise number among these nine reviewed, which almost all the experts affirm as safe, and the more than twenty that some estimate. Some of these women were wives of followers of Muhammad killed in battle, while others were daughters of his allies.
Muhammad prescribed a maximum of four wives per Muslim, so his marriage to at least nine women constitutes the only exception within the faith that was developing, until the coming of the sura An-Nisa in the year 628 AD. C. that would lay the legal foundations of marriage, divorce, inheritance and orphanhood.
List
- Jadiya bint Juwáylid
- Sawda bint Zam absenta
- Aisha bint Abi Bakr
- Hafsa bint Umar
- Zaynab bint Khuzayma
- Hind bint Abi Umayya
- Zaynab bint Jahsh
- Juwayriyya bint al-Harith
- Rayhana bint Zayd
- Safiyya bint Huyayy
- Ramla bint Abi Sufyan
- Mariya al-Qibtiyya
- Maymuna bint al-Harith
The Death of Muhammad
After a short illness, Muhammad died on June 8, 632 in the city of Medina at the age of sixty-three. The ailment is traditionally attributed to the ingestion of a piece of poisoned meat. This occurred three years before his death, after the fall and repression of the leaders of Jáibar against the Islamic troops.
Abu Bakr, the father of Aisha, Muhammad's third wife, was chosen by the leaders of the Muslim community as Muhammad's successor, as he was Muhammad's favourite. Whatever the facts, it is certain that Abu Bakr became the new leader of Islam. Most of his short reign was spent fighting rebellious tribes in what became known as the Ridda Wars.
By the time of Muhammad's death, he had unified the entire Arabian peninsula and spread the Islamic religion in this region, as well as in parts of Syria and Palestine.
Subsequently, Muhammad's successors extended the rule of the Arab empire to Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and al-Andalus.
Descendants of Muhammad
Muhammad was survived by his daughter Fatima and her children and also by his last wife. Shiites claim that Fatima's husband Ali and his descendants are the true leaders of Islam. Sunnis do not accept this statement, although they respect the descendants of Muhammad.
Muhammad's descendants are known by different names, such as sayyid and sharif. Many leaders and nobles of Muslim countries, current and past, claim descent from Muhammad with varying degrees of credibility, such as the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, the Idrisids, the current royal family of Morocco and Jordan, and the Ismaili imams who they use the title of Aga Khan.
Historical Significance of Muhammad
Before his death in 632, Muhammad had established Islam as a social, military, and religious force and unified Arabia. Some decades after his death, his successors conquered Persia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and much of North Africa, and twice besieged Constantinople, but failed to take it, preventing their advance into eastern Europe..
Between 711 and 716, the fight for the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula began for almost eight centuries, and in 732, one hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the Arab advance in the conquest of Western Europe was halted in the heart of France at the Battle of Poitiers.
Under the Ghaznavids, Islam spread in the X century to the major Hindu states east of the Indus River, in what is now northern India. The expansion of Islam continued without military invasions in various regions of Africa and Southeast Asia. Islam currently has more than 1.6 billion followers, making it the second largest religion in the world, after Christianity. However, the number of adherents is difficult to determine, since according to Islamic law apostasy must be punished with death. This fact can inhibit those who manifest their religious identity in areas with a Muslim majority.
After the Reconquest of Spain, which ended in 1492, and the various conversions to Catholicism in the following years (see its extension), Muslim images were officially and absolutely rejected. The scholar Sebastián de Covarrubias, in his Treasury of the Castilian or Spanish Language, begins Muhammad's entry with the comment "(that he would never have been born in the world)".
Veneration for Muhammad
Muslims profess love and veneration for Muhammad:
- Speaking of Mohammed, the allusion is accompanied by titles such as that of Prophet and his name is followed by blessings towards him and, in the case of Shiites, his family with the formula "bless God and give him his peace" (cf.sal-la allahu 'alaihi (wa alihi) wa sal-lam أعله عليه (و آله) وسلومor "peace and prayer be with him" (alaihi as-salatu wa-s-salam عليه الصلاة والسلام).
- There is a lot of Muslim music in veneration of Mohammed, especially the devotional music of the Sufies.
- Some Muslims celebrate the birth of Mohammed with great festivities, although it is not an extended tradition and many consider it an innovation contrary to the spirit of Islam and the Koranic precepts.
- Apart from the canonical stories of Hadiz, a compilation of sayings about the life of Muhammad and his companions, written about two centuries after his death Al Muwatta and Sahih al-Bujari, there are countless stories about his birth and life.
Images of Muhammad
The Qur'an does not explicitly forbid images of Muhammad but there are a few hadiths (supplementary traditions) that have outright prohibited Muslims from creating visual depictions of human figures under any circumstances. Most contemporary Sunni Muslims believe that Visual images of the prophets should generally be prohibited, and images of Muhammad most especially. The key insight is that Islam views the use of images as encouraging idolatry, because the image tends to become more important than the concept it represents. In Islamic art Muhammad usually appears with his face covered by a veil, or symbolically represented as a flame, however other images, especially from Persia or made during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, among other examples, show it completely.
The Islamic outlook is diverse, and some Muslims hold a more flexible view. Some, especially Iran's Shias, accept respectful imagery, and use illustrations of Muhammad in books and architectural decoration, like the Sunnis at various times and places in the past, although the latter now tend towards iconoclastic stances and rejection of any images of Muhammad, including those created and posted by non-Muslims.
Since the 7th century, the name of the prophet of Islam has known various stereotypes. Many sources mention exaggerated and sometimes wrong stereotypes. These stereotypes are born in the East, but will be adopted or developed in Western cultures. In these references, they play a major role in introducing Muhammad and his religion to the West as the false prophet, Saracen prince, deity of Saracens, the biblical beast, schismatic of Christianity and a satanic creature, the author of the Qur'an, and the Antichrist.
Objects attributed to Muhammad
In the Pavilion of the Holy Robe and Holy Relics, in the Topkapi Palace, in Istanbul, objects that would have belonged to Muhammad are exhibited, such as the Holy Robe, the bow and the sword of the prophet, soil from Muhammad's tomb and a footprint of his foot framed in bronze, as well as a hair from his beard and the reliquary where one of his teeth is kept.
Timeline
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