jack404
03-02-2010, 06:18 PM
Before Mohammad, Arabia was inhabited by Bedouins; Mecca was a religious and commercial center. Arabs were polytheists, and they worshipped a black meteorite in a Ka'aba at Mecca as well as many thousands of other dieties.
Mohammad was born in 571 to a middle-class family. He traveled with a caravan, so he had contact with Christianity and Judaism. In 610, Mohammad was sitting in a cave, and the angel Gabriel gave him a message from Allah. He was commanded to write down all of his visions. He did so, and by 615, he had developed a very strict monotheism. He tried to convert the residents of Mecca, but he did not succeed. He was forced to flee Mecca on 16 July 622 becuase of an assassination attempt; this is known as the Hijrah, or the beginning of Islam.
Mohammad fled to Medina, where he was more successful in finding converts. He appealed to the Jews, and acknowledged the Old and New Testaments as coming from Allah. When the local Christians and Jews rejected him, he changed the direction of his prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca, marking the beginning of a truly new relgion.
Mohammad and his followers began to hijack caravans, and he distributed the booty equally among his followers; word of this spread, and the number of followers increased dramatically. By 627, Mohammad had driven the Jews out of Medina and converted those who stayed. The Bedouin became keenly interested in this new religion; they saw its potential to united Arabia. In 630, Mohammad marched with an army back to Mecca, and the Meccans surrendered without a fight. He became a religious and political ruler, imposing Islam on his subjects. He also made the Ka'aba in which the meteorite was housed into an object of worship for Moslems; he said it had been built by Abraham and sent by Allah as a symbol of revelation to Mohammad.
The basic duties of Moslems are summed up in the five pillars of Islam. Mohammad's writings are compiled in the Qur'an, which most Moslems agree should be read only in Arabic. He also instituted the idea of the Jihad. Moselms were to convert the entire world, and warfare was an effective means to that end; those who resist conversion could be killed. The incentive to warriors was that, if they died in battle, they went to the highest heaven, a very sensual place. The promise of plunder, combined with the idea of eternal reward, led to many Jihads in the next few centuries, mostly in the Middle East and northern Africa.
When Mohammad died in 632 ( fixed reference ponycar ), he did not name a successor and left no sons. His advisors took over, and the next four leaders of Islam are known as the Four Caliphs. Abu Bakr was the first; he was Mohammad's father-in-law, and he laid foundations for future Jihads by organzing the Bedoiun tribes. Umar was next, and he invaded Persia, Syria, Egypt, and northern Africa. After him came Uthman, who conquered even more territory and developed a navy based in Alexandria. He was murdered by Ali, the next Caliph. Ali was the leader of the Shi'ites, and was Mohammad's adopted son. The Shi'ites believe that the other three Caliphs were illegitimate, as opposed to the Sunni Moslems, the sect that includes most Moslems and believes all Four Caliphs to be legitimate. The Moslems caused many problems for Europeans during the Middle Ages, and they were plagued by Europeans as well during the Crusades.
the Fourth Caliph (Khalîf) rose to power in spite of great protest as people saw him as more scholar and poet than a political leader and his supporters the Shî'a (partisans) were suddenly pitched in civil war with the more orthodox Sunni ('Followers of the Path'). This led the schism and splinter of Islam, and those two groups quickly divided into still smaller sectarian groups. The Shî'a believed the new Imam was himself divine, and that the soul of the Prophet Muhammed passed through each (much like the Pope of the Catholic Church is considered infallible). One of the key tools in the growth of Isma'îlianism (a branch of the Shî'a) who followed the line of the seventh Imam (and so were also called 'Seveners') was the use of their devotees (fid'is) to convert or eliminate opponents as a final act of dedication to the grand master. The Syrian term for the followers was the hashshashin, or hashish takers, and when the Crusaders stumbled into their territory in the Levant, that term was taken as assassin, who were soon feared throughout the Middle East and beyond for their silence and severity.
In order to survive the reprisals of their sworn enemies, the Isma'îlî began the practice of taqîya (the ritual concealment of belief as religious practice)1 which by the 10th c. was considered obligatory along most trade routes, pilgram paths and cities in the Arab world. As Burton later explains it was 'the systematic concealment of anything that concerns their faith, history and customs', and this was practiced to the point of art among the Sunnis. However the peace of this polite compromise of concealment did not last. By the 13th c., the Holoku Khan, a Moslem mongol prince, declared open war upon the Shî'a heresy and his armies overran the Fida'is fortresses in Persia. The Central Isma'îlî stronghold at Alamüt was captured and some 12,000 slaughtered. The Seveners in Syria were likewise hunted and exterminated out of fear of their unseen practices and revenge. The struggle between these two groups within Islam continues unabated today.2 The Iran - Iraq War of the 1980s were fought along these same lines of doctrine (though again, religious rhetoric often conceals a more profane, political motive, as with every conflict).
Sources:
1. The challenge of fundamentalism : political Islam and the new world disorder / Bassam Tibi Berkeley : University of California Press, 1998.
2. Muslim kingship : power and the sacred in Muslim, Christian and pagan polities / Aziz Al-Azmeh. London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 1997.
Notes:
1 Would that the frighteningly devout fundamentalist movements today (of all creeds) had the foresight, grace and general social manners to do the same, and not be so painfully obvious. Clearly 10th century Arabia was a uniquely civilized time.
2 Like the Catholics & Protestants in Northern Ireland, or the orthodox and liberal Sikhs in Southeast Asia, these religious splits begin largely over politics rather than doctrine, and only acquire a theological tone after some time (usually as a pretext to further violence).
cheers
jack
Mohammad was born in 571 to a middle-class family. He traveled with a caravan, so he had contact with Christianity and Judaism. In 610, Mohammad was sitting in a cave, and the angel Gabriel gave him a message from Allah. He was commanded to write down all of his visions. He did so, and by 615, he had developed a very strict monotheism. He tried to convert the residents of Mecca, but he did not succeed. He was forced to flee Mecca on 16 July 622 becuase of an assassination attempt; this is known as the Hijrah, or the beginning of Islam.
Mohammad fled to Medina, where he was more successful in finding converts. He appealed to the Jews, and acknowledged the Old and New Testaments as coming from Allah. When the local Christians and Jews rejected him, he changed the direction of his prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca, marking the beginning of a truly new relgion.
Mohammad and his followers began to hijack caravans, and he distributed the booty equally among his followers; word of this spread, and the number of followers increased dramatically. By 627, Mohammad had driven the Jews out of Medina and converted those who stayed. The Bedouin became keenly interested in this new religion; they saw its potential to united Arabia. In 630, Mohammad marched with an army back to Mecca, and the Meccans surrendered without a fight. He became a religious and political ruler, imposing Islam on his subjects. He also made the Ka'aba in which the meteorite was housed into an object of worship for Moslems; he said it had been built by Abraham and sent by Allah as a symbol of revelation to Mohammad.
The basic duties of Moslems are summed up in the five pillars of Islam. Mohammad's writings are compiled in the Qur'an, which most Moslems agree should be read only in Arabic. He also instituted the idea of the Jihad. Moselms were to convert the entire world, and warfare was an effective means to that end; those who resist conversion could be killed. The incentive to warriors was that, if they died in battle, they went to the highest heaven, a very sensual place. The promise of plunder, combined with the idea of eternal reward, led to many Jihads in the next few centuries, mostly in the Middle East and northern Africa.
When Mohammad died in 632 ( fixed reference ponycar ), he did not name a successor and left no sons. His advisors took over, and the next four leaders of Islam are known as the Four Caliphs. Abu Bakr was the first; he was Mohammad's father-in-law, and he laid foundations for future Jihads by organzing the Bedoiun tribes. Umar was next, and he invaded Persia, Syria, Egypt, and northern Africa. After him came Uthman, who conquered even more territory and developed a navy based in Alexandria. He was murdered by Ali, the next Caliph. Ali was the leader of the Shi'ites, and was Mohammad's adopted son. The Shi'ites believe that the other three Caliphs were illegitimate, as opposed to the Sunni Moslems, the sect that includes most Moslems and believes all Four Caliphs to be legitimate. The Moslems caused many problems for Europeans during the Middle Ages, and they were plagued by Europeans as well during the Crusades.
the Fourth Caliph (Khalîf) rose to power in spite of great protest as people saw him as more scholar and poet than a political leader and his supporters the Shî'a (partisans) were suddenly pitched in civil war with the more orthodox Sunni ('Followers of the Path'). This led the schism and splinter of Islam, and those two groups quickly divided into still smaller sectarian groups. The Shî'a believed the new Imam was himself divine, and that the soul of the Prophet Muhammed passed through each (much like the Pope of the Catholic Church is considered infallible). One of the key tools in the growth of Isma'îlianism (a branch of the Shî'a) who followed the line of the seventh Imam (and so were also called 'Seveners') was the use of their devotees (fid'is) to convert or eliminate opponents as a final act of dedication to the grand master. The Syrian term for the followers was the hashshashin, or hashish takers, and when the Crusaders stumbled into their territory in the Levant, that term was taken as assassin, who were soon feared throughout the Middle East and beyond for their silence and severity.
In order to survive the reprisals of their sworn enemies, the Isma'îlî began the practice of taqîya (the ritual concealment of belief as religious practice)1 which by the 10th c. was considered obligatory along most trade routes, pilgram paths and cities in the Arab world. As Burton later explains it was 'the systematic concealment of anything that concerns their faith, history and customs', and this was practiced to the point of art among the Sunnis. However the peace of this polite compromise of concealment did not last. By the 13th c., the Holoku Khan, a Moslem mongol prince, declared open war upon the Shî'a heresy and his armies overran the Fida'is fortresses in Persia. The Central Isma'îlî stronghold at Alamüt was captured and some 12,000 slaughtered. The Seveners in Syria were likewise hunted and exterminated out of fear of their unseen practices and revenge. The struggle between these two groups within Islam continues unabated today.2 The Iran - Iraq War of the 1980s were fought along these same lines of doctrine (though again, religious rhetoric often conceals a more profane, political motive, as with every conflict).
Sources:
1. The challenge of fundamentalism : political Islam and the new world disorder / Bassam Tibi Berkeley : University of California Press, 1998.
2. Muslim kingship : power and the sacred in Muslim, Christian and pagan polities / Aziz Al-Azmeh. London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 1997.
Notes:
1 Would that the frighteningly devout fundamentalist movements today (of all creeds) had the foresight, grace and general social manners to do the same, and not be so painfully obvious. Clearly 10th century Arabia was a uniquely civilized time.
2 Like the Catholics & Protestants in Northern Ireland, or the orthodox and liberal Sikhs in Southeast Asia, these religious splits begin largely over politics rather than doctrine, and only acquire a theological tone after some time (usually as a pretext to further violence).
cheers
jack