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MUHAMMAD
& ISLAM: Stories not told before.
By
Mohammad Asghar
PART
- 3
Evaluating Muhammad from the above perspectives, one would
find that he was one of the few exceptional persons who lived on our earth.
Though he grew up in a particular religious environment, yet when situations
demanded, he was not only able to throw off his childhood indoctrination that
evolved around idolatry; he was also able to introduce and adapt himself to a
new religion that suited his as well as his people's interests. The stated
metamorphosis on Muhammad's part was possible because, apart from being an
exceptionally able person, he was also, in his heart, a true nationalist, who,
being motivated to help his people, did everything that was necessary to make
their lives better.
Contrary to the Muslim conviction that Muhammad was originally created by God
as a believer in His Oneness, he is reported to have worshipped and offered
sacrifices to Al-Uzza, an idol the pagans believed to be one of the three
daughters of God (cf. 42:52). The Quraish venerated Al-Uzza highly, believing
that her intercession on their behalf would be acceptable to God, her father.
One of his uncles was named after this idol, and he was called Abd al Uzza,
the slave of Uzza, before he was nicknamed Abu Lahab, the Father of Flame, by
his Muslim foes.
On Muhammad's pagan backgrounds, F. E. Peters wrote:
According to a famous, though much edited, tradition, it was young Muhammad
who was the pagan and Zayd ibn Amr who was the monotheist. Peters also quoted
Zayd ibn Haritha, who is said to have narrated the following story to his son:
The Prophet slaughtered a ewe for one of the idols (nusub min al-ansab); then
he roasted it and carried it with him. … (Muhammad and the Origins of
Islam, p. 126).
While preaching the oneness of God, Muhammad continued, in one form or
another, to venerate the idols-up to the time he conquered Mecca-when all the
idols housed inside and outside the Ka'aba he had finally destroyed.
In his early life, Muhammad was no different than other youths of his time. He
used to "spend his nights in Mecca as young men did" - - - (Ibn
Ishaq. Op. cit, p. 81) - - - in quarters where whores offered their bodies to
youths whom they expected to defend them in times of perils. His marriage with
Khudeija might have had altered his lifestyle to a certain degree, but it was
not a good enough reason for him to abandon his earlier habits in their
entirety.
Muhammad was also a frequent attainder of fairs, which, in Arabia, were not
always the mere venues of business activities, but also occasionally scenes of
poetic contests between different individuals, where prizes were adjudged to
the victors. Such especially was the case with the fair of Oqadh; winning
poems were hung up as trophies on the walls of Ka'aba. At these fairs, also,
contestants recited the popular traditions of the Arabs. They also propagated
various religious practices that were then common in the peninsula. From oral
sources of this kind, Muhammad gradually accumulated varied information about
creeds and doctrines, which he afterwards prescribed for his own followers.
As was the wont of his tribe, Muhammad also used to retire to a cave in Mount
Hira to practice penance on the 10th of Muharram, a day sacred to the Jews as
well. Following the Jewish custom, he also fasted on this day (Philip K. Hitti,
History of the Arabs, p. 133. Also see Karen Armstrong's A History of God, p.
132).
USE OF ALCOHOL IN ISLAM
Muslims venerate Muhammad as being abstemious in his physical life. This point
of view contradicts a natural phenomenon. He was part of a society that must
have made him susceptible to all of its practices. If he wanted to have
protection of his tribe, without which, none could have survived in the
hostile Arabian societies, he must have participated in his society's
indulgences, which included drinking of a highly stinking liquor called
maghafir, as well as wine. The native Arabs made maghafir by extracting juice
of the palm-trees and then fermenting it before consumption (16:67.Also see
Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Asmani Quran Sharif, p. 902).
Because the Arabs were generally addicted to drinking, the Quran did not
actually describe drinking of alcohol as "Haram" or forbidden in the
strict sense of the word; what it required Muslims of was not to offer their
prayers in a state of drunkenness (4:43), and that they try to "avoid or
refrain" from drinking (5:93,94), thus corroborating in part, the
condition, which the Torah and the Bible imposed, respectively, on Jews and
the Christians (Leviticus, 10:9).
Under the circumstances described, it is to be understood that since Muhammad
himself drank maghafir and wine, he must have thought it to be a prudent
decision to remain vague on the subject of drinking. At the same time, he must
have considered it politic to ask his followers gently to moderate their
intake of alcohol, he himself having experienced, in his own life, the adverse
impact of excessive drinking.
When working for various Meccan merchants, Muhammad came to know the amounts
of profits they were making out of their businesses. He also realized how they
spent their wealth on making their and their children's lives better. The
reflections of his own childhood plights and sufferings convinced him that the
merchants of Mecca not only neglected the city's poor and needy; they were
also unkind to the orphans. This realization turned him against the merchants,
and he took a vow to force them one day to share their wealth with him and his
poor people.
He also had a feeling of ill will towards the custodians of the Ka'aba. He
accused them not only of debarring "others from the Sacred Mosque"
(8:34); he also questioned their right to be its guardians. He believed that
by misusing their authority, they avoided sharing the temple's revenues with
those to whom a part of the revenues rightfully belonged. In his judgment,
only the God-fearing and those people, who were willing to share the temple's
wealth with poor and orphans, had the right to be the Ka'aba's guardian.
The financial independence that his well-paid job brought him also gave him an
opportunity to look back and recount the treatments he had received from the
ladies of Abd al Motallib and Abu Talib's families. He also recalled his
abandonment in Mecca by his mother. The combined incidences that he had
endured made him bitter. He felt betrayed, especially by the women he expected
to be caring, kind and loving.
The reoccurrence in his mind of the past humiliations, betrayal, ill
treatments and insults rekindled in him his tribal instincts of retribution.
He vowed to avenge his sufferings in a subtle, systematic and effective
manner. The treatment of women prescribed in, and the restrictions imposed on
them, through the Quran as well as Muhammad's own treatment of his wives
should be good examples for proving our point.
With the passage of time, Muhammad became determined in his ambitions. The
more he thought about his them, the more plans came to his mind. The more he
talked to his friends, the more input he got from them on many of their common
concerns. Positive thoughts and responses prepared him to go into
offensive to realize what he set out for him to be his goals.
By the age of twenty-five, Muhammad was able to finalize all the details of
his scheme. This was also the ripe time for him to get married, but he could
not marry any eligible woman. He needed to marry a woman who was willing not
only to support him financially, but also to become his partner in the scheme
he had prepared for his future implementation. And there were not too many
women in Mecca, who could fulfill his criterions, and become his wife.
At the time Muhammad was looking for a suitable bride, there lived in Mecca a
widow named Khudeija, a daughter of Khuwalid, of the tribe of Quraish. She had
been twice married. Her last husband, a wealthy merchant, had recently died
and his widow needed to hire help to manage her vast business interests.
Khudeija had a cousin by the name of Waraqa ibn Nofal. He was a professed
monotheist and is believed to have translated portions of the Gospels into
Arabic. He wielded much influence over his sister Khudeija, she being alleged
to be a regular reader of his works (Sir John Glubb, The Life and Times of
Muhammad, p. 68). Both of them held identical views on religious matters, but
in cases where they differed, the opinion of Waraqa always prevailed.
Muhammad had become acquainted with Khuzaima, a nephew of Khudeija, during his
business trips. The latter had seen the former conducting his business in an
efficient and profitable manner, and he was impressed. After their return
home, they met frequently in and around the temple of Ka'aba, where Muhammad
loved to spend his time after carrying out, in the manner of hajj, seven
circuits, around the shrine.
One day, in course of his conversation with Khuzaima, Muhammad expressed his
desire to find a job that would pay him more than what he was being paid by
his current employer. Khuzaima told him that his aunt Khudeija was looking for
a capable agent and that he might be a perfect candidate for the job. He
promised to talk to Khudeija about him and also try to arrange an interview
for him with her.
Khuzaima kept his words, and he talked to Khudeija. She agreed to meet the
candidate at an early date.
On the appointed date and time, Muhammad presented himself before Khudeija.
She looked and found a twenty-five years old man standing before her eyes. He
was of medium stature, inclined to slimness, with a large head, broad
shoulders, and an otherwise perfectly proportioned body. His hair and beard
were thick and black, not altogether straight but slightly curled. His hair
reached midway between the lobes of his ears and his shoulders, and his beard
was of a length to match. He had a noble breadth of forehead and the ovals of
his large eyes were wide, with exceptionally long lashes and extensive brows,
slightly arched and not joined. His eyes were said to have been brown or even
light brown. His nose was aquiline and his mouth was wide and finely shaped.
Although he let his beard grow, he never allowed the hair of his moustache to
protrude over his upper lips. His skin was white but tanned by the sun
(Description copied from Martin Lings' Muhammad, p. 35).
His voice had a touch of music and the sentences he spoke were as rhythmic as
the poems of the famed Arabian poet Labid. Khudeija was highly impressed, and
she hired Muhammad to run her business.
She assigned her nephew Khuzaima and her slave girl Maisara to him so that
they could assist him during the trade missions that he was expected to lead
to Syria, the Yemen and other destinations from time to time. During all his
missions, he performed all of his duties most diligently, thus earning for
himself the admiration of his employer. She afterwards sent him to the
southern parts of Arabia on similar pursuits, in all of which he achieved
successes beyond his employer's expectation. Every opportunity Muhammad got to
prove his worth, he did his best to excel it so that he could endear himself
to his employer; every time Khudeija heard about his success; it enhanced in
her not only his esteem, but also his fondness.
While Muhammad was applying all his tools to climb the ladder of success,
Khudeija turned forty, her age having enabled her to gather the valuable
judgment and experience that was necessary to lead a successful life. She
longed for a partner who could give her all that that she had been missing
ever since her last husband had died. She considered many probable candidates,
but, at the end, her choice fell on Muhammad.
Although her heart yearned for the fresh and comely youth, yet she restrained
herself before taking steps to fulfill her desire. She had to overcome the
ancient Arab tradition that barred women of her age from getting married,
together with the objections she expected from her family members. Of
particular concern to her was the attitude of her uncle, Amr ibn Asaad,
without whose approval it would have been almost impossible for her to marry
the man of her choice. She needed to create situations that would not only
make the man appear special, but would also force her uncle to sanction her
marriage with the man as well.
Soon an opportunity presented itself for Khudeija to exploit. One day at noon,
she was with her maids outside her house, watching the arrival of the caravan
conducted by Muhammad. As it approached its termination point, an errant patch
of cloud appeared on the horizon, blocking momentarily the sun's rays from
reaching the earth. Seizing the opportunity, she shouted to her maids and
exclaimed: "Behold! It is the beloved of Allah, (i.e. the same deity of
Ka'aba the pagans called "Allah") who sent two angels to watch over
him!"
Her maids strained their eyes and looked out as far as they could see in an
effort to locate the angels, but they saw none. Having inkling of their
mistress's passionate feelings towards her heartthrob, Muhammad, they joined
hands with her, and repeated loudly what she had told them. The purpose behind
such an exercise was to boost Muhammad's image, through publicizing, what
Khudeija had made out to be a divine favor as well as to warn her uncle of the
consequences from heaven should he reject Muhammad's proposal to marry his
niece.
Thus creating a ground that going to support her cause, she wished to waste no
time and offered herself secretly in marriage to Muhammad through her trusted
slave, Maisara. Muhammad had been waiting for such a miracle to happen, and
when he got the offer, he accepted it without wasting any time. The major
success thus achieved, he, as the Arabian tradition required, needed to make a
formal proposal of marriage to Khudeija's uncle Amr ibn Assad who acted then
as her guardian, her father having been previously killed in a sacrilegious
war.
The Arabian marriage traditions vastly differed from the ones observed by the
non-Arab Muslims of the present day. Under the Arab tradition practiced even
today, the groom has to propose the marriage to his would-be bride through her
parents or guardians, and if they accept the offer, the groom is required to
pay dowers to this betrothed's parents or guardians in order to enable him to
marry their daughter or ward. Arabian marriages do not involve religious
sanctions. Contrary to the Arabian tradition, the non-Arab Muslim brides are
required to pay dowers to their grooms and marriages are solemnized, with
religion playing a major part.
Following their tradition, Abu Taleb and Hamza, two of Muhammad's uncles,
accompanied their nephew to Khudeija's house, where she secretly arranged a
party. She had not, it seems, broken the news to her uncle; she intentionally
kept him unaware of the significance of the occasion. In the presence of all
men, Muhammad sought from Amr ibn Assad his niece Khudeija's hand in marriage,
hearing which the old man flew into a rage and declined the union. He
explained that everything was against such an idea: Muhammad's age, the fact
that he was in Khudeija's employment and, above all, he did not have enough
money to justify his marriage with a wealthy lady. In his mind, the marriage
meant dispersing her wealth, instead of keeping it in her family. Subsequent
events proved that the old man was right in his thinking.
Khudeija had anticipated such a situation and had prepared herself to handle
it in a favorable manner. She methodically plied her uncle with wine until he
was drunk. On cue, Abu Taleb delivered a forceful speech, laying out all the
splendid qualities that his nephew supposedly possessed. After him, Khudeija
herself made a fiery speech, describing how the angels had protected him from
heat, and also eulogizing all the deeds that Muhammad had performed for her
and the family. In the end, she exhorted her uncle to recognize Muhammad's
favors, and to accept him as his son-in-law.
Following Khudeija's speech, all present prompted Amr ibn Assad to respond to
it.
Before he knew what all was about, he made a speech approving the marriage.
Waraqa ibn Nofal promptly seconded; whereupon, Muhammad at once clothed the
old man in the robe, which according to the Arabian tradition, a son-in-law
gave his father-in-law at a wedding. Khudeija immediately had the contract of
marriage drawn and signed, signifying the conclusion of the marriage before
her uncle could realize that he was duped and declared the marriage void. This
marriage is believed to have taken place in 595 A.D., when Muhammad was
twenty-five and his bride forty years old.
The incident narrated concerning Khudeija's marriage with Muhammad deserves a
special focus, not only because it was a milestone in the life of the future
prophet of Islam, but also because it illustrates the position occupied by
women in pre-Islamic Arabia. We have noted that Khudeija was an independent
woman who ran her own business and it was she, not her future husband, who had
first proposed the marriage. Apart from her, we also know that there were
other women in pre-Islamic days who not only took part in the affairs of Mecca
by the side of their men, they also participated in business ventures without
having their men involved in them. They, moreover, often exercised
considerable influence as prophetesses or as poetesses.
At the annual fairs in the neighborhood of Mecca, particularly at the fair of
Oqhad, women are known to have entered along with men in poetic contests and
recited their price-winning poems before the public.
The above observations provide us a glimpse of the extent of freedom that the
women of Arabia enjoyed before the dawn of Islam and negate the claim of the
Muslim doctors who tell us that it was Islam, which granted them the freedom
with which they have been living their lives in our modern world. In reality,
the contrary is the fact. It is, in truth, Islam, which has snatched away much
of women's previous freedom and liberties, and made them slaves to the whims
and fancies of their men.
MUHAMMAD'S LIFE STYLE AFTER HIS MARRIAGE WITH KHUDEIJA
As Muhammad expected, his marriage with Khudeija changed his life. It placed
him among the most wealthy and influential of his native city. He was no more
a servant; to the contrary, he came the owner of his wife's wealth and
business. People began to respect him. They also allowed him to participate in
both their casual and formal meetings, a privilege that was denied him before
on account of his circumstances.
During this time, he lived in a household where the resident oracle influenced
him greatly in his religious opinions. This was his wife's cousin Waraqa ibn
Nofal, a man of speculative mind and flexible faith; originally a Jew,
subsequently a Christian, at the same time, being a pretender of astrology.
After the marriage, Muhammad continued to work for his wife as before but now
with a freedom that afforded him much time to build his image among the
people. To achieve his mission, he carried himself well socially. He succeeded
in establishing himself as a role model among the people, not only by
dispensing favors but also by dealing with them even-handedly in situations
that offered him the sought after opportunities to get himself involved.
Herein, we shall describe a crisis that involved the Meccan people and which,
we are told, he helped resolve amicably thereby earning for himself the
admiration of the people.
In 605 A.D., when Muhammad was thirty-five years old, the people of Quraish
decided to roof the Ka'aba, which, it appears, had hitherto consisted of only
four walls with no covering on top. An examination of the masonry revealed
that the existing walls were too weak to support the weight of a roof,
whereupon, the Meccans decided to demolish the entire structure, and, in its
place, to build a new edifice with a roof on top of it. After building the
walls, the people faced the dilemma of finding the wooden planks and a
carpenter to make the roof, for neither of these two existed at the time in
the entire land of Arabia.
During their plight, it so happened that a ship, belonging to a Greek merchant
wrecked, possibly on the coral reefs of Jeddah. This accident provided the
desperate Meccans with the ship's timbers for the roof, which an Egyptian
Copt. Carpenter, who happened to be in Mecca at the time, undertook to erect
at their behest.
The story of roofing the Ka'aba brings to light an important aspect of the
Meccan life of the time. The fact that the temple itself had no roof bolsters
the position of those who maintain that since the "House of God"
had, in all probability, consisted merely of tents surrounded by walls, the
Meccans of the time must also have lived, out of compulsion, in homes built
without roofs.
A large black stone, possibly a meteorite, had been built into the wall of the
primitive Ka'aba. The Meccans as well as the pagan pilgrims regarded it with
peculiar veneration. When the building of the walls reached the level at which
the black stone had formerly been planted, each of the clans of the Quraish
demanded the privilege of placing the stone back in its original position.
Excited and heated debate ensued, and an outbreak of violence, bordering on
bloodshed, seemed imminent.
At this juncture, Abu Umaiya of the clan of Bani Makhzoom, said to be the
oldest man of the tribe of Quraish, came up with a suggestion. He proposed
that all present should agree that the first man who entered the court of the
Ka'aba from that moment on should be asked to judge the dispute. All agreed
and began to await the arrival of such a man.
A few minutes later, they saw Muhammad entering the sacred premises. Informed
of the pact that the Meccans had agreed to, he called for a cloak, spread it
on the ground and laid the black stone upon it. He then asked one
representative of every clan to take hold of the edge of the cloak and to
raise the stone together to the required height. Once this was done, he, with
his own hands, laid the stone in position in the wall, thus resolving a deadly
issue with a brilliant presence of mind.
This episode is said to have enhanced his stature and esteem, prompting people
to refer their disputes to him for resolution.
THE CALL FROM GOD
In the period following Muhammad's marriage with Khudeija
but before the commencement of his preaching of the oneness of God, many
religiously sensitive men in Mecca are said to have withdrawn from the idol
worshipping of Ka'aba. Prominent among them were: 1. Waraqa ibn Nofal, 2.
Ubaydullah ibn Jahsh, 3. Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith and 4. Zaid ibn Amr. Many
other pagans also converted to monotheism with the realization that their
people had corrupted the religion of their father Abraham and that the stones
they circled around were of no account. In conclusion, they wished to see a
change in form and substance of their antiquated religion. Others, having
grown disillusioned with Judaism and Christianity, went their ways in the
search elsewhere in the land, seeking Hanifiya, the pure religion of Abraham (Ibn
Ishaq, op. cit. p. 99)
They were particularly interested in seeing Hanifiya introduced once again,
for the reason that they believed that when Abraham, their distant forefather,
had control over the House of God, he shared its income with all of Mecca's
people, thus helping many among them avoid hunger and destitution. The
present custodians were selfish, who not only ate up all its income, they also
maintained a constant grip on their extra religious activities. They wanted
all injustices and restrictions from the Ka'aba's custodians to end.
The manipulative and opportunistic Waraqa ibn Nofal, having observed the
Meccan's suffering and disenchantment with idol worshipping, felt confident,
at this stage, in introducing his doctrine of One God as well as the concept
of resurrection. As he could not do it himself, he began looking for someone
from among the influential tribes of Mecca to undertake the mission on his
behalf. He consulted his sister Khudeija, and both of them found a candidate
in their midst by the name of Muhammad Mustafa, who fulfilled the criteria
both of them considered necessary to accomplish the arduous and risky task.
Upon confiding in him, they found him more than willing to oblige them with
his cooperation - - - not merely for their sake but for his own cause as well,
for he himself cherished a dream to dislodge the Ka'aba's custodians from
their positions by introducing monotheism together with reining in the Meccan
trading community, whom he considered to be a selfish and greedy bunch of
despicable people.
Since his marriage with Khudeija, Muhammad had plenty of time to reflect on
what he had heard and learned during his caravan journeys and also from the
people he had the opportunity of mingling with when they came to Mecca, either
on pilgrimage or for trade. The indoctrination of the hermit Bahira also
recurred in his mind, giving him the conviction that the idolatrous pagans
should be made to worship only one true Allah, whose nemesis already lived in
the form of a statue in the Ka'aba and that this Allah should rule their
hearts and minds as well. Muhammad picked up the name Allah to represent his
lone God for the reason that the pagans were already acquainted with this God,
making it thus unnecessary for him to explain afresh his nature and attributes
to them.
Thus determined, Muhammad proceeded to implement his concepts and doctrines,
most of which he borrowed from Judaism and Christianity, and haphazardly
stored in his memory. His own preparations notwithstanding, he recognized the
fact that his mission was going to present him with enormous challenges, to
overcome which, he wished to learn more about the Jewish Torah as well as
about the Christian Scriptures. He also desired to know as much as was
possible about the Talmud and Midrash traditions, then current among the
Jewish groups. Waraqa concurred, and they decided that they should begin the
teaching and learning process forthwith.
The process could not be begun form Muhammad's or Waraqa's home, lest it be
known to other people of the city. Muhammad, perhaps, influenced by those
Christian hermits whom, he had seen on his trips to Syria, living in caves,
chose one of the caves of Mount Hira for achieving their purpose. Muhammad and
Waraqa took to spending most of their time in the cave, often, joined by
Khudeija, who, as we have noted earlier, was known to have studied the Gospels
at the urging of her cousin, Waraqa. Waraqa found his student to have an
uncommonly retentive memory and a voracious appetite for learning. He poured
out all the knowledge of Midrash and Talmud that he had, knowing fully well
that Muhammad, during the propagation of his faith, would have to depend
heavily on what he taught him before the commencement of his mission.
Part
4
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