Muhammad was born in Mecca and spent the last ten years of his life at Medina. Both cities are in the rough highland, between the district of Nejd and the coast. This highland ridge goes by the name of the Hijaz or Barrier and is near the route of the traders’ caravans from South Arabia to Syria and the Mediterranean. Mecca and Yathrib (original name of Medina) on account of this caravan route rose to be cities of prominence. Mecca was specially important because it was also a place of resort for pilgrims long before the rise of Islam. At first this may have been because of the presence there of a remarkable meteoric stone, which still remains, sheltered by the Ka’ba and venerated by the whole Moslem world. Moslem tradition began early to elaborate the traditions of Mecca and has put them beyond the disentanglement of criticism. To the Moslem, Mecca was the city of Abraham who, with all the good saints of old, was a Moslem. The Moslems claim that the Jews and Christians have so perverted the original sacred scriptures of the Old Testament and the original faith, which was the Moslem faith, that not until Muhammad’s time were things seen in their true light. However, there were in Arabia in the period a little earlier than Muhammad forerunners, who were essentially monotheists, the so-called haneefs. Muhammad was, therefore, the renewer, not the inventor of Islam, the prophet to destroy the idolatries of Arabia which had accumulated in the jahiliyya, or uncivilized period. Certain members of Muhammad’s own household and tribe were among his earliest converts. His wife may have been the first. He seemed, to many of his own kinsfolk and townspeople, to be a dangerous innovator. They must have feared the effect of his iconoclastic teaching on the preëminent position of their city and on the incomes derived from the pilgrimages to its shrines.

The Ka‛ba itself, within which were ranged many idols, was in the special care of the prophet’s tribe, the Kuraysh, which was the leading tribe of Mecca. Before the birth of the prophet a city to the south of Mecca, called Sana, had been a competing shrine but had lost prestige in favor of Mecca. All Arabs had felt a thrill of triumph in the defeat inflicted on the forces of Persia at the battle of Dhu Qar in 610 A.D. Just as the ancient Greeks had felt an increased sense of solidarity when they discovered the decline of the supposedly powerful Persia of their day through the campaign of the younger Cyrus, so now the Arabs felt relief and gathered encouragement from the revelation of Persia’s weakness. Thus in the early lifetime of the prophet a number of forces, linguistic, religious and political, had joined with his sense of revelation and mission to make him an invincible leader. He was a thoroughly representative Arab, superior in mental power and religious fervor, sincere, of the order of Semitic prophets, the man for the hour in Arabia. He shrank at first from his call but was encouraged by his wife and by the devotion of a few friends and converts to go forward. He summoned the Meccans to renounce idols and to worship the one god. He was persecuted severely and would doubtless have lost his life except for his powerful family connections, which made it unsafe for his enemies to risk a blood feud. At last he took the step that made him the non-partisan apostle to Arabia and in 622 A.D., accepting the invitation of the citizens of Yathrib, he fled from his own house, where he was enduring a state of siege, and made his way to the town that was henceforth to be known as Medinet en-Neby, the Prophet’s City, or in its shorter form, Medina, The City. There he waxed prosperous and used the sword of vengeance as well as of conquest. Converts came individually and in groups. He campaigned against his own home city, Mecca, conquered it and purged it of many of its grosser abuses, including the idols. He sent letters to the sovereigns of Persia and Constantinople demanding submission. In 632 A.D. he died and was buried in Medina, where his tomb is the principle treasure of the great mosk. Within seventy years of Muhammad’s death his Arabs had conquered the whole of Egypt, North Africa to the Atlantic, the Spanish peninsula, and parts of India. Surely this was no ordinary man or influence that could thus turn the desert ranger into a citizen of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and turn so many provinces and kingdoms to the speech and doctrine of the Arab. Native populations in the conquered countries secured exemptions and brotherhood if they accepted the faith of Islam. Otherwise they paid tribute or were harried by the sword.

Four caliphs (successors) followed Muhammad at Medina. They kept close to the primitive ideal of the warring prophet of Islam. They were Abu Bakr, ‛Umar, ‛Uthman and ‛Ali. They fall within the thirty years after the death of the prophet. They were followed by a dynasty of rulers of less Muhammadan characteristics which established the government at Damascus. (661–750 A.D.) They were succeeded by still a different type of rulers, the princes of the House of Abbas at Bagdad. The Damascus House, known as the Umayyads, had wrested the power from ‛Ali and the Prophet’s family, but their success was always resented by the more southerly Arabs and fought especially by Iraq (Mesopotamia) and the Arabs near Persia. Thus the political unity of Islam was early broken up and is less and less likely to be restored. The real strength of Islam was abroad where Arabian soldiers were quartered in camp cities or were engaged in victorious armies and where their fateful fighting qualities and intense loyalty to the missionary idea of Islam made a distinctly contrasted class as against the populations they overcame by the sword or by conversion.

In all historic times desert Arabia has been a political hollow between the great powers. It was empty of the things for which civilization fought, but it was the home of a virile stock of nomads who possessed comparative freedom at least. In the deserts the type of life has not changed for thousands of years. Such a life is free because the outsider does not covet it. The native will relinquish it only gradually. The roaming Arab is bound by the inexorable natural conditions of his world and the social conventions which those conditions impose. His treasures are his family, his horse, and his instruments of petty warfare. Before Muhammad’s time, there were on the Eastern borders of Arabia princes who were practically subsidized by the Persian emperors. On the Western side were other princes under the protection of the Byzantine rulers, while in the far South were still other kingdoms and loyalties to political patrons, influenced at times by the kingdom of Abyssinia. Muhammad and his four successors gave this divided Arabia the completest unity it has ever known. At present it is reaching vaguely for something approaching that same unity. During the World War the Shereef of Mecca, with his sons, threw off the control of Turkey and made the Hijaz, which includes the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a free kingdom. Into this sacred land no Christian or other non-Moslem is supposed to step. Lawrence the intrepid went there to counsel with Emir Faysal, third son of the shereef, by special and dangerous arrangement. He found the Arabs resting after their initial campaign and stirred them to aggressive action, northward, to destroy the Turkish communications and to stir the more northerly Arabs to combine and to furnish support on the East and right of the operations under Allenby who was working up from Egypt through Palestine.

READING LIST

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES

PAGE
Gen.8: 22[22]
9: 6[169]
15: 2[63]
23: 11, 15[147]
24: 3, 4[53]
24: 25[135]
24: 60[53]
24: 65[57]
25: 34[79]
27: 5[168]
28: 2[53]
29: 22[59]
29: 26[54]
29: 34[54]
30: 14[25]
30: 20[54]
38: 18[91]
43: 23[161]
50: 3[100]
Ex.20: 12[71]
Num.20: 29[100]
22: 6[178]
22: 24[34]
35: 21[169]
36: 8–11[53]
Deut.4: 19[123]
8: 8[144]
11: 14[25]
12: 2[111]
14: 1[100]
14: 21[52]
15: 3[52]
19: 21[169]
21: 1–9[53]
22: 8[70]
22: 10[136]
22: 23, 24[55]
23: 20[52]
23: 25[134]
24: 20[140]
25: 4[136]
27: 17[132]
34: 6[119]
Josh.4: 3–5, 20[127]
5: 11[86]
15: 19[20]
21: 12[131]
Judges4: 19[84]
5: 6, 7[225]
5: 16[142]
5: 25[84]
6: 2[16]
6: 11[62]
12: 6[173]
13–15[17]
19: 5–8[161]
21: 25[225]
Ruth1: 20[74]
1: 22[136]
2: 8, 9[135]
2: 10[163]
2: 14[86]
2: 23[136]
1 Sam.1: 10, 11[117]
2: 12[175]
7: 5[38]
13: 5, 6[16]
14: 11, 22[16]
16: 12[47]
17: 28[142]
17: 40[142]
17: 43[178]
19: 24[99]
21: 12–15[99]
23: 1[136]
25: 35[161]
26: 20[168]
30: 6[38]
30: 12[81]
2 Sam.2: 12[73]
2: 29[153]
3: 27[169]
3: 31[100]
6: 14[119]
12: 16[100]
18: 17[116]
18: 33[100]
21: 9[136]
23: 4[23]
23: 20[23]
1 Kings6: 23, 31–33[39]
12: 18[38]
17: 7[15]
18: 4[16]
18: 28[120]
18: 43–45[24]
19: 9, 13[16]
20: 32[158]
21: 3[142]
2 Kings3: 25[38]
4: 19[95]
4: 39[87]
9: 17[44]
17: 24–41[125]
18: 26[174]
20: 7[94]
20: 20[22]
2 Chron.20: 7[114]
Neh.5: 4[227]
5: 15[180]
Job1: 1–3, 43[131]
14[133]
2: 11[94]
3: 1[178]
4: 7[118]
6: 15, 17[15]
9: 33[150]
21: 32[100]
29: 23[25]
Psalms1: 4[137]
23: 2[142]
55: 17[118]
55: 23[118]
63: 1[133]
65: 9–13[25]
91[118]
104: 10[16]
107: 4–7[35]
126: 5, 6[135]
127: 3–5[53]
129: 6[27]
131: 2[66]
144: 12–15[51]
Prov.11: 22[183]
12: 27[168]
13: 3[182]
15: 17[182]
15: 27[180]
16: 15[25]
18: 23[161]
21: 19[182]
21: 23[182]
25: 16[183]
25: 23[26]
26: 1[24]
26: 2[178]
Eccl.2: 6[21]
7: 17[118]
12: 5[100]
Song2: 11[22]
2: 12[28]
2: 15[31]
4: 2[20]
5: 10[47]
6: 6[20]
7: 13[25]
Isa.5: 2, 34, 38[139]
5: 5[140]
5: 6[139]
5: 23[180]
9: 3[135]
28: 4[40]
28: 24, 25[133]
32: 2[28]
33: 12, 35[151]
35: 7[19]
40: 11[141]
41: 8[114]
41: 15[136]
41: 18[19]
42: 15[19]
50: 2[180]
59: 1[180]
61: 10[59]
Jer.2: 32[59]
3: 3[25]
4: 3, 36[133]
5: 24[25]
6: 16[35]
6: 26[100]
8: 20[25]
9: 17[100]
18: 17[25]
22: 18[100]
Ezek.17: 10[25]
19: 12[25]
34: 14[35]
Hosea6: 3[25]
10: 11[136]
10: 12, 36[133]
13: 3[12]
13: 15[25]
Joel2: 23[25]
2: 24[136]
Amos4: 7[25]
5: 12[180]
9: 9[137]
Jonah4: 8[25]
Micah4: 12, 13[136]
Hab.1: 13[180]
Zech.8: 5[69]
10: 1[25]
Matt.3: 4[84]
3: 9[114]
4: 5[38]
4: 18[84]
5: 14[34]
5: 38, 39[169]
5: 44–46[52]
5: 47[162]
6: 5[118]
6: 30[79]
7: 19[39]
8: 14[94]
8: 28[99]
9: 15[58]
12: 1[134]
13: 3[133]
13: 25–30[135]
13: 44, 157[214]
21: 33[139]
22: 3, 4[161]
23: 7[161]
23: 27[111]
23: 37[38]
24: 20[23]
24: 41[92]
25: 32[140]
26: 23[89]
26: 73[48]
27: 25[169]
27: 53[38]
Mark4: 29[136]
5: 27[120]
12: 40[180]
13: 18[23]
Luke1: 61[73]
10: 40[92]
15: 16[88]
19: 2, 8[226]
24: 36[161]
John4:16, 21[125]
4: 9[125]
5: 8, 9[76]
8: 39[114]
8: 59[38]
9: 7[22]
10: 31[38]
12: 13[124]
12: 20[125]
12: 36[175]
13: 5[124]
15[37]
Acts5: 15[120]
19: 12[120]
Gal.3: 19[150]
1 Tim.2: 5[150]
Heb.8: 6[150]
9: 15[150]
12: 24[150]
James2: 23[114]
5: 7[25]

GENERAL INDEX