Muhammad

by Karen Armstrong

  His weakness probably affected the position of some of the more vulnerable Muslims. Abu Bakr, for example, had been almost ruined by the boycott. He lived in the district of the Jumah clan, and its chief, the corpulent Ummayah ibn Khalaf who used to expose Bilal to the sun, now felt free to do the same to Abu Bakr, tying him to his young cousin and leaving them, parched and sick, in this humiliating position in the sweltering heat. Taym, their clan, was too weak to protect them, so, realizing that he had no future in Mecca, Abu Bakr set off to join the Muslim emigrant community in Abyssinia. But on the road, he met Ibn Dughunnah, one of the Bedouin allies of the Quraysh, who was horrified to hear what had happened. He insisted on returning to Mecca, and formally took Abu Bakr under his own protection. Since the Qurayshan establishment was anxious to cultivate Ibn Dughunnah, they agreed to this arrangement, but asked him to make sure that Abu Bakr did not pray or recite the Qur’an in public. He was so popular and charismatic, they explained, that he would lure the young men away from the official religion. So Abu Bakr worshipped alone, making a little masjid, a place for prostration, in front of his house.

  But the situation was clearly unsatisfactory. Muhammad tried to find a new protector for himself in the pleasant, fertile oasis of Ta’if, but it was a hopeless venture, which revealed the measure of his desperation, because the tribe of Thaqif had been greatly offended by Muhammad’s repudiation of their goddess Al-Lat. Muhammad visited three of the leaders of Thaqif, asking them to accept his religion and extend their protection to him, but they were so enraged by his effrontery that they had their slaves chase him through the streets. He was only able to escape by diving into the garden of ‘Utbah ibn Rabi‘ah, one of the chief Meccan kafirun, who had a summer home in Ta’if. ‘Utbah and his brother Shaybah saw Muhammad’s humiliating flight, but did not wish to hand a fellow-tribesman over to the Thaqif. So instead of reporting Muhammad, they sent a slave to him with a platter of grapes.

  Crouching ignominiously behind a tree, Muhammad was close to despair. It was customary for Arabs to “take refuge” with a god or a jinni in times of crisis, so now Muhammad took refuge with Allah.

  Oh God, to Thee I complain of my weakness, my little resource and lowliness before men. O Most Merciful, Thou art lord of the weak and Thou art my lord. To whom wilt Thou confide me? To one afar, who will misuse me? Or an enemy to whom Thou hast given power over me? If Thou art not angry with me, I care not. Thy favor is more wide for me. I take refuge in the light of Thy countenance by which the darkness is illumined, and the things of this world and the next are rightly ordered, lest Thy anger descend upon me or Thy wrath light upon me. It is for Thee to be satisfied until Thou art well-pleased. There is no power and no might save in Thee.2

  It is unusual for Ibn Ishaq to give such an intimate account of Muhammad’s state of mind. It indicates a moment of spiritual truth. In this act of islam, Muhammad realized more fully than ever before that he had no security and no true protector but Allah.

  God seemed to answer his prayer, because no sooner had he finished speaking, than ‘Addas, ‘Utbah’s slave boy, arrived with the grapes. He was a Christian, and Muhammad was delighted to learn that he came from Nineveh, the city of the prophet Jonah. He told ‘Addas that Jonah was his brother, because he was a prophet, too. ‘Addas was so overwhelmed that, to the disgust of ‘Utbah, who was watching the encounter, he kissed Muhammad’s head, hands, and feet. After this unexpected encounter with one of the People of the Book, Muhammad felt less isolated. It reminded him that, even though the Arabs had rejected him, there was a multitude of worshippers in the great world outside Arabia who would understand his mission. He felt cheered as he began his homeward journey, and stopped to pray in the small oasis of Nakhlah, where he was overheard by a group of “unseen beings” (jinn). The word jinn did not always refer to the whimsical sprites of Arabia; it could also be used for “strangers,” people who had hitherto been unseen. The Qur’an indicates that the travellers, who lurked out of sight in Nakhlah, listening to Muhammad’s recitation, may have been Jews. They were so overcome by the beauty and felicity of the Arabic scripture that when they returned home, they told their people that they had heard “a revelation bestowed from on high, after [that of ] Moses,” which confirmed the truth of the Torah and would guide human beings to the right path.3

  Muhammad’s horizons were beginning to expand. He had been certain that he had been sent simply as a “warner” (nadhir) to his own tribe and that Islam was only for the people of Mecca. But now he was beginning to look further afield to the People of the Book, who had received earlier revelations. Despite the confidence that this gave him, he was now desperate. Once the kafirun had learned of his attempt to find support in Ta’if, his position would be even more precarious, so before entering Mecca, he sent word to three clan chiefs, asking for their patronage. Two refused, but the third—Mu’tim, chief of Nawfal, who had been one of those who had campaigned to end the boycott—promised to protect Muhammad, and he was now able to return home.

  But this could not be a long-term solution. Somehow Muhammad had to win over the Quraysh. In 619, he began to preach to the pilgrims and merchants who attended the trade fairs that culminated in the hajj. Perhaps, like Abu Bakr, he would find a Bedouin protector, and if the Qurayshan establishment saw that he was respected by their Bedouin confederates, they might learn to accommodate him. But the Bedouin pilgrims were hostile and insulting. The last thing they wanted was a religion that preached submission and humility. Muhammad must have felt that he had come to the end of his resources. He was still grieving for Khadijah; his position in Mecca was desperately precarious; and after preaching for seven years, he had made no real headway. Yet at this low point of his career, he had the greatest personal mystical experience of his life.

  He had been visiting one of his cousins who lived near the Haram, so he decided to spend the night in prayer beside the Kabah, as he loved to do. Eventually he went to sleep for a while in the enclosed area to the northwest of the shrine, which housed the tombs of Ishmael and Hagar. Then, it seemed to him that he was awakened by Gabriel and conveyed miraculously to Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews and Christians—an experience that may have been recorded by this oblique verse of the Qur’an:

  Limitless in His glory is He who transported His servant by night from the Inviolable House of Worship (al masjid al-haram) to the Remote House of Worship (al-masjid al-aqsa)—the environs of which We had blessed—so that We might show him some of Our symbols (ayat).4

  Jerusalem is not mentioned by name, but later tradition associated the “Remote House” with the holy city of the People of the Book, the Jews and the Christians. According to the historian Tabari, Muhammad told his companions that he had once been taken by the angels Gabriel and Michael to meet his “fathers”: Adam (in the first heaven) and Abraham (in the seventh), and that he also saw his “brothers”: Jesus, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Joseph.5 The Qur’an also claimed that Muhammad had a vision beside the “lote tree” which marked the limit of human knowledge:

  He saw it descending another time

  at the lote tree of the furthest limit

  There was the garden of sanctuary

  When something came down over the lote tree enfolding

  His gaze did not turn aside nor go too far

  He had seen the sight of his lord, great signs (ayat)6

  The Qur’an is reticent about this vision. He saw only God’s signs and symbols—not God himself, and later mystics emphasized the paradox of this transcendent insight, in which Muhammad both saw and did not see the divine essence.

  Later Muslims began to piece together these fragmentary references to create a coherent narrative. Influenced perhaps by the stories told by Jewish mystics of their ascent through the seven heavens to the throne of God, they imagined their prophet making a similar spiritual flight. The first account of this “night journey” (‘isra) is found in the eighth-century biography by Ibn Ishaq. In this extended story, Gabriel lifted the Proph
et onto a heavenly steed and together they flew through the night to Jerusalem, where they alighted on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, the “Remote House” of the Qur’an. There they were greeted by Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the great prophets of the past, who welcomed Muhammad into their fellowship and invited him to preach to them. Afterwards the prophets all prayed together. Then a ladder was brought and Muhammad and Gabriel climbed to the first of the seven heavens and began their ascent to the divine throne. At each stage, Muhammad met and conversed with some of the greatest of the prophets. Adam presided over the first heaven, where Muhammad was shown a vision of Hell; Jesus and John the Baptist were in the second heaven; Joseph in the third; Enoch in the fourth; Moses and Aaron in the fifth and sixth, and finally Muhammad met Abraham in the seventh, on the threshold of the divine realm.

  Most writers leave the final vision of God in reverent obscurity, because it was literally ineffable, lying beyond the reach of speech. Muhammad had to abandon ordinary human concepts, going beyond the lote tree, the boundary of mundane knowledge. Even Gabriel could not accompany him on this last stage of his journey. He had to leave everybody and—the later mystics insisted—even himself behind to lose himself in God. The story of the night journey and the heavenly ascent is an event that—in some sense—happened once, but which also happens all the time. It represented a perfect act of islam, a self-surrender that was also a return to the source of being. The story became the paradigm of Muslim spirituality, outlining the path that all human beings must take, away from their preconceptions, their prejudices, and the limitations of egotism.

  The vision did not result in a Qur’anic revelation; it was a personal experience for the Prophet himself. But placed as it is by the early biographers at this particular moment of Muhammad’s life, it is a wonderful commentary on the deeper subtext of these external events. Muhammad was being compelled by circumstances over which he had little control to leave Mecca and everything that was dear and familiar to him—at least for a while. He had to move beyond his original expectations, and transcend the received ideas of his time. In the traditional Arabian ode, the poet usually began with a dhikr, a “remembrance” of his lost beloved, who was travelling with her tribe further and further away from him. In the next section, the bard embarked on a “night journey,” breaking out of his nostalgic reverie, and setting off alone across the steppes on his camel—a fearful trek during which he had to confront his own mortality. Finally, the poet was reunited with his tribe. In the final section of the ode, he proudly boasted of the heroic values of his people, their prowess in battle, and their ceaseless war against all strangers who threatened their survival.7 In Muhammad’s night journey, these old muruwah values were reversed. Instead of returning to his tribe, the prophet travelled far away from it to Jerusalem; instead of asserting his tribal identity with the arrogant chauvinism of jahiliyyah, Muhammad surrendered his ego. Instead of rejoicing in fighting and warfare, Muhammad’s journey celebrated harmony, transcendence of the blood group, and integration with the rest of humanity.

  The story of the night journey reveals Muhammad’s longing to bring the Arabs of the Hijaz, who had felt that they had been left out of the divine plan, into the heart of the monotheistic family. This is a story of pluralism. Muhammad was abandoning the pagan pluralism of Mecca, because it had degenerated into the self-destructive arrogance and violence of jahiliyyah, but he was beginning to embrace monotheistic pluralism. In Jerusalem, he discovered that all the prophets, sent by God to all peoples, are “brothers.” Muhammad’s prophetic predecessors do not spurn him as a pretender, but welcome him into their family. The prophets do not revile or try to convert each other; instead they listen to each other’s insights. They invite the new prophet to preach to them, and, in one version of the story, Muhammad asks Moses for advice about how frequently Muslims should pray. Originally, God wanted salat fifty times a day, but Moses kept sending Muhammad back to God until the number of prescribed prayers had been reduced to five (which Moses still found excessive).8 The fact that this appreciation of other traditions is written into the archetypal myth of Muslim spirituality shows how central this pluralism was to early Islam.

  From this point, the Qur’an began to emphasize this shared vision. In one remarkable passage, Allah makes it clear that the faithful must believe indiscriminately in the revelations of every single one of God’s messengers:

  Say: We believe in God, and in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us, and that which has been bestowed upon Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and their descendents, and that which has been vouchsafed by their Sustainer unto Moses and Jesus and all the [other] prophets: we make no distinction between any of them. And unto Him do we surrender ourselves (lahu muslimun).9

  You could not be a muslim unless you also revered Moses and Jesus. True faith required surrender to God, not to an established faith. Indeed, exclusive loyalty to only one tradition could become shirk, an idolatry which puts a human institution on the same level as God. This is one of the first passages in the Qur’an to emphasize the words “islam” and “muslim,” which both derive from the verb aslama: “surrendering oneself entirely to someone else’s will.”10 The verse continues:

  For if one goes in search of a religion other than self-surrender (islam) unto God, it will never be accepted from him, and in the life to come, he shall be among the lost.11

  This verse is often quoted to “prove” that the Qur’an claims that Islam is the one, true faith and that only Muslims will be saved. But “Islam” was not yet the official name for Muhammad’s religion, and when this verse is read correctly in its pluralistic context, it clearly means the exact opposite.

  The Qur’an depicts one prophet handing on the revelation to another. The message passes from Abraham to Ishmael and Isaac to Moses, and so on, in a continuous narrative. The Qur’an is simply a “confirmation” of the previous scriptures,12 and the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur’an are simply moments in God’s continuous self-disclosure: “Verily, those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Sabians,* and the Christians—all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds—no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve.”13 There was no thought of forcing everybody into the Muslim ummah. Each of the revealed traditions had its own din, its own practices, and insights. “Unto every one of you have We appointed a [different] law and way of life,” God told Muhammad:

  And if God had so willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but [He willed it otherwise] in order to test you by means of what he has vouchsafed unto you. Vie, then, with one another in doing good works! Unto God you must all return; and then He will make you truly understand all that on which you were wont to differ.14

  God was not the exclusive property of one tradition, but was the source of all human knowledge: “God is the light of the heavens and the earth,” Allah explained in one of the most mystical verses in the Qur’an. The divine light could not be confined to any individual lamp, but was common to them all, enshrined in every one of them:

  The parable (ayah) of this light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed in glass], the glass [shining] like a radiant star: [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree—an olive tree that is neither of the east nor the west—the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself ], even though fire had not touched it—light upon light.15

  The olive tree signifies the continuity of revelation, which springs from one root but branches into a multitudinous variety of religious experience that cannot be confined to a single faith or locality, and is neither of the east nor the west.

  Muhammad’s position in Mecca remained dangerously insecure. During the hajj of 620, he again visited the pilgrims who were camping in the valley of Mina, going from tent to tent in the hope of attracting support and protection. This time, instead of wholesale rejection, he met a group of s
ix Arabs from Yathrib, who had camped in the gully of ‘Aqabah. As usual, Muhammad sat with them, explained his mission and recited the Qur’an, but this time, he noticed that the pilgrims were attentive and excited. When he had finished, they turned to one another and said that this must be the prophet expected by their Jewish and hanifi neighbors. If Muhammad really was the messenger of Allah, he might be just the person to solve the seemingly insuperable problems of Yathrib.

  Yathrib was not a city like Mecca, but a series of hamlets, each occupied by a different tribal group, and each heavily fortified.16 The settlement was situated in an oasis, a fertile island of about twenty square miles, surrounded by volcanic rocks and uncultivable stony ground. Some of its inhabitants engaged in trade, but most were farmers, making a living out of their dates, palm orchards, and arable fields. Unlike the Quraysh, they were not wholly dependent upon commerce, and had retained more of the old badawah values, including, unfortunately, an entrenched hostility to other tribal groups. As a result, the oasis was engulfed in an escalating series of apparently unstoppable wars. The area had originally been cultivated by pioneering Jewish settlers and by the sixth century there were about twenty Jewish tribes in Yathrib, many of whose members may have been Arabs who had assimilated to Judaism.17 They preserved a separate religious identity, but otherwise were almost indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. Clan and tribal loyalty came first, and there was no united “Jewish community.” The Jewish tribes formed separate allegiances with Arab groups and were often at war with one another. Their date crop had made them rich, but they were also skilled jewellers, manufacturers of weapons, and craftsmen. The five largest Jewish clans—Thalabah, Hudl, Qurayzah, Nadir, and Qaynuqa‘, the last of which controlled the only market in Yathrib—had achieved an almost complete monopoly of the economy that they had pioneered.