The Birth of Islam

Introduction

Two religious teachers. Both claim to be the final spokesman for God. Both were rejected during their day upon earth. Both of them were persecuted and their followers after them were persecuted at periods of time. And the sayings of both of these religious teachers have been preserved in writing and influenced an untold amount of people over the last several hundreds of years. The two people I’m talking about, the two teachers, are Jesus and Muhammad. They are both legitimate historical figures. No honest person can deny the fact that Jesus lived and that Muhammad lived. There is too much historical evidence that they actually existed. And they have had tremendous impact upon history. Matter of fact, the bulk of the world’s population today, and the bulk of the world’s population over the last 1,500 or so years, have adhered to their teaching, and as a result, not only do their religious beliefs reflect that, but even their culture and their way of life have been greatly impacted by either the teachings of Jesus or the teachings of Mohammed.

But they’re more than just interesting figures to consider. Because men who claimed what they claim cannot be just sources of, well, entertainment or interest. Because the men, these men and the things that they claim, they force us to make some kind of decision about them. That we’ve got to examine their deeds, their words, and determine their credibility of character and the validity of their message. They demand that of us because of what they taught and who they claim to be. We’re engaged in this series of lessons, Muslims, Jews, and Christians, searching for answers in the midst of face of conflict because recent national and international events have piqued our interest in some things that, well, before we were not that interested in. First of all, the religion of Islam, which most people in America have only had a, well, just a very shallow understanding of it or knowledge of it, and also how that Islam intersects with Judaism and Christianity.

And there’s really a couple things we’re attempting to do in this series that I think are unique compared to the things that we’re hearing in the swirl of the media around us. Some things that we can do to really fill in some gaps and deal with some questions that people have. First of all, we’re trying to provide a background, a historical, a framework to the roots of these three faiths. It’s important that you go back and examine the way something started or what it was when it began. We understand that when it comes to the religious world today, regarding Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that it’s a very splintered world, even within Judaism, within Christianity, and within Islam, using Christianity in a very broad term there. And really what’s happened is that over the years is that each one of these faiths have evolved, and various sects and groups and divisions have occurred within them.

Unfortunately, Christianity is probably the most splintered one, using again that expression very loosely to describe any group or any person who claims to follow Jesus as the Christ. What we’re attempting to do is not to look at the evolved versions of these faiths. You understand that when it comes to Christianity, there are modern versions of Christianity that are evolved versions, and then there is the original version of Christianity that you read about in the New Testament. But I know that this local congregation makes a plea to follow. What we’re tempting to do is look at not the evolved versions but the original versions. And just as it serves us well in Christianity to go back to the original source of the New Testament and to build from that our belief about Christ and his people it’s also helpful to go back to the origins of Judaism and the origins of Islam so we can better understand them even today.

If you ask somebody who’s a Christian, well what do Christians believe? You know, and the person might say well it depends are you a Baptist or a Methodist or a Lutheran or what? And that’s a very complex question. And the same is true about Muslims. What do Muslims believe? There are a lot of different varieties of Muslims as there are different varieties of Jews. But we’re giving most of our attention in this series to the original version of these faiths. Because roots are very important and roots do continue to affect things for many years to come. The other thing we’re tempting to do and really this will be our task Sunday in the two lessons, the last two lessons of this series is to make a comparison.

Is Mohammed believable in his teaching? Is the Quran believable? Is the Bible believable? Is Jesus credible as being a teacher from God? These are some of the things that we’re going to deal with. But before we do that, we’re trying to lay some groundwork of these first few nights. And that’s why I I beg your patience and indulgence as we look at some background material and historical events so that we can, well, when it comes to making a comparison between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, that we have, well, enough information to make an intelligent choice and to make a reasonable decisionable decision regarding what is believable and what is not believable. Last night we looked at Israel, past and present. Tonight, we’ve turned our attention to Islam, over which we’ll spend most of our time over the next several lessons to look at the birth of Islam.

1. Where It Was Born: The Arabian Peninsula

But of course, the main goal in this is to provide us information to make an investigation as we make a search to find that which is right and true that will lead us to God and lead us to our soul salvation. Islam. Before we begin to talk about what it was when it was born, we need to consider where it was born. Because where it was born has a lot to do with what it is. The Arabian Peninsula is the center of our attention tonight, which is a very unique land in all the world. It’s approximately a million square miles of desert. And one would be hard pressed in all the world to find an area that is more barren, more desolate than the Arabian Peninsula, which today in modern times politically is made up mostly of the nation of Saudi Arabia, though the Arabian Peninsula involves other nations like Yemen.

It’s a harsh land. A land that is mysterious to most of us Westerners. It’s a way of life that’s completely different than our own experiences, and it was the home to the birth of Islam because it was the home to Mohammed. What was Arabia like when Mohammed was born? Well, Arabia was an area that was dominated and had was dominated for many really centuries after this by the Bedouin people, who were people who lived as nomads basically and lived in tents, and who would travel around this sparsely resourced territory to try to find something on which they can survive. The Bedouin tribal life was the organization of society. It was a fragmented people. There was no kind of organization for these Bedouin people. They were organized into different tribes, and they were warring.

They oftentimes did not get along with each other, and they would have conflict and fights. One month out of the year, they would cease their hostilities. But the other 11 months, everybody was fair game. And in a land where you just don’t have trees and you don’t have grass, much to speak of, and you don’t have other resources, then sometimes people get very desperate when it comes to resources. And that’s why they would attack one another for their goods, and that’s why they would make raids up into other parts of the world and bring things back and plunder. That factors in later on as Islam spreads. The Bedouin tribe people were led by chiefs of their tribes. And these chiefs were not challenged at all. There was a very strict pecking order among the Bedouin people.

There were certain classes, and those at the top controlled everything. The chiefs controlled the tribe, and you had to give the chief his due and his respect. The importance of the Bedouin people during these years was their contribution to the caravan trade route that passed from east to west, bringing spices and other goods from the eastern peoples and the eastern territories to the west, to the Mediterranean, and eventually even to Europe. And these caravans would pass through this area, and the Bedouin people were involved in this trade, assisted this trade, and what living they could make was oftentimes from this caravan trade and the routes through there. It was also a very religious area. But it was polytheistic. They believed in many gods. They were especially affected by the nature gods, like other ancient peoples were.

And especially people who were so uh who were used to a way of life where just a little bit of change in the elements could bring a great, make a great difference in their life. They were especially superstitious when it came to the parts of nature and the elements of the weather. And they had many gods in their names. The worship of the Bedouin people was centered in a city by the name of Mecca, in the western part, near the seacoast, not on the seacoast, but near it, near the Red Sea. Mecca was the hub of the Arabian Peninsula at this time. Mecca was the place where the most important tribes were located, or at least near Bayon. Mecca was the place where once a year the Bedouin people would make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

This was when they would not war with each other. When they would come to Mecca, they would trade with one another, and there was a lot of commerce taking place. And they also would bring their various gods. They would carry little idols with them. And they would bring these gods, these idols, to Mecca to worship. And especially they would bring them to a building by the name of Kaaba. The Kaaba was a cube stone structure that really we’re not sure from a historical standpoint from which it came. But it’s a black, cube like building that’s draped with a black cloth. And it was the Kaaba within Mecca, which was the center city that is the center of the worship of the Bedouin people. And annually they brought their gods there to worship.

2. This World Into Which Muhammad Was Born

There was one God that they worshiped, who was a god that was in their superstitions closely associated to nature because he was the creator God that they refer to as Allah. It was this world into which Muhammad was born in 570 AD, about 500 years or so after the death of Jesus. Mohammed was orphaned as a small child. His father actually died before his mother gave birth to him. And when he was six years old, his mother died. He lived for some time with his grandfather, who sought to raise him, until his grandfather died. And then his uncle took custody of Mohammed and finished raising him. He worked in the caravan trade ground trade work with his uncle. His uncle was involved in the various accounting work that had to be done.

Also the trade of the animals passing through, and they would trade the animals and get fresh animals and things like that. And Mohammed first worked with the herds, the camels, and the other animals, and then he got into the business aspect of his uncle’s business and would do accounting work for his uncle. He was a man to impress the people around him. He was broad-shouldered, he had dark eyes, he worked hard. He became known as Alamien, which means the trustworthy one. He was a man that they would depend upon. During these years, he was exposed to various religious people. He made at least one trip with his uncle to Syria where he encountered Christian monks of the early Roman Catholic variety that he bobbed into the various monks that we see today.

And also dispersed throughout the Arabian Peninsula were some Christians of some variety and also Jews. But something happened at the age of 25. Mohammed was married. At the age of 25, he married a rich widow by the name of Khadijah. She proposed to him. I suppose that’s a pretty good deal. You know, she’s, you know, she does the proposing and she’s got the money. But she was several years older, but she was so impressed with this young man that she proposed that they marry. And she also was a person who would gain wealth from the caravan trade routes. And so they married. They had four daughters together, no sons. At least no sons that survived. And Muhammad did not take any other wife until after Khadijah died, which was several years later.

3. His Calling to Be a Prophet

But the fact that she was older, he still had some life to live after she passed on. We’ll talk about his other wives a little bit later on. And he was a man who was known for his religious interests and his meditations. But he grew restless with the polytheistic ideas of the Bedouin people. Which brings us to the second aspect of his life. And that is his calling, according to Muslim teaching to be a prophet. The marriage to Khadijah gave Muhammad more time for reflection. He didn’t have to work as hard. And so he spent more time in meditation and thoughts regarding religion and eternal and spiritual things. A frequent place for his meditation was Mount Hera, just outside of Mecca. And according to Muslim tradition, in 610 A.D., at the age of 40, Muhammad began to receive revelations from God through the angel Gabriel.

They began like this. Muhammad, as he was meditating at Mount Hirah, heard this voice say, recite, or read in some Muslim translations of the Quran. Recite in the name of thy Lord, who created, createth man from a clot, recite, and thy Lord is the most bounteous, who teacheth by the pen, teacheth man that which he knew not. In this announcement, according to Muslim teaching, Allah is telling Muhammad who he is, that he is the creator, and that he wants Muhammad to read something because he is the God who’s going to communicate his will through the pen. But Muhammad didn’t understand what this was about. Muslim people teach that Muhammad was not literate at this time. That’s disputed by historians who are not Muslim or who are Muslim historians who are not given to a more conservative interpretation.

And this is one reason why some uh most Muslims believe that the Quran is inspired, is because Muhammad was not literate, and how could he write a book if he couldn’t read and write? It must have been a miracle. But this voice greatly disturbed Muhammad. And for some time after this, he didn’t understand what was going on. Until he began to talk to some people, and especially his wife, who was encouraging him at this time. And he began to realize that, well, this must be a message from God, and I must be chosen to be a prophet. Like the prophets he heard of through the Jewish people that he had encountered, their prophets that you read about in the Old Testament. And over the next 22 years, Muhammad, according to Muslim teaching, received revelations a little bit at a time over a long period of time.

4. The Four Major Themes of the Quran

Some of these he wrote down on uh animal skin. Other times when he’d receive a revelation, he’d write it on a stone or a piece of bark or a bone. And these were all gathered together and collected years later, actually after the death of Mohammed in the early 630s, informed into one volume called the Quran. What about the Quran? We’ll talk more about that Sunday morning, but I just want to say this: that the summary of the messages that was that were given to Muhammad, which are contained in the Quran, are basically these. These are the four major themes of the Quran and of the teaching of Muhammad. There is one God, that there is monotheism, not the belief of many gods, but that there is only one God, the creator, the only Almighty, only merciful God.

That Muhammad was his prophet, that actually Muhammad would be the seal of the prophets. What’s the last thing you do when you’re uh canning vegetables? Well, you fill it up, don’t you? You may write something on it, it might be the very last thing you do, but that’s the last thing in the process. Muslims believe, Mohammed taught that he was the seal of the prophets. He was the last in a long line of prophets, beginning with Adam, to Noah, to Moses, even Jesus, according to Muslim teaching, is a prophet of God, and the last, the final spokesman of God, was Mohammed. The Quran is filled with attributes about God, how that He is bounteous, how that He is merciful, how that He is mighty, He is wise, He is kind.

It’s full of these kinds of expressions. As well as the idea that the infidels were to be punished. When Muhammad talked about the infidels, what he meant were those people who were polytheistic, who didn’t believe in the one true God. He really would not necessarily lump Jews and Christians in this because they supposedly believed in one God. But all other people refer to as infidels, at least in the definition of the Quran. Now, in modern times, the word infidel means something different to some Muslims. But in the Quran, in the context of that volume, it’s talking about those who are polytheistic and don’t believe in one God but many gods. And over and over in the book, in the Quran, over and over in his teaching, were these warnings to those who are infidels about the judgment of God upon them.