Islam

Editorial

For thousands of years they have lived their own life, kept their own customs, kept heir own counsels; they are the same today as in the time of Cheops and Gudea; they have seen a hundred kingdoms rise and fall about them; and their soil is still jealously theirs, guarded from profane feet and alien eyes. -Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, I, p. 291.

Mohammed
      Mohammed lived in Arabia, a vast plateau rising to 12,000 feet within thirty miles of the Red Sea, with some grassy oases in the center, but with desert stretching for hundreds of miles in every direction. The word "Arab" means arid, which describes the land Mohammed was to conquer and rule, though he had comforts while he lived in Medina.
      The Arabians were short and thin, well knit and strong, able to live on a few dates and a little milk. The great majority despised the city with its laws, loving the merciless desert because it left them free. In the villages, men coaxed some grains and vegetables from the soil and cultivated some orchards; the great majority were herdsmen who moved with their flocks from one pastureland to another, according to the seasons and the grains. There was no political society; families gathered by tradition. For the clan, people would lie, steal, kill, and die; but devotion was intense with those living together. Each clan was ruled by a Sheik chosen by wealth, wisdom, or war.
      Mohammed's father died two months before his birth but gave him as an inheritance five camels, a flock of goats, a house, and a slave who nursed him in his infancy. After his mother died when he was six, he was taken to his grandfather who was then seventy-six, and later to his uncle Abu Talib. He never learned to read or write. Those skills were not thought important in the society of the time.
      We first hear of Mohammed when he was twenty-five, when he married Khadija, aged forty. Khadija was a good woman, a good wife; she was loyal to Mohammed through all his trials. Mohammed thought her the best of his wives.
      He became interested in religion around forty. One night, in 610, alone in a cave, he received a vision from the angel Gabriel who said, twice, "O Mohammed! Thou art the messenger of Allah, and I am Gabriel." For the next four years, Mohammed more and more openly announced himself as the prophet of Allah whose mission was to lead the Arab people to a new morality and a monotheistic faith. Persecuted in Mecca, he fled to Medina where he was promised protection. Asked what would be their reward if the protectors were killed, he gave the reply we have heard in this century: Paradise.
      Medina gave birth to Islam. Mounting the pulpit, Mohammed cried in a loud voice, "Allah is the most great." The assembly replied with the same words. With his back to the congregation, he bowed in prayer, then descending the pulpit backward, he prostrated himself three times and bade his followers to do this to the end of time. This was Islam, surrender to God, the practise of Muslims daily from the seventh century to our century.
      The influx of two hundred Meccan families into Medina created a food shortage. Mohammed instructed his followers to raid the caravans that passed Medina, helping themselves to what loot they could get. In 623, Mohammed organized a band of 300 armed men to waylay a rich caravan coming from Syria. The caravan, on the way to Mecca, learned of the plan and sent for help. Mohammed led his men to victory. The leaders of persecution in Mecca were put to death; the rest were freed for lucrative ransoms. The son of a Jewess abandoned Islam because of its warlike faith and wrote critical verses. "Who will ease me of this Man?" asked Mohammed. That evening the poet's head was laid at the Prophet's feet. Mohammed led 3,000 men against the Banu-Kuraiza Jews, defeating them. Given a choice between Islam and death, they chose death. The 600 hundred fighting men were slain and buried in the market place of Medina; their women and children were sold into slavery.
      Mohammed was an able general. During ten years in Medina he planned sixty-five campaigns and raids and personally led twenty-seven. In 628 Mohammed signed a ten-year truce with the Quraish, which shocked his followers. He consoled them by attacking and plundering the Khaibar Jews six day's journey north of Medina. Ninety-three Jews died in their defense; the rest surrendered. They were allowed to remain and cultivate the soil on condition they yielded all their property and half their future produce to the conqueror. The Jewish chieftain and his cousin were beheaded for hiding some of their wealth. A seventeen-year-old Jewish damsel was taken by Mohammed as an additional wife.
      Eight years were to run on the Quraish truce, but Mohammed alleged they had attacked a Moslem tribe. He marched on Mecca with ten thousand men and subdued it. He proclaimed Mecca the Holy City of Islam and decreed that no unbeliever should ever set foot on its sacred soil. After some minor rebellions, all Arabia submitted to his authority. He did not seem to have aimed at an extension of his power beyond Arabia.
      In the year 630 Mohammed had only two years to live. His days were filled with the chores of government-details of legislation, judgments, and civil, religious, and military organization. He protested against being taken for more than a mortal man and did not claim to perform miracles. However, he never ceased to claim divine revelations for personal ends. One of these permitted him to marry the pretty wife of Zaid, his adopted son. He did not indulge the extravagances of his wives but promised paradise. He was supposed to visit his wives in rotation, but Aisha, alluring and vivacious, won so many special visits the other wives rebelled. He settled that with a divine revelation which gave her special privileges.
      Women and power were his indulgences. Apart from these, his life was simple. He was often seen mending his clothes or shoes, kindling the fire, sweeping the floor, milking his goat, or shopping for provisions in the market. Visiting the sick, eating with his slaves, he was kind to all except his enemies. An unscrupulous warrior, he was also a just judge. He was vain, perfuming his body, painting his eyes, dying his hair. He died June 7, 632, after considerable agony, his head on Aisha's breast.
      Mohammed is the only founder of a religion based on the sword and obedience. It was this combination that enabled his followers to conquer the known world. He certainly was not in the tradition of Christ, or the Buddha, or Confucius, or any other founder of a religion. His contribution to his time was to speak to confusion, and solidify a body of people who were constantly at war with each other. By accident, he became one of the giants of history.

The Koran
      The Koran is a series of discourses given to Mohammed either by God or the angel Gabriel and directed to practical problems: a doctrine, prayer, law, denunciation of an enemy, the call to arms, the details of a treaty, raising funds, regulation of ritual, morals, industry, trade, finance. The revelations, answers to specific daily problems, were written, with no orderly sequence, on parchment, leather, palm-leaves. The Koran as we know it was gathered after Mohammed's death from "date leaves, tablets of white stones, and the breasts of men." Mohammed thought men would not find order in society unless they believed their code came from God.
      Allah is, first of all, the source of all things in life. Allah is also a God of power, creator of all that exists. (The distinction between "source" and "creator" is not explained.) Along with his power and justice, Allah has everlasting mercy. The beginning of a Moslem book will begin with "In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful."
      Because Allah is omniscient, who knows men's most secret thoughts, he knows their future to the smallest detail. Therefore, all is predestined. The belief in predestination gave fatalism to those in battle because the predestined time of death allowed them to face danger without fear; in later centuries, it produced a pessimism and inertia.
      The ethics of the Koran rested on the fear of hell and the hope of heaven. After death, when there is a general resurrection, inspired prophets will denounce those who reject the true message but intercede for those who believed. All will walk across a bridge finer than a hair and sharper than a sword; the evil will fall into hell and the good will pass into paradise.
      Hell will be burning heat and freezing cold. The lightly punished will wear shoes of fire. The drink of the damned will be boiling water and filth. Heaven will be a vast garden, watered with pleasant rivers and shade from spreading trees; the saved will recline on couches and eat fruit from trees bowing to their hands. There will be no speeches at the heavenly banquets; instead, there will be virgins with swelling bosoms, with bodies of musk, free from imperfections. Each blessed male will have seventy-two of these houris as his reward. Around them will be children who will never grow old.
      Law and morals are one; the secular is included in the religious. There are rules for manners, hygiene, marriage and divorce, the raising of children, slaves, animals, commerce and politics, interest and debts, contracts and wills, industry and finance, crime and punishment, war and peace.
      While women had some legal subjection, Mohammed also improved their position. He preferred them to be at home rather than at the mosque, but he was kind to them when they came. Women were the equals of men in legal process and financial independence. In Mohammad's time, they could move freely and unveiled. They were also a field to be cultivated; it was an obligation of the man to beget children.
      Moslem laws tried to reduce temptation outside of marriage but increased the opportunity within. Celibacy was thought sinful. Polygamy was accepted to balance the high death rate for both sexes, the length of nursing, and the early waning of reproductive power in the hot climate. Men were supposed to limit themselves to four wives, though Mohammed gave himself a special revelation to have ten.
      The Koran is too detailed to be effective. A truly holy book will give general principles that can be applied in many circumstances; a too great emphasis on minutia produces argument rather than understanding. No doubt this is one of the reasons for the continued tribalism of Islam. Because law and morals are one, guidance of the state was put in the hands of moralists. It was as though, in Christian lands, government were in the hands of biblical critics. The Christian tradition tried this but found a better method: rule by law discovered through time and experience. Virtue must dominate society, but the clergy are unfit for the give and take of commerce, and the intricacies and compromises of statecraft. Neither do they know how to create wealth. That has to be left to freedom, business, and investment.

The Practice of Islam
      Islam is a religion that rests on external authority as each person is told what to believe. Individuality is the habit of infidels. There are five obligatory duties.
      1) The confession of faith must be recited, and is "I testify that there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the Apostle of Allah."
      2) There must be recital of prayers five times daily: at dawn, just after mid-day, mid-afternoon, soon after sunset, when night has fallen. Before prayers, the believer must wash his face, hands, forearms, and feet. If water is not available, sand may be used. There are meticulous instructions for these ablutions.
      The call to prayer is- Allah is most great, repeated four times; I testify that there is no God save Allah (twice); I testify that Mohammed is the Apostle of Allah (twice); come to prayer (twice); come to salvation (twice); Allah is most great (twice); there is no God save Allah. In prayer, the face of the believer must be turned toward Mecca, indicated in every mosque by a niche set in the wall. As the prayer-leader turns toward Mecca, the congregation follows his movements exactly. The prayers are a recital of passages from the Koran, together with some ejaculations; they are accompanied by prescribed postures, genuflections, and prostrations.

In the words of Will Durant:

On those five occasions all Moslems everywhere must leave off whatever else they may be doing, must cleanse themselves, turn toward Mecca and the Kaaba and recite the same brief prayers, in the same successive postures, in an impressive simultaneity moving with the sun across the earth.

      3) Fasting. The only obligatory fast is in the month of Ramadan. During this month there will be no eating or drinking from daybreak until sunset. After sunset the believer may eat and drink what he wants. The fast is felt more keenly by the poor who must work during the day; the rich are able to turn night into day so that the fast is little more than a variation of the daily schedule. At the conclusion of Ramadan there is a great festival of feasting and enjoyment. Moslems might eat, drink smoke, and make love until dawn; stores and shops are open all night, with an invitation to eating and merriment. All bathe, put on new clothes, salute one another with an embrace, give alms and presents, and visit the graves of the dead.
      4) The payment of alms is obligatory, based on property and certain kinds of income, and is not burdensome. This was a tax of two and one half per cent on the movable wealth of all citizens. The revenue was to help the poor, build mosques, and defray the expenses of government and of war; though war often brought large booty which enriched the poor. Those desiring to visit Mecca but without the means to do so also received aid from the general tax. In later times the alms giving was left to the individual conscience.
      5) Moslems were counseled to make the pilgrimage to Mecca as often as they could, which came to mean once in a lifetime. Afterward with the spread of Islam, only a minority could make the trek. In early days, as many as seven thousand believes might trek across the desert on foot or donkey or mule or lordly camel, marching to Mecca, perhaps thirty miles a day, or fifty miles if the next oasis were that distant. All were caught between the heat of the sun and the fire of the sand; some sickened and were left behind to die and feed the lurking hyenas.
      Daily prayers and obedience, cemented by prostration, with a willingness to take up the sword, gave Islam strength to conquer the world. The world of the seventh century was weak and could not stand this new force, as Islam could not withstand the Mongols five centuries later, and for the same reason. Wealth corrupted them and their religion prevented them from finding a legitimate, governing principle-and prevents them today.