Muhammad was to enter into a successful career as a trader, and made several business trips to Persia and other lands. Nicknamed "the Reliable" (al-Amin), Muhammad was a reflective man who greatly valued dignity and respect in his dealings with family and friends.

He was also drawn to spiritual questions. Arabia in Muhammad's day was home to a great variety of religious practices. Much of the polytheistic tradition of the early Arabs survived in and around Mecca; people there worshipped a number of divinities, and called upon each for inspiration or assistance as the occasion demanded. Challenging these beliefs, perhaps, were Jewish communities that had established themselves in the northern half of the peninsula and the Sheban dynasty, in the far south, which had converted to Judaism. Christianity, also, was not unknown to the Arabic population- from time to time, missionaries who spoke of the teachings of Jesus appeared in Mecca, and won some converts. Muhammad's encounters with these dominant belief systems, and with other more minor religions he had come across in his travels, led him to ponder their meanings, and to undertake to discern the "true faith."

As he grew older, this pursuit came to occupy more and more of his time. He often retreated to a cave above Mecca (caves being sources of power, according to ancient Arabic belief) to meditate on religious matters. According to Islamic history, it was there that Muhammad, at age 42, was visited by the angel Gabriel, a well-established figure from the Jewish and Christian lore. Gabriel informed Muhammad that he was to be the definitive prophet of "Allah," the true God, and that he would be responsible for transmitting to the world the true and complete will of the Creator. This will was then revealed to Muhammad by Gabriel in the form of the 114 surahs (chapters) which would comprise the Koran.

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Gabriel also spoke of other, lesser prophets who had come before Muhammad and through their actions furthered Allah's work amongst the inhabitants of His creation. These prophets included some recognized as such by Islam's sister religions, such as Jesus, Abraham, and Moses. The Islamic view is that these holy men, through their good deeds and their primitive insight into Allah's will, helped prepare the world for the revelation of the Koran. The major books of the Christian and Jewish traditions (the Torah and the Gospels) are thus accepted by Islam as being divinely inspired.

But while Islam from its inception had adopted the teachings and the luminaries of its antecedents, it differed sharply with them on certain matters. Principal among these, of course, was the fact that Christians and Jews refused to recognize Muhammad as the final prophet of the one true God. There were also differences over fundamental matters of doctrine. Islam denounced the Christian concept of the Trinity as blasphemous, as it put Jesus on the same level as God. The more humble Islamic view holds that Allah's messengers, including Muhammad, are never more than men, however developed their divine insight may be.

These differences, which some might consider slight (in face of the religions' commonalities) ended up pitting the two traditions against one another, and resentment between the camps quickly grew. As each claimed to be the "one true faith," their simultaneous existence (and growth) undermined the other's claims to universal truth. This row over matters of faith was translated into political hostility and armed conflict. For centuries, a succession of Christian and Islamic empires waged war upon one another, with the justification being that the souls of the conquered would be saved in the conquest.

This situation is one we have no problem recognizing today. America and Europe, the heirs of "Christiandom," still differ with the Islamic world on a multitude of matters, and too often these differences result in war. Likewise, the more latent competition between Islam and Judaism has come around to a desperate struggle between the nation of Israel and its Arab-Islamic neighbors. It is interesting to reflect upon how much of this mutual resentment is based on events that took place up to fourteen centuries ago.

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Hank Sims is a graduate student of political science at Humboldt State University.

Sources

Ahmed, Akbar S. Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society. London: Routledge, 1988.

Machatschke, Roland. Islam.Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1996.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam: An Introduction. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992.

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