This is part of the
Medieval European History Metanode.
Before
Mohammad,
Arabia was inhabited by
Bedouins;
Mecca was a religious and commercial center. Arabs were
polytheists, and they worshipped a black
meteorite in a
Ka'aba at Mecca.
Mohammad was born in 571 to a middle-class family. He traveled with a
caravan, so he had contact with
Christianity and
Judaism. In 610, Mohammad was sitting in a
cave, and the
angel Gabriel gave him a message from
Allah. He was commanded to write down all of his
visions. He did so, and by 615, he had developed a very strict
monotheism. He tried to convert the residents of Mecca, but he did not succeed. He was forced to flee Mecca on 16 July 622 becuase of an assassination attempt; this is known as the Hijrah, or the beginning of
Islam.
Mohammad fled to
Medina, where he was more successful in finding
converts. He appealed to the Jews, and acknowledged the Old and New
Testaments as coming from Allah. When the local Christians and Jews rejected him, he changed the direction of his prayer from
Jerusalem to Mecca, marking the beginning of a truly new relgion.
Mohammad and his followers began to
hijack caravans, and he distributed the
booty equally among his followers; word of this spread, and the number of followers increased dramatically. By 627, Mohammad had driven the Jews out of Medina and converted those who stayed. The Bedouin became keenly interested in this new religion; they saw its potential to united Arabia. In 630, Mohammad marched with an
army back to Mecca, and the Meccans surrendered without a fight. He became a religious and political ruler, imposing Islam on his subjects. He also made the Ka'aba in which the meteorite was housed into an object of worship for
Moslems; he said it had been built by
Abraham and sent by Allah as a symbol of
revelation to Mohammad.
The basic duties of Moslems are summed up in the
five pillars of Islam. Mohammad's writings are compiled in the
Qur'an, which most Moslems agree should be read only in
Arabic. He also instituted the idea of the
Jihad. Moselms were to convert the entire world, and warfare was an effective means to that end; those who resist conversion could be killed. The incentive to warriors was that, if they died in battle, they went to the highest heaven, a very
sensual place. The promise of
plunder, combined with the idea of eternal reward, led to many Jihads in the next few centuries, mostly in the
Middle East and northern
Africa.
When Mohammad died in 622, he did not name a successor and left no sons. His advisors took over, and the next four leaders of Islam are known as the Four Caliphs. Abu Bakr was the first; he was Mohammad's father-in-law, and he laid foundations for future Jihads by organzing the Bedoiun tribes. Umar was next, and he invaded
Persia,
Syria,
Egypt, and northern
Africa. After him came Uthman, who conquered even more territory and developed a
navy based in
Alexandria. He was murdered by Ali, the next Caliph. Ali was the leader of the
Shi'ites, and was Mohammad's adopted son. The Shi'ites believe that the other three Caliphs were illegitimate, as opposed to the
Sunni Moslems, the
sect that includes most Moslems and believes all Four Caliphs to be legitimate. The Moslems caused many problems for Europeans during the
Middle Ages, and they were plagued by Europeans as well during the
Crusades.
________________________________________________________
Jaez: Okay, first of all, I'm not a "guy." Don't go around assuming things like that. "Sue" is a woman's name, after all. Second of all, don't argue
semantics with a confirmed
post-modernist. Words are power. Words mean what people want them to mean. Some Muslims use the word jihad to mean one thing, and others use it to mean another. Who are we to decide which is "correct"? Lastly (sigh), I don't hate Muslims. I don't think they are thieves or brigands or evil people. I'm sure some of them are, the same way I'm sure some Christians and some Jews and some Buddhists and Sikhs and Hindus and Zoroastrians are.