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For nearly fourteen centuries, well over a millennia, the soil between
East and West has
A man, who, according to over a sixth of the modern population, received the
last holy words
from the God of Abraham. Nevertheless, this man was no more than a mortal
three. In this research paper, I will attempt to uncover the real Muhammad.
And when a virtuous Muslim enters heaven, it is said, the only word he will
be able to utter for three days, over and over, is “peace”, so overwhelmed
will he be by the total realization of the condition he has been longing for his
entire life. Between the bookends of Islam’s name and its complete
that Islam teaches war to its followers. The myth of violence is clearly
the Prophet Muhammad brought the Koranic revelation to 7th century Arabia,
a major part of his mission was to bring to an end the inter-tribal warfare
that was wreaking havoc in the region. Pre-Islamic Arabia was caught up in
vicious cycles of warfare wherein tribes fought one another in vendettas and
revenge. At the start the Prophet and his cohorts had themselves to fight in
order to survive, but once their foothold was secure, Muhammad turned his
when he died he left as his political legacy a solidly united Arabia. And into
Agreements are to be honored and treachery avoided. The wounded are not
to be mutilated nor the dead disfigured. Women, children and the old are to
many words explaining the perplexity of its beautiful poetry of peace and
how it makes little difference to the usual games of politics. The legacy of
this man Muhammad, divinely inspired or not, has been tarnished by the
injustice of the grand chess board geopolitics. His magnum opus is dedicated
to the eradication, not of its opponents, but of the desire to conquer them.
The so-called “Koranic Islam” can be defined as that theory of peace
the very least, the ancient West, is manifested as constant warfare in the
land of milk and honey, holy sites, later in markets, bazaars and later still
century: OIL. The cradle of civilization in the mists of the dawn half the
world’s religious traditions, being a Holy land to the theocrats and the
capitalists, is the site to war. It may be odd to say, but war brings out the
population and apportion goods and services. So, in turn when a book comes
along that strikes a chord with so many, and inspires the masses, who will
will take this revered and respected work and bring it to those who recognize
its beauty, but have bever read its words. And who will tell these words, but
as a slightly or entirely different set of words. And perhaps to the trained ear
hereditarily occupy the heritage and resources of the western world with a
This conception is obviously false. The tarnishers would also place the
Allah, which is also false. Any semblance of these aspects in Arabia are
was in the institution of marriage, however, that Islam made its greatest
sanctified marriage, first and primarily, by making it the sole lawful locus of
fulfilling of these roles garnering a respect of the true followers of the Holy
Qu’ran.
chosen by Allah, and was revealed the Qu’ran, it is not, as has been
suggested by the opponents aforementioned, a work attributed to him.
Muhammad was a successful and prolific man in many endeavors, all secular
only natural to look to him for guidance, which was graciously provided, in
his own words as documented in the Hadiths among other works. The tenet
tribal warfare, of the crusading west, of the colonizing empires and economic
enslavement ; the secular duty of those who follow Islam, and those that do
not, is to defend the citizenry. And it is precisely this duty that Muhammad,
the man, was charged with. A wise, intelligent and capable man; he may
have seen this charge as a holy honor, but it was an earthly requirement that
who have been brought up in the Christian tradition can understand and
politically as well as spiritually, and the Christian West has always distrusted
political leader who not only transformed Arabia but changed the history of
the world, his critics in Europe have dismissed him as an impostor who used
the image of the crucified Jesus, who said that his kingdom was not of this
unify his conquests, his prophecies were little known throughout his military
career.
also important to discuss his influence on the rituals and laws of society.
“With more than 800 million believers in Allah and his prophet Muhammad,
only exist if we glance further into the political models used in the Muslim
world. In addition, “The Islamic identity may take multiple political forms,
and by the same token, that there is no single political structure announced
hadith inspired Sharia leads to a sense of collective solidarity. “By the same
going beyond the bonds of tribal ties, and clearcut in its identity. Ummah,
the Qu’ran, the obedience of Muhammad, and the fulfillment of law and
worship” (Cragg and Speight 72). The new Ummah implicit in the Hijrah
nature, was not exclusive but open to all followers. The Medina exile is
foresaw intuitively the esoteric speculation of later Sufism figures. Hasan al-
Basri wrote on this point: “ God has said : ‘when my servant becomes
altogether occupied with Me, then I make his happiness consist in the
remembrance of Myself, and when I habe made his happiness and his delight
consist in that remembrance, he desires Me and I desire him, I raise the veils
between Me and him and I become manifest before his eyes’” (p 68).
Ummah one belonged to, borrowing from other faiths of the nearby regions
was “a tendency of Sufi mentality, while holding loosely to orthodox Islamic
demands” (Cragg and Speight 70). This is yet another example of the
This overall sense of flexibility carries over from the ritualistic habits of
opinion, known as ra’y. “For Muslims, God is the sole legislator, and
reality and writes and guides the Muslims in both time and space, down
through the generations and across the diverse and widespread regions of
The Sunna in pair with the Qu’ran “prevented any irretrievable deviations
from developing even in a varied legal environment. The Sunna was paired
with the Qu’ran from the time of the rightly guided caliphs in Medina and
exploited for guidance and legislation” (Denny p.189). The prophet reaches
the stage where his actions were considered Sunna. Being the sole
through his own example and precept. These sources were therefore the
the Arabs there seemed little to choose between the two positions and it was
natural to imagine that both of the People of the Book must have added
somw new, inauthentic elements to the original pure revelation. His quarrel
with the Jews did not affect Muhammad’s relations with Christianity.
Sometimes indeed the Qu’ran sides with the Christians against the Jews, as
when it answers the Jews’ claim that they had crucified Jesus with the
Docetist answer that Jesus had not really died at all on the Cross: what had
seemed to die was only a simulacrum. But the Qu’ran does find it
scandalous that Christians should claim that God had sired a Son: it was not
likely that Muhammad, who had suffered so much because of his refusal to
accept that God had had daughters, would be sympathetic to this doctrine.
Again and again, the Qu’ran asserts that this belief is an example of zanna,
that idle, divisive speculation about things which nobody could possibly know
but which had split the People of the Book into two warring camps
(Armstrong 159).
vehicles through which the one and only God communicates the pristine
message. The Qu’ran was revealed through the last prophet. This unique
revelation linked the Arabs to Abraham like the Jews. This in turn led to a
change in qibla, being a sign of a proud new Muslim Identity. “The Jews of
Medina were very quick to interpret the change of qibla (prayers facing
sacrament which, like the symnolism of great art, illuminates life and gives it
God himself. The sunnah taught Muslims to imitate the way Muhammad
spoke, ate, loved, washed and worshipped so that in the smallest details of
their lies they are reproducing his life on earth and in a real but symbolic
practice (sunnah) formed the moral model to follow. This Islamic model can
we in the west need to divert ourselves of some of our old prejudice. Perhaps
man who sometimes did things that it is difficult for us to accept, but who
tradition that was not based on the sword—despite the Western myth—and
can be satisfied with the acceptance of the last prophet as a human gateway
for God’s sacred poetry. The words are divine, the transmitter is human and
also the enactor and enforcer of God’s overall plan for muslim community.
inspired poet ‘sha’ir’ who revealed God’s poetics which give the follower the
grand design.