Koran Curious - A Guide for Infidels and Believers (6 page)

The second recitation wouldn’t be as terrifying as the first, but his biographers would note that he would remain prone and in a state of utter physical exhaustion after receiving each. Muhammad would say, “Never once did I receive a revelation without thinking my soul had been torn away from me.” He would also reveal of the revelations, “sometimes coming unto me like the reverberations of a bell, and that is the hardest upon me, the reverberations abate and when I’m aware of their message.” Much later, Muhammad would confess that the only miracle he ever performed was the reciting of the Koran.

From this point, the recitations became more regular. What is important to note now, however, is that the Koran didn’t become a written text until several hundred years after Muhammad’s death. Remember, Muhammad was illiterate, and therefore he would commit each verse to memory, as did his immediate family. While this ultimately results in the Koran being a horribly laborious read, (it’s a mind numbing read), lacking the captivating story telling and poetry of the Bible, the Koranic recitations were never meant to be read, they were meant to be said. In fact, Muslim scholars are forthcoming in confessing that the Koran, when read in Arabic, loses nine-tenths of its power. Even today it is one of the greatest honors that could befall upon a young Muslim man, the ability to recite all 114 chapters (suras) of the Koran, and schools (madrassas) are dedicated to teaching this pursuit.

It had now been five years since Muhammad had received his first revelation from up high, and while he was now convinced there was only one god and that god be the biblical god, Allah, he remained reluctant to spread the word beyond those very close to him, which included his immediate family and some of his aunts, while his uncles remained utterly indifferent if not openly hostile. The first non-family member to convert to this then miniscule faith was an influential merchant of Mecca, by the name of Abu Bakr. This small group of devotees would meet at Muhammad’s home every morning and evening to take part in-group prayer.

Muhammad’s silence wouldn’t last, however, as the angel appeared to him at some point in AD 615 and told him to take his message public. Like the reluctant prophets of Moses and Jonah, Muhammad argued that he was not a skilled orator and that people would ridicule him, with the probability there would be reprisals against him and his family. The angel told him to pull himself together and that this was now his holy obligation. Muhammad agreed to the mission but told the angel he would start cautiously at first, but despite his caution, things couldn’t have got off to a worst start.

He hatched a plan to invite forty close colleagues, people he knew in business and community affairs, and who were all members of his clan. As his male guests dined, Muhammad stood to speak. He told them that an angel visited him in a cave five years earlier, and had spoken to him regularly ever since. He outlined that he had been commanded to serve the God of Abraham, Allah, and that it was God’s demand that all Arabs turn their backs on pagan worship and serve the one true god. He stopped speaking and noticed his guests were completely silent, but not in a good way. Presumably, Muhammad stood again to ask, “Are there any questions?” I guess we can assume a collective reply of, “Questions? Are there any questions?” because all forty guests stormed out of his house in complete and utter disgust. Needless to say it wasn’t the start Muhammad was hoping for, and worst, a whisper campaign began shortly thereafter that he had gone completely bonkers.

Now, there are a number of reasons why Muhammad’s launch party fell flat with his guests. First and foremost, however, was the fact that the Quraysh believed the idea of life after death to be beyond absurd, and that that was a belief shared only by those crazy Christians, who they thought were Charlie Sheen crazy. (Or if Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson had a baby. That kind of crazy.) Anyway, the whole idea of life beyond an earthly existence was preposterous to Arabs. To them, any place beyond the ether was reserved exclusively for the gods – it was a realm roped off to mere mortals. Muhammad, however, spoke to the dinner party about perpetual servitude to one god and that every individual’s deeds would be weighed and considered on a Day of Judgment before Allah. But the deeds Muhammad referred to were specifically obedience of laws found in the Old Testament, such as 24/7 obedience to the laws of Moses i.e. dietary laws, sexual laws, blasphemy laws, and ritual laws. The Quraysh, however, believed many of these laws were outdated, and could not accept the fact that virtues they valued would count for naught, such as lineage, wealth, and position in society.

Another reason they rejected the idea Muhammad could be some kind of prophet from the god Allah is it didn’t make any sense to them that a god would choose someone of such relative modest stature. Surely, they discussed, a god would choose someone of the absolute highest standing within the Arab community, and not someone who was illiterate and who had only come into financial success through marriage. Another concern was Muhammad’s call for prayer. While the pagans did engage in worship, it was more of the, “I’m sacrificing this cow, you make it rain” kind. Interestingly, Muhammad’s uncle Abu Talib even remarked that his nephew’s ritual of prayer, which involved his backside being higher than his head, to be demeaning and laughable.

As you can see, Islam, now in its 5
^th
year since Muhammad received his first revelation, was stuck in idle gear, and things would get worst before they got better. In AD 616, Muhammad received word from God that he should publicly denounce the worship of false idols. In other words, Muhammad would have to tell the pagan worshiping Arabs that not only should they cease the practices of their religious belief, but also paganism should be outlawed, and moreover, they will be punished with fire and brimstone. Well, you can imagine how well that went down, can’t you? Most likely like a holocaust joke at a Bar Mitzvah, probably. When the Quraysh of Mecca learnt that this was what Muhammad was now preaching, the proverbial hit the fan at high velocity. The blowback was swift and furious. Clashes between a dozen of Muhammad’s supporters and an angry mob of Quraysh clansman turned violent, and several were killed from both sides. Instantly, the entire city of Mecca turned against Muhammad. Until now they had tolerated the strange beliefs of the then self-titled prophet, but now vehement opposition was set against him. For a number of Meccans who had converted to Islam, the change in climate had caused them to suddenly renounce their faith. Muhammad’s followers went from a couple dozen to one dozen almost over night.

Civic summits were held to decide on what should be done with Muhammad. What was agreed upon was that a delegation of sheikhs should make an approach to Abu Talib, Muhammad’s uncle, with the purpose of convincing him to remove the clan protection of his nephew. In other words, they wanted to assassinate him but without the risk of igniting blood-feud reprisals. Abu Talib shared similar concerns. He was unhappy in the path Muhammad had chosen too, but he was blood, and blood would guarantee their bond. Muhammad refers to this event in the following verse of the Koran, whereby he quotes the sheiks:

“Your nephew has cursed our gods, insulted our religion, mocked our way of life and accused our forefathers of error. Either you must stop him or you must let us get at him.”

The Quraysh were now infuriated. Something had to be done, but what or how? A few months later, the sheiks approached Abu Talib again, but this time in a little less mood for conciliation or negotiation. They threatened they would kill the entire Beni Hashim clan if he couldn’t reel in Muhammad’s public proclamations of anti-paganism. Abu Talib took their threats seriously and went to visit Muhammad at his home. He urged him to go quiet for a while, at least until the dust had settled. Muhammad resisted, telling his uncle, “Even if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left on condition that I abandon this course, I would not abandon it.” Abu Talib saw the conviction in his nephew’s eyes, and while he didn’t agree with his worldview, he would defend his right to hold and express it.

Abu Talib’s backing protected Muhammad against physical attack for now, but it did not stop the leaders of the city putting in place a trade boycott against all Muslims and their businesses. The Quraysh harassed the Muslims where they could, accusing them of selling out their history and their fellow Arabs. Fortunately for Muhammad, however, he had some money and therefore the exclusion from trade didn’t hurt him as bad as it did his small band of followers. In fact, a few of them had no other alternative but to leave their homes to become beneficiaries of Muhammad’s generosity. Still, these must’ve been demoralizing times for Muhammad, as he was now treated as public enemy number one, a pariah in his hometown. The Koran provides some insight into how frustrating and upsetting these days must have been, for Muhammad describes an encounter he had with a neighbor who called him a “deceiver”: “He shall roast at a flaming fire and his wife, the carrier of the firewood, upon her neck a rope of palm-fiber.” (Koran 111:1-5) Them fighting words, no doubt!

The trade boycott really began to bite and Muhammad was unable to offer protection for everyone, so he sent a group of Muslims, twelve men and five women, to what is now Ethiopia. The following year, another dozen or so Muslim refugees from Mecca joined them. A year later still, the Muslim community living in forced exile grew to be a number of more than 200. This made the Quraysh even more concerned, as they believed Muhammad was merely biding his time to return these refugees back to Mecca to join him in rising up against them. The Quraysh decided they would send an envoy to Abyssinia to meet with the king, with the objective of persuading him to eliminate his Meccan guests. The twist in this story, however, is the king had become a recent convert to Christianity. The Quraysh knew this in advance, so they told the king the Meccan Muslims had blasphemed against Jesus Christ while they were still in Mecca. The king asked the Muslims if the allegation was true. A nephew of Muhammad stepped forward to answer the charge, and he recited a verse from the Koran that demonstrated admiration and acknowledgement of Jesus, while also laying praise on the Virgin Mary:

The king and his court heard this and were suitably wooed. The king turned to the Quraysh envoy and told them they should leave immediately. The Muslim refugees had won the right to remain protected guests of Abyssinia. Back in Mecca, however, the squeeze tightened upon Muhammad and his gradually growing number of followers. Without the ability to trade and with very few friends, the Muslims of Mecca formed their own ghetto within the city. This enabled them to share resources, thus helping them survive the victimization trust upon them.

Meanwhile, the religious rituals that we now identify as exclusively Muslim were starting to take shape, from prayer to the order and maturation of the Koran, of which the numerous verses were becoming rote learned by all who had adopted the faith. Essentially, while they were still being persecuted, the faith was still growing in these harsh conditions, and would take some giant steps forward very shortly.