Koran Curious - A Guide for Infidels and Believers (7 page)

Despite the Muslims ability to rally around one another in their now oppressed ghetto of Mecca, the reality was that after two years of being boycotted by the city, food shortages began to take hold. Further, the boycott had been extended to banning Muslims from joining caravans, and it was the caravans that gave access to trade and currency. Moreover, Mecca’s actions had not been confined to non-violent punitive actions, as a number of slaves who had converted to Islam were kidnapped and tied to trees, left to burn in the blazing sun. These murders deeply angered and saddened Muhammad, but ultimately the boycott would claim the life of someone much closer and dearer to him, his wife Khadija.

In AD 619, the death of his beloved wife of 24 years would become known as the Year of Sorrow, for the devastation it wrought upon Muhammad. For their entire marriage, Muhammad had stayed exclusively monogamous. To their friends and family, theirs had been a perfect union. Together they had given life to their four surviving daughters, and she had served as loyal confidant and counselor. Further, she was the first person to acknowledge him as a prophet. Edward Gibbon in his book, ‘
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’
, wrote:

Further tragedy would befall Muhammad soon after he buried his wife in Jannatul Mualla cemetery, Mecca, as his uncle and guardian Abu Talib fell ill and died in the same year. While Muhammad’s faith had caused he and his uncle to become distant, his death would pose a great security threat to him, as his passing would leave Muhammad without a protector or clan leader who could avenge his death if he were attacked, which always served as a deterrent to those who plotted against him. Muhammad was now exposed and vulnerable, and no chieftain in Mecca was willing to serve as his patron.

Now without a clan leader, confrontations against Muhammad became increasingly regular. He was spat upon. He had dung flung at him and his and children, and on another occasion he had the intestines of a dead sheep smeared in shit thrown on him. The prophet knew it would only be a matter of time before things would become dangerously bleak, but there was no place to run and no place to hide.

In desperation, Muhammad rode on horseback to the neighboring city of Taif, which was a solid two-day trip away. His objective was to seek a sanctuary for him and his Muslims, away from the increasing hostility of Mecca. The meeting was a total failure, however, and the chiefs of Taif ridiculed him for his claims of prophethood. One of the elders told him, “What makes you so special? You’re a nobody!” While another said, “if God sent you, then I will smash the Kaaba.” Dejected, Muhammad began on his return journey to Mecca.

Two hundred and fifty miles away in a town then called Yathrib, which later changed its name to Medina, that city’s chiefs were discussing the social woes of their society. The main problem they faced was in how to bring the city’s religious violence into some kind of order. The people of Medina had found it impossible live in peace together. There were several Arab tribes who had converted to Judaism, others that had converted to Christianity, and there were three clans of Jewish descent. What made Medina unique in southern Arabia is a majority of the population believed in monotheism, as opposed to the majority of Meccans who were polytheists.

The chieftains of Medina had heard stories of Muhammad. They had heard he was preaching a blend of combined Judaism and Christianity, but in a way targeted specifically towards Arabs. So they decided to send an envoy to Mecca to meet with Muhammad, under the cover of the hajj (pilgrimage) of AD 620. After a number of meetings and discussions, the Medina envoy all became converts to Islam, and they promised Muhammad they would defend him against anyone who attacked him or his Muslim converts.

For the first time Muhammad was starting to see a glimmer of hope. The new pact with Medina would ensure no harm would come to him. It was during this period Muhammad was invited to have dinner at the house of one of his cousins. After dinner he felt restless and anxious, and he asked if he could be excused from the table. He then felt a force pulling him towards the Kaaba. There he walked several times around the shrine, before falling asleep in a nearby shelter. As he slept, he felt the painful jolts of a horse kicking him in the stomach. Suddenly awoken, Muhammad was startled by the sight of a Pegasus. The Archangel Gabriel appeared and told him to throw his legs over the saddle of the winged horse named Buraq. The horse bolted, literally, straight up into the night sky on a journey that covered the caravan routes of his younger days; the ruined cities of the Old Testament; and then onto the revered city of Jerusalem, “the farthest mosque”. (Masjid al-aqsa) Once there Muhammad was welcomed by a host of biblical prophets, including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, who told him he must continue his efforts to bring the Arabs to God. You can imagine the difficulty Christians have in believing Jesus told Muhammad to continue preaching Islam, but I digress.

From what is now the Dome on the Rock, Jerusalem, Muhammad ascended into heaven. Gabriel gave him a whirlwind tour of the heavenly realm including the fires of hell, and this was the moment he saw his ultimate mission clear. I mean who wouldn’t be impressed, right? Gabriel told him this was his reward for his perseverance to now, and that greater rewards lay in waiting should he unite Arabia under the obedience of God. Muhammad was elated. It was the motivation and inspiration he needed after a decade of hardship that included being ostracized, the loss of his wife and friends, and humiliation.

The Islamic world remain divided as to whether or not this mystical event was merely a spiritual or dream like metaphor, or if it were an actual physical happening. I guess that depends on each individual’s faith. Al Tabari, who was one of Muhammad’s first biographers, believed it to be an actual event and he gave the following account:

As for me I think I will lean towards the dream side of the aisle, in case you were asking. But it doesn’t matter what I think. Let’s see what others of that time thought of Muhammad’s night flight.

Rejuvenated, Muhammad stood in the centre of the shrine in Mecca and called upon the entire city to hear of what he had to say. Over the course of the next few hours, the entire city had gathered. Muhammad began to speak, and what he told them was a full account of his winged horse journey to Jerusalem that previous evening. He gave his account and then silence. And then more silence, some vacant glances among the crowd, and then wild fits of laughter broke out. Literally, 20,000 people were on their backs laughing that any person would have the audacity to mutter such a fanciful story. His enemies, however, were exultant, for now he had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he had lost his mind. They were determined more than ever to finish him once and for all, and a bounty was placed on his head for any person willing to murder him.

The euphoria of his night flight had been rubbed away by the realization that he was now considered little more than a punch line in his own town. Further, Muhammad learned of a bounty placed on his head. Timely, the chieftains of Medina reached out to him and pleaded he come to them in order to lead their city, which now seemed intent on destroying itself. Muhammad had little other alternative and he agreed. The assassins were closing in and it was only for a sneaky piece of planning did Muhammad escape Mecca unharmed.

The year was now AD 622 and not a single Muslim remained living in Mecca. They were safely reunited with the Abyssinian refugees, and Arabia’s first theocracy was about to be implemented thus beginning the Islamic era. With a safe haven for all Muslims, Muhammad could begin his preparations for waging war on the unbelievers of Mecca. Now, this is a point we all need to be clear on and it’s essential to understanding Islam in its entirety. You see, the Meccans and the Quraysh wished to continue practicing their pagan religious beliefs. Muhammad, however, was on a mission to convert them. For the previous decade he had been on the defensive, quietly reciting the Koran, building his converts, but now with a base, he would turn this all around by going on the offensive. Islam means surrender and he had no intention of leaving the Meccans to their own spiritual wishes. He believed it was his divine duty to conquer and convert them, but for now his immediate priority was securing his position in Medina. Payback and submission would come later.

The Muslims hastily departed Mecca several days before Muhammad and Abu Bakr. This was a part of an elaborate ploy to fool their would-be assassins. Several days had passed and the Muslims and the chieftains of Medina were becoming increasingly fearful the prophet had met a violent end. On the third day, however, a garrison guard spotted their horses approaching and he signaled the alarm. The entire city was elated and they greeted Muhammad in much the same way as the Bible narrates the alleged triumphant return of Jesus to Jerusalem upon horseback.

The arrival of Muhammad signified the official renaming of Yathrib to Medina, meaning ‘the city of the prophet’, and the city would later become the model for a perfect Islamic society. But now came the arduous task of reuniting the citizens of the city after years of religious squabbling and violence.

First of all, Muhammad had to build his new home, which would also serve as somewhat of a community center, thus becoming the world’s first mosque (
masjid
: place of prostration).

The masjid was a simple building made from sun-fired mud bricks and included an enclosed courtyard where Muslims met to discuss all social, political, and military issues. In the centre of the courtyard was the kiblah, which pointed in the direction of Jerusalem, so the Muslims knew which way to bow towards during prayer. Along the edge of the courtyard were a series of rooms that housed Muhammad’s numerous wives, which now leads us to a hot button topic that those of anti-Islamic persuasion love to point to when fingering Muhammad.

Ok, it had now been more than a year since the passing of Khadija, when one of his household staff recommended he take another wife. Two potential suitors were offered to him, Sawdah and Aisha. Rather than choose between them, Muhammad took both to be his newly wedded wives. Sawdah was a thirty-year-old widow, and Aisha a child of just seven years of age. Ok, so let’s discuss this moral landmine field.

Well, by our twenty-first Western civilization moral standards, Muhammad’s marriage to an eight year old is an open-shut case of pedophilia. We define a pedophile as any person who sexually seduces a child below the age of legal consent, typically sixteen years or younger. But we’re not talking about twenty first century Western civilization moral standards, but rather the moral standards of the Middle East 1,500 years ago. In biblical times, men consummated marriages with a girl as soon as she reached the age of menstruation, which is often at +/- 12 years of age. Thus by our standards, men of the Bible, such as Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon, equally qualify for the title pedophile. Child brides remain a fact of life even today in some Islamic societies, and within some Mormon communities, and as a matter of fact it remained lawful for a man to marry a nine-year-old girl in Iran as little as a decade ago. The Ayatollah once stated that if it was good enough for Muhammad, then it’s good enough for me. In
‘Voices Behind the Veil
’ it tells of today’s Taliban who marry off their daughters as young as eight years of age.

Now, Muslims will defend Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha by claiming he did not consummate or sleep with her until she reached the age of sexual maturity, presumably twelve or older. But is that true? Well, we can find that answer in the
hadith
. The hadith is a collection of authoritative writings concerning Muhammad and are, for all intensive purposes, of equal importance alongside the Koran when guiding the practice of Islam. So what does the hadith say about Muhammad’s marriage to his nine-year-old bride?