Koran Curious - A Guide for Infidels and Believers (9 page)

With the Meccans withdrawn, the casualties his army had suffered shocked Muhammad, and he vowed revenge against his former city. But it wouldn’t be long before Mecca would put him on the defensive again. On March 31
^st
, 627 the Meccans would send a fighting force of 10,000 men to Medina as the mother of all battles. Greatly outnumbered, Muhammad would prove his military leadership prowess by encircling the city with a trench. From this trench, the Muslim warriors would fight, thus nullifying the advantage the Meccans had with their cavalry. After twenty-seven days of fighting, the siege of Medina was locked in a stalemate. In desperation and as an act to boost the moral of the attackers, the Meccans called a truce and offered their two best warriors, Amr Abd Wudd and Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl, to duel the Muslim’s two best fighters. The Muslims accepted the duel, and opposing forces took a respite from fighting to watch these four gladiators battle it out to the death. The Muslims were victorious, the entire city of Medina shouted, “Allah Ahkbar” (God is great), in unison.

The Meccans were now exhausted and underfed, victory seemed impossible. The will and fortitude of the Muslims had overwhelmed their opponents yet again, and as they retreated, Muhammad was able to trap and encircle the Qurayzah, the Jewish clan who joined forces with Mecca, before executing seven hundred of them and selling their families as slaves. This sent other Jewish and pagan clans an unmistakable message: that Muhammad wasn’t to be messed with, and again his prestige skyrocketed throughout Arabia.

Karen Armstrong,
‘Islam: A Short History’
, makes the point that Islamic extremists and those who point to Koranic passages as examples of anti-Semitism, are guilty of taking these particular verses out of context. In Koranic passages that do show any hostility towards the Jews, he is not referring to the Jews or Judaism in general, but rather is specifically addressing the three Jewish clans who formed alliances with Mecca with the purpose of killing him.

Conversions to Islam were now taking place en masse throughout towns and cities everywhere in southern Arabia. Although Muhammad reminded his followers he was but a mere messenger, his reputation had reached an almost god like altitude.

In the spring of 628, and with Muhammad and Islam’s popularity growing, the prophet believed he was ready for the ultimate victory party, a triumphant return to the city of his birth, Mecca. The Meccans had tried unsuccessfully to annihilate him and his followers for more than a decade now. They had placed boycotts on him; they had threatened him; they had paid assassins; and they had waged full-scale war against him, and each time he rose victorious. These military victories combined with the merciless revenge killing of the Jewish clan at the Battle of the Trench, and the reverence his followers laid upon him (one non-Muslim tribal chieftain observed, “I have visited Chosroes, King of Persia, at his court, the Roman Caesar in Constantinople and the Negus of Abyssinia in his own country, but never have I seen a king treated by his subjects with the veneration which Muhammad receives from his companions”), made Muhammad believe he could take Mecca without bloodshed, thus beginning his peace offensive.

With one thousand followers dressed in long white robes, Muhammad approached Mecca during the hajj of 628. Mostly unarmed, as pilgrims were forbidden to carry weapons during the religious holiday, the Muslims would be at the mercy of the Quraysh. Sure enough, his long time adversaries received word of his approaching and they sent out a patrol to attack him before he reached the outskirts of the city. Muhammad evaded them, however, and took refuge with a Bedouin tribe in Hudaybiyyah. Camped there for three days, Muhammad waited developments. The Quraysh chieftains were surprised and impressed by Muhammad’s non-violent actions and they offered him a ten-year peace treaty. This meant Muslims could travel to the shrine and Kaaba whenever they chose, and it meant the Muslims and Meccans could never attack one another. Although a majority of the Muslims wanted to enact violent retribution against their long time provocateurs, and they had the might to do it, Muhammad’s gesture to sign a peace accord won him even more followers throughout the land, thus ensuring Islam was well and truly an unstoppable force.

The influx of new followers did little to comfort the disgruntlement of the old followers, however, as they took this treaty to be a backhanded slap across the face. They had lost brothers, sons and fathers during the military campaigns against Mecca, and they believed this treaty dishonored their memories. More importantly, however, the treaty prevented the Muslims from engaging in their prime business activity, the raiding of caravans. Muhammad’s treaty effectively put an immediate end to this enterprise. The prophet sensed he was facing a mutiny of sorts, and thus he addressed them with what he said had been another recitation from the angel. The following verse is found in Sura 48:

This recitation was sufficient to lift the spirits of his weary warriors, and they returned to Medina exultant in the belief that God was looking out for Muhammad, and that the prophet was correctly relaying the Lord’s orders. Ten weeks later in Medina, Muhammad would further buoy his follower’s spirits in announcing he had drawn up a plan to attack the Jewish settlement of Khaybar. Muhammad took a force of 1,000 men, which seemed a paltry number given that they would be facing up to 10,000 enemy soldiers and fortified walls. Muhammad believed a small and mobile infantry would allow the Muslims to hit and run in small platoons in somewhat of a guerilla style engagement. Khaybar’s strength was also its weakness, however. It was a fortified city but was a series of hamlets rather than a centralized town surrounded by perimeter defensive positions.

On the 7
^th
May, 629 the Muslims launched their offensive but they met stiff resistance from the Jewish archers who picked off more than 50 of Muhammad’s men in the first five days of fighting. It appeared as if the city was indeed impregnable, but then came a stroke of luck. A Jewish soldier was taken prisoner and interrogated. He revealed that the weakest hamlet of the city was the fort of Naim. Moreover, if they were to capture that fort, they would be able to seize a large stockpile of weapons. A platoon was sent in and the fort fell as easily as predicted by the prisoner. To their further good fortune, Naim possessed a ballista, which was a rock-hurling catapult. They repositioned the ballista to fire upon the mud-brick walls of the other hamlets, allowing the Muslim raiders to send the Jews into chaos. The Muslims cut off access to the town’s water wells and the city of Khaybar had fallen to Muhammad. Certainly, an astounding military success, by any war historian’s measure.

Muhammad told the residents of Khaybar that no harm would befall them should they hand over all of their possessions to the Muslims. Soon after the agreement, the Jews approached Muhammad with a request they could continue to farm their land on the condition they forfeit fifty percent of their produce to the Muslims each year. Muhammad agreed to the terms, thus making it the precedent for Islamic Law in determining the status of non-Muslims living under Muslim rule.

The divvying up of the spoils of war continued with Muhammad taking the widow of a slain Jewish commander to be his wife, and then later learning that the city contained hidden treasure. The fact that the Jewish Rabbi had not forfeited the treasure was a breach of the terms of the settlement, and Muhammad had the Rabbi tortured and beheaded.

In 630, Muhammad led the Muslims for their first hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, as guaranteed by the terms of the treaty with the Quraysh. Thousands of Muslims followed Muhammad into the shrine, as the Meccans looked on the passing parade in awe of his now vast following. The prophet walked right up to the black stone, touched it and then made seven circuits of the Kaaba, and seven runs between the hillocks of Safa and Marwah. Muhammad then led the thousands of his followers in communal prayer and the Meccans couldn’t help be impressed by not only the discipline of his followers, but their reverence of the Kaaba and sacred stone. For the next few days, the Muslims stayed as guests in the city and this gave those Muslims who were originally from Mecca to reunite with family and former friends. But the terms of the treaty included that the Muslims could stay for only three days and would have to return to Medina. They did exactly that, winning many more converts along the way.

A short while later, in 630, the Meccans violated the treaty by attacking one of Muhammad’s tribal allies. In return, Muhammad marched onto Mecca with a force of 10,000 soldiers. Mecca was caught completely off guard and little if any resistance was encountered. Entering the city, Muhammad had his warriors fanned out across the city and gave the order they should fight only if attacked. With the residents held in a virtual lockdown, Muhammad entered the Kaaba and destroyed all of the pagan idols, all three-hundred-and-sixty of them. He then stood atop the Kaaba and addressed his army, “Praise be to God, who hath fulfilled His promise and helped his slave and routed the clans.” The words of Muhammad’s address reached all the residents of the city and soon he would offer them a moratorium to convert to Islam. In all but a few cases, the entire city pledged their faith to Islam, and their lives were spared. There were some not shown any clemency or mercy, however, as Muhammad had with him a list of names. If your name was on this list it meant you were an enemy of Islam and you were to be executed. The total number beheaded included six men and four women.

Muhammad was home. He had the keys to the city and Islam was now the religion of southern Arabia’s biggest. His next objective would be to convert the rest of the peninsular, and he began with the city of Taif. The city that more than fifteen years ago had refused to offer him protection when the Meccans plotted to kill him. It was payback time but the city of Taif was equally spoiling for a fight, having learned Muhammad had destroyed the idol that venerated the goddess Al-Lat, who the people of Taif worshipped.

It was only two weeks after Muhammad had taken Mecca that he mobilized his military to lay siege on Taif. But Taif was arguably the most well defended city in southern Arabia. As the Muslim soldiers approached, they were easy pickings for the city’s archers. Muhammad withdrew his troops and was alarmed by the casualty count. His advisors warned the city was impenetrable. Muhammad took heed and called off the siege, electing to pursue an economic war against Taif, rather than a military course of action. With Mecca and Medina now part of the Islamic caliphate, Taif was effectively cut off from the trade routes, which quickly sent the city down the path of economic ruin. Thus it wasn’t long before Taif sent an envoy to meet with Muhammad who agreed to let them live without persecution should they convert to Islam, which they did. Muhammad then sent his own delegation to Taif where he demolished all idols or monuments honoring the false gods. The entire southern part of Arabia was now an Islamic theocracy, and Muhammad set his eyes on the goal of unifying the entire Arab peninsular.

One-by-one, cities converted to Islam, for they had for many years prior to his arrival in their towns, learned of his mystique and power. They had seen the transformation he made to the cities in the south, how he had ended centuries of tribal conflict by unifying the region under a single banner, Islam. Places like Oman, Yemen, and Muscat announced their conversions in 630 and 631. All in all, Muhammad had personally led his soldiers into thirty-two military campaigns and ordered another twenty-one attacks. Now, a majority of Muslims are of the view that Muhammad fought only when he was attacked. They also argue that he was the first military leader in history to lay down rules for humane combat, and that he was always meticulously careful in limiting the loss of civilian life. It’s important to remember that in those times defeating an enemy meant completely annihilating the inhabitants of the opposition’s society. Equally, it would be disingenuous to deny the fact Islam was spread by the sword, as Khaybar, Taif, and Mecca were forced into submission or faced further military and economic attack.

Muhammad had successfully launched his Islamic Empire, but what is interesting is the fact that he never sent rulers to oversee each member city or state. For example, he was satisfied to let the Yemenis rule themselves, so long as they continued to pay their tithe or tax. Moreover, Muhammad never envisaged a global proselytization or conversion to Islam. He saw Islam purely as a branch of the Old Testament faiths, designed exclusively for Arabs.

In early 632 Muhammad told his closest followers he had received a premonition of his death, and that his passing into the next life would be soon. On 20 February 632 he led a huge throng of followers from Medina to Mecca for one final pilgrimage to the shrine. It was his actions on this pilgrimage that established the ritual of the Hajj forever. On the first evening he circled the Kaaba seven times. On the next day he threw seven stones at a stone column in remembrance of Abraham’s rejection of the Devil. On the third day Muhammad shaved his hair and returned to the Kaaba to circle it seven more times, and to run seven times between the hillocks of Safa and Marwah.