The Koran and the life of the prophet Muhammad

By Kåre Bluitgen

“The book that started the Mohammad controversy is a beautiful piece of work. It is well-written and contains wonderful drawings by an unknown illustrator, who may rightfully be proud of his work. It is highly commendable that Bluitgen sets out to recount the story of Mohammad’s life for a broad audience including non-Muslims.”
Jakob Feldt, Ph.D, research fellow, Institute of History and Civilization, University of Southern Denmark
“Bluitgen deserves praise for providing a complex and nuanced picture of Mohammad similar to the ones found in the original Muslim sources. On the terms defined by the author this book is certainly a success.”
Thomas Hoffmann, Ph.D., specializing in the Koran, Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
“Bluitgen’s account of Mohammad’s life is based on the earliest Muslim sources, and his compilation is certainly worth reading. It is a nice opportunity to acquire more knowledge about how the life of Mohammad is traditionally interpreted by Muslims.”
Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kåre Bluitgen
• Release date: Nov 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9788793141070

Kåre Bluitgen

Kåre Bluitgen was born in 1959, just outside Copenhagen. He is a qualified teacher and journalist, but has been working as a writer since 1994. His works can be seen on his webside www.bluitgen.dk including a wide range of novels for both children, teenagers and grown-ups. In addition, there is non-fiction, plays, films etc. Kåre Bluitgen has also worked as a translator, lecturer, publisher, and instructor in Folk High Schools in Denmark. Kåre Bluitgen has written both historical novels and fantasy, but often the themes to his books have been based on political, religious and philosophical subject matter. He has travelled over much of the world in connection with his books and films, North Korea, Eritrea, South Africa, Mexico, Kurdistan, Kirgizstan, Burma, Haiti and Liberia, amongst others. He has received a number of the most distinguished prizes for Danish literature for his internationally orientated works, and his books have been translated into various languages. Here are som extracts from reviews of his book The Koran and the life of the prophet Muhammad: The book that started the Mohammad controversy is a beautiful piece of work. It is well-written and contains wonderful drawings by an unknown illustrator, who may rightfully be proud of his work. It is highly commendable that Bluitgen sets out to recount the story of Mohammad's life for a broad audience including non-Muslims. Jakob Feldt, Ph.D, research fellow, Institute of History and Civilization, University of Southern Denmark Bluitgen deserves praise for providing a complex and nuanced picture of Mohammad similar to the ones found in the original Muslim sources. On the terms defined by the author this book is certainly a success. Thomas Hoffmann, Ph.D., specializing in the Koran, Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Bluitgen's account of Mohammad's life is based on the earliest Muslim sources, and his compilation is certainly worth reading. It is a nice opportunity to acquire more knowledge about how the life of Mohammad is traditionally interpreted by Muslims. Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Book preview

Awaiting a prophet

The vision of fire rolling across the sea

Long ago in Arabia, in the land of Yemen, reigned King Rabi ibn Nasr. He had seen something frightening in a vision, which kept troubling him. Therefore, he summoned all the soothsayers, magicians, omen readers and astrologers from the length and breadth of his kingdom and said to them:

I have had a vision that day after day makes me feel uneasy. Tell me what it was and what it means.

The people whom he had summoned asked him to tell them about his vision.

If I tell you about it, King Rabi replied, I can have no confidence in your interpretation. The only ones who can tell me what it means are those who know the vision without my having told them about it.

Despite the fact that the people he had called in could talk with birds or hear conversations where they were not present themselves, they had to give up. They recommended that the king sent for Siqq and Satih instead, for they knew more than anyone else did.

Satih was the first to arrive on King Rabi’s request. The king said that if Satih knew his vision, he would be able to interpret it too.

You saw a massive fire coming across the sea, and it descended upon your land and consumed everything and everyone.

The king admitted that this was just what he had seen and asked what it meant.

From Africa, from the land of Ethiopia, black men will come and rule over your land.

The king cried out loud at his misfortune and asked how long it would be before it happened. Would it be during his lifetime?

More than sixty or seventy years shall pass, replied Satih.

Will the kingdom of the Ethiopians prevail then? asked Rabi.

No, after seventy years or more they will be killed or put to flight.

The king asked some more questions and got to know that the new victors’ kingdom would not last long either.

One day, Satih informed him, a prophet who receives revelations from heaven will come. His dominion will hold sway until the end of time.

Does time have an end then? inquired the king.

Yes, replied Satih. Time ends the day the first and the last person are called together, and the just are accorded joy and the evil ones, suffering.

Are you telling me the truth? whispered the king.

And Satih swore by the dusk and the night and the dawn that he had told the king the truth.

Later Siqq arrived and, without telling him what Satih had said, the king now asked him what he had seen in his vision.

Siqq related how the fire would come across the sea and come down amid the rocks and trees and burn up everything that breathed. The king said that this was what he had seen in his vision.

When the king posed Siqq the same questions that he had put to Satih earlier on, he got the same replies. Satih told him that one day a prophet would come who would bring justice for the believers. His realm shall last until the Day of Reckoning, when the dead and the living will be gathered at the appointed place where they will listen as they are spoken to from heaven. Only those who were close to God will be rewarded. By the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and all that lies between, I have told you the truth, declared Satih as he brought his tale to a close.

What the two men had said made a deep impression on King Rabi. He sent his sons and their families out of the country. They journeyed to Iraq with all their belongings, and Rabi wrote to the Persian king and asked if they might live there in safety.

The king of Persia allowed them to, and the years went by. King Rabi ibn Nasr died a lonely, old man.

The Kaaba and the temple with the black dog

Another of Arabia’s ancient kings was called Tibad Asad. One day, he was passing through Medina on one of his long travels, after having been over the Black Mountains and past the warm, stinking springs. Along with his retinue, he went through the prosperous oasis town without pillaging it as at one time so often happened when one tribe entered another tribe’s territory. He took two of the town’s learned Jewish rabbis with him instead and left one of his own sons behind.

Not long after, his son was murdered, and King Tibad Asad returned with a mighty army and got ready to lay the entire town to waste and wipe out its inhabitants as a punishment.

But the rabbis warned the king. They told him that if he attempted an attack, something would stop him and, what was more, something evil would befall him.

The king asked why, and they explained:

Medina is the town where a prophet from the famous Quraysh tribe in Mecca will one day dwell. He will go there as a fugitive but he will gain mastery over its citizens.

The king believed the scholarly Jews and gave up his plan. He set out for Mecca instead, which lay on the road to Yemen, but on the way he was stopped by some Bedouins. They offered to lead him to some treasure which previous kings had overlooked:

It’s a treasure-trove of pearls, topazes, rubies, silver and gold. It lies hidden in the temple in Mecca.

The king was over the moon and was determined to make sure he got his hands on the treasure before anyone else did, but checked what the two rabbis made of it all first.

That’s a nasty trick to bring you to ruin, they replied. The temple in Mecca is the temple that God has chosen for Himself. If you do as these men suggest, both you and everyone you take with you will perish.

What shall I do then when I go to Mecca? inquired the king. Do what the Meccans do: step inside holy area with humility, shave off your hair and go round the temple to show your respect.

The king asked if the two rabbis would do the same, but they declined: It is our ancestor Abraham’s temple, true enough, but the heathens have erected statues of false gods around it, and the blood that they sacrifice and splatter on the statues just makes them impure that’s all.

King Tibad Asad believed what the rabbis had said and he cut off the Bedouins’ hands and feet because they would have lured him to his demise.

Then the king pressed on with his journey towards Mecca where he went barefoot around the Kaaba, as the temple was called. He shaved his head and sacrificed two thousand camels and gave the meat to the townsfolk.

In a vision in a dream, he was ordered to cover the temple so he made a roof out of plaited palm leaves. Later, he had a vision telling him to provide the temple with a canopy of white fabric from Egypt, which he did. And finally, he had a vision to top the Kaaba with fine, stripey cloth from Yemen. He banned corpses and clothing with women’s menstrual blood from coming near the holy site, and he installed a door in the temple and made a key for it.

When he returned to Yemen, he urged his folk to join his new religion, for the wisdom of the rabbis had made him to become a Jew.

But his people wanted to let the matter be settled by a trial by fire. This was how serious disputes were always resolved: the fire would consume the guilty and leave the innocent unscathed. Therefore, a huge bonfire was lit, and the Yemenites came holding their idols above their heads.

The two Jews had hung their holy book, the Torah, around their necks on a prayer strap, and everyone stood at the edge of the pyre, where the sacred fire normally went out. Now, when the blaze looked like it was not going to stop, the Yemenites wanted to run away, but their fellow believers cheered them on and demanded that they stood their ground.

Then the flames engulfed them but, whilst the Yemenites and all their idols turned to ashes, the two rabbis stepped out of the dying fire. They were sweating buckets but they and their book were unharmed. From then on, everyone in Yemen became a Jew.

The two rabbis then asked the king’s permission to demolish the country’s old, pagan temple. Red with the blood of sacrifices that had been splattered about, it was where the Yemenites had received oracles. But in reality, it was Satan’s way of duping them into doing something they should not, as the rabbis explained.

The king gave them leave to raze the temple. The first thing that the two Jews did was order a black dog to come out of the building and they killed it on the spot. Next, they destroyed everything so all that was left were ruins, stained with the blood of sacrifices.

The Christian builder and his disciple

Further towards the north in Syria, there were lots of Christians. One of them was Faymiyun, a just, honest and modest man whose prayers were answered. He was a builder who went from town to town where he made bricks out of clay and built for people. He never worked on a Sunday, but went out into the desert to pray until it was night.

Now, there was a man called Salih who lived in one of the towns. He was profoundly impressed by how Faymiyun conducted himself. He secretly followed him on his travels hither and thither and, from a hiding place, he watched Faymiyun when he went out into the desert to pray on Sundays.

One Sunday, when Faymiyun was deep in prayer, a horned viper slithered up close to him. Faymiyun spotted it and cursed it, and it died. But Salih had not been able to see what was going on from his hidey-hole and had shouted: Faymiyun, look out for the snake!

Faymiyun carried on praying unruffled until night fell. Since Salih knew that he had blown his cover, he addressed the builder:

Faymiyun, I have never had a higher regard for anyone than you. Let me come with you wherever you are and wherever you go."

You know how I live, replied Faymiyun. If you can be content with such a life, then come along with me.

God uproots the palm tree

Faymiyun never stayed long in the same place but, nevertheless, there were more and more people who found out about his talents. For when his travels brought him past an ill person who asked him to pray for him, Faymiyun did so, and he was restored to health. But when it was someone tried to summon him come and pray for them, he never did.

A man whose son was blind requested that he came, but Faymiyun explained that he was an itinerant builder who worked for his living. That got the man to hide his son under a piece of material in a room. Then he sent for Faymiyun under the pretext of his seeing to a bit of work that needed doing. When Faymiyun arrived, all of a sudden the man pulled the cloth to one side and said:

Look, Faymiyun, here lies one of God’s creatures, blind in both eyes, as you can see. Pray for him.

Faymiyun did so, and the boy got up and could see.

But now that Faymiyun’s talents were known in the village, he went out further afield with Salih. One day, they reached Arabia where they were set upon and taken prisoner by some Arabs. They were conveyed with the caravans to Najran, which at that time was the most important town in Arabia. They were sold in the local slave market.

Najran’s inhabitants worshipped a big palm tree as their god and once a year they hung women’s jewellery and pieces of beautiful clothing up in it. Then they went round the palm like the heathens went round the Kaaba in Mecca.

Faymiyun and Salih were sold to their respective slave owners. One night, when Faymiyun was praying in his room, the whole of his master’s house lit up as if oil lamps were burning in every room. This all made his master wonder which religion he was following so he asked him.

Faymiyun replied that everyone in Najran had got it all wrong because their palm tree could neither help them nor harm them. If he cursed the tree in the name of God, it would be totally obliterated, root and branch.

Do it then, his master retorted. If you’re telling the truth, we’ll follow the religion of Jesus, the son of Mary.

So Faymiyun called out to God, and God sent a fearsome storm that tore the tree up by its roots and tossed it to the ground. When the inhabitants of Najran saw this, lots of them went over to Christianity.

Bonfires in the graves

In a village a little outside Najran, there dwelt a magician who taught the young men of Najran his black arts.

Faymiyun pitched his tent midway between the town and the village and one day, a young man called Abdullah came past on his way out to the sorcerer. When he heard the man in the tent praying, he was overwhelmed by how much the prayer was infused with the fear of God and sat down and listened. Soon he was converted and wanted to know what God’s mighty name really was.

Young man, replied Faymiyun, I’m afraid that you aren’t strong enough to know that.

But Abdullah went back to see Faymiyun again and again, and every time his tutor taught him one of God’s names, he wrote it down on a stick. When he had heard all the names, he lit a bonfire and threw the sticks in one at a time. When he got to the stick with God’s mighty name on it, it jumped straight back out of the fire again, and Abdullah took it and went back to his teacher:

Now I know God’s mighty name which you kept secret from me.

When Faymiyun found out how his pupil had worked it out, he gave him a piece of advice: You’re young, keep the name to yourself, though I doubt if you can.

Every time Abdullah met an ill person in Najran, he asked: Will you recognize that there is only one God and become a Christian so that I can pray to God to ease your suffering?

That was something which everyone accepted, and soon there was not one single sick person in the entire town.

But when the king got wind of this, he had Abdullah brought before him and screamed in rage: You’ve turned the whole of Najran against me and against mine and my forefathers’ religion. You’ll be punished so that no one will attempt such a thing again!

You don’t have the power to do that, replied Abdullah.

The king took Abdullah up on a high mountain and threw him off head first, but Abdullah landed unharmed.

Then he was flung into a deep well from which no one had come out alive before, but Abdullah emerged and was yet again unscathed.

You won’t be able to kill me until you acknowledge my religion, explained Abdullah.

So the king recognized that there is only one God and he recited Abdullah’s declaration of faith. Then the king tapped Abdullah with his staff, and he fell to the ground dead. At the same moment, he fell down dead too.

From that day onward, everyone followed the Gospel and the laws that Jesus had brought from God. But afterwards, a powerful king, Dhu Nuwas, came and demanded that everyone chose between becoming a Jew and suffering death.

They chose death.

Lots of them were thrown onto bonfires that were lit at the bottom of mass graves. Others were hacked down with swords and, again, others were mutilated. In the end, twenty thousand Christians lay dead. And around the ash-filled graves, sat Dhu Nuwas’s men gazing at the results of their deeds.

Many years later, when a farmer wanted to clear the land amid the ruins of Najran, where cornfields and vineyards had once ripened between weavers’ workshops and irrigation canals, he found Abdullah buried. He was sitting up with his hand pressed against a head wound, and when his hand was shifted, the wound started to bleed. He was wearing a ring inscribed with the words ‘God is my Lord’, and when the farmer let go of Abdullah’s hand, it slumped back onto his head and the bleeding stopped.

It was decided to let him rest in his lonely grave.

An army sweeps across the sea

Just one man managed to escape the blood bath at Najran. He rode his horse along the long road through the desert to the Byzantine Emperor. But even if the emperor was the most powerful of all the Christian rulers, his power still did not extend as far as the southern towns of the Arabian Peninsula. Therefore, he sent the rider on to the Negus in Ethiopia with a letter saying that he must help the Christians.

The Ethiopian ruler did so. He sent seventy thousand men across the Red Sea with orders to kill a third of Dhu Nuwas’s men, ravage a third of the land, and send a third of the women and children to Ethiopia, if the campaign succeeded.

In a great battle, the Ethiopians clashed with Dhu Nuwas’s army which was forced to fall back with thousands of bands of black, Ethiopian soldiers hot on their heels. The blades of their spears glistened like the sky just before rain, whilst their arrows clattered in their quivers.

The one castle after the other fell, where there had once been furbished, white marble with lamps sparkling at night. Where songstresses had entertained and wine brought out laughter in people, the din of battle shook the air and then there was a dreadful silence. It was a time when vultures ate their fill.

Dhu Nuwas’s army was soon defeated. He rode his horse towards the sea and whipped it until it leapt out into the water and swam away towards the horizon.

That was the last anyone saw of Dhu Nuwas.

The two rivals and the slave

It was only a few years before the Ethiopian army in Yemen became divided between two officers: Aryat and Abraha. A fight between the two wings of the army was brewing. To avoid this, Abraha suggested they had duel over who should be the military commander.

Aryat went along with it, and when the day came, he stood there ready with his spear. The two rivals approached each other, and Abraha got one of his young slaves, Atawda, to stand behind him, just in case anyone tried to hack him down from the rear.

Aryat flung his spear at his opponent. He struck Abraha in the face and split both his forehead and his nose as well as his mouth. But then Atawda leapt forward, chopped Aryat down and screeched: I am Atawda, a simple man without parents of noble birth!

Abraha survived, but when the Negus back home in Ethiopia heard of the matter, he became angry that Abraha had killed one of his officers. He swore that he would harry Abraha until he had trampled on his land and humiliated him by cutting his forelock off.

Now, Abraha shaved off his own hair and filled a leather bag with some earth from Yemen. He sent both items to the Negus along with a letter: O king, Aryat was just your slave and the same as me. I am sending you my hair and soil from my land so that you can lay it under your feet and keep your oath.

This letter dampened the wrath of the Negus.

The avenging army reaches Mecca

Then Abraha built a cathedral in Sana out of white, red, green and black marble with the entrance studded with gold and decorated with pearls and precious stones. He had incense burnt inside it and besprinkled the walls with musk so that it was scented. He wrote in a letter to the Negus that the cathedral was the largest church in the world, and he would make sure that all the Arabian pilgrims, who made the pilgrimage to the temple in Mecca, would go there in future.

But a man from Mecca who made a living by working out the sacred months in the calendar would not stand for losing the piles of money that the pilgrims spent on food, water and clothing. He travelled to Yemen and secretly went into the church in Sana, where he emptied his bowels and left his pooh right there on the floor.

When Abraha heard how the cathedral had been defiled, he swore that he would destroy the Kaaba in Mecca. He set out with an army of Yemenites and a whole host of Ethiopians and, at the very front of the column, marched a mighty war elephant.

Several Arab tribes had tried to stop Abraha’s army, but they had to surrender and one of their leaders was forced to act as a guide to save his life. It was Nufayl who thus basked in the warmth of Abraha’s compassion. The African received a friendly welcome from other tribes who milked their camels dry to show their hospitality.

On the way north through the valley too dry for corn to grow where Mecca lay, Abraha’s soldiers learned more about the Kaaba. They heard about the black stone in the temple wall, the dwelling place of the god Hubal. The believers kissed it every time they walked or jogged around the Kaaba, going in the opposite direction to how the Sun revolves round the Earth. And they heard how the heathens had a duty to carry out the pilgrimage to Mecca, where they sacrificed sheep or camels by cutting the animals’ throats, whilst they recited the name of their god and shouted how they were at their god’s service. Moreover, they heard the rumour that not long ago, a king had sacrificed four hundred Christian nuns.

When Abraha was close to Mecca, one of the detachments he had sent out returned with two hundred camels they had stolen from Abd al-Muttalib. He was the leader of the Quraysh, the most powerful tribe in Mecca. At the same time, Abraha sent an emissary into Mecca to negotiate with the enemy. He introduced himself to Abd al-Muttalib and told him that Abraha had not come to shed blood but just to destroy the temple. If you want to avoid a blood bath, then you must remain calm. And you, Abd al-Muttalib, must accompany me back to my king.

Abd al-Muttalib did so because the Meccans were far too thin on the ground to put up a fight against so large an army as the one the enemy was fielding.

The owner of the temple

When Abraha saw the handsome Abd al-Muttalib, he sensed that he was standing face to face with a man of distinction. Therefore, he stepped down from his throne and invited Abd al-Muttalib to sit down opposite him on the carpet.

I’ve come to get my two hundred camels back, announced Abd al-Muttalib and the interpreter translated what he had said.

I was impressed when I saw you, said Abraha, but now I’m disappointed. Have you come to talk to me about two hundred camels and say nothing about yours and your forefathers’ religion that I’ve come to annihilate?

I own the camels and the temple has an owner who’ll know how to defend it.

When Abraha replied that no one could defend the Kaaba against his army, Abd al-Muttalib curtly rebuffed: We’ll see about that. Give me my camels back.

Abd al-Muttalib left the enemy’s camp with his dromedaries.

The birds with the deadly stones

When Abd al-Muttalib got back to Mecca, he held on to the Kaaba’s big, metal doorknocker and prayed a prayer. He prayed that God would protect them against the army of the men who were as black as ravens standing just outside the town with their large, wooden cross.

After that, he withdrew together with the other Meccans up onto the stony ridges around the town in order to see what Abraha would do when he occupied Mecca. In every house in town there was a stone idol and when a man set out on a journey, he would rub himself against the stone. Likewise, when he returned home, the first thing that he would do was rub himself against the stone god. Now the question was: would they ever get to do it again?

The next morning, Abraha got his army all set to attack Mecca, but Nufayl, who had been Abraha’s guide, sneaked away to the elephant. He knew its name, took hold of its ear and said:

Kneel, Mahmud, or go straight back to where you came from, for you are in God’s holy land! Then he ran off, but the powerful pachyderm knelt down.

Soldiers struck the elephant’s head with iron clubs. They jabbed at its abdomen with the points of their spears and tore its trunk, but Mahmud did not get up. Then they got it to turn back to Yemen, and it started walking straight away. They could get it to go in every direction apart from towards Mecca: if they got it to stand facing the town, it would kneel down at once.

Then a huge flock of birds appeared, flights of swallows and murmurations of starlings, each with a piece of baked clay in its beak and one in each claw. The stones were no bigger than peas or lentils but they dropped them over the soldiers and everyone who was hit died instantly.

The army was gripped by panic. The guide was called for, but he was gone, and so the soldiers began to flee in the direction in which they thought Yemen lay.

From the top of a rock, Nufayl saw the desperate soldiers and he asked: Where can you run to when it’s God who’s after you? And on every single stone was written the name of the soldier it struck.

Abraha and some of his soldiers managed to find the road towards Yemen. But at every waterhole dying men were left behind, and Abraha himself was infected by a disease which made his fingers fall off one by one, and he got boils filled with blood and pus. That was the first year that measles and smallpox had been seen in Arabia, and it was also the first year that bitter herbs such as rue and colocynth had taken root and grown.

In that year, Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born.

The water