The Cambridge Medieval History - Book VII: The Prophet Mohammed and the Islamic Conquest

By A.A. Bevan and C.H. Becker

OUR knowledge of Mahomet, his life and his teaching, is derived entirely from documents which have been handed down by Muslims; no contemporary non-Muslim account is extant, and the testimony of later non-Muslim writers has as little claim to consideration as the statements in the Talmud concerning Christ. Among our authorities the Koran, for obvious reasons, occupies the foremost place. The pieces of which it is composed are acknowledged, alike by those who assert and by those who deny its supernatural character, to have been promulgated as divine revelations by the Founder of the religion himself, nor is there any ground for the supposition that the text underwent substantial change in later times. But although the authenticity of the Koran admits of no dispute its interpretation is involved in peculiar difficulties. It was not put together till about two years after Mahomet's death, and the arrangement of the chapters is wholly arbitrary, without regard to subject-matter or chronological sequence. Even a single chapter, as is recognized not only by modern European critics but also by all Muslim theologians of repute, sometimes consists of earlier and later fragments which were combined either by accident or through some mistake as to their import. Such mistakes were all the more likely to occur in consequence of the peculiarly allusive style in which the Koran is written; when it refers to contemporary persons or events, which is often the case, it seldom mentions them in explicit terms, but employs various circumlocutions. Hence it is impossible to explain the book without continually calling in the aid of Muslim tradition, as embodied in the works of theologians and historians, the earliest of whom lived some generations after the time of the Prophet. This literature is of enormous extent, but it contains many unintentional misrepresentations and many deliberate falsehoods. To separate the historical from the unhistorical elements is often difficult and sometimes impossible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Perennial Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781531233297

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THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY - BOOK VII

The Prophet Mohammed and the Islamic Conquest

A.A. Bevan and C.H. Becker

PERENNIAL PRESS

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Copyright © 2016 by A.A. Bevan and C.H. Becker

Published by Perennial Press

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ISBN: 9781531233297

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MAHOMET AND ISLAM, by A.A. Bevan

THE EXPANSION OF THE SARACENS - THE EAST, C.H. Becker

THE EXPANSION OF THE SARACENS - AFRICA AND EUROPE, by C.H. Becker

MAHOMET AND ISLAM, BY A.A. BEVAN

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OUR KNOWLEDGE OF MAHOMET, HIS life and his teaching, is derived entirely from documents which have been handed down by Muslims; no contemporary non-Muslim account is extant, and the testimony of later non-Muslim writers has as little claim to consideration as the statements in the Talmud concerning Christ. Among our authorities the Koran, for obvious reasons, occupies the foremost place. The pieces of which it is composed are acknowledged, alike by those who assert and by those who deny its supernatural character, to have been promulgated as divine revelations by the Founder of the religion himself, nor is there any ground for the supposition that the text underwent substantial change in later times. But although the authenticity of the Koran admits of no dispute its interpretation is involved in peculiar difficulties. It was not put together till about two years after Mahomet’s death, and the arrangement of the chapters is wholly arbitrary, without regard to subject-matter or chronological sequence. Even a single chapter, as is recognized not only by modern European critics but also by all Muslim theologians of repute, sometimes consists of earlier and later fragments which were combined either by accident or through some mistake as to their import. Such mistakes were all the more likely to occur in consequence of the peculiarly allusive style in which the Koran is written; when it refers to contemporary persons or events, which is often the case, it seldom mentions them in explicit terms, but employs various circumlocutions. Hence it is impossible to explain the book without continually calling in the aid of Muslim tradition, as embodied in the works of theologians and historians, the earliest of whom lived some generations after the time of the Prophet. This literature is of enormous extent, but it contains many unintentional misrepresentations and many deliberate falsehoods. To separate the historical from the unhistorical elements is often difficult and sometimes impossible.

Arabia before Islam

The condition of Arabia in pre-Muslim times is, from the nature of the case, very imperfectly known to us. The great majority of the inhabitants consisted of small nomadic tribes who recognized no authority but that of their own chiefs. The nomads, being wholly ignorant of the art of writing, could leave behind them no permanent records, and as tribes were frequently broken up, in consequence of famine, internal dissensions, and other calamities, their oral traditions had little chance of surviving. It was only in a few districts that a settled and comparatively civilized population existed. Wherever such a centre of civilization was formed, the nomads in the immediate vicinity had a tendency to fall under the influence of their more cultured neighbors, and sometimes tribal confederacies, dignified with the name of kingdoms, came into being. In early times, by far the most important of these civilized regions was to be found in south-western Arabia, the land of the Sabaeans, or, as it is now called, Yaman (i.e. the South). The power and prosperity of the Sabaeans, to which innumerable ruins and inscriptions still bear witness, began to decline about the time of Christ and were utterly overthrown, near the beginning of the sixthcentury, by the inroads of the half-savage Abyssinians. Meanwhile other Arabian kingdoms had arisen in the north, in particular that of the clan called the Ghassän, on the eastern frontier of Palestine, and that of the Lakhm on the Euphrates; the former kingdom was politically subject to the Byzantine Emperors, the latter to the Persians. But about the time when Mahomet came forward as a prophet both of these vassal kingdoms ceased to exist, and for a while there was nowhere within the borders of Arabia any political organization which deserved to be called a State.

In religious, as in political matters, Arabia presented no appearance of unity. The paganism of the Arabs was in general of a remarkably crude and inartistic kind, with no ritual pomp, no elaborate mythology, and, it hardly needs to be said, no tinge of philosophical speculation. The religion of the ancient Sabaeans probably bore a greater resemblance to that of the more advanced nations, but in the time of Mahomet this Sabaean religion was almost wholly forgotten, and the paganism which still survived consisted mainly of certain very primitive rites performed at particular sanctuaries. An Arabian sanctuary was, in some cases, a rudely constructed edifice containing images of the gods or other objects of worship, but often it was nothing more than an open space marked by a sacred tree or a few blocks of stone. Some sanctuaries were frequented only by members of a particular tribe, while others were annually visited by various tribes from far and near. The settled Arabs, as a rule, paid more attention than the nomads to religion, but even in the settled districts there seems to have been a singular lack of religious fervor. The traditional rites were kept up from mere conservatism and with hardly any definite belief as to their meaning. Hence wherever the Arabs came into close contact with a foreign religion, they readily adopted it, at least in name. Arabian communities professing some sort of Christianity were to be found not only on the northern frontier but also at Najran in the south. Judaised communities were especially numerous in the north-west of the Arabian peninsula, and Zoroastrian communities in the neighborhood of the Persian Gulf.

Mecca c. 570

Among the centres of Arabian paganism, none occupied a more distinguished place than Mecca (in ArabicMakka, or sometimes Bakka) which, thirteen centuries ago, was a small town situated in a barren valley, about 50 miles from the Red Sea coast. In an open space near the middle of the town stood the local sanctuary, a kind of rectangular hut, known as the Kaba (i.e. Cube), which contained an image of the Meccan god Hubal and various other sacred objects. A large proportion of the Arabian tribes regarded Mecca with exceptional veneration; all the surrounding district was a sacred territory, within which no blood might be shed. Some miles from the town a yearly festival took place and was attended by crowds of pilgrims from all quarters. Recent investigations have proved that this institution, called in Arabic the Hajj, i.e. festival or pilgrimage, originally had no connection with Mecca itself, and may possibly have been established before Mecca and the Kaba had come into existence. However this may be, it is certain that in historical times the pilgrims who attended the festival usually visited the Kaba and were treated by the Meccans as their guests; hence the annual Pilgrimage came to be intimately associated with the holy city.

In the sixth century after Christ most of the inhabitants of Mecca belonged to a tribe which bore the name of Kuraish. It was well known, however, that the Kuraish were recent immigrants. Both the town and the sanctuary had formerly been in the possession of other tribes, but as to the origin of Mecca no credible tradition survived. The Kuraish were subdivided into a number of clans, each of which claimed the right of managing its own affairs. On important occasions the chief men of the various clans met to deliberate; but there was no central authority. The sterility of the soil rendered agriculture almost impossible, and the Meccans had long subsisted by trading with distant countries. Every year great caravans were despatched to Syria and returned laden with wares, which the Meccans sold at a large profit to the neighboring Bedouins. The mercantile population of the town was naturally farsuperior, in general intelligence and knowledge of the outer world, to the mass of the Arabs. A considerable proportion of the Meccans had learnt the art of writing, but they used it for practical purposes only. Book-learning, as we understand it, was quite unknown to them.

At Mecca, about A.D. 570, Mahomet (properly Muhammad) was born. The clan to which he belonged, the Banu Hashim, is commonly represented by Muslim writers as one of the most distinguished branches of the Kuraish, but the evidence which we possess tends to prove that in pre-Muslim times it occupied quite a subordinate place. OfMahomet’s father, Abdallah, son of Abd-al-Muttalib, we know scarcely anything except that he died shortly before the Prophet’s birth. Amina, the mother of Mahomet, died a very few years later, and the orphan boy afterwards lived for a while in the charge of his grandfather, Abd-al-Muttalib, who had a numerous family. On the death of Abd-alMuttalib, one of his sons, Abu Talib, undertook the care of Mahomet, who seems to have been treated kindly but to have endured many hardships, since none of his near relatives were wealthy. When he was about 24 years of age he entered the service of an opulent woman, considerably older than himself, named Khadija. The antecedents and social position of Khadija are shrouded in some mystery, but it is certain that she had been twice married and that at the time when she made the acquaintance of Mahomet she was living at Mecca with several of her children, who were still quite young. Mahomet appears to have succeeded at once in gaining her confidence. She entrusted him with the management of her property, and about the year 594 sent him to Syria on a commercial expedition, which he directed with conspicuous success. On his return he became her husband. For a few years he led the life of a prosperous tradesman; several daughters were born to him and two sons, both of whom died in infancy.

The process whereby Mahomet was led to occupy himself with religious questions and finally to believe in his divine mission is altogether obscure. That the doctrines which he afterwards preached did not arise spontaneously in his mind but were mainly derived from older religions seems obvious. It appears certain, however, that he was wholly unacquainted with religious literature. Whether he ever learnt the Arabic alphabet is a question which has been fiercely debated, both among Muslims and Christians; at all events we know that, in his later years, whenever he wished to record anything in writing he employed a secretary. But the question whether he could read is of little practical importance, since no religious books seem to have existed in Arabic at that period, and that he could read any foreign language is utterly incredible. We are therefore obliged to conclude that his information was derived entirely from oral sources; who his informants were we can only conjecture. At Mecca itself there was apparently nopermanent colony of Christians, Jews, or Zoroastrians, but isolated adherents of the principal foreign religions doubtless visited the town from time to time. It has often been suggested that Mahomet acquired some knowledge of Christianity during one of his commercial journeys in Syria. This is possible; but it should be remembered that an Arab trader, ignorant both of Aramaic and of Greek, would have great difficulty in obtaining information on religious subjects from Syrian Christians, since those of them who spoke Arabic usually belonged to the most illiterate class. Moreover another and a very important fact has to be taken into consideration. According toMuslim tradition there were about this time, at Mecca and a few other places in western Arabia, certain individuals who had become dissatisfied with the popular paganism, devoted themselves to religious meditation, and professed a monotheistic belief. These persons were called Hanifs, a term of which the origin and precise meaning are obscure. The Hanifs did not form a sect, for they had no organization and, it would seem, little communication with one another. Our information about them is naturally very meagre, being derived, for the most part, from scraps of poetry which they are said to have composed; but the authenticity of these pieces is often doubtful. One of the most celebrated Hanifs was the Meccan Zaid ibn Amr,