Islamic Beliefs and Practices

Britannica Educational Publishing, Matt Stefon

• Publisher: Britannica Educational Publishing
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781615300600
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Islam is the second most followed religion on Earth, with more than one billion practicing Muslims around the globe. However, few Westerners fully understand the beliefs of the religion nor the cultural practices that accompany it. This book explores Islam from the prophet Mohammad to the Five Pillars of Islam, which includes the most important rituals of the faith, including fasting at Ramadan, and hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.

CHAPTER 1

MUHAMMAD: THE SEAL OF THE PROPHETS

The name of the Prophet Muhammad is now invoked in reverence several billion times every day. He is also the only founder of a major world religion who lived in the full light of history and about whom there are numerous records in historical texts, though, as with other premodern historical figures, the finer details of his life are unknown. The Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is one of the most influential figures in history; thus his life, deeds, and thoughts have been debated by followers and opponents over the centuries, which makes a biography of him difficult to write. At every turn both the Islamic understanding of Muhammad and the rationalist interpretation of him by Western scholars, which arose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, must be considered. Moreover, on the basis of both historical evidence and the Muslim understanding of Muhammad as the Prophet, a response must be fashioned to Christian polemical writings characterizing Muhammad as an apostate, if not the Antichrist. These date back to the early Middle Ages and still influence to some degree the general Western conception of him. It is essential, therefore, both to examine the historical record—though not necessarily on the basis of secularist assumptions—and to make clear the Islamic understanding of Muhammad.

THE PROPHET’S STATURE IN THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY

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The most common name of Muhammad of Islam, Muhammad (“the Glorified One”), is part of the daily call to prayer (adhan). Following an attestation to the oneness of God, the believer proclaims, “Verily, I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God” (Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah). When this name is uttered among Muslims, it is always followed by the phrase salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam (“may God’s blessings and peace be upon him”).

Muhammad has many names, including “sacred names,” which Muslims believe were given to him by God and by which he is called in various contexts. Traditionally, 99 names for him are commonly used in litanies and prayers. Among the most often used and also central to the understanding of his nature is Ahmad (“the Most Glorified”), which is considered an inner and celestial name for Muhammad. Over the centuries Muslim authorities have believed that when Christ spoke of the coming reign of the Paraclete, he was referring to Ahmad. Also of great importance are the names that identify Muhammad as the Prophet, including Nabi (“Prophet”) and Rasul Allah (“the Messenger of God”). Other names of the Prophet are Taha (“the Pure Purifier and Guide”), Yasin (“the Perfect Man”), Mustafa (“the One Chosen”), ‘Abd Allah (“the Perfect Servant of God”), Habib Allah (“the Beloved of God”), Dhikr Allah (“the Remembrance of God”), Amin (“the Trusted One”), Siraj (“the Torch Lighting the True Path”), Munir (“the Illuminator of the Universe”), Huda (“the Guide to the Truth”), Ghiyath (“the Helper”), and Ni‘mat Allah (“the Gift of God”). These and his many other names play a major role in daily Muslim piety and in the practice of Sufism. An understanding of their meaning is essential to gaining any serious knowledge of the Islamic view of Muhammad or what some have called Islamic prophetology.

Muhammad meets the archangel Gabriel, as depicted in the Siyer-I Nebi, a Turkish epic written by Mustafa, son of Ysef, in 1388. The illustrations were completed in 1595. Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul, Turkey/Bildarchiv Steffans/The Bridgeman Art Library

THE PROPHET’S LIFE

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Both before the rise of Islam and during the Islamic period, Arab tribes paid great attention to genealogy and guarded their knowledge of it with meticulous care. In fact, during Islamic history a whole science of genealogy (‘ilm al-ansab) developed that is of much historical significance. In the pre-Islamic period, however, this knowledge remained unwritten, and for that very reason it has not been taken seriously by Western historians relying only on written records. For Muslims, however, the genealogy of Muhammad has always been certain. They trace his ancestry to Isma‘il (Ishmael), the son of the prophet Abraham (unlike Jews, who trace their ancestry to Abraham through Isaac).

According to traditional Islamic sources, Muhammad was born in Mecca in “the Year of the Elephant,” which corresponds to the year 570 CE, the date modern Western scholars cite as at least his approximate birth date. A single event gave the Year of the Elephant its name when Abrahah, the king of Abyssinia, sent an overwhelming force to Mecca to destroy the Ka‘bah, the sanctuary Muslims believe to have been built by Adam and reconstructed by Abraham and which Abrahah viewed as a rival to his newly constructed temple in Sanaa in Yemen. According to tradition, the elephant that marched at the head of Abrahah’s army knelt as it approached Mecca, refusing to go farther. Soon the sky blackened with birds that pelted the army with pebbles, driving them off in disarray. Thus, the sanctuary that Muslims consider an earthly reflection of the celestial temple was saved, though at the time it served Arab tribes who (with the exception of the hanifs, or primordialists) disregarded Abrahamic monotheism.

Iraqi Sunni children celebrate the birthday of Muhammad with cake and other sweets. The day of this celebration is called Mawlid an-Nabi. Khalil Al-Murshidi/AFP/Getty Images

Soon after this momentous event in the history of Arabia, Muhammad was born in Mecca. His father, ‘Abd Allah, and his mother, Aminah, belonged to the family of the Banu Hashim, a branch of the powerful Quraysh, the ruling tribe of Mecca, that also guarded its most sacred shrine, the Ka‘bah. Because ‘Abd Allah died before Muhammad’s birth, Aminah placed all her hopes in the newborn child. Without a father, Muhammad experienced many hardships even though his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib was a leader in the Meccan community. The emphasis in Islamic society on generosity to orphans is related to the childhood experiences of Muhammad as well as to his subsequent love for orphans and the Qur’anic injunctions concerning their treatment.

In order for Muhammad to master Arabic in its pure form and become well acquainted with Arab traditions, Aminah sent him as a baby into the desert, as was the custom of all great Arab families at that time. In the desert, it was believed, one learned the qualities of self-discipline, nobility, and freedom. A sojourn in the desert also offered escape from the domination of time and the corruption of the city. Moreover, it provided the opportunity to become a better speaker through exposure to the eloquent Arabic spoken by the Bedouin. In this way the bond with the desert and its purity and sobriety was renewed for city dwellers in every generation. Aminah chose a poor woman named Halimah from the tribe of Banu Sa‘d, a branch of the Hawazin, to suckle and nurture her son. And so the young Muhammad spent several years in the desert.

It was also at this time that, according to tradition, two angels appeared to Muhammad in the guise of men, opened his breast, and purified his heart with snow. This episode exemplifies the Islamic belief that God purified his prophet and protected him from sin. Muhammad then declared, as the Hadith recounts, “Satan toucheth every son of Adam the day his mother beareth him, save only Mary and her son.” Amazed by this event and also noticing a mole on Muhammad’s back (the sign of prophecy according to traditional sources), Halimah and her husband, Harith, took the boy back to Mecca.

Muhammad’s mother died when he was six years old. Now completely orphaned, he was brought up by his grandfather ‘Abd al-Muttalib, who also died two years later. He was then placed in the care of Abu Talib, Muhammad’s uncle and the father of ‘Ali, Muhammad’s cousin. Later in life Muhammad would repay this kindness by taking ‘Ali into his household and giving his daughter Fatimah to him in marriage.

When he was 25 years old, Muhammad received a marriage proposal from a wealthy Meccan woman, Khadijah bint al-Khuwaylid, whose affairs he was conducting. Despite the fact that she was 15 years older than he, Muhammad accepted the proposal, and he did not take another wife until after her death (though polygyny was permitted and common). She bore him two sons, both of whom died young. It is from the first son, Qasim, that one of the names of the Prophet, Abu’ al-Qasim (“the Father of Qasim”), derives. She also bore him four daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatimah. The youngest, Fatimah, who is called the second Mary, had the greatest impact on history of all his children. Shi‘ite imams and sayyids or sharifs are thought to be descendants of Muhammad, from the lineage of Fatimah and ‘Ali.

By age 35, Muhammad had become a very respected figure in Mecca and had taken ‘Ali into his household. According to the traditional account, when he was asked to arbitrate a dispute concerning which tribe should place the holy black stone in the corner of the newly built Ka‘bah (an altar in Mecca that subsequently became the holiest shrine of Islam), Muhammad resolved the conflict by putting his cloak on the ground with the stone in the middle and having a representative of each tribe lift a corner of it until the stone reached the appropriate height to be set in the wall. His reputation stemmed, in part, from his deep religiosity and attention to prayer. He often would leave the city and retire to the desert for prayer and meditation. Moreover, before the advent of his prophecy, he received visions that he described as being like “the breaking of the light of dawn.” It was during one of these periods of retreat, when he was 40 years old and meditating in a cave called al-Hira’ in the Mountain of Light (Jabal al-Nur) near Mecca, that the process of the Qur’anic revelation began.

In the month of Ramadan in the year 610, according to Islamic tradition, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad in the form of a man, asked him to “recite” (iqra’), and then overwhelmed him with a very strong embrace. Muhammad told the stranger that he was not a reciter and was, in fact, unlettered (ummi). But the angel repeated his demand and embrace three times, after which the verses of the Qur’an, beginning with “Recite in the Name of thy Lord who created,” were revealed. Muhammad fled the cave thinking that he had become possessed by the jinn, or demons. When he heard a voice saying, “Thou art the messenger of God and I am Gabriel,” Muhammad ran down the mountain. Gazing upward, he saw the man who had spoken to him in his real form, an angel so immense that in whatever direction the Prophet looked the celestial figure covered the sky, which had turned green (thereafter the colour of Islam). Muhammad returned home, and, when the effect of the great awe in his soul abated, he told Khadijah what had happened. She believed his account and sent for her blind cousin Waraqah, a Christian who possessed much religious wisdom. Having heard the account, Waraqah confirmed what Gabriel had told him: Muhammad had been chosen as God’s prophet. Shortly thereafter, Muhammad received a second revelation. As the Prophet later said, the revelation would either come through the words of the archangel or be directly revealed to him in his heart. The revelation was also accompanied by the sound of bell-like reverberations. According to Islamic tradition, this was the beginning of a process of the revelation of the Qur’an that lasted some 23 years and ended shortly before the Prophet’s death.

Muhammad first preached his message to the members of his family, then to a few friends, and finally, three years after the advent of the revelation, to the public at large. The first to accept Muhammad’s call to become Muslims after Khadijah were ‘Ali; Zayd ibn al-Harith, who was like a son to the Prophet; and Abu Bakr, a venerable member of the Meccan community who was the Prophet’s close friend. This small group was the centre from which Islam grew in ever-wider circles. A number of prominent Meccans also embraced Islam. Yet most influential figures and families, especially those prominent in trade, rejected his call. Even within his family there were skeptics. Although Muhammad gained the support of many of the Banu Hashim, his uncle Abu Lahab, a major leader of the Quraysh (the Arabic tribe to which the Prophet belonged), remained adamantly opposed to Islam and Muhammad’s mission. These naysayers feared that the new religion, based on the oneness of God and unequivocally opposed to idolatry, would destroy the favoured position of the Ka‘bah as the centre of the religious cults of various Arab tribes and hence jeopardize the commerce that accompanied the pilgrimage to Mecca to worship idols kept there.

Meanwhile, life for Muhammad and the early Muslims was becoming ever more difficult and dangerous as the result of extreme pressure exerted upon them by the Quraysh rulers of the city. Even the conversions of leaders of the Meccan community, such as ‘Umar al-Khattab and ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan, did not diminish the severe difficulties encountered by Muhammad in his later years in Mecca.

Moreover, Muhammad was soon greatly saddened by the death of two people who were especially close to him. Khadijah, not only his devoted wife of 25 years and the mother of his children but also his friend and counselor, died in 619. Only after her death did Muhammad marry other women, mostly as a means of creating alliances with various families and tribes. The exception was the daughter of Abu Bakr, ‘A’ishah, who was betrothed to the Prophet when she was very young and in whose arms he would die in Medina. Later in the year, Abu Talib, Muhammad’s uncle and protector, died, creating a much more difficult situation for him and for the young Islamic community in Mecca. These deaths, combined with Muhammad’s lack of success in propagating the message of Islam in the city of Ta’if, severely tested his determination and resolve.

As if by heavenly compensation, during this extremely difficult time Muhammad underwent the supreme spiritual experience of his life. On one of his nightly visits to the Ka‘bah, he fell asleep in the Hijr, an uncovered sanctuary attached to the north wall of the Ka‘bah, and experienced the Nocturnal Ascent (Isra’ or Mi‘raj). This event has become the subject of countless later mystical and philosophical writings. According to traditional accounts, among which there are certain minor variations, Muhammad was taken by Gabriel on the winged steed Buraq to Jerusalem. From the rock upon which Abraham offered to sacrifice his son (now the site of the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s earliest and greatest mosques), they ascended through all the higher states of being to the Divine Presence itself. At one point Gabriel explained that he could go no farther because, were he to do so, his wings would be burned. But Muhammad, according to the Qur’an, reached a state higher than that of the archangels. Ascending through higher states of being symbolized by the heavenly spheres, Muhammad not only met such earlier great prophets as Moses and Jesus, but he received the supreme treasury of knowledge while he stood and then prostrated himself before the divine throne. God also revealed to him the final form and number of the Islamic daily prayers.

The Mi‘raj reconstituted Muhammad’s resolve. Despite the setback in Ta’if, the vision of spreading the message of Islam beyond Mecca grew in his mind. In or around 621 a delegation from Yathrib, a city north of Mecca, contacted Muhammad and, having heard of his sense of justice and power of leadership, invited him to go to their city and become their leader. At that time Yathrib suffered from constant struggle between its two leading tribes, the ‘Aws and the Khazraj, with a sizable Jewish community constituting the third important social group of the city. After some deliberation by Muhammad, a preliminary meeting was held in Al-‘Aqabah (in present-day Jordan), and the next year a formal agreement was made with the people of Yathrib according to which Muhammad and his followers would be protected by the people of that city. Upon finalizing the agreement, Muhammad ordered his followers to leave Mecca in small groups, so as not to attract attention, and to await him in Yathrib.

Finally, he departed one evening with Abu Bakr for Yathrib, using an indirect route after commanding ‘Ali to sleep in the Prophet’s bed. The Quraysh, who had decided to get rid of the Prophet once and for all, attacked the house but found ‘Ali in his place. They then set out to find the Prophet. According to the traditional story, Muhammad and Abu Bakr hid in a cave that was then camouflaged by spiders, which spun webs over its mouth, and birds, which placed their nests in front of the cave. Once the search party arrived at the mouth of the cave, they decided not to go in because the unbroken cobwebs and undisturbed nests seemed to indicate that no one could be inside.

MI‘RAJ

Traditional Muslims believe that the Mi‘raj, the ascension of the Prophet Muhammad into heaven, was not only spiritual but also corporeal in the same way that, according to traditional Christian belief, Christ’s Ascension was accomplished in both body and spirit. According to tradition, Muhammad is prepared for his meeting with God by the archangels Gabriel and Michael one evening while he is asleep in the Ka‘bah, the sacred shrine of Mecca. They open up his body and purify his heart by removing all traces of error, doubt, idolatry, and paganism and by filling it with wisdom and belief. In the original version of the Mi‘raj, the Prophet is then transported by Gabriel directly to the lowest heaven. But early in Muslim history the story of the ascension came to be associated with the story of Muhammad’s night journey (Isra’) from the “sacred place of worship” (Mecca) to the “further place of worship” (Jerusalem). The two separate incidents were gradually combined so that chronologically the purification of Muhammad in his sleep begins the sequence; he is then transported in a single night from Mecca to Jerusalem by the winged mythical creature Buraq, and from Jerusalem he ascends to heaven, possibly by ladder (mi‘raj), accompanied by Gabriel.

Muhammad and Gabriel enter the first heaven and proceed through all seven levels until they reach the throne of God. Along the way they meet the prophets Adam, John, Jesus, Joseph, Idris, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham and visit hell and paradise. Moses alone of all the inhabitants of heaven speaks at any length to the visitors. He says that Muhammad is more highly regarded by God than himself and that Muhammad’s following outnumbers his own. Once Muhammad appears before God, he is told to recite the salat (ritual prayer) 50 times each day. Moses, however, advises Muhammad to plead for a reduction of the number as being too dif...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Muhammad: The Seal of the Prophets
• Chapter Two: God’s Word to Humanity
• Chapter Three: Piety and Ritual in Islamic Life
• Chapter Four: Community and Society
• Chapter Five: Branches of Islam
• Glossary
• For Further Reading
• Index