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Muhammad was the only man in the history who was supremely
successful on both religious and secular levels.
Of humble origins, Muhammad (PBUH) founded and
promulgated one of the world’s great religions, and became and
immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries
after his (PBUH) death, his (PBUH) influence is still powerful and pervasive.
The majority of the persons in this book had the
advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization,
highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad (PBUH),
however, was born in the year 570, in the city Mecca, in southern
Arabia, at that time a backward area of the world, far from the
centers of art, and learning, Orphaned at age of six, he was reader
modest surroundings. An Islamic tradition tells us that he was
illiterate. His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five,
he married a wealthy widow. Nevertheless, as he approached forty,
there was little outward indication that he as remarkable person.
Most Arabs at that time were pagans, and believed in
many gods. There were, however, in
Mecca, a small
number of Jews and Christians; it was from them, most probably, that
Muhammad (PBUH) first learned of a single, Omnipotent God who ruled
the entire universe. When he was a forty years old, Muhammad became
convinced this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him (through the
archangel Gabriel) and had chosen him to spread the chosen faith.
For three years, Muhammad, (PBUH) preached only to
close friend and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in
public. As he slowly gained converts, the
Mecca authorities
came to consider him a dangerous nuisance. In 622, fearing for his
safety, Muhammad’s (PBUH) fled to Medina (city some 200 miles north
of Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable
political power.
This flight, called the Mirage, was the turning point
of the Prophet’s (PBUH) life. In
Mecca, he had few
flowers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an
influence that made him virtually an absolute ruler. During the next
few years, while Muhammad’s (PBUH) following grew rapidly, a series
of battles were fought between
Mecca
and Medina. This war ended in 630 with Muhammad’s (PBUH) triumphant
return to Mecca as conqueror. The remaining two and one-half years
of his (PBUH) life witnessed the rapid the rapid conversion of the Arabs
tribes to the new religion. When Muhammad, (PBUH) died in 632, he
was the effective ruler of all of southern
Arabia.
The Bedouin tribesman of
Arabia had a
reputation as fierce warriors. But there number was small;
and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no
match for the larger armies of the kingdom in the settled
agricultural areas to the north. However, unified by Muhammad (PBUH)
for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief
in the one true Go, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of
the most astonishing series of conquest in human history. To the
northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine; or Eastern Roman
Empire, centered in Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs were no
match for their opponents. On the field of battle thought, it was
far different, and the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of
Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine. By 642, Egypt had been wrested
from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed
at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637 and Nehavend in 642.
But even these enormous conquests-which were made
under the leadership of Muhammad’s close friend and immediate
successors, Abu Bakr and ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab did not mark the end
of the Arab advance. By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely
across the North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. There they turned
north and, crossing the
Strait of
Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigoth kingdom
in Spain.
For a while, it must have seemed that the Muslims
would overwhelm all of Christian Europe, However, in 732, at the
famous battle of
Tours, Moslem army,
which had advance into the center of France, was at last defeated by
the franks. Nevertheless, in a scant century of fighting, these
Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the world of the prophet, had carved
out an empire stretching from the borders of the India to the
Atlantic Ocean the largest empire that world had yet seen. And
everywhere that army’s conquered, large-scale conversion to the new
faith eventually followed.
Now, not all of these conquests proved permanent. The
Persians, thought they have remained faithful to the religion of the
prophet, had since regained their independence from the Arabs in
Spain, more then seven centuries of warfare finally resulted in the
Christians re-conquering the entire peninsula. However, Mesopotamia
and Egypt, the two cradles of ancient civilization, has remained
Arab, as has entire coast of North Africa. The new religion, of
course, continued to spread, in the intervening centuries, far
beyond the borders of the original Muslims conquest. Currently, it
has ten of millions of adherents in Africa and Central Asia, and
even more in Pakistan and Northern India, and Indonesia. In
Indonesia, the new faith has been a unifying the factor. In the
Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict between the Moslems and
Hindus is still major obstacle to unity.
How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of
Muhammad (PBUH) and human history? Like all religion, Islam exerts
an enormous influence upon the lives of its flower. It is for this
reason that the founder of the world’s great religion all figure
prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many
Christians as Moslems in the world, it may instantly seem strange
that Muhammad (PBUH) has been ranked higher then Jesus. There are
two Principle reason for the decision. First, Muhammad (PBUH) play
far more important role in development of Islam than Jesus did in
development of Christianity. Although the Jesus was responsible for
the main ethical and moral percepts of Christianity (insofar as
these differed from Judaism), it was
St. Paul who was
the main developer of Christian theology, its principle
proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of New Testament.
Muhammad (PBUH) however the responsible for both the
theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principle. In
addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and
in establishing the religious practice of Islam. Moreover he is the
author of the Muslims Holy Scriptures, the Koran, and a collection
of Muhammad’s (PBUH) statements that he believed had been divinely
inspired. Most of these utterances were copied more or less
faithfully during Muhammad’s (PBUH) lifetime and collected
collective in authoritative for not long after his (PBUH) death. The Koran,
therefore, closely represents Muhammad’s (PBUH) idea and teaching
and, to and to considerable extent, his (PBUH) exact words. No such
detailed compilation of the teaching of Christ has survived. Since
the Koran is at least as important to Muslims as the Bible is to
Christians, the influence of Muhammad’s (PBUH) through the medium of
the Koran has been enormous. It is probable that the relative
influence of Muhammad (PBUH) on Islam has been larger than the
combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity. On
the purely religious level, then, it seems like that Muhammad (PBUH)
has been influential in human history as Jesus
Furthermore Muhammad (PBUH) (Unlike Jesus (PBUH)) was a
secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force
behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank the most influential
political leader of all time.
Of many historical events, one might say that they
were inventible and would have occurred even without particular
political leader who guided them. For example South American
colonies would probably have won their independence from
Spain if Simon
Bolivar had never lived but this cannot said of the Arab conquests.
Nothing had occurred before Muhammad (PBUH) and there is no reason
to believe that conquest has been achieved without him. The only
comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in
the thirteen century which were primarily due to the influence of
Genghis Khan. These conquest however, though more extensive then
those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent and today the only areas
occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time
of Genghis khan.
It is far different with the conquests of the Arabs.
From Iraq to morocco there extends a whole chain of Arab nations
united not merely by their faith in Islam, but also by their Arabic
language, history, and culture. The centrality of Koran in the
Muslim religion and fact that it is written in Arabic have probably
prevented the Arab language from breaking up into mutually
unintelligible dialects, which might otherwise have occurred in the
intervening 13 centuries. Differences and divisions between these
Arab states exist, of course and they are considerable but the
partial disunity should not blind us to the important elements of
unity that have continued to exist. Of course they are considerable
but the partial disunity should no blind us to the important element
of unity that has continued to exist. For instance, neither
Iran
nor Indonesia both oil-producing states and both Islamic in religion
joined in the oil embargo of the winter of 1973-74. It is no
coincidence that all of the Arab states, and only the Arab state
participated in embargo.
We see than
that Arab conquest of the seventh century has continued to play an
important role in human history down to the present day. It is the
unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I
feel entitles Muhammad (PBUH) to be consider the most influential
single figure in human history.
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