Reading: The Rise of Islam (Dr. Feddes)

The Rise of Islam by David Feddes

Muslims, people who hold the religion of Islam, consider Muhammad the greatest of prophets. Some Muslims think so highly of Muhammad that they want to imitate him any way they can. If tradition says Muhammad slept on his right side, they try to sleep on their right side. If tradition says Muhammad washed a certain way, they try to wash that way. If tradition says Muhammad cleaned his teeth in a particular manner, that’s how they clean their teeth.

Muslims think so highly of Muhammad that any insult directed at him is taken as a terrible offense. The majority of Muslim law experts say that if a non-Muslim insults Muhammad, the proper punishment is a flogging and a prison sentence. The harshness of the whipping and the length of imprisonment depend on the seriousness of the insult. A smaller, but influential, group of Muslim law experts think that anyone who insults the prophet should be killed on the spot, without waiting for a trial. A Muslim who hears someone insult the prophet should kill the offender then and there. This view is based on a saying which some attribute to Muhammad but others don’t accept as authentic: “If anyone insults me, then any Muslim who hears this must kill him immediately.” Whether an insult to Muhammad brings instant death, or a trial, whipping, and imprisonment, one thing is clear: many Muslims hold Muhammad in such high esteem that they not only want to imitate him, but they feel a duty to punish anyone who has insulted Muhammad.

Muslims believe that Muhammad received revelations from God through the angel Gabriel and that these divine revelations are recorded in the Koran. Most Muslims think the Koran, written in Arabic, is a perfect copy of an eternal original in heaven. The Koran must be handled with reverence. School children in Saudi Arabia are taught to do ritual washing before touching the Koran. Before opening it, they are to kiss it three times and touch it to their foreheads. They are to do this again when they close it and put it away. Women having their period are not allowed to touch a Koran. The Koran must always be placed on the highest shelf in any home so that no other book or object is above it. It must never be put on the ground, and even to drop it by accident is shameful. Anyone who insults, or even questions, the Koran, is thought to provoke divine wrath—and may face Muslim wrath as well.

Not all people who call themselves Muslims are very devout. Not all strive to imitate Muhammad or follow the letter of the Koran or punish people who insult the prophet or the book. Some simply grew up in Muslim lands and identify with Islam as part of their culture, but they’re not very zealous. Some are more moderate in their views on religious freedom and on various other matters. Still, most serious Muslims regard Muhammad and the Koran very highly.

Many non-Muslims don’t know much about Muhammad. Some lump Muhammad together with Jesus, Buddha, and other religious leaders, assuming that all religions are pretty much the same and that any of them can show the way to God. Others think of Muhammad and Muslims more negatively, but they don’t base their opinion on any facts except the fact that some of the world’s worst terrorists are Muslims. We need an accurate understanding of Muhammad and Islam.     

Muhammad’s Life

Muhammad was born about 570 years after Jesus. Muhammad’s father died before Muhammad was born, and his mother died when the boy was six. The young orphan grew up in his uncle’s household in Arabia and learned much about trading and commerce. As a young man, Muhammad showed skill in business and, according to tradition, had a reputation for honest dealings, gaining the nickname “the trustworthy one.” When Muhammad was 25 years old, he was hired by a 40-year-old widow named Khadijah to manage her business. She fell in love with him, and they became husband and wife until her death 25 years later.

Muslim tradition says that at age 40 Muhammad began hearing voices and seeing visions. At first Muhammad feared he might be possessed by an evil spirit. One Muslim account even says that he considered suicide. But his wife Khadijah encouraged him not to despair or to think he was being misled by an evil spirit. She told him that he was kind, truthful, faithful, generous, and helpful. He was too good to be deceived by demons. More voices and visions came. Muhammad, who couldn’t read or write, memorized the words and taught them to others. After Muhammad’s death, the revelations were put into final written form as the Koran.

Muhammad saw himself as the apostle of the one true God. He told the people of Mecca to acknowledge him as God’s prophet and to obey his leadership. At that time, the Arabian peninsula had a variety of tribes who worshiped many different gods. But Muhammad insisted that there was only one God, Allah. (Allah is the Arabic word for deity. Muslims aren’t the only ones who speak of Allah. Arab Christians also call God Allah.) When Muhammad preached one God instead of many gods, he faced ten years of opposition in Mecca. In 622 he left Mecca and went to Medina, where he gained followers. During the next ten years, Muhammad overcame the hostility of Arabia’s idol worshipers and instituted worship of one God.

Muhammad didn’t just use peaceful persuasion though. He fought in 70 military clashes, according to Muslim tradition. Some of these were in defense against attacks, but others were aimed at conquest—and Muhammad succeeded. By the time of his death in 632, Muhammad was in control of Mecca, and Arabia’s tribes were united and powerful. Within a century, Muslim power had spread across the Middle East, much of Asia, North Africa, and Spain. This did not happen through pure missionary persuasion but occurred mainly through military conquest.

At first, when Muhammad had few followers and no military strength, he called for peaceful, patient preaching that would win people over by its wisdom and beauty. As the movement grew somewhat, he declared that it was right to fight in defense against attackers. Later passages of the Koran further expanded the teaching of jihad and encouraged going on the offensive. Muslim warriors who died in battle were promised that they would go to the top level of heaven. Those who survived and triumphed in battle could divide captured goods, including prisoners of war who became their property and slaves. The Koran encouraged Muslims to “fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them” (9:5). Jews and Christians were not considered pagans and did not have to become Muslims, but they had to submit to Muslim rule and pay a special tax, or else they were to be fought until they surrendered (9:29).

Muslim traditions hold that Muhammad was known as an upright man by people who knew him. That may be so, if measured by the standards of his time and culture. However, if Muhammad is supposed to be a greater prophet than Jesus, as Muslims claim, we should take a closer look at some of Muhammad’s actions. I’m not going to mention deeds that anti-Muslim people accuse Muhammad of. I’ll just mention a few things that Muslim tradition itself says of Muhammad.

Before Muhammad came to power, he funded his movement by attacking caravans and plundering their goods. He fought in many bloody battles. In one victory, hundreds of Jewish men surrendered to Muhammad’s forces. These unarmed prisoners were all beheaded with Muhammad’s approval. Among the surviving women and children, Muhammad saw a beautiful woman. She had just witnessed her husband, father, and brother beheaded. Muhammad took her to be one of his wives. During Muhammad’s first marriage to Khadijah, he had no other wives. But after Khadijah died, he had at least fourteen wives and perhaps many more, as mentioned in various Muslim traditions. One wife was a beauty who had been married to a friend of Muhammad, but then Muhammad had a revelation that God wanted the friend to divorce that gorgeous wife so that she could become Muhammad’s wife. Another of Muhammad’s wives was six years old when she was betrothed to him, and nine years old when the marriage was physically consummated. Muhammad was over fifty years old at the time. He said he had a dream that revealed he was supposed to marry this young girl. Let me stress again that these are not slurs from anti-Muslim sources; these things are in Muslim accounts.

The Koran approves polygamy, though it limits men to no more than four wives. The only exception allowed to have more than four wives was Muhammad himself. The Koran calls for spreading Islam through war. Muhammad himself did so, and the Muslim rulers who followed him conquered vast regions. These are key facts about the rise of Islam.

Now compare that to Jesus. Jesus triumphed by his message of love and his miracles of healing, by his suffering and death, and by his resurrection. The Christian church, for its first 300 years, spread by peaceful mission and by martyrdom, not by military power. Later, kings and popes would take up the sword in the name of Christ, but most Christians today look back on such wars of religion with sorrow, at odds with Jesus’ way. Most Muslims, on the other hand, look back on the first century of Muslim conquest as the golden age of Islam.

Sharia and Jihad

To this day, in orthodox Islam, the goal is the worldwide rule of Islamic law, Sharia. Muslims have a duty to continue the struggle until all resistance has been overcome. Not all Muslims feel this way. Some prefer peace, prosperity, and freedom, not holy war. They emphasize a text in the Koran that says there must be no compulsion in religion, and they prefer to interpret jihad as spiritual struggle to overcome one’s own faults, not to take over the world by military force. Such Muslims are less aggressive than more zealous literalists. Still, the teaching of the Koran, the example of Muhammad, the actions of Muslim armies in the century following Muhammad, and commentaries by early Islamic scholars show that the main meaning of jihad is armed struggle.

Muslim tradition divides the world in two: the House of Islam and the House of War. In the House of Islam, Muslim governments enforce Muslim law. The rest of the world, with non-Muslim governments and mainly non-Muslim populations, is the House of War. In the House of War, Muslims must continue the struggle to overcome resistance and set up Muslim governance. Temporary truces may be allowable if Muslims don’t yet have the numbers and strength to prevail; but where there is opportunity to gain ground, jihad must continue. The duty of jihad, holy war, will cease only when the whole world is in the House of Islam, and the House of War no longer exists. Modernist Muslims, and some politicians, claim that Islam is a religion of peace. But ever since Muhammad, the peace offered by orthodox Islam is the peace of surrender and compliance with Muslim power.

This does not mean that every Muslim you meet is just waiting for an opportunity to make war and seize control, nor does it mean that all Muslims are polygamists. Some Muslims are kind people and excellent neighbors. All are fellow humans, made in God’s image. Some Muslims in North America feel hurt by racial prejudice and contempt from others. Those of us who are Christians are called to love our neighbors and to share with them the hope that God has given us.

At the same time, we should not be ignorant about Muhammad and the rise of Islam, and we should not be naïve about the desire of a sizeable number of zealous Muslims today. Those who are most eager to be guided by the words of the Koran and the actions of Muhammad will not rest content until Islamic law governs the world.

Not all Christians throughout history have been peaceful and kind. Not all Muslims have been warlike and cruel. But Jesus' methods were clearly not Muhammad's methods. The Bible tells of a woman caught in adultery who was brought to Jesus. Some men wanted to stone her, but Jesus spared her life and told her, "Go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:11). Contrast that with a Muslim account of a woman who came to Muhammad after getting pregnant through adultery. Muhammad treated her decently until she gave birth. Then he had her stoned to death.

Muhammad was not like Jesus, and the rise of Islam was not like the rise of Christianity. Jesus died to save his enemies. Muhammad conquered and killed enemies. Jesus’ first followers reasoned with people and sought to persuade them to believe the gospel. Muhammad’s first followers used military and political force to compel submission.

If you’re a Christian getting to know an individual Muslim, don’t assume that all Muslims think or feel alike. And don’t launch a direct attack on the character of Muhammad or the teachings of the Koran. It’s helpful for you to know key facts about the rise of Islam so that you don’t fall for the common error of thinking all religions and their founders are more or less the same. But if you have opportunities to talk with Muslim individuals, don’t judge them in advance, and don’t arouse their anger and resistance by attacking what they cherish. Instead, speak of the Lord Jesus you love, and let his love and truth shine through you.