Spread of Islam Intro

In 610 CE, a merchant trader from Mecca made one of his frequent visits to a cave on nearby Mount Hira. For Muhammad ibn Abdallah it was a time to pray, to get away from the scramble for money and wealth he felt was causing his people to lose their way.

According to Muhammad, it was on this visit to Mt. Hira that the archangel Gabriel squeezed him hard and cause words to flow from his mouth. The words said that Allah was the one God. No doubt a bit shaken, Muhammad reported the event to his wife and her cousin but otherwise stayed silent. The words continued to come.

In 610 Mecca was a bustling Arabian trade town with camel caravans arriving regularly from points north and south. It was also the site of an annual pilgrimage where Arab pagans came to perform rituals at the sacred Ka’ba (the holy shrine in Mecca). The Meccan population included a number of Jewish families and some Christians.

 There may have been a feeling among the pagan Arabs that their religious world was less sophisticated than that of the Jews and the Christians. They had nothing to match the Torah and the Bible. They had no Abraham or Moses or Jesus. But all that was about to change.

After receiving Allah’s words for two years, Muhammad decided it was time to talk. Encouraged by the support of close friends and his wife, Kadija, Muhammad began to recite the received words in public. He spoke of the one god, Allah, and the importance of charity--sharing wealth with the weak and poor.

Together these teachings would be given the name Islam, the Arabic word for “submission.” A follower of Islam was to be called a Muslim, meaning one “who submits to the will of Allah.” After Muhammad’s death in 632, Allah’s words that Muhammad was reciting would be written down and called the Qur’an.

At first, many in Mecca resisted Muhammad’s preaching. What would happen to idol worship? Surely pilgrimages to Mecca would stop. Business would suffer. By 622 resistance was so strong that Muhammad decided to leave. Together with 70 families, he migrated 250 miles north.

There, in the town of Medina, he established a new base. He also made a symbolic break with the past. Muhammad had respect for Jews and Christians, “people of the Book,” as he called them. However, at a prayer session in 624, Muhammad symbolically turned his body to the south--way from Jerusalem and toward Mecca. It was as much as saying that a new religion had been born.

In 628, Muhammad made the hard decision to return to Mecca. Despite opposition, he was allowed back in the city. He soon had enough support to order that the idols in the Ka’ba be destroyed and the shrine dedicated to Allah. Pilgrimages to the Ka’ba became one of the Five Pillars, or essential duties, of Islam.

These duties--confession of belief, prayer five times a day, Ramadan, an annual month-long fast, giving alms to the poor, and the pilgrimage to Mecca--would become the bedrock practices of Islam.