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THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 1 RISE AND WARN

! It is axiomatic that the new religious movement of Islam

must somehow or other have risen out of the conditions in

Mecca in Muhammad's timel A new religion cannot come into being without a sufficient

motive. In the experience of

Muhammad and his early followers there must have been some need which was satisfied by the practices and doctrines

of the embryonic religion. What precisely the unsatisfac-

tory conditions or the needs were is a point on which

opposite views may be held. Before discussing it let us see

what were the events surrounding the call to prophethood and what was the earliest message of the Qur'an.

IMuhammad's concern for the troubles of Mecca at this

period made him seek solitude^ On one of the barren rocky hills in the neighbourhood there was a cave where he some-

times went for several nights at a tiine to be alone and to pray and meditate. During these solitary vigils he began to have

strange experiences. First of all there were vivid dreams or

visions. Two in particular stood out as being of special significance. We know something of their content, for they are described in the Qur'an (53. 1-18 ; cf. Si. 15-25)- In

the first vision there appeared to him a glorious Being stand-

ing erect high up in the sky near the horizon ; then this

strong and mighty One moved down towards him until he was only two bow-shots or. less from him, and communicated

to Mm a revelation, that is, some passage of the Qur'an. The second vision was of the same glorious Being, but this time he was beside a lote-tree near a garden and the lote-tree

was covered in some strange and wonderful way. This must be an authentic account of Muhammad's funda-

mental experiences. This was how the matter appeared to

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 15 him when he looked bade. It was his supreme justification for thinking that he was

the messenger of God *. The visions are mentioned in the Qur'an to confirm the assertion that the passages which Muhammad is making public and which he claims to be revelations from God, indeed have

objective validity, and are not delusions or deliberate inven- tions. They must also have meant much to Muhammad himself. When things were not going well with him and he took a pessimistic view of the future, he remembered these visions and renewed his faith in his divine commission. To begin with he thought that the glorious Being was God

Himself. Later he may have thought that it was a superior kind of angel called the Spirit. Finally he identified it with

the angel Gabriel. The change of interpretation is probably due to Muhammad's having become aware of the Jewish teaching that God cannot be seen. The precise interpretation of the visions, however, does not matter ; [what is important is the support these gave to Muhammad's belief in himself as a man who had been given a special commission by God.

Stories are also told of how Muhammad, in moods of despair, would go walking over the rocky hills and think of

flinging himself down from a precipitous crag, and how he would then see an angel who reminded him,

* Thou art the Messenger of God *. If there is some truth in these stories, then Muhammad must have distinguished such appearances from the two visions. yThe visions were the primary experi- ence in which a divine act made him aware of his prophet- hood, but the other experiences were at most secondary, perhaps supernaturally caused, but still only rememberings of the primary experience^

In trying to understand the career of Muhammad this primary experience must never be forgotten. Muhammad had his moments of gloom, as was not surprising in view of

l6 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

the apparently insuperable obstacles which confronted him. Yet he never altogether lost the conviction that he had been called by God and given a special work to do in his day and generation. This conviction sustained him in the face of

opposition, mockery, calumny and persecution ; and when success came to him, it did not turn his head, but only deep- ened his belief that God who had called him was also working for him in historical events.

Involved in the conception of Muhammad's special mission was the receiving of

revelations '

or messages from God. One such message was included in the first vision. For over twenty years, until the end of his life, Muhammad continued to receive such revelations at frequent intervals. He and his followers memorized them, and they were re- peated in the ritual worship or prayer which he introduced. Most of them were probably written down during Muham- mad's lifetime, but writing materials were scarce in Mecca and Medina, and one of the traditional accounts is that after Muhammad's death one of his secretaries found passages of it written on pieces of paper, stones, palm-leaves, shoulder-

blades, ribs and bits of leather. This sounds like an attempt to exaggerate the simplicity of life in Muhammad's day, and need not be taken too seriously. It seems likely that to a great extent the surahs or chapters of the Qur'an were given their

present form by Muhammad himself ; but the final * collec-

tion ' of all the passages of revelation and the assignment of

their present order in the Qur'an took place shortly after

650 or about twenty years after Muhammad's death. Tte Qur'an, as we now have it in our hands, either in the

original Arabic or in an English translation, is thus the body of the revelations received by Muhammad, In form God is the speaker, addressing Muhammad or the Muslims or people in general, and frequently using the

* We ' of majesty.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHQOD IJ The earlier passages often contain commands to Muham- mad. For Muslim tradition the Qur'an is thus the Word or Speech of God, and Muhammad himself must also have regarded it in this way. Moreover he must have been per- fectly sincere in this belief. He must have been convinced that he was able to distinguish between his own thoughts and the messages that came to him from

* outside himself. To

carry on in the face of persecution and hostility would have been impossible for him unless he was fully persuaded that God had sent him ; and the receiving of revelations was included in his divine mission. Had he known that these revelations were his own ideas, the whole basis would have been cut away from his religious movement. To say that Muhammad was sincere does not imply that

he was correct in his beliefs. A man may be sincere but mis- taken. The modern Westerner has no difficulty in showing how Muhammad may have been mistaken. What seems to a man to come from * outside himself J may actually come from his unconscious. This, of course, is not a final solution of the problem. It explains the form of Muhammad's ex-

periences, as it does that of the experiences of the Old Testament prophets who proclaimed,

* Thus saith the Lord, . . .

; but it does not explain the content of these

experiences. This is a more complex question, about which I shall say something in the concluding chapter. Without

settling it, howeverjit is possible to take the Qur'an as a body of ideas and to study the significance of these ideas in their social and historical context. Muhammad's belief thatUie revelations came to him from

God would not prevent him rearranging the material and otherwise emending it by omission or addition. There are references in the Qur'an to God making him forget some passages, and a close study of the text makes it almost certain that words and phrases were added. Such additions, of

l8 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

course, would not be of Muhammad's composition. Pre- sumably he had some way of

listening '

for revelations

where he thought they were needed, and would only emend the text if he received an emending revelation. Islamic

orthodoxy has always recognized that some passages of the Qur'an containing rules for the Muslims were abrogated by later passages, so that the original rules ceased to be binding. The story of the

* satanic verses

(in the next chapter) is an instance of the emendation of what had been publicly pro- claimed as a revelation.

In the first of the two visions Muhammad had received a revelation from the glorious Being, but this was not the normal manner in which he received revelations. In many cases it is probable that he simply found the words in his heart (that is, his mind) in some mysterious way, without his

imagining that he heard anything. This seems to be what was originally meant by

revelation *

(wahy). A Qur'anic passage (42.50), which refers to this, also mentions God speaking to a man

* from behind a veil *. If this applies to

/Muhammad's own experience, it would imply that he Imaginatively heard something without imaginatively seeing anything"; but perhaps the primary reference is to Moses at the burning bush (cf. Qur'an, "20.9 ff,). The same passage also speaks of God sending a messenger to a man. This could be a description of the first vision as Muhammad latterly interpreted it ; but it has commonly been held by Muslims that many revelations were brought to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, and it may be that in his closing years the receiving of a revelation was normally accompanied by an imaginative picture of the angel. Oa some occasions at least there were physical accompani-

ments. He would be gripped by a feeling of pain, and in his ears there would be a noise like the reverberation of a belL Emi cm a very cold day die bystanders would see great

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 19

pearls of sweat on his forehead as the revelation descended

upon him. Such accounts led some Western critics to

suggest that he had epilepsy, but there are no real grounds for such a view. Epilepsy leads to physical and mental

degeneration, and there are no signs of that in Muhammad ; on the contrary he was clearly in full possession of his facul- ties to the very end of his life. These physical accompani- ments of religious experiences are of interest to the religious psychologist, but they can never either prove or disprove the truth of the content of the experiences. This is a matter for theology, and will be discussed in the conclusion.

It is worth noticing that, even from the Muslim point of

view, according to which the Qur'an is entirely from God and is unaffected by passing through Muhammad's con- sciousnessyfthe Qur'an is evidence for the outlook of Muham- mad and tHe Muslims*. This is for two reasons. One is that Muhammad accepted the Qur'an as true. Even if he did not originate the Qur'anic ideas, they were the ideas that

dominated and moulded his thoughts. So it is not inconsis- tent to speak of these ideas as Muhammad's and yet at the same time to hold that he was sincere in regarding them as

coming from outside himself. The second reason is that the Qur'an was addressed to Arabs of the early seventh century, and must therefore be expressed not merely in the Arabic

language, but in the thought-forms of the Arabs, except in

so far as it was making criticisms. Thus it should be possible, by studying what is implied in the Qur'an, to learn some-

thing of the intellectual environment of Muhammad and the earliest Muslims. The passage which is usually accounted the first of the

whole* Qur'an to be revealed may be rendered as foEows :

Recite,

In the Name of thy Lord^ who created Created man from a blood-clot.

20 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

Recite,

For thy Lord is bountiful, Who taught by the Pen, Taught man what he knew not. (96. 1-5)

In this, as in most of the other early passages, the lines are short and rhythmic, closing with rhyme or assonance. (The * blood-clot

' is a reference to the embryo in the womb.)

With this may be compared another passage which is sometimes held to have been the first to be revealed.

O immantled one, Rise and warn

;

Thy Lord magnify, Thy raiment purify, The Wrath flee. Give not to gain more, For thy Lord endure. (74.1-7)

Later scholars tried to reconcile these two accounts by saying that the former was the first revelation of all, while the second was the first after a long gap. This seems to be no more than a conjecture, however. Circumstances had altered so much by the end of Muhammad's life that people had forgotten what the first beginnings of Islam were like. It may be that some other passages of the Qur'an were earlier than either of these two. Perhaps some of the earliest have been omitted from the Qur'an as we have it. What may be said is that the two passages quoted have a

logical importance and a logical priority. The word trans- lated

* recite

(iqra*) is from the same root as *

Qur'an ', and the latter could be rendered as

recitation '. It apparently comes, however, from the Syriac word qeryana, and that was applied to the scripture lesson which was

read ' or

* re-

cited *

by Christians in public worship. Thus the command to

c recite

* seems to imply that public worship is to be

THE CALL TO PR0PHETHOOD 21

instituted along the lines of that of the Syriac-speaking

Christians, and that instead of their lessons from the Bible

this revelation is to be* recited *. When other revelations came they were also recited, and the word

Qur'an ' was

applied both to the separate revelations and also to the

whole collection. Thus the revelation generally accepted as

first certainly has a logical priority. The other revelation quoted is also important because it

contains the phrase * rise and warn '. In the early years

Muhammad defined his prophetic function in its social aspect as being that of a

* warner V- He was to warn the

Meccans that they must ultimately face God the Judge on the Last Dajr^/In insisting on this point he was disclaiming

any desire to have a position of importance in the political

or economic life of Mecca. H

The commandto * rise and warn '

thus logically marks the^beginning of his public activity, since warning implies that there are people who have to be warned.

For a man in remote seventh-century Mecca thus to believe that he was called by God to be a prophet was some-

thing stupendous. It is not surprising that Muhammad is

reported to have been assailed by fears and doubts. There is

evidence for this in the Qur'an as well as in the narratives of

his life, though It is not certain at what period he received

the Qtkr'Inic assurances that God had not forsaken Mm. f Part of his fear was probably the old Semitic fear of the

divfrie as of something dangerous, of which there are

examples in the Old Testament^ He may have put on a mantle to protect himself, and this may be the reason for his

being described as * imnaantled *. It is also possible, however,

that the mantle may have been put on to induce revelations.

Another form of fear would be fear of madness, that is,

according to the Arab Ideas of the time, of being possessed

by spirits or jinn. Many of the people of Mecca explained

22 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

his revelations in this way, and he must sometimes have wondered whether they were right. The chief source of his doubt and bewilderment, however,

jpaust have been the stupendous character of the claim to

prophethoocf.y Many of the revelations of the later Meccan period, whetT there was vehement opposition to him in Mecca, explain how this opposition does not disprove his

prophetic vocation, since previous prophets regularly met with opposition. In the early days, soon after the first revela-

tion, he is said to have been encouraged to believe in his vocation by his wife Khadijah and, more particularly, by her cousin Waraqah. The latter had become a Christian and was reputed to be familiar with the Bible. At this time the

average Christian Arab probably had no direct knowledge of the scriptures. Thus the statements about Waraqah may be true, and yet his knowledge may have been slight. Never- theless, the testimony of a Christian that the revelations to

Muhammad were similar to .those formerly received by Moses must have greatly strengthened his belief in his vocation. Such testimony is almost logically necessary. However obscure and doubtful many of the details are, it

is an indisputable fact of history that early in the seventh

century Muhammad began preaching in Mecca and claiming to be a prophet The year 610 may be taken as a rough date for the first revelation, and the year 613 as the beginning of his preaching to the people of Mecca in general.

THE EARLIEST MESSAGE OF THE QUR'AN For our understanding of Muhammad's career it is im-

portant to know what was contained in his preaching in the earliest days. Unfortunately this is not such a simple matter as it mij^tt appear, since the Qur'an is not arranged in

chronological order. Various European scholars have tried to determine, at least roughly, the dates of the various

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 23

chapters or surahs and of the separate passages within each

surah, but there has been much disagreement, especially about the earliest of all. The two most important and

widely accepted of these attempts are those of Theodor

Noldeke and Ridnrd Bell, which may be dated i86o^and

1937-39 respectively. As a fairly objective method of dis-

covering the earliest message of the Qur'an we may look at the contents of those passages which both Noldeke and Bell

regard as early. A further refinement is possible, however. Already in

these early passages there is mention of opposition. Now it would seem to be necessary that before a preacher can stir

up opposition he must have been saying something to which

his hearers objected. What he preached before the opposition appeared must therefore be the earliest message of all,

since

it was this message, or part of it, which produced the

opposition. If, then, we are to determine, as objectively as

possible, the earliest message of the Qur'an, we shall restrict

ourselves to considering passages which fulfill two conditions :

(a) they are regarded as early by both Noldeke and Bell ; (b)

opposition to Muhammad is not mentioned or implied in them. The passages which fulfil these two conditions would

appear to be the following (according to the older European

numbering of Gustav Fliigel) : 96. 1-8 ; 74. i-io ; 106 ;

90. i-ii ; 93; 86. i-io; 80. 1-32 (omitting 23 ?); 87.

1-9, 14 f; 84. 1-12; 88. 17-20; 51. 1-6; 52, parts;

55. The main themes ofthese passages can be classified under

five heads.

(i) God's goodness and power. The most prominent theme

in the early passages is that of God's goodness and power. This is seen in many natural phenomena, and especially in

the formation of human beings. The passage commonly held to be the first revealed speaks of man's creation or formation

from a blood-clot or embryo, and there are several other

24 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

references to the conception, birth and growth of human beings.

Of what thing did God create (man) ? Of a drop of seed He created and proportioned him, Then made easy his way (from the womb), Then caused him to die and be buried, Then, when He pleases, will raise him. (80. 17-22)

Praise the name of thy Lord, the Most High, Who created and fashioned, Who proportioned and guided. (87. r-j)

It is also in all the works of nature, however, that God's

power is to be seen.

Will they not consider the camels, how they are created, The heaven, how it is raised, The mountains, how they are fixed, The earth, how it is spread ? (88.17-20)

Above all His goodness is seen in the provision He makes for the sustenance of His creation.

We showered the water in showers, Then fissured the earth in fissures, And cause to grow in it grain, And grapes and clover, And olives and palms, And orchards dense, And fruits and pasturage. (80.25-31)

God's goodness is also seen in particular cases. Thus the Quraysh, the people of Mecca, are called on to worship God because

* He provisioned them against famine, And secured them against fear

(106. 3 f.). Muhammad himself, pre- sumably in a moment of gloom, is reminded of God's special goodness to him.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 25

Thy Lord has not abandoned thee nor hated. Better for thee the last than the first.

Thy Lord shall truly give thee and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an orphan and house thee ? Did He not find thee erring and guide thee ? Did he not find thee needy and enrich thee ? (93. 3-8)

In all this the darker side of life is not neglected. God causes man to die and be buried. He turns the green her- bage ofthe Arabian spring into the blackened drift left behind

by the torrent in the wadi (87. 5). Yet this transitoriness of created existence serves to point the contrast with the per- manence of the Creator.

All those upon (earth) pass away ; Eternal is the face of thy Lord in glory and honour.

(55. 26 f.)

It is contrary to our preconceived ideas of Islam that this theme of God's goodness and power should be so prominent in the early passages. The preconceptions rest on the later developments of Islamic dogma, when the fact that God is unique was emphasized and idols were declared to be noth-

ing. In other words Muhammad's original message was not a criticism of paganism. It appears to be directed to people who already had a vague belief in God, and to aim at making this belief of theirs more precise by calling attention to par- ticular events and natural processes in which God's agency was to be seen. The vague monotheism accepted by thoughtful Meccans

of the day, and presumably at first by Muhammad, allowed them to regard the Lord of the Ka'bah (the shrine of Mecca) as identical with God. This is shown by the passage in the Qur'an which calls on the Meccans to

worship the Lord of this House ' (106. 3). The identification of the Lord of the Kacbah with God is taken for granted. There is no emphasis

26 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

on the point, and no special justification was felt to be re-

quired. In other words, the Meccans, under Judaeo- Christian influence, must have been moving towards mono- theism. This movement may have been facilitated by the fact that the word for

* God ' in Arabic is simply *

the god *

(al-lah or al-ilah). Greek is similar ; ho theos may be *

the

god '

of a particular polytheistic shrine, such as Delphic Apollo, but in the New Testament it is

* God '. Similarly in Arabic there would be an easy transition from

the god *

of the Ka'bah to * God * the creator of all things.

The monotheism in the thought-world of Mecca was vague, however, in the sense that it was not sharply contrasted with polytheism. This is illustrated by the story of the * satanic verses '. Muhammad, wearied by the opposition

he was encountering in Mecca, was longing for a revelation which would remove the difficulties felt by the leading Meccans. In this mood he received a revelation containing two (or three) verses which permitted intercession to the deities at some of the shrines round Mecca. He subsequently realized that these verses could not have come to him from God and must have been suggested by Satan, At first, how- ever, he was ready to accept them ; and this shows that at this stage his monotheism did not exclude some form of prayer to subordinate supernatural beings, who were per- haps regarded as a kind of angel. What, then, is the point of the Qur'an's insistence on

God's goodness and power ? Against whom is it directed ? |t

is directed against the materialism of the Meccan mer- cKants who thought that, because of their wealth and in- fluence, they were little gods, disposing of Meccan commerce and politics as they pleased. But that belongs rather to the third themejj

(2) The fetwrn to Godforjudgement. There has been much discussion among European scholars about the part pkyed

THE CA3LL TO PROPHETHOOD 2J

by fear of the Last Day (or Day of Judgement) In the origin of Islam* Some have held that such a fear was the main motive which made Muhammad into a prophet and the founder of a religion. Others have tried to deny this, and to assert that the fear of the Last Day was not present in the earliest revelations, but appeared in Muhammad's later

years in Mecca. It is sometimes also held that before he

spoke of the Last Day, he preached a temporal calamity which would befall unbelievers. The various matters are all present in the Qur'an. The

dispute is mainly about dating. If the above selection of

early passages is sound, then the following assertions may be made. There are to begin with no lurid descriptions of the terrors ofthe Day of Judgement such as occur in later Meccan

passages, and therefore the motive of fear cannot have been so prominent as has sometimes been maintained. In the

earliest passages there is no mention of a temporal calamity to punish the unbelievers. Logically, too, this must be secon-

dary,.for the unbelievers who are to be punished in this way are people who have received a iressage from a prophet and have rejected it.

On die other hand, from the very earliest times a belief in the Last Day was present in some form. The words

* rise

and warn '

(74. 2) imply that Muhammad is to tell the Meccans about something bad or unpleasant, and this can

hardly be anything but the Last Day. Three verses later there are words which are almost certainly to be translated 4 the Wrath flee * ; the Arabic word rujz seems to represent

the Syriac rttgza, * wrath *, which was used in translations of

the New Testament in the phrase * the wrath to come I1

In verses attached to the first revelation it is stated that * to

thy Lord is the return J

(96. 8). The Judgement is also implied by God's raising of man after his death and burial

1 Montgomery Watt in. Journal of Septic Studies, ii, (1957), 360-65.

28 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

(80. 22), and by the verse, c

over every soul is indeed a watcher

(86. 4) The fullest description of the Last Day in the early pas-

sages is that in 84. 1-12.

When the heaven shall be rent And obey its Lord and be right, When the earth shall be levelled And spew those in it and be void And obey its Lord and be right, O man, thou art toiling heavily to thy Lord and meeting Him. Who gets his book in his right Shall be reckoned with easily And return to his folk rejoicing ; Who gets his book behind his back Shall invoke destruction

And feed a furnace.1

The conclusion from all this is that the conception of a resurrection to judgement, followed by reward or punish- ment, is present from the very beginning, but that fear of

punishment does not seem to have been the main driving motive behind the Islamic religion.

(3) Man's response gratitude and worship. Because God is good as well as powerful it is fitting, indeed incumbent, that man should be grateful to Him and worship Him. Grati- tude is here the inner recognition that man is dependent on God for his creation and preservation, and that it is better to live than not to live ; worship is the formal expression of this dependence. The opposite attitude is expressed in various ways. It

1 The rending of the heavens, and the earth's giving up of those buried in it, are signs of the Last Day. The precise meaning of the words trans- lated

* be right

* is obscure. When men meet God for judgement, the

righteous are distinguished from the wicked by the way they receive the * book * with the record of their deeds. The wicked man wishes he would perish utterly rather than burn in Hell.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 2Q is noteworthy that the Arabic word for

unbeliever ', kafir, before it became a technical term among Muslims, could have the meaning of

ungrateful '. That suggests that the Muslims felt that it was those who were ungrateful towards God who rejected His messenger. A common expression is a word which may be translated

presumption '. In Arabic it evokes a picture of a torrent, swollen by recent rain, rising high above its usual level, and it then comes to be applied to a man who goes beyond the normal bounds and becomes insolent. In the Qur'an the underlying thought seems to be of a man who presses on regardless of obstacles, regardless of moral and religious considerations, and full of confidence in his own powers. Another word that is used in the Qur'an to express the

false attitude towards God means roughly e

pride in wealth ', but it is difficult to bring out its full connotation in English. The basic meaning is

c free from want \ but out of this are

developed the distinct ideas of wealth and independence. We think of the hard life of the nomads in the desert, where lack of wealth was lack of camels, which made it necessary sooner or later to ask a wealthier group for help, axid so to

become dependent on them. In the religious context of the Qur'an the word comes to mean not only the actual posses- sion of wealth, but also the spiritual attitude which the pos- session of wealth fostered among the Meccan merchants. Because of their financial strength the leaders among them felt themselves independent of any higher power, and in control of the affairs of the peninsula. Thus both * presumption

' and * pride in wealth

are

bound up with a glorification of the power of the creature, and imply a disregard or denial of the Creator and the absence of a sense of creatureliness. In contrast to this the

Qur'an calls on men to acknowledge their dependence on God by performing acts of worship. It is to Him that their

30 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

prosperity is due, and it is therefore fitting that they should serve Him. From the first, though the details are obscure, worship

was a distinctive feature of Muhammad's community. He himself engaged in devotional exercises before the first re-

velation, and for a time he and his followers observed the

practice of night-prayer. It is probable, too, that they some- times performed their acts of worship in public. After

opposition had appeared, public worship was one of the

points it attacked, for the Qur'an (96. 9 f.) has a reference to a Muslim being prevented from worshipping ; the man is spoken of as a

* slave ', but this may mean either an actual

slave or a slave in tKe sense of a servant of God. In the story of the

satanic verses ', likewise, all the leading men of Mecca are said to have joined with the Muslims in their worship.

In trying to understand this demand that men should worship God, there are two points to be kept in mind. One is that for the people of the Middle East worship is not simply an inner experience. % It may contain such an element, but it is first and foremost a public affirmation of the stand one takes. To get something analogous in our lives we must think of things like sporting the party colours on election

day. A staunch supporter of the red rosettes could not possibly wear a blue one. It is unthinkable ; it would be

treachery. When we are dealing with the Middle East we must remember that public religious observances are acts of this kind.

The other point is concerned with the nature of Muslim worship. The Arabic salat is usually rendered

prayer* , and it is best to adhere to this, though

worship J

might be more appropriate. In the standard form of prayer, as it has been practised through the centuries, the main elements are

physical acts of standing erect, bowing and prostrating one- self, though there is also an opening exclamation,

* God is

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 3!

very great ', and a repetition of the Fatihah (the opening

chapter of the Qur'an, which has some of the functions of

the Paternoster among Christians). The climax of the prayer is the prostration in, which the worshipper kneels

on the

ground and touches it with his forehead. In this way he

acknowledges the might and majesty of God and his own

dependence on Him as a slave. This prostration was pre- sumably included in the prayer from the first, and in that

case reinforces what has been said about the significance of

the demand that men should worship God.

(4) Matfs response to God generosity. Belief in God's

power and goodness leads not only to gratitude and worship but also to a certain attitude or way of life in practical affairs.

In the early passages which we are studying there is little

about this, apart from an injunction to Muhammad himself which was doubtless regarded as applying also to his fol-

lowers.

As for the orphan, oppress not, As for the beggar, refuse not, As for thy Lord's mercy, expatiate. (93. 9-11)

If we cast our net a little wider, however, the result is

interesting. The following examples are taken from the surahs of Noldeke's first period which are described as

early

Meccan' or *Meccan* by Bell. There is mention of

opposition in some of them, and so they are probably a little

later than the passages in the list above. Nevertheless thefjr

show the emphasis at a fairly early period. What comes out dearly is the importance of the attitude

to wealth. One early passage runs :

Woe to every slanderer, scoffer, Who gathers wealth and counts it, Thinking wealth will make him immortal. (104. i f.)

32 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

Another contrasts two ways of life : As for the giver and God-fearer Who believes the best, We shall aid him to ease ; As for the niggardly and wealth-proud Who disbelieves the best, We shall aid him to trouble ; Nought avails his wealth when he goes down. (92. 5-11)

In another passage (68, 17-33) there is the '

parable of a

blighted garden ', the story of a group of men who resolved to reap their garden on a certain day without permitting the

poor to have any share in it ; when they came to it in the

morning they found that the crop had disappeared, and they bemoaned their * presumption '.

In contrast to this parable there is direct criticism of the

faults ofthe Meccans :

You respect not the orphan, Urge not to feed the destitute, Devour the heritage greedily, Love wealth ardently. (89. 18-21)

It is also asserted that these faults lead to eternal punishment. The man who is condemned on the Last Day is thus des- cribed :

He was not believing in God Almighty, Nor urging to feed the destitute ; Today he has no friend here. (69. 33-35)

In another passage it is said that hell-fire

Calls him who backs out and withdraws And amasses and hoards. (70, 17 f.)

Of the pious, on the other hand, it is said : LMe of the night would they slumber, Betimes would they ask pardon ; Of their goods was a share for beggar and outcast.

(51. 17-19)

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 33 Now this is almost all there is about man's conduct to-

wards his fellow-men not merely in the earliest passages, but also in those not quite so early. Man is not to amass wealth for himself and to become overweening because of his wealth, but is to use his wealth to feed the destitute and is to deal honourably with^ orphans and other weak persons and not oppress them. \These are, of course, good and sound

injunctions, but what is surprising and puzzling is that this is the only aspect of conduct that is mentioned (apart from wor-

ship of God and belief in Him). There is nothing about respect for life, property, parents and marriage or the avoid-

ing of false witness. These essentials of civilized life are taken for granted. "At the moment we simply notice this curious fact, and reserve it for subsequent discussion.

(5) Muhammad's ozvn vocation. The theme ofMuhammad's own special work in the contemporary situation occurs in the early passages, but is not emphasized. There is the com-

mand, already mentioned, to *

rise and warn ' (74. a) ; and a similar one to

remind, if the Reminder profits '

(87. 9). To begin with, however, the message was more important than the messenger. The essential tiling was the relation of the community or the individual to God. This implied someone to convey the message to the person or persons involved, but the messenger had no function beyond that of

conveying the message. Later, however, the function of the messenger was seen to

be more than this. When the Meccans came to be divided into those who opposed him and those who accepted the message, he inevitably became the leader of the latter group. Through his vocation as prophet this little religious move- ment became linked up with previous religious movements, which had also had their prophets. When he went to Medina, it was his position as a prophet, that is, a leader whose leader-

ship was grounded in religion and not in kinship, that gave

34 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

the warring factions there the prospect of obtaining peace through his impartiality. All this was in the future ; yet it was implicit from the first in these words

rise and warn *.

Before anything is said about the significance of these five themes, it will be helpful to look at the accounts of the growth of the new religious movement up to the time when the first opposition appeared.

THE FIRST MUSLIMS It is universally agreed that the first person to accept

Muhammad's revelations as coming from God and to be- come a Muslim was his wife Khadfjah. This is thoroughly in keeping with the conception of their relationship derived from the more authentic stories. She was an older person than her husband, had some knowledge of public affairs and was friendly with her Christian cousin Waraqak She was presumably also serious-minded and concerned about the contemporary troubles of Mecca. She would therefore be ready to comfort and support Muhammad (as she is said to have done) when he began to have his strange experiences ; and her friendship with her cousin would predispose her to accept the experiences as what they purported to be reve- lations from God, There has been a dispute from, early times about the iden-

tity of the first male Muslim, Some maintained he was 'All, Muhammad's cousin and the son of his uncle Abu-Talib, whom he had taken to live in Ms house at a time of famine when Abu-Tilib was having difficulty in feeding all his children. This claim may well be true, but it is not of great importance, since at the time 'All was admittedly only a boy of nine or ten. Another claimant to the position was also an

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 35 inmate of Muhammad's household. This was Zayd ibn- IJarithah, a youth of Arab descent, who had been brought to Mecca as a slave and had come into the hands of Khadljah and Muhammad. They set him free and he was reckoned as their son ; but this was probably due to the automatic work-

ing oftraditional ideas and not to some formal act ofadoption, such as we have nowadays. A great affection sprang up be- tween Muhammad and Zayd, all the greater no doubt when Muhammad lost his own sons by Khadljah. The older man clearly trusted the younger, and the younger showed con- siderable promise much more so than *Ali. He would be about thirty when the first revelations came and would there- fore be in a position to appreciate them. It is thus probable that he was the first adult male to profess Islam. The third claimant, even if he was not actually the first

male Muslim, was the most significant of the early converts. He was Abu-Bakr, a man only two years younger than Muhammad, and probably his friend for many years. Like most of the leading Meccans he made a living by commerce, but the fact that his fortune, even before he began to spend it in ransoming Muslim slaves, was only 40,000 dirhams

shows that his business was on a small scale. His services to

Islam, however, were very great indeed. He is said to have introduced to Muhammad a group of five men who became the mainstay of the young Islamic state in Muhammad's closing years and after. Even if this report is in part a re- flection of the later importance of these men, it is still pro- bable that they became Muslims at a comparatively early date and that Abu-Bakr was responsible for this. Certainly before Muhammad left Mecca for Medina Abu-Bakr had

1 A dirhain (from the Greek drachma) was the standard silver coin, worth about lod. at pre-1914 values. The standard gold coin was the dinar (from the Latin denarius). Its relation to the dirhain varied, but it was usually equivalent to ten or twelve.

36 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

established himself as his chief lieutenant and adviser ; and this position he maintained to Muhammad's death, so that he was the obvious choice for successor. These conversions, whatever their order, occurred in the

period of three years between the first revelation and the

beginning of the public preaching, of which the approximate dates are 610 to 613. A list has been preserved, containing about fifty names, of those who were early converted, to Islam and by this is probably meant before the public preaching and in the first few months of it. Some biographi- cal details have been preserved about these men and women, and from this material it is possible to form an idea of the kind of men who were attracted to Islam. They fall into three groups.

Firstly, there were a number of young men from the most influential families of the most influential clans. These were

closely related to the men who actually wielded power in Mecca and were foremost in opposing Muhammad. At the battle of Badr ,in 624 between the Muslims and the pagan Meccans there were instances of brothers, or father and son, or uncle and nephew, being on opposite sides. The most notable representative of this class was Khalid ibn-Sa'id of the clan of Umayyah (or 'Abd-Shams) ; his father Sa'Id, also known as Abu-Uhayhah, was in his later years one of the two or three strongest and richest men in Mecca. For reasons that are not altogether clear Khalid ibn-Sa'id did not play an important part in the later development of Islam.

Secondly, there were men from other families and clans, still mostly young. This group is not sharply distinguished from the first, but, as we move down the scale to the weaker dans and families, we find among the Muslims men of greater influence within clan and family. At least one man of over sixty made the Hijrah to Medina with Muhammad, but this was exceptional. The majority were under thirty when they

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 37 became Muslims, and only one or two were over thirty- five.

Thirdly, there were a number of men who were really outside the clan system. Some were foreigners, of Byzan- tine or Abyssinian origin, who might originally have come to Mecca as slaves. At least one was sufficiently wealthy to attract the cupidity ofthe pagan Meccans. Usually these men were nominally under clan protection, but the clan was either

unwilling or unable to protect them. There were also a number of Arabs from outside Mecca attached to clans as '

confederates *. This sometimes meant that they were depen- dent on a strong member of a strong clan for protection, and were therefore in an inferior position. But it did not neces-

sarily imply inferiority, since in Muhammad's time the head of his mother's clan was technically a confederate. On the whole it was only in exceptional cases that the confederates were without adequate clan protection. Mostly they were in the position of members of the weaker families of a clan, and would therefore belong to the second group. This analysis of the social position of the early Muslims

goes far to confirm the statement in an early source that they consisted of

young men and weak persons '. In confirm- ing the statement, however, it also makes it more precise. In particular it shows that the meaning of

* weak * is

with*

out good clan protectiorf ' and that the bulk of Muhammad's

followers were not * weak persons

* in this sense but

young men '. It is therefore misleading to say that Ms followers consisted of the

plebeians * or

' members of the lower social strata \ as is sometimes asserted.

The distinction between patricians and plebeians does not fit Meccan society, or at least that section of it with which we are chiefly concerned. There is a distinction between *

Quraysh of the centre * and

Quraysh of the outskirts \ but

nearly all the people who are mentioned m. the $wifce$

38 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

belong to *

Quraysh of the centre ', whether they are friends or enemies of Muhammad. There were no clear distinctions between noble and ignoble ancestry that could be regarded as parallel to the distinction between Muslim and pagan. All the clans reckoned as

Quraysh of the centre '

had a common ancestry. Such differences as there were between the Meccan clans

in Muhammad's time seem to have depended on their rela- tive strength, and that in turn depended largely on their wealth and commercial prosperity. In the half century or so before 610 there had been some ups and downs in the for- tunes of the various clans. The premature death of a wise leader or a promising youth might bring about a steep decline in the fortunes of a clan. Then there were the political developments of the period which might affect a man's under-

takings in unforeseen ways and produce either disaster or

spectacular success. Certain groupings can be traced among the Meccan clans* but these seem to be based mainly on common commercial interests, or on common commercial rivalries. Even the old alliances, like the League of the Vir- tuous, probably had a basis in common material interests, and, though there was a measure of loyalty to an old alliance, there are several instances of clans changing from one group to another or forming new groups. By the time Muhammad had begun to preach, the growing

commercial prosperity of Mecca may be said to have pro- duced a new topmost stratum of society, namely, the leading, richest and most powerful merchants. These were at the same time the heads of the strongest clans or had great influence within them, and they also seem to have been securing a

monopolisticgrip on the most lucrative forms of trade. There were rival parties within this stratum, sometimes following the lines of the old dan alliances, and sometimes overstepping them* Thlsstetumwa&almostsolidlyopposedto Muhammad.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 39 The simplest way of describing the main body of Muham-

mad's followers is to say that they were the strata of society immediately below this topmost stratum. Since the majority of the Meccans did not follow him, it may be inferred that they either were deeply involved in the commercial operations of the topmost stratum or else in some other way were its

hangers-on. Those who followed Muhammad would be those with a certain measure of independence from the topmost stratum. The younger brothers and cousins of the chief merchants must have been wealthy young men, while the men from other clans, like Abu-Bakr, were probably strug- gling to retain such independence as still remained to them. There may even have been a similar purpose in some of the * weak persons *, since they could presumably have obtained

full protection by submission to one ofthe leading merchants. Thus we see that, while the nascent Islamic movement was a movement of * youngmen *, it was by no means a movement of

down-and-outs '.

THE INFLUENCE OF JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

IJThe earliest passages of the Qur*in show that it stands within the tradition of Judaeo-Christian monotheism with its conceptions of God the Creator, of resurrection andjudge- ment, and of revelation. In later passages the dependence on the Biblical tradition becomes even more marked, for they contain much material from the Old and New Testaments. This introduces some complications into our task of trying to understand why Muhammad began to preach as he did round about the year 610.

First of aH, we have to consider the form in which Judaeo- Christian influences may have affected Muhammad* The possibility of his having read the Bible or other Jewish or

Christian books maybe ruled out. Orthodox Islam holds that Muhammad was unable to read and write ; but this assertion

40 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

is suspect to the modem Western scholar because it is made in order to support the belief that his production of the

Qur'an is miraculous something no illiterate person could ever have done by himself. On the contrary, it is known that many Meccans were able to read and write, and there is therefore a presumption that an efficient merchant, as

Muhammad was, knew something of these arts. The form of the Biblical material in the Qur'ans however, makes it certain that Muhammad had never read the Bible ; and it is unlikely that he had ever read any other books. Such know-

ledge, then, as he had of Judaeo-Christian .conceptions must have come to him orally. Here there are various possibilities. He might have met

Jews or Christians, and talked about religious matters with them. There were Christian Arabs on the borders of Syria. Christian Arabs or Abyssinians from the Yeman may have come to Mecca to trade or as slaves. Some of the nomadic tribes or clans were Christian, but may still have come to the annual trade fair at Mecca. There were also important Jew- ish groups settled at Medina and other places. Thus oppor- tunities for conversations certainly existed. Indeed Muham- mad is reported to have had some talks with Waraqah, Khadfjah's Christian cousin ; and during his lifetime his enemies tried to point to some of his contacts as the source of his revelations.

It is possible that after Muhammad had publicly come for- ward as a prophet and had claimed to be preaching the same

message in essentials as Moses and Jesus, he took advantage ofsuch opportunities as he had in order to increase his factual

knowledge of the contents of the Bible by questioning Jews and Christians (though he always maintained that the word-

ing of the Qur'inic references to Biblical stories came to him by revelation). In the early passages, however, there is

nothing to smggest dependence on a single oral source.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 41 Rather it is implied that there is already among the more intellectual Meccans some familiarity with Biblical concep- tions. In other words the whole mental environment appears to be permeated by these conceptions. A little before the time of Muhammad there are said to have been some Arabs who set out to discover the true religion, which was assumed to be some form of monotheism

; and the early passages of

the Qur'an assume that the Lord of the Ka'bah, worshipped as such, is identical with God, the creator of all things.

All this tends to show that in certain circles in Mecca men already accepted a vague monotheism. The Qur'an does not begin by attacking polytheism. The monotheism was vague, however, because there was no specific form of worship attached to it and because it involved no specific renunciation of polytheism. The Qur'anic account (105) of the deliverance of Mecca from the Abyssinian expedition with the elephant, which interprets it as due to God's intervention, may not be an original Qur'anic interpretation but may reflect an inter- pretation current among the more enlightened of the reli-

giously minded Meccans. conclusic

?ledge of Biblical conceptions in general (as distinct

from the details of soineliflliFstoHes

comSminication^of^sgecific individuals. Islam thus in a sense

belong^ to the Judaeo^^^SSjracESKiiibecause it sprang

uplu^mffi The question of interest for us thus becomes : Why were

certain Biblical ideas of so great interest and importance for Muhammad and the Muslims, and why were others neg- lected ? This question, however, cannot be answered until some standpoint is adopted with regard to cultural borrow-

ings^ and this is a field of study which is on^TSegteimg' to be cultivated.

42 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

A useful point at which to begin outlining the position here adopted is afforded by Sk^Hapiiltp|\,Gibb

s formulation

of three *

laws * which govern the influence of one culture

upon another. 1 These are :

(1) . . . cultural influences (. . . genuinely assimilated ele-

ments) are always preceded by an already existing activity in the related fields, and ... it is this existing activity which creates the factor of attraction without which no creative assimi- lation can take place.

(2) The borrowed elements conduce to the expanding vitality of the borrowing culture only so far as they draw.their nourishment from the activities which led to the borrowing in the first place.

(3) A living culture disregards or rejects all elements in other cultures which conflict with its own fundamental values, emotional attitudes, or aesthetic criteria.

One of the interesting things about these three laws is that they make it clear that to speak in terms of the parti- cular case the Islamic religion cannot have been produced simply by these extraneous Judaeo-Christian influences, but that tbej^LimistJia^^ life to which^th^^^ What signs are tRere of a previously existing activity of such a kind that it would explain both the adoption of Biblical ideas and the

development of a new religion ? It might be suggested that this previous activity was the

attempt to ,%AjLj^^2SJSl2P' There are the stories aBbiit the men wEb were trying to find God. In all this, however, religion is thought of mainly as

1 * The Influence of Islamic Culture on Medieval Europe *

Bulletin of thejolrn Rylands Library, xxxviii. 82-98, esp. 85-87.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 43

in one's private life. Now this is a conception ofreligion which j^-^gggjpjgjg^f^g present time, but impartial study of the

past shows that it is exceptional ; and the sociologist might

go so far as to say that it is due to the peculiar circumstances

in which professing Christians have found themselves in the

last century or so. Indeed many professing Christians are

beginning to share the view that the recent past is excep-

tional. In most societies, both primitive and advanced, re-

ligion is intimately COIS!;l$ with most a e -

par5cuiar case of Islam there are further reasons

for thinking that the previously exisJJBgjLCj^^ search for a purdy_ersomLgiety. Why was there the insistence on practising generosity and_avoiding nig^ardli- n i! This may be regarded as gersonjijnaoralit^J>ut in

commending it,lxxjothfi|sed^leMa .man is.showing^ a concern

for sodaLHfiHare. Moreover, the Qur'an shows concernjar

orh^ j^^ oppressed by the wealthy- This goes beyond merely personal piety. Similarly, if the Muslims had merely wanted to worship in their own

way, it is hard to see why they were persecuted so fiercely. If it is replied they were persecuted because they attacked

polytheism_and so tfoeatenejljl^

Meog^this may be countered by saying that the attack on

polytheism presupposes ^^jy^^^L^^^^^^^^-^^1 on^jim^^^^^fi^lj, why, after going to Medina, did the Meccan Muslims not live quiet secluded upright lives, worshipping God as they pleased ? Why did they take the lead in attacking pagan Meccan caravans specially? Thus to say that the previously existing activity was the

attempt to discover a satisfying form of personal piety and

conduct does not account for all the facts.

The most likely view is that the previous activity was the

attempt to find remedies for the social malaise of Mecca^It %tiot obvious, however, how the religious ideas of the early

44 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

passages of the Qur'an correspond to the social conditions of

the time. Indeed any discussion of the relation of religious ideas to social conditions raises thorny problems. The follow-

ing is a brief statement of the general position underlying the

present interpretation of the origins of Islam.

(1) The setting of social life is provided by material fac-

tors. These include the geography of the country in which

the society lives, the techniques known to it, and its relations

to neighbouring societies. In a sense these are all economic

factors, though the wider term '

material '

seems preferable. It is more important to notice that there is a certain inevita-

bility about them. If the society next to yours has a better

kind of cereal and a better way of growing it, so that it can

feed a larger population more adequately, then (assuming similar geographical conditions) your society will

be defeated

and perhaps exterminated by this other society unless you

adopt their technique and get seed from them. The change of grain and technique is in one sense a matter of choice,

but

in another sense your society has no alternative, since it

cannot contemplate extermination.

(2) In any material environment some social systems will

be more suitable than others. In the Arabian steppes in pre- Islamic times the simple family of one man, one woman and several children would not have been a viable unit. To meet the hardships and accidents of such a life there had to be a

larger unit, which may be called a clan or tribe. So long as the material environment remained stable the actual tribal

system of Arabia, with the associated ideas and code of con-

duct, worked very well. Perhaps some other system, or some

modification of this system, would have worked just as well ; but most other systems that we can think of would not have worked so well. This adaptation of a social system to the

material environment comes about through a process of trial

and error, in which the most suitable social forms survive

THE CALL TO PROPHETH0OD 45

while the less suitable die out or are abandoned. Before any form can be tried out it must have occurred to someone that

it might be an improvement. Thus the material environment does not necessarily determine the social system. Yet, be-

cause in the sense explained above the material environment

is inevitable and given, it has a part to play in determining the social system in that it is the measure of the suitability or survival-value of anysocial system.

(3) Where there is a change in the material environment, which may be as a result of the discovery of a new technique or of altered relations to neighbouring societies, the exist-

ing social system will normally cease to be wholly suitable.

Social malaise will appear, and people will feel dissatisfied.

A process of trial and error will begin in order to discover a social system more suited to the new material environment. What is tried out is always a modification, greater or less, of

the existing system.

(4) In a stable society, where the social system is satis-

factorily adjusted to the material environment, there is a

corresponding set of religious and other ideas. The accep- tance of these ideas produces in the members of the society certain conscious attitudes towards the society and its en-

vironment, and without these conscious attitudes the life of

the society would be much less satisfactory. At many points it is unnecessary for the members of the society to be con-

scious of what they are doing, but it is usually essential, for

example, that they should believe that the life of their society

as a whole is meaningful and significant.

(5) Ideas, especially religious ones, have an important part

to play in the adjustment of a social system to a change in

the material environment. As stated above, the immediate result of material change is social maladjustment, and this

involves dissatisfaction and discontent in the members of the

society. These, however, are negative, in that they are move-

46 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

ments away from something. They do not become effect- ive movements until they have a positively conceived goal, and this, if it is to be consciously accepted by many members of the society, must be expressed in ideas.

(6) The conscious attitudes on which the life of a society is based have deep, and so partly unconscious, roots. Be- cause of this they are firmly held, and it is usually impracti- cable to eradicate them. To produce new attitudes, equally firmly held, would take several generations. Men therefore try to modify rather than uproot the basic attitudes in making adjustments in a social system. They do so by making slight modifications in the accepted set of ideas and by analysing the new situation in terms of these ideas. This leads to the propounding of a goal which is in accordance with the analy- sis. Thus, where there is adjustment to a new material situa- tion, religious ideas not merely provide a positive goal but also harness traditional attitudes in the pursuit of this goal. In this way religious ideas provide a focus for a social move- ment. Without ideas there would not be a movement at all in the strict sense, but only social discontent without a single cIHr direction.

This, then, in brief outline, is the general position from which I am interpreting the origin of Islam and trying to

j explain the position in it of Biblical ideas. Scholars have

argued about the relative strength of Jewish and Christian

influences, but from the present 3

standpoint it is not so im* I portant to try to answer this question as to identify the acti- ghies among the Arabs into which the Biblical ideas fitted.

THE SOCIAL RELEVANCE OF THE NEW RELIGIOUS IDEAS In the Mecca in which Muhammad began to preach an

important material change had been taking place. It had begun half a century or more earlier, but its momentum had been gathering during recent years. This change was the

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 47 growth of trade to such an extent that Mecca had become the centre of far-reaching and complicated mercantile opera- tions.

From ancient times there had been a shrine and sanctuary at Mecca. To this the nomads from many parts of Arabia had come at a particular time each year to make pilgrimage. The months near the date of the pilgrimage were sacred months, and the district round Mecca was sacred territory. In the sacred territory and during the sacred month or months blood-feuds were in abeyance. This made it pos- sible for the nomads to take part in the pilgrimage without danger of being attacked. At the same time it was an oppor- tunity for them to meet traders and to exchange their wares for the products of the settled agricultural lands. In such circumstances, the ownership or custody of the sanctuary could become a source of much profit, as the Meccans early realized.

No agriculture was possible at Mecca because of its rocky character, and it is unlikely that the inhabitants at the time of Muhammad's birth were able to gain their entire livelihood from trade. They must therefore have continued to some extent to live as nomads. The Arabian nomads or bedouin can live almost entirely from their herds .of camels. After the winter and spring rains (which can be most erratic) they go to parts ofthe desert or steppe where a lush vegetation springs up for a month or two. In the sandier parts no wells can be dug, but human beings can obtain all the liquid they need from the camels1 milk. When this temporary vegetation dis- appears the nomads move to other regions where there are wells and a perennial scrub. We hear of a number of wells at Mecca. The main food of such nomads is camel-milk. Only

occasionally do they kill and eat a camd. Those who do not penetrate so far into the waterless steppe also have sheep and

48 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

goats, but they tend to be militarily weaker than those who rely entirely on camels. In addition the nomads prey on one another and on any settled lands near them, and get fees for protecting settled communities from other nomads and for giving safe convoy to traders' caravans. With these fees and the proceeds of the sale of camels and camel products they are able to buy some cereals and other commodities from agricultural regions.

It is possible that Muhammad's great-great-great-grand- father (the ancestor of all the leading clans in Mecca) was the first to establish an all-the-year-round settlement at the

sanctuary. Through their control of the sanctuary and their share in the trade at the pilgrimage, his descendants pro-

spered, and the settlement grew into a town. For reasons that are not altogether clear their commercial enterprises

expanded greatly during the second half of the sixth century, until by about 600 the Meccans had in their hands most of the trade through western Arabia. Besides local products like the frankincense of South Arabia they carried goods from India and Abyssinia to the Mediterranean. They organized regular caravans southwards to the Yemen and northwards to Damascus or Gaza. They also became in- volved in business enterprises, such as mining, in various areas. Many ofthe inhabitants of Mecca must now have been gaining their livelihood solely or largely by trade. Here then was an important material change from a

pastoral, nomadic economy to a mercantile one. The Mec- cans had retained the attitudes and social institutions appro- priate to the life of the nomad in the desert, such as blood- feuds and dan solidarity. Even if they had not been pure nomads for some time, they had remained sufficiently close to the desert to have preserved much of its outlook. The essential situation out of which Islam emerged was the con- trast and conflict between the Meccans' nomadic outlook and

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 49 attitudes and the new material (or economic) environment in which they found themselves. At the level of social institutions this was seen in the break-

down of the tribe or clan and of the solidarity associated with it. In the hard conditions of the desert men had to join with one another in order to survive. They did so on the basis of

kinship in units which may be called tribes or clans. Solid- arity, or loyalty to one's kin, was of the utmost importance. Ifyou saw your kinsman in danger, you went to his help with- out asking whether he was right or wrong.

In Mecca this tribal solidarity was being replaced by individualism. There may have been some beginnings of individualism among the nomads, but at Mecca the trend to individualism was mainly due to the growth of commerce. The great merchants put business interests before everything else, and would join with business associates against their fellow-clansmen. Muhammad suffered from this in his last year or two at Mecca, because his uncle Abu-Lahab had friends among the great merchants who induced him to turn

against his nephew. In a sense a new type of unit was being formed by common business interests, but to this unit few of the older social attitudes were attached, and it was in*

capable of solving the problems of Meccan society. The breakdown of the tribe or clan led to the oppression

of weaker members of the community such as widows and

orphans. The successful merchant thought only of increas-

ing his own power and influence. His wealth might originally have come to him as chief of a clan, but he was no longer prepared to carry out the chief's traditional duty of looking after the poorer members ofthe clan. This is one ofthe points which the Qur'an attacks. The merchants had a slight ex- cuse in that this was a new situation which was not provided for in the traditional social system of the desert. There the chief received a quarter of the booty taken on raids to enable

50 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

Mm to perform such a function. But the merchant's fortune was gained largely by his own shrewdness, not derived from raids. The traditional moral code could not be said to oblige him to help the poor. With this breakdown of the tribe or kinship-group went a

breakdown of the public opinion which had helped to en- force the nomadic moral code. Public opinion had been fostered and guided by the poets. Strange as this seems to us, these had fulfilled a function not dissimilar to that of the more

responsible press in recent times. They had sung of the honour of their tribe and the dishonour of its enemies, and the satire of a well-known poet was greatly feared. But they had been dependent on patrons, such as the chief ofthe tribe ; and now the most likely patrons were the great merchants. The poet was thus unlikely, even if the application of the traditional moral code had been clear, to criticize his patrons or potential patrons. In other words, wealth gave men some control even over public opinion. With this breakdown of morality and failure of public

opinion was connected a deterioration in the religious life of the Meccans. Half a century before Muhammad that had already been something of a mixture. There were numerous old cults in Arabia connected with various shrines, of which the shrine at Mecca was one of the more important. Many of the old practices were retained, especially where taboos of time and place made trade easier by suspending blood-feuds. Yet on the whole these cults seem to have had a peripheral place in the lives of the Arabs. The story is told of a chief who went to a god and drew lots with arrows to discover a propitious day to set out to avenge his father ; after receiving several discouraging answers he seized the arrows, broke

them, and flung them at the idol with the words, * If it had

been your father who had been killed, you wouldn't have answered, No '. Even if this chief was a Christian, the story

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 51

nay be taken as typical of the pagan attitude some residual

jractice, but little belief.

The religion by which the Arabs really lived may be called ribal humanism. According to this the meaning of life

:onsists in the manifestation of human excellences, that is, ill the qualities that go to make up the Arab ideal of manli-

ness or fortitude. The bearer of these excellences is the tribe ather than the individual. If they are seen in the life of an

ndividual, that is because he is a member of a tribe which is iharacterized by them. The thought that is uppermost in he mind of the individual is that of the honour of the tribe.

Jfe is meaningful for him when it is honourable, and any-

hing involving dishonour and disgrace is to be 'avoided at all

:osts.

This religion of tribal humanism had no cult forms in the

trict sense, but the practice of reciting poetry had a function

imilar to that of a religious cult. One of the chief tasks of

he poet was to recount the glorious deeds, of his fellow-

ribesmen (not excluding himself) in which the excellences of

he tribe were manifested. At times he would turn and

riticize other tribes and show the dishonour attaching to

hem. These were known respectively as *

boasting ' and

satire *, and both contributed to strengthening the tribes-

nan's belief in the meaningfulness cf life as a member of his ribe. It was primarily this tribal humanism which consti-

uted the religion by which men lived. In the Mecca of Muhammad's prime, however, men had

eased to think much of honour. Honour was bound up with de traditional morality of the desert, and much of that had ecome irrelevant in Mecca. Instead they thought of in-

reasing their own wealth and power. It was in super- minent wealth that they found the meaning of Hfe. Wealth

ave a man power. To increase one's wealth and power ecame the great aim in life, not only for the few very

rich

52 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

men in Mecca, but also for the great majority of the popula- tion who aped them from a distance. Those who had some success in achieving this aim became filled with a

pride in

wealth '

that soon merged into *

presumption '

or an exag- gerated conception of the capacity of man. This appears to have been the religious position at Mecca when Muhammad began to preach.

If we now turn to the earlier passages of the Qur'an which were studied above, we see that the points made there are relevant to the contemporary situation. Whenthese points are looked at in the light of the situation, it is at once seen that

the Qur'an places the chief emphasis on the religious aspect of the troubles of Mecca. It calls on men to acknowledge the power and goodness of Godtheir Creator and to worship Him. Thereby they will be denying the omnipotence and omni-

competence of the wealthy man. The Qur'an thus provides a corrective a more satisfying alternative to the

pre-

sumption * and

pride in wealth * which it regards as the root

of the materialistic humanism underlying the social malaise of the times.

Another way of stating this would be to say that the Qur'an looks upon a man's life as meaningful when it is upright. The supreme aim in life is not to live honourably or to increase one's wealth and power, but to live uprightly so as to attain to the joys of Paradise. The man who pursues wealth unscrupulously, whom the Qur'an characterizes as *

niggardly *, will forfeit Paradise. In making niggardliness a serious sin, the Qur'an is showing the incompatibility be- tween the worship of God and the worship of wealth and power.

This basic religious idea leads to some practical conclu- sions. Men are to be generous with their wealth, especially towards orphans and de$titute persons. They are not to oppress the weaker members of their families and clans. By

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 53

injunctions of this kind the Qur'an is recalling men to some of the virtues of nomadic life which social changes, such as the breakdown of the kinship-group and the growth of individualism, were causing them to neglect. Moreover this recall to virtue is given a powerful sanction in the doctrine of the Last Day when God will reward or punish men accord- ing to their deeds. It is made clear that this is something which happens to the individual ; his kinsmen are unable to help him or to influence God'sjudgement. Fear of punish- ment and hope of reward is thus a sanction which is effective in an individualistic society. The attempt is being made to revive some of the virtues of the desert in this new urban society.

The emphasis on generosity and consideration for the weak, and the absence of any special mention of respect for life, property and marriage those fundamentals of all social life

is in keeping with the Meccan situation as it has been des- cribed. The malaise arose from the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth, and the Qur'an tries to curb this. That explains its concentration on what appear to be supererogatory duties. The more fundamental matters the prevention of murder, theft and adultery, especially the first of these were still

adequately dealt with by traditional custom, and in particular the blood-feud. The avenging of death or injury was still felt to be a binding obligation on the kinship-group, though the strict lex talioms of an eye for an eye and a life for a life was often modified by the growing practice of accepting a hun- dred camels as the equivalent of the life of an adult male. The early passages of the Qur'an cannot be said to have

any clear conception of a new social unit. Men are treated as individuals, but as individuals within a unit ; and it is assumed that this unit is a tribe or like a tribe. It is to a tribe or similar unit that a prophet is sent. Yet even this very simple idea contains the germs of future developments. It

54 THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD

connects the social unit with religion. Later, when many of the Meccans rejected Muhammad, a distinction had to be drawa between those members of the tribe who accepted Muhammad and those who did not. In this way there was formed the idea of the community of those who accepted the prophet, and this community had its basis in religion and not in kinship. When the Qur'an was first revealed, however, that development lay far in the future.

After this study of the relation of the Qur'an to its social

context, the three laws of.cultural influence may be looked at again. The first asserted the necessity of a previously exist-

ing activity, and this activity may be best described as work- ing for the social well-being of Mecca as a whole. Muham- mad had a concern about this before he began to receive reve- lations, and it continued throughout his life. Something of the same concern was also found in many members of his community after his death, and it was doubtless this concern, and the intellectual and practical activities which proceeded from it, which nourished the Biblical conceptions and enabled themto contribute to the expanding vitality of Islamic culture. This is in accordancewith the second lawof cultural influence. The third kw of cultural influence the avoidance by a

living culture of elements conflicting with *

its own funda- mental values, emotional attitudes or aesthetic criteria

illustrated in the limited range of Biblical conceptions found in the Qur'an. There is nothing of the teaching of the

writing prophets of the Old Testament, and practically noth-

ing of the teaching of the New Testament. Such Biblical elements are relevant to a society with many centuries of settled life behind it. Meccan and Medinan society had only recently exchanged nomadism for a settled life, and it is not surprising that they most fully appreciated those parts of the Bible which reflect the experience of the Israelites in the

period shortly after they had made a similar change.

THE CALL TO PROPHETHOOD 55

Islam thus stands within the Biblical or Judaeo-Christian

tradition, or, to use a phrase which avoids any suggestion of

inferiority, within the Abrahamic tradition. YetitjgjQfljnege

paleraflec^^ It arisesjrom the fusion

of Biblical ,el^^ liuman spirit arising from local condi5bln^

." l

Ali v &isse'

must be retainedricrrxp^

Ill

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

IN THE HOUSE OF AL-ARQAM

In later times Muslims would boast that an ancestor had

become a Muslim *

while Muhammad was in the house of al-

Arqam '. This was their way of referring to a period near the beginning of Muhammad's career as a preacher. There was an earlier period, but only a handful of the elite could

claim to be descended from men who embraced Islam * before Muhammad entered the house of al-Arqam '. While the sources, with the exception of the earliest of

all, are agreed in recognizing the importance of this period, almost everything else about it is in obscurity and uncer-

tainty. Muhammad may have gone to this house before he

began his public preaching, or he may not have gone to it until after his public preaching had roused opposition. His

reason for going to it depends on the date assigned. The sources mention reasons, but these are presumably no more than the conjectures, more or less intelligent, of the writers. Not only in this matter, but in all the points that will be dealt with in this chapter, there is this obscurity and uncertainty. It would be tedious to mention all the possibilities. The

present account will neglect all but the chief probabilities, and, in the attempt to mate a coherent story, will give these a more dogmatic form than is strictly justified. With this

warning to the reader let us proceed.

Al-Arqam was a young man of from twenty to twenty-five. He belonged to the clan of Makhzum, the clan of some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Mecca. He must have been wealthy himself, since he owned a large house near the centre of Mecca. Little is known with certainty about his father, who may have been dead. Certainly al-Arqam was

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 57 able to act with, greater freedom than many other young Meccans of his age.

It was perhaps in 614 that Muhammad made al-Arqam's house the centre of his preaching activities. He is said to have had thirty-nine followers at the time. He did not live in the house, but spent most of the day there. His followers came to him in it, and were taught the Qur'an and otherwise in- structed. Together the Muslims performed their distinctive acts of worship, which culminated in the prostration, the

touching of the ground with one's forehead in acknowledge- ment of the might and majesty of God. It was also possible for enquirers to come to Muhammad in this house and talk about their difficulties and about all the troubles of the people of Mecca.

It is not clear whether there was any vigorous opposition to Muhammad when he first went to this house. Possibly such opposition as there was amounted to no more than verbal criticisms. In other words, if there was opposition, it was not

yet absolute opposition. There was still the chance that a reconciliation might be brought about.

During the period while the house of al-Arqam was Muhammad's centre there did develop bitter opposition to his movement, led by some of the most powerful of the Mec- can merchants. One of the bitterest was a man of his own age, Abu-Jahl of the clan of Makhzum. Happening to meet Muhammad one day, Abu-Jahl taunted and insulted him most offensively, but Muhammad made no reply. The inci- dent was observed by a freedwoman who reported it to Muhammad's uncle Hamzah as he returned from hunting, and he at once went to find Abu-Jahl in the Ka'bah and struck him with his bow. IJamzah had hitherto been a pagan, but he now openly professed Islam.

* Will you insult my nephew

now that I am a follower of his religion ? * he asked. Some of

Abu-JahTs kinsmen made to help Mm, but, perhaps because

58 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

he respected the great physical strength of I^amzah, he

admitted that he had gone too far in insulting Muhammad, and the incident was closed. Ilamzah, however, was a notable accession to the strength of the Muslims.

What made a man like Abu-Jahl so furious with Muham- mad ? It has sometimes been suggested that the Meccan merchants were afraid that the new religion would lead to a

disregard of the sacredness of Mecca and so to the reduction or destruction of its trade. There are strong reasons, how-

ever, for rejecting this view. The Qur'an, by speaking of God as * the Lord of this House ' (the Ka'bah), accepts the Meccan sanctuary as a sanctuary of God where true worship may be offered. There are stories which imply that from the first the Muslims sometimes performed their acts of

worship in the Ka'bah. There was no attempt to change the sacral character of Mecca and its shrine. The later Qur'anic attacks on idols seem to have been aimed at stopping the cults at other shrines but not at the Ka'bah. So far as the latter was concerned, -these attacks only made it necessary to remove certain idols. In all this there was nothing to jus- tify the belief that Muhammad's religion would seriously reduce the trade of Mecca. The only way in which the Qur'an seemsto have threatened

trade was by its attacks on shrines outside Mecca (to be des- cribed presently). One of the shrines attacked was that of at-Ta'if, the smaller commercial centre higher up in the mountains, where some of the rich Meccans now had estates. The closing of the shrine there would affect adversely those who were concerned with its trade, and it is therefore signi- ficant that a very early letter of which the text has been pre- served attributes the beginning of active opposition to Muhammad to some Meccans with property in at-Ta'if.

This reason, however, presumably counted with, only some of the Meccans. There is no record of Abu-Jahl having any

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 59 connexion with at-Ta'if. There must, then, have been some more general reason for his hostility. Reflection brings to

light two points. Firstly, the influential merchants of Mecca must have seen that the Qur'an, in criticizing false attitudes to wealth, was attacking their whole way of life. It must have stung them to be called

niggardly * and to have it asserted

that they were not the lords of creation they thought they were. They would also realize that such teaching would gain Muhammad wide support if he became politically minded. He might even be able to revive the League of the Virtuous against Makhzum and its associated clans.

In the second place, there was a threat to the political power and influence of the rich merchants in Muhammad's very claim to receive revelations from God. Deep in the Arab heart was the feeling that the best man to rule a tribe or clan was the man who was outstanding in wisdom, prudence and judgement. If they accepted Muhammad's claim, would

they not also have to admit in the long run that he was the man best fitted to direct all the affairs of Mecca ? The threat was not an immediate one, but a future one. It was in ten or

twenty years' time that Muhammad's power might be irresis- tible. The men of the previous generation, who still domin- ated Meccan affairs in the years round about 613, were not so bitterly opposed to Muhammad as his contemporary Abu-Jahl The latter would be more conscious of the threat to his own power in the future.

Just what part the remnants of pagan religion played in

making Abu-Jahl an opponent of Muhammad it is difficult to say. Superficially one would say that paganism was a very weak motive in his case. The only thing that gives one pause is that the Qur'an in later Meccan passages vehemently attacks idolatry. Ifpractical beEefin the old religion was very slight, why does the Qur'an spend so much time attacking it ? It will be easier to answer this question if we first

60 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

describe an incident which probably occurred while Muham- mad was in the house of al-Arqam.

THE INCIDENT OF THE ' SATANIC VERSES '

The accounts of this incident vary somewhat in details, so that it will be best to begin with the points that are certain

and then go on to those that are dubious rather than select one complete account of the incident and then criticize parts of it.

At some time Muhammad must have recited as part of the Qur'in certain verses which apparently permitted inter- cession to idols. One version of these is :

Did you consider al-Lat and al-'Uzza And al-Manat, the third, the other ? Those are the swans exalted ; Their intercession is expected ; Their likes are not neglected.

Then, some time later, he received another revelation can-

celling the last three verses here and substituting others for them :

Did you consider al-Lat and al-'Uzza And al-Manat, the third, the other ? For you males and for Him females ? That would be unfair sharing. They are but names you and your fathers named ; God re-

vealed no authority for them ; they 2 follow only opinion and

their souls' fancies, though from their Lord there has come to them guidance. (53. 19-23)

Both the first version and the second version were proclaimed publicly, and the explanation given for the change was that

1 The word translated * swans exalted * is obscure ; it presumably means that these are a kind of angelic being.

s The worshippers of the idols.

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 6l

Satan had managed to slip in the false verses of the first version without Muhammad noticing it.

This is a strange and surprising story. The prophet of the most uncompromisingly monotheistic religion seems to be authorizing polytheism. Indeed the story is so strange that it must be true in essentials. It Is unthinkable that anyone should have invented such a story and persuaded the vast

body of Muslims to accept it. Moreover there is a passage in the Qur'an which describes something of this kind.

Before thee God sent no messenger nor prophet but, while he desired, Satan interposed (something) towards his desire ; but God abrogates what Satan interposes ; then God perfects His verses ; God is knowing, wise. (22.51).

This verse has been variously interpreted, but the above translation accords with one of the traditional interpreta- tions. Muhammad, it is said, had been greatly desiring to find some way of making it easier for the rich merchants to accept Islam, and, when Satan made the interpolation, he failed to notice it for what it was. Whether we accept this story or not and there may be some truth in it it seems certain that Muhammad recited the * satanic verses ' as part of the Qur'an and later recited another revelation abrogating them. One of the most interesting aspects of the incident is the

lights it throws on Muhammad's outlook at the time. Even

though he sincerely believed that these verses came to him from outside himself, yet he cannot at first have found any- thing in them that he regarded as contrary to the religion he was preaching. Does this mean that he was a polytheist at this time ? There are several reasons for thinking that the

answer to this ought to Jbe, No. To begin with, it is to be noticed that the three goddesses

were specially connected with three shrines within a day or

two's journey of Mecca. Al-Lat was the goddess of the

neighbouring town of at-Ta'if, al-'Uzza had a shrine between

62 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

that town and Mecca, and there was a shrine of Manat be- tween Mecca and Medina. It seems likely, then, that for Muhammad's hearers the primary effect of the

satanic

verses * would be to legitimize worship at these three shrines.

Similarly the primary effect of abrogation would be to stop such worship. In accordance with this the three shrines

were destroyed when Islam became dominant in the

region. How did Muhammad justify this from a monotheistic

standpoint ? It must be remembered that the outlook of Muhammad's more enlightened contemporaries has been described as a vague monotheism. The word

goddesses '

should not be allowed to suggest deities of the kind met in Greek mythology. Semitic religion does not produce such stories about its divinities. It has a less personal conception of the divine. A deity is a power specially connected with certain places and certain objects. The names in point mean

respectively the Goddess, the Almighty and the Disposer (who allots men their several fates). Perhaps the enlightened Arabs of the day regarded these as various manifestations of a single divine power, just as in later times the Muslims spoke of the

ninety-nine names of God. The phrase *

daughters of God '

would not be incompatible with this, for the Arabs used the ideas of daughterhood, fatherhood and sonship to express abstract relations. In this way Muhammad and his followers could have regarded the

* satanic verses

' as authorizing the

worship of the divine at the three shrines indicated, and yet not have felt that they were compromising their monotheism.

There is also a simpler explanation of the Muslims' failure to recognize the contradiction immediately. The Christians and Jews believed in the existence of a secondary and sub- ordinate kind of supernatural being, angels, and the belief in

angels, jinn and other supernatural beings was still a living part of the traditional Arab outlook. Muhammad and his

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 63 followers may have looked on the

goddesses '

as beings of

this kind. Indeed there are passages in the Qur'an which show that they must have regarded the matter in this light, at least for a time ; this was after the attack on their worship had begun.

For a full understanding of the incidents the publica- tion of the

satanic verses * and their abrogation it is neces-

sary to look at them in a wide context. For a time, even if Muhammad's professed followers were not numerous, there was general approval of his mission. The ordinary people were sympathetic. Only the rich merchants were hesitant. Yet even they were not completely hostile. They saw the

danger that through his contact with a supernatural source

of wisdom Muhammad would become the man in Mecca whose views were most authoritative. They also thought that one of the roots of Muhammad's activity was his dis- satisfaction with his own position in Mecca. In particular they saw that he was excluded from the inner circle of rich merchants who monopolized the enterprises in which the big profits were to be made. It therefore occurred to them that

they might reduce this dangerous activity of Muhammad's

by admitting him into this inner circle, letting him share in their profits and power, and intermarrying with his family. They were inveterate bargainers, however, and in return for these concessions to Muhammad they wanted himto compro- mise in some way with the older cults. How was it that the intellectual struggle between Muham-

mad and the rich merchants of Mecca came to be focused on the question of idols ? The history of religious polemics shows that the points on which controversy centres are not

always the fundamental ones, but those where the issue is

sufficiently dear for both sides to feel that * here is ground on

which it is worth while doing battle '. The rich merchants had first been attacked in the Qur'an because of their

pride

64 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

in wealth J

and selfish use of their position of privilege

(though their mercantile activities doubtless raised the stan-

dard of living in Mecca as a whole). They could not defend their conduct, however, in any way that would clearly justify them in the eyes of the ordinary people. A few of them, how- ever, were threatened with loss of trade at the shrines out- side Mecca

; and the others probably realized that their

chief hope of gaining the support of the ordinary people was to present themselves as defenders of the old religion. This was why they asked Muhammad to say something good of their goddesses or otherwise to acknowledge some validity in the old rites.

At first Muhammad was not prepared to make a stand on this issue. Whatever they had asked for, they received, in the 1

satanic verses ', an acknowledgement of the efficacy of wor-

ship at the three shrines. How long it was before the verses were abrogated we cannot tell. The earliest and best sources give no indication of the interval before the abrogation. It

may have been weeks or months. It was presumably long enough for Muhammad to realize that the compromise was not going to work. Perhaps he felt that the priests of the

goddesses were going to be regarded as his equals. Perhaps he felt that his new religious movement was going to be indistinguishable from paganism. He therefore accepted and proclaimed the new revelations which came to him. One was the abrogation of the

* satanic verses

* and their replacement

by others. Another, traditionally the reply he was to give to invitations to compromise, was the following :

unbelievers, 1 worship not what you worship, You are not worshipping what I worship, I am not worshipping what you worship, You are not worshipping what I worship ; To you your religion, to me my religion. (109)

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 65 The abrogation of the

satanic verses *

meant that the cults at the three shrines were no longer recogni2ed in any way. This marked the beginning ofvigorous opposition to Muham- mad. It was begun by some Meccans with property at at- Ta'if, doubtless incensed by this disregard for the shrine and

goddess there and by the consequent loss of trade. Others of the rich merchants joined in. Here was a suitable issue on which to press home the attack on Muhammad. Perhaps, too, changing circumstances made them feel insecure, and in their

insecurity they naturally tended to look to the old religion, for which, while their success was unbroken, they had had little use.

For Muhammad also this seemed to be a good issue on which to join battle. Perhaps as time went on he learnt some-

thing more of the attitude of Jews and Christians to idols, and saw .that he would be in line with them in having no truck with idolatry. The passage just quoted emphasized the distinct character of his religion and its difference from

paganism. Other passages made use ofthe phrase *

daughters of God * in an argumentum ad hominen the Arabs set great store by sons and prided themselves on having them ; was it fair that God should have only daughters ? It was insisted that idols are powerless to benefit or harm a man, and cannot intercede for him on the Last Day ; indeed, on the Last Day the idols would disown their worshippers.

So the struggle went on. In the intellectual sphere the issue between Muhammad and the rich merchants of Mecca became that of many gods or God (who is one). Islam came to regard

the giving of partners to God '

as one of the

greatest sins. This attitude is crystallized in the first half of the confession of faith which runs : There is no god but God.

THE MIGRATION TO ABYSSINIA The beginning of the migration to Abyssinia is probably

66 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

to be dated after the abrogation of the c satanic verses

perhaps about 615. The main facts are tolerably clear, but the

underlying reasons are obscure. The widely accepted form of the story among Muslims is contradicted by many details in the early sources. This is that there were two distinct

migrations, since the first party returned on hearing of the * satanic verses

' and Muhammad's reconciliation with his

opponents, but found on their return that the verses were

abrogated and the struggle more bitter. The following is an attempt at a critical reconstruction of the events.

The universally admitted facts are that a number of Mus- lims went to Abyssinia round about the year 615. Of these some came back to Mecca and went to Medina along with Muhammad in 622, while others remained in Abyssinia until 628. Lists have been preserved of the names of those who went to Abyssinia, of those who returned to Mecca, and of those in the party which returned straight to Medina in 628. There are some discrepancies in the lists, chiefly with

regard to minor figures ; but there is no doubt about the main participants. The most important questions to be answered are why these Muslims went to Abyssinia, and then why some of them remained there so long. A subor- dinate question is whether the initiative for this migration was the emigrants' or Muhammad's. The difficulties of the situation after the abrogation of the

' satanic verses

* must have had something to do with the

migration. Once the policy of opposition to Muhammad had been adopted, the leading merchants and their friends took

steps to make life difficult for their younger brothers and cousins and other members of their families and clans who were attracted to Muhammad's movement. In one way this would be mild as a form of persecution, but in other ways it might be extremely annoying and frustrating. It mostly happened within the family or clan. There was no public

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 67

judicial or police system in Mecca. Crime was kept in check

by the blood-feud. That meant that each clan exacted ven-

geance or a blood-wit for injuries to its members. Apart from this it was dangerous for a man to lay hands on a mem- ber of another clan. Within the clan, however, the power of the leading men was almost unquestioned. If the head of a family decreed that measures were to be taken against a Muslim member of it, they would be taken, and no redress would be possible, since there would be no one to whom appeal could be made.

There is a curious fact which supports the assertion of the sources that it was the difficulty of the situation which made the Muslims go elsewhere. Apart from two exceptions all the early Muslims known to us who remained in Mecca belonged to a group of five clans, headed by Muhammad's clan of Hashim. This group seems to be a reconstituted form of the League of the Virtuous. It is thus the focus of the

opposition to the leading merchants with their monopolistic

practices. Muhammad had attacked the attitudes of the merchants, andtheywere nowopen enemies of his movement ; so it was natural for their political opponents to be friendly with Muhammad. This did not mean that they all became Muslims, but it did mean that this group of clans did not create difficulties for those of their members who followed Muhammad. This would explain the clan attachment of the Muslims remaining in Mecca. They were those who were not being persecuted in any way by their clans, Of the two

belonging to the *

persecuting *

clans one was a blind poet, and so in a special position. The other was al-Arqam, who, with a large house of his own, was sufficiently independent not to be troubled by hostile measures. Thus there are strong grounds for thinking that these Mus-

lims went to Abyssinia to avoid persecution. This can hardly be the whole reason for the migration, however, since it

68 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

does not account for some of them staying on in Abyssinis after the Muslims had settled in Medina and were no longei troubled by persecutors. Are there any other reasons for th<

migration ?

Perhaps they went to engage in trade. This was the nor- mal occupation of Meccans, and there must have been op- portunities in Abyssinia. Those who made a living then until 628 presumably did so by trading. Apart from the

migration of the Muslims there were trade relations betweer Mecca and Abyssinia. So we may be certain that the Mus- lims traded. But this could not have been the sole reason foi

leaving Mecca. To run away from their native town in this way at a critical stage in the development of Muhammad's reform movement, was tantamount to a betrayal of the move-

ment ; and the chief among the emigrants were not weak men of this type.

Could it be, then, that Muhammad had some plan in mind, and sent them to Abyssinia in furtherance of it ? Could he have been hoping for military help which would enable him to seize control of Mecca ? The Abyssinians would have been glad of an excuse for attempting to regain their lost

dominion in Arabia ; and their allies, the Byzantines, who had just been seriously defeated by the Persians, would have

approved of a diversion on the Persian flank. Or was Muhammad hoping to make Abyssinia a base for attacking Meccan trade, as he later made Medina ? Or was he at- tempting to develop an alternative trade route from the south to the Byzantine empire, out of reach of Meccan

diplomacy, and so to break the monopoly of the Meccan merchants ? Whatever may have been in Muhammad's mind, the Meccans were apparently alarmed, and immedi-

ately sent two men to the Negus of Abyssinia and from him, it is said, demanded the repatriation of the emigrants. This was not granted, but the envoys may nevertheless have

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 69

thwarted Muhammad's ultimate aims by informing the

Nsgus of his weakness in Mecca. There remains another important possibility. Was there a

sharp division of opinion within the nascent Islamic move-

ment ? Of the Muslims who remained in Mecca the most

important after Muhammad was Abu-Bakr ; but he came from a very weak clan. Were the Muslims from the influ-

ential clans ready to follow Mm and to support the policies he favoured 1 There are slight traces of rivalry between his

group and that led by c Uthman ibn-Maz'un. The latter be-

longed to the same generation as Muhammad and Abu-Bakr. Before Muhammad began to preach he had lived a disci-

plined life and avoided wine. At some later time he wanted

to introduce into Islam an ascetic note of which Muhammad

disapproved. With his puritan zeal and influential connex-

ions he would find distasteful a policy advocated and sup-

ported by uninfluential men like Abu-Bakr. There were

others, too, who for various reasons may have been averse to

the policies adopted by Muhammad with Abu~Bakr*s sup- port. What these policies were we cannot say. Perhaps the

emigrants disliked some attitude adopted by Muhammad to meet the growing vehemence of the opposition, such as

increased involvement in politics. If there is some truth in this last suggestion, then it would

be in keeping with what we know of Muhammad's character that he should quickly have become aware of the incipient schism and have taken steps to heal it. This might have been

by suggesting the journey to Abyssinia in furtherance of

some plan to promote the interests of Islam. Since the

ostensible aims were not attained, it is not surprising that we are not told the precise nature of the plan. 'Uthmln ibn-

Maz'iin and the others who returned to Mecca before 622

were soon reconciled with Muhammad and Abu-Bakr, and this shows that the break can never have been complete.

70 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

The migration to Abyssinia, then, however certain as a fact, remains obscure in its interpretation. It gives a tanta-

lizing glimpse of conditions in the little band of Muslims after the appearance of vigorous opposition.

THE INTELLECTUAL ARGUMENT

The Qur'an reflects the war of words and ideas between Muhammad and his opponents throughout the remainder of his life at Mecca. As well as expounding and defending the new religion, it quotes the arguments used against it. No dating is possible, but the main points made on the two sides are clear.

One of the main criticisms of the message of the Qur'an was that its teaching about the resurrection of the body was absurd. The Meccans, regarding the body as an essential

part of the man, could not conceive how a human body could be restored to life after it had mouldered in the grave. In their eyes this was a crushing retort to Muhammad's asser- tions.

When they are warned they reck not ; When they see a sign, they mock, And say, This is magic manifest ; When we are dust and bones, shall we be raised, Or our fathers from of old ? (37. 13-17)

This question was not simply a debating point against Muhammad, but was in line with their real beliefs.

They say, There is naught save our present life ; we die and we live ; only Fate destroys us. (45. 23)

The Qur'an was not concerned with resurrection in any abstract way. For the Qur'an resurrection was involved in the

teaching about the Last Judgement, and that teaching was

important as providing a sanction on an individualistic basis

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 71 for virtues like generosity to which the Qur'an was recalling men. The pagans of Mecca did not directly attack what the Qur'an said about generosity. It is easy to be selfish in

practice, but not so easy to defend selfishness as an ideal.

All the Qur'anic teaching on this point, however, would be discredited if the resurrection could be disproved ; and the

indisputable fact of mouldering bodies seemed to the op- ponents of Muhammad a clear disproof of a vital link in the chain of his ethical and eschatological doctrine. The Qur'an meets this criticism by calling attention to the

signs '

of God's power and activity. Some passages show God's existence and power in a general way, but others are

explicitly concerned with His power to raise men from the dead. His creation of man through the process of concep- tion and the slow development of the embryo in the womb, and His subsequent provision for sustaining man's life are taken as

signs * that He is also able to restore the bodies that

have lain in the grave.

Does man reckon he will be left to himself ? Was he not a drop of seed emitted, Then became a blood-clot ? He formed, He moulded, Made of Mm mates, male and female. Is not That One able to raise the dead ? (75.36-40)

Despite such arguments, however, the opponents remained

unconvinced.

On the question of idols and the unity of God the Qur'an took the initiative in attacking, and the pagans were on the defensive. The chief points in this connexion have already been mentioned. One further point, however, was the appeal by the pagans to the customs of the fathers, and the implied criticism of Muhammad for deviating from established usage. It was a deep-seated conviction among the Arabs that the right way for men the way through which they achieved

y2 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

something of value was adherence to established usage. This conviction was transferred to Islam, where the word for *

heresy * is simply

innovation \ When Muhammad's op- ponents, then, insisted that they had found their fathers

practising a certain religion and that it was best for them to follow in their fathers' footsteps, this was an assertion that

would meet with a deep response from many Arab hearts. The answer of the Qur'an to this implied criticism was in

the stories of the prophets of former times. The stories give encouragement to Muhammad and his followers in their troubles. They must sometimes have felt they were desert-

ing their ancestors, especially when they were asked difficult

questions about the present or future state of deceased

pagans. The stories of the Old Testament prophets and others helped them to realize that, as themselves followers of a prophet, they had a distinguished spiritual ancestry. They also were members of a community with its roots deep in the

past and, like most Arab tribes, able to boast of the excellence of its stock and the great merits of the forerunners.

Besides these arguments about the message of the Qur'an there were criticisms of Muhammad's position as

messenger of God *. The extent of the criticisms shows that from the first Muhammad must have claimed that the words which came to him were a revelation from God. One of the lines of attack used by the pagans was to admit that Muhammad's experiences were real and that they had a supernatural cause, but to hold that this cause was not God but jinn, and that Muhammad was possessed by jinn, or mad. Poets, not to speak of soothsayers and sorcerers, were also inspired by jinn, and so to link Muhammad with any of these groups had a similar effect to saying he was possessed.

All such assertions about the origin of the revelations had the effect of making men think that the warnings need not be taken seriously. The supernatural beings who produced the

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 73

revelations might be either malevolent or lacking in know-

ledge. The people who made these allegations may have be- lieved them, or they may merely have been trying to dis- credit Muhammad. In either case a reply had to be made. The passage describing Mohammad's visions (discussed above) comes as a refutation of the suggestion that the revela-

tions are of demonic origin. Another line of attack on Muhammad's prophethood was

the allegation that he had had a human assistant. No name is

given in the Qur'an, but later Muslim sources mention several

persons whom his opponents named as his assistants. What

grounds there were for the charge it is difficult to say.

Muhammad, it has been argued, was completely sincere in

holding that the revelations were not the product of his

normal consciousness. It remains possible, however, that he

had heard some of the stories recounted by the persons men-

tioned, though not in the same form or with the same point as when they appeared in the Qur'an. If he had thus heard

the stories, there would be some plausibility in the allega- tion. The opponents were certainly doing all they could to

discredit Muhammad. Finally there were attacks on Muhammad's position and

his motives. They said he was not a sufficiently important

person to be a messenger from God, since he was weak and

of no account. Others demanded that his mission should be

accompanied by miracles, or suggested that God normally sent angels as messengers. At least one passage makes

likely that the opponents asserted that Muhammadwas moved

by personal ambition. Such an assertion is also implied by the repeated counter-statements that Muhammad is not a

controller, but only a warner whose function is to warn his

fellow-countrymen that there is a Judgement followed by eternal reward and punishment, and by the insistence that

Muhammad, like other prophets, seeks reward not from men

^4 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

Kit only from God. It would be only natural that the rich

nerchants, with their materialistic outlook, and their know-

ledge of Muhammad's difficult circumstances, should

Imagine that he like themselves was moved by a desire for wealth and power. His whole conduct throughout the

Meccan period makes it improbable that political ambition was among his dominant motives, though, when power came to him at Medina, he did not shrink from it, but regarded political leadership as having been thrust upon him by God.

THE BOYCOTT OF THE CLAN OF HASHIM

Round about the year 615 the leadership of the opposition to Muhammad passed from the older men to one of his own generation, Abu-Jahl of the clan of Makhzum. The older men would have liked to effect some reconciliation with Muhammad and to induce him to compromise, but Abu-Jahl was bent on crashing the new religious movement. A passage in the earliest biography seems free from exaggeration ;

It was the wicked Abu-JaH who used to incite the men of Quraysh against the Muslims. When he heard of the convers- ion of a man of high birth with powerful friends, he criticized him vigorously and put him to shame.

' You have left your father's religion/ he said,

although he is a better man than you ; we shall make your prudence appear folly and your judgement unsound, and we shall bring your honour low.* If he was a merchant, he said,

By God, we shall see that your goods are not sold and that your capital is lost.

5 If he was an

uninfiuential person, he beat him and incited people against him.

This illustrates both the vigour of the opposition and its imitations. It has always to be remembered that the system of public security in force in Mecca was the protection by each clan of its members. Most of the clans were sufficiently

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 75

strong to cause serious inconvenience to anyone who mal- treated a clansman or confederate ; and thus there was little

scope for physical violence. Western scholars have argued that the extent of the perse-

cution of the Muslims at Mecca has been exaggerated. This seems to be borne out by a careful study of the earliest sources (such as the passage above). On the other hand there is great bitterness in the Qur'anic description of the treatment

of the Muslims by pagan Meccans. The strength of feeling is perhaps due to the fact that Abu-Jahl and his supporters went as far as they could in the way of persecution and did

things that would not have been tolerated by the older Arab tradition.

It was within his own clan that Abu-Jahl was able to do most. A uterine brother of his own and two other young men of like high standing were inclined to adopt Islam, and two of them had been in Abyssinia. After their return Abu-Jahl made life difficult for them, and for a time they were in- carcerated by their families and latterly prevented from join- ing Muhammad at Medina. A confederate of the clan and his aged parents were regularly exposed to the heat of the

midday sun, and the mother is said to have died from this. For such persons little could be done by the other Muslims.

Abu-Jahl and his associates had also many opportunities of exercising economic pressure. In the case ofa creditor who had no effective protection from any clan one of them refused to pay a legitimate debt. It must have been difficult for the less influential men to resist pressure of this kind. Abu-Bakr is said to have had 40,000 dirhatns when he became a Mus- lim and only 5,000 when he left Mecca in 622. He is also said to have used his money to buy slaves, but only seven slaves are mentioned and we hear of a skve costing 400 dirhams. So the presumption is that the decline in Ms fortune was

y6 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

mainly due to various forms of economic pressure by the op-

ponents of the Muslims.

Physical violence, because of the system of security, was

limited to persons like slaves or those who could find no clan

to protect them. Of the latter one who is often mentioned

was a blacksmith and another a trader of Byzantine origin. In normal times these men would have no difficulty in mak-

ing a living in Mecca ; but it was different when they joined

a movement with powerful enemies. It was also possible for

a ckn to disown formally one of its members. This tended

to lower the clan's honour and was not usually done unless

there was a strong reason. It seems, however, to have hap-

pened in the case of Abu-Bakr, for we hear of him accepting

the protection of a nomadic chief who lived near Mecca and

also of him undergoing the indignity of being bound to a

fellow-clansman. In any case his clan was not powerful. Muhammad himself still enjoyed the protection of his clan,

though that did not exempt him from minor insults, such as

having his neighbours* rubbish and waste dumped at his

door. Abu-Jahl is said to have appealed more than once to

Muhammad's uncle Abu-Talib, who was head of the clan, either to stop his nephew proclaiming the new religion or else to withdraw his protection from him.

Abu-Talib stood firm. For one thing it would have been

dishonouring to the clan to disown Muhammad, since there was no likelihood of their persuading him to give up his re-

ligion. It would also have further weakened a clan whose

strength was declining, for he was one of their promising

yopng men. There was probably also a deeper reason, how-

ever. Although Abu-Talib and most members of the clan did not accept Muhammad's teaching, this had economic impli- cations in which they were interested. It was in line with the

poEcy of the clan and of the whole League of the Virtuous in

opposing the attempts of the rich merchants in other clans to

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 77

establish monopolies. It would therefore be natural for the clan of Hashim to give Muhammad a certain measure of general support, though without endorsing his religious as-

sertions. Indeed it was not only the Muslims of the clan who were protected. Abu-Talib also gave protection to his sister's son, whose father belonged to Abu-JahPs clan of

Makhzum, and who was presumably in danger of being ill- treated by his father's clan.

Abu-Jahl continued to work assiduously against Muham- mad. He failed to isolate Muhammad from his clan, but he managed to isolate the clan of Hashim from the other clans in the League of the Virtuous. It was perhaps about 616 that he brought into being a grand alliance of nearly all the clans

of Mecca against Hashim. A document was drawn up and signed, and a boycott of Hashim instituted. None of the clans taking part was to have any business dealings with

Hashirn, and there was to be no intermarriage. The boycott was apparently maintained for over two years. The situation of Hashim cannot have been as serious as it

sounds. There is no record of any complaint of undue hard-

ship, nor of recriminations against Muhammad. The last point tends to confirm the view that Muhammad's religion was not the sole reason for the boycott. Hashim must have been able to carry on trade in one form or another. Perhaps they sent their own caravans to Syria ; and they would be able to sell to the nomads who came to Mecca. Besides, several members of the boycotting clans were closely related

by marriage to Hashim and presumably did not keep the boy- cott with absolute strictness.

Thus the boycott must be adjudged a comparative failure. It came to an end, not by Hashim yielding, but by the break-

up of the alliance organized by Abu-Jahl. The lead was taken by members of the clans formerly in league with Hashim and by a pagan member of the dan of Makhzum

78 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

whose mother was another sister of Abu-Talib's. Perhaps with the passage of time these former allies of Hashim had realized that the boycott was strengthening the wealthy clans

whichwere tryingto extend monopolistic controlsover Meccan trade and was consequently weakening their own position. The boycott may not have been a complete failuie, how-

ever. In the course of it there was one important defection from the' clan of Hashim, Abu-Lahab, and the clan's subse-

quent acceptance of him as chief may indicate that there was more discontent than is usually allowed. The various forms of hostility to Islam did not at once stop

men from becoming Muslims. One important accession to their ranks was *Umar ibn-al-Khattab, who later became the second caliph. For a time he was an active opponent. When he heard that his sister and her husband had become Mus- lims he was so incensed that he struck his sister, causing blood to flow. The sight of blood, however, led to a swift revulsion of feeling. In a mood of repentance for the hurt he had done his sister he listened to the Qur'an being recited and was so moved that he straightway went to Muhammad and professed faith in Islam. *Umar was one of the two or three most important men in his clan, which was relatively weak and uninfluential, and after Ms conversion which may have taken place before the boycott began the clan took no further part in active opposition to the Muslims. Those members of the clan who were still in Mecca in 624 sent a

contingent to Badr, but it withdrew from the Meccan army before the battle.

*Umar seems to have been the last important convert to Islam during the Meccan period. The successful defiance of the boycott by Hashim indicated that the two parties had reached a stalemate. Soon after its ending, however, various events occurred which caused Muhammad's position to deteriorate rapidly.

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 79 THE BETRAYAL BY ABU-LAHAB

Within a short time of one another, probably in the year 619, Muhammad lost by death both his uncle and protector Abu-Talib and his faithful wife and helpmate Khadljah. What the latter meant to Muhammad in these years of op- position we can only conjecture. When he first came to think that God was calling him to be a prophet, she encouraged him to believe that the call was genuine. In later days, when his resolution wavered, she comforted him, and doubtless gave him the support he needed. Her death would therefore com-

pel him to be more self-reliant, and that may have been necessary for the ultimate success of the religious movement. While Khadljah was alive Muhammad took no other wife, but he married again shortly after her death. This might indicate the need for spiritual companionship, but it is more

likely that Muhammad's motives were ofa political kind. The woman, Sawdah, was herself an early convert, and she had been married to a Muslim who had died. Muhammad may have regarded it as incumbent on himself, the head of the little group of Muslims, to marry her so that she might not have to marry someone outside the group. As for Muham- mad himself there are signs that deepening religious ex- periences were taking the place of human companionship. The repercussions of the death of Abu-Talib were much

more serious for Muhammad. Abu-Talib was succeeded as chief of the clan of Hashim by his brother Abu-Lahab. The latter had joined the

grand alliance *

against Hashim during the boycott, but when he became chief he at first promised to protect Muhammad as his brother had done. Mere self- respect and the honour of the clan would dictate such a course. Nevertheless he had really joined the camp, or one of the camps, of Muhammad's opponents. He had managed to marry the sister ofAbu-Sufyin of the clan of 'Abd-Shams, a very rich merchant of the same generation as Abu-Jahl, and

8o OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

the latter's chief rival for the position of most influential man in Mecca. Perhaps this marriage was itself the bribe which detached Abu-Lahab from the traditional policy of Hashim. On the other hand, the marriage may have been earlier, and the ties of affinity may merely have made it easier for Muhammad's opponents to work upon Abu-Lahab. At a time when Abu-Lahab and Muhammad were looked upon as the two brightest young men of the clan, two daughters of Muhammad had been engaged to two sons of Abu-Lahab, but these engagements were now broken off.

Before long Abu-Lahab found an excuse for depriving Muhammad of the protection of the clan. He is said to have been put up to it by Abu-Jahl and a member of the clan of *Abd-Shams who was friendly with him. He asked Muham- mad about the present position of his grandfather. Mu- hammad gave an evasive answer which seemed satisfactory, but the two instigators made him go back and ask Muham- mad directly whether his grandfather was in hell. Mu- hammad had to say that he was. Such remarks about a former chief of the clan were tantamount to an insult to the whole clan, and the present chief could therefore, without

any loss of self-respect, refuse to protect him any longer. The refusal may not have been absolute. Perhaps there were conditions for protection, such as the abandonment of

preaching, which Muhammad could not accept. Whatever the details, the result was that Muhammad lost the protec- tion of his clan and could no longer carry on in Mecca as he had been doing. His bitterness is reflected in a surah of the Qur'an (m) which denounces Abu-Lahab and his wife. Unable to propagate his religion any longer in Mecca,

Mohammad had to look round for another base. The first place he thought of was at-Ta'if. It was the nearest town to Mecca, being about forty miles away to the east. Because it was higher up in the mountains it had a better climate, and

OPPOSITION AND REJECTION 8l

many of the richer Meccans had houses and estates In or near it. At one time it had been a commercial rival of Mecca, but now it was under Meccan control. Muhammad made the journey to at-Ta'if and entered

into negotiations with one of the leading men and his brothers. This group belonged to the section of the in- habitants who were cooperating with the Meccans, but Muhammad may have thought that they were becoming restive under Meccan domination. It seems clear that he was not merely looking for a protector, but was intent on the further propagation of the movement he had inaugurated at Mecca. Whether he had in view the possibility of hostilities with Mecca, such as later developed at Medina, is not cer-

tain. It is likely that he suggested some way of removing Meccan control from the trade of at-Ta'if. The group he

approached, however, did not feel strong enough to throw down the gauntlet to Mecca. On the contrary they were afraid that they might have been compromised by having entered. into discussions with Muhammad, and they not merely rejected the proposition he made, but encouraged the

town rabble to fling stones at him. In great dejection Muhammad set out to return to Mecca.

At one of the points where he stopped for a night, while he was engaged in worship, a company of jinn is said to have come and listened and to have gone off believing. The Qur'an (72. i) shows that Muhammad had some experience of this kind, and we may well believe that at this critical period of his life, when things were becoming more and more difficult for him, he would increasingly

* take refuge with

God '. What may have been another experience of this type is referred to briefly in the Qur'an (17. i) and was expanded in later Islamic tradition into most elaborate accounts of a miraculous journey first to Jerusalem and then to each of the seven heavens.

82 OPPOSITION AND REJECTION

Muhammad was unable to enter Mecca again until he had been guaranteed protection by the leader of some clan other than his own. With this journey to at-Ta'if his protection by his own clan must have come to an end. Whether Abu- Lahab set a time-limit, within which he had to leave Mecca, or whether the journey broke some condition about not propagating Islam, must remain uncertain. It was only the third leader, too, whom he approached, who was willing to protect Muhammad^ and doubtless this protection had con- ditions attached which greatly restricted Muhammad's activity. He was, however, at least able to return to Mecca eventually.

During this same difficult period after the death of Abu- Talib Muhammad is said to have tried to gain the support of some of the nomadic tribes while they were in the neighbour- hood of Mecca attending one or other of the fairs. Four tribes are named. The pasture grounds of one were com- paratively near, and, as later events show, a section of this tribe was attracted to Muhammad. The others came from a much greater distance and were either wholly or partly Christian. Perhaps Muhammad hoped that for this reason, or because of some matter of local politics, one of these tribes would accept his message and give him protection. He may even have been thinking about the possibility of unifying the Arabs. Nothing came of all his approaches, however, and he had to continue in patience.