Information Related to "The Birth and Spread of Islam"
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The Birth and Spread of Islam |
by Tom Robinson
and Mario Seiglie
In A.D. 610, during the Islamic month of Ramadan, a 40-year-old merchant named Muhammad (570-632) was finding solace from the outside world in a cave not far from Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia. This reputedly quiet, affectionate and kind man had been a caravan master. Now, married to a rich widow, his former employer, he had plenty of time for such solitude and reflection. By accounts he was worried about a moral crisis of reckless materialism hindering his Arabic society. Along with committing blatant idolatry, the poor and disadvantaged were in a serious state of neglect.
In the words of Karen Armstrong, Muhammad awoke one night "to find himself overpowered by a devastating presence, which squeezed him tightly until he heard the words of a new Arabic scripture pouring from his lips" (Islam: A Short History, 2000, pp. 3-4). He later understood that presence to be an angel. And, reportedly, it was through such means that the one God (Allah, the Arabic word for God)-the creator and sustainer of the world-and His will were revealed to the one whom more than a billion people now regard as "the Prophet."
After further experiences or visions of this type, Muhammad began preaching and gaining converts in 612. Apparently he did not think of founding a new religion but merely of bringing the revelation of Allah to the Arab world. He preached against the multitudinous gods and idols of the time. Muhammad became aware that the Arabs sprang from Ishmael (Ismail in Arabic), one of the sons of the biblical patriarch Abraham (or Ibrahim). We are told that he highly regarded the Old Testament prophets and Jesus of Nazareth, though he claimed that Jews and Christians had corrupted their sacred texts as passed down. Indeed, he saw himself as restoring the Abrahamic religion.
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