Muhammad -- A Brief Biography

In 570 C.E (some say it was April 20), Muhammad was born in Mecca, a small mountain-enclosed city in western Arabia. Muhammad's childhood was marked by loss, as his father died just before or just after his birth, his mother died when he was a six, and the grandfather who then attempted to raise him died when Muhammad was eight. Muhammad needed a wider clan to make it to adulthood.

In the sixth century, Mecca was making the transition from oasis to city -- and its central economic resource was the Kaabah. The Kaabah was (and is) a small "cube" of a building (kaaba is said to be Arabic for "cube," but the actual dimensions are 33 feet wide, 50 feet long by 45 feet high), that had stood for as long as Meccan memory recalled. How long depends on the teller: Islam maintains that the building was built by the same Abraham who is the first of the Hebrew faithful in the Bible. That would make the building some 2000 years old in Muhammad's day, although Muslims have rebuilt it on the same spot since, and it may have been rebuilt prior. Interestingly, there is a "Qubbah" mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 25:8) that was located in Moab -- an area that may have included Arabia at the time.) The Kaabah was known throughout Arabia as a sacred site, if not because of Abraham, then because of a mysterious black stone (probably a meteorite) inside -- the stone is the only thing inside.

The Bedouins of Arabia made pilgrimmage to Mecca to circumambulate the Kaabah. If the exact meaning of the action had been forgotten, another dimension had arisen: in order to guarantee access, the Meccan rulers had implemented something of a demilitarized zone around the Kaabah - no violence, desecration, deceit, or feuding (all common activities among Bedouin clans) was allowed in the area around the Kaabah. This made the Kaabah the safe place for Bedouin trade. The sacredness led to safety which led to trade which itself led to economic boon for Mecca.

In this milieu, Muhammad came of age and went to work for a woman named Khadijah, owner of a trucking company. "Trucking" in 590 C.E. was done by camel, and was instrumental to the trade of the Bedouins. Khadijah had tapped a business need, and was in need of hired help. Muhammad kept her herd. Within a short time, Khadijah proposed marriage, and when he was 25 - and she was 39 - they were married. The business grew, but by all accounts Muhammad was deeply interested in the religious dimensions of life. He carried on conversations with many, including the Jews and Christians (the latter being mostly heretics, according to the Roman Church) who passed through Mecca.

But it wasn't until 610, when Muhammad was 40, that he became the vehicle of a new religious movement. In the summer of 610, Muhammad was escaping the heat of Mecca (where 120 degrees is common) in the caves of the surrounding mountains. According to Muslim tradition, he would often retreat to the caves, especially on Mount Hira', to reflect on the sacred. Our understanding of his critical experience is based on the telling of Aisha, a later wife whom he married some twelve or thirteen years later, following the death of Khadijah. Aisha related that "in the form of good dreams" Muhammad was seized by the angel Gabriel, and told, "Recite!" Thus began 22 years of a mysterious experience, in which Muhammad was given revelation of or from al-Lah -- which is simply Arabic for "the God." A minimum of 114 times (the number of chapters in the Qur'an), and more likely 200-300 times (most of the chapters of the Qur'an are undoubtedly a composite of more than one event), Muhammad underwent what he described as a terrifying and painful experience. Out of that experience, Muhammad spoke as the mouth of al-Lah. One day, after his death, those recitations would be gathered and published as the Qur'an (the word means "Recitation").

The response to Muhammad's recitations was immediate, but limited. First Khadijah embraced them as revelation, saying, "Allah will never disgrace you." Then Khadijah's cousin embraced the recitations, and before long a small circle of the members of the Qurayshi clan (Muhammad's own clan) made up the early umma of Muslims. But there was immediate tension in Mecca, as the recitations challenged the wealthy of the Quraysh, calling them to support the poor of the clan with their new wealth.

That tension escalated, and to make matters worse for Muhammad, Khadijah died in 620. Shortly after, Muhammad remarried -- one wife was an older widow of one of the Muslim believers, the other Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, Muhammad's closest friend. Muslim tradition says that Muhammad's Night Journey (his mystical assumption into the highest heavens) happened in 621, and then, in 622, Muhammad was invited north to Yathrib (which he later referred to as al-Medinah, or "the City") to organize the community using his emerging Muslim understanding and his own well-known integrity. His departure from Mecca is called the "Hegirah" (sometimes spelled "Hijra"), and marks the beginning of the Muslim era, according to the Muslim calendars today (all dates since are A.H.)

In 629, after seven years of skirmishes between the Muslims of Mecca and the Quraysh of Mecc, Muhammad gathered a force of 10,000 and marched to recapture Mecca. There was no resistance from the Meccans, and Muhammad reclaimed the city for Islam. Within the year, the rest of Arabia fell under Muhammad's leadership -- or, as Muslims would say, Arabia had submitted to al-Lah.

Muhammad died on June 8, 632 C.E., shortly after he performed the full rite of the Hajj for the first time.

 

Copyright 2001 Thomas P. Shoemaker