Muhammad, the Preacher | 571CE - 622CE | The Birth of Islam Episode 02

“Read! Read in the name of thy Lord who Created. Created man from a clot of blood. Read in the name of thy Lord who taught by the pen. Taught man what he did not Know.” With these words begin the career of Muhammad, a poor orphan from Mecca, as a prophet whose followers would go on to change the world. Muhammad is said to have been born in the year 571CE, also called The Year of the Elephant but that's probably not true. 571CE was probably, neither, the year of Muhammad’s.birth nor, The Year of the Elephant which was, most likely, two/three decades earlier and Muhammad's birth can't be accurately known because there are no historic records for it. There were less than a dozen people who read and write at the time of Muhammad's birth so no one noted anything down. Most of his childhood comes from tradition and I'm gonna avoid tradition and just focus on historic stuff. He has born in the Quraysh tribe, his house was called the house of Hashim, named after his great grandfather. It was a well-respected house with most men being merchants, his father Abdullah died before he was born and his mother died when he was just a little boy. He went into his grandfather Abdul Muttalib’s care but he too died a few years later. Muhammad grew up in the care of his uncle Abu Talib. He grew up to be a merchant and a good one at that. He bought things or found a patron to Invest. He went up to Palestine and the Levant to sell these things for a profit. According to tradition, he had quite a reputation for being truthful and honest hence earning the titles of As-Sadiq (The Truthful) and Al-Amin (The Honest). He even served as arbitrator in a tribal dispute in Mecca, stopping it from escalating into a bloodbath. Here's something that I find interesting, mostly Muslims claim that Muhammad couldn't read or write but I don't think that that's true. It can't be. Logically, Muhammad was a merchant and so he must know how to write read and write a few things. He must even know some basic Arithmetic. He definitely didn't get a formal education but it's possible that he had learned over the years. At the age of 25 or so he married a rich widow named Khadija who is said to have been really impressed by his honesty and kindheartedness during a business trip to Syria. She sent HIM a marriage Proposal. She became his companion and he didn't marry another woman for as long as she lived, which was very strange at that time in Arabia. They are known to have had four daughters and two or three sons, sources disagree. None of the sons, unfortunately, lived Long. Khadija is such an important woman in Islam that she's often called Khadija-tul-Kubra meaning Khadija the Great. At the age of 40 or so in the year of 610CE or 611CE, Muhammad went up to the cave of Hira, in a mountain outside Mecca to Meditate. There he was visited by the angel Jibril or Gabriel who told him that he was chosen by Allah to preach Tauheed, the oneness of God. Muhammad was as shocked as any man would be. After some time however, he accepted his fate and began preaching the Word of God. This was met with a lot of resistance. Meccans believed in many gods as we have discussed in the previous episode and this belief was of economic benefit to Them. If they were to renounce all their gods in the favour of this one God that Muhammad was talking about, they'd no longer have a sacred city and the trading hub that came with it. They'd starve. And as I always say the most powerful god throughout history was economics. So the Meccans wanted Mohammed to stop preaching his ideas but Muhammad was nothing if not persistent. He kept on preaching his message to anyone who would listen. He would preach it to the merchants who came to Mecca. He would preach it to the pilgrims who came to Mecca. Basically, anybody he could preach to. Eventually, he gained some followers. Some of the early followers were, his Wife Khadijah, his cousin Ali, his friend Abu Bakr, and his adopted son Zaid. Muhammad's message of equality was really attractive to the people with nothing to their names; the poor, the helpless, the Slaves, the orphans, were coming to Mohammed side quickly. This was met with fierce resistance. Meccans would torture anyone they could to make them denounce the heresy that Muhammad was preaching. This even led to Meccans killing their own slaves who had turned to Islam. In 613CE, three to four years after Muhammad received his first revelation in the cave of Hira, Muhammad told some of his followers to leave Mecca and go to Abyssinia. For Muhammad had heard that the monarch was a good man and would surely be good to his people. He, himself, didn't go, though. He stayed in Mecca to keep to his mission. Up to this Point, Muhammad’s house, the House of Hashim, had been held under the command of his uncle and guardian, Abu Talib. Abu Talib, even though he did not convert to Muhammad’s message, loved his nephew very much and protected him from the Quraysh. However, that changed in the year 619CE. 619CE is often called The Year of Sorrow in Islam because during this year, Muhammad lost his beloved wife Khadijah and his protector and and father figure, Abu Talib. The House of Hashim went to another one of Muhammad's uncles, Abu Lahab and Abu Lahab didn't share Abu Talib’s love for Muhammad. He soon withdrew his protection and even joined the Meccans in trying to stop Muhammad. Muhammad knew he couldn't stay there for long, so he started looking for a new home. He found his new home, north of Mecca, in a small town called Yathrib. Some pilgrims from Yathrib had heard Muhammad's message and it clicked with them. They knew about the problems Mohammed was facing and so they convinced their people to let Muhammad come to their city. Yathrib was no different than most Arab cities except that it was an agricultural oasis. The same tribal warfare that was destroying the rest of Arabia was also destroying Yathrib. A delegation of 12 tribal heads invited Muhammad to move to their city as chief arbitrator of all of them, So, he as a neutral party could resolve their issues without war. Muhammad, Finally, had a shelter. in 622CE, 12 or 13 years after the first revelation, Muhammad moved to Yathrib. The Meccan followers who had moved there are called Muhajiroun. The Yathribites who helped the Muhajiroun are called the Ansaar. Muhammad had gone from a preacher to a leader. He now had a community he had to feed, protect and grow. See you next time.

Channel: Al Muqaddimah

Views: 243,843

Keywords: Mecca, god, Meccans, prophet, Islam, Muhammad, Abu, Khadija, Yathrib, Talib, preach, Hashim, tribal, Lahab, thy, created, taught, Elephant, historical, Quraysh, merchant, arbitrator, time, middle, along, many, Arabia, tribes, empires, world, centuries, people, Abraham, Meaning, conduct, business, PreIslamic, desert, Prophet, Islamic, dominating, minor, fighting, Water, Arabs, Pagans, Anyways, however, gods, bought, common, expect, arid, sandwiched, try, civilization, born, Europe, Sassanid, Persia, Byzantine

Id: MU1tHggYR6k

Length: 5min 49sec (349 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 05 2018