Madalyn O'Hair
I am finding that the best books which are written on the subjects of religion, diverse religious faiths, and religious leaders, are those produced in European countries, most often Germany. The United States continues to be a backwoods country insofar as facing the issue of religion is concerned. No criticism, or real investigation is permitted, perhaps on the theory that if one religious person is criticized or analyzed — no matter how remote from Christianity — this opens up criticism for any religious person — including Christian leaders.
I have found a three-volume set of Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed by a German, Sprenger, and from that I can acquaint you briefly with Mohammed, or Mahomet, tonight.
He is the last man who
attained the rank of a
prophet. Mohammed was
the son of Abdullah and
Amina, born in Mecca,
province of Hagaz (Saudi
Arabia), in Asia Minor, in
the year 571. His father
died before he was born. His mother
died when he was six years old. He was
then taken charge of by his grandfather,
Abd-al-Mottalib, but the grandfather
died within two years and when Mohammed was eight he was in the charge then
of his uncle, Abu Talib. He was poor and
had to work for his living in a very humble occupation. In time, however, he
obtained a comfortable employment in the
service of a rich widow, named Khadija,
who was engaged in business, and
whom he served in the capacity of a
commercial traveler. He married her in
595 when he was twenty-four years old.
She was at the time thirty-nine, about
fifteen years his senior. She was evidently
a woman of strong character and retained an unbroken hold upon the
affection of Mohammed until her death in
619, twenty-four years later. Mohammed
later married many wives, of whom
Ayish was the most intimate with him,
but none of them appears to have exercised so much influence upon his character as Khadija.
It was she who first began to believe in the divine inspiration which her husband began to disclose in the year 612, at the mature age of forty. She was the one who encouraged and comforted the rising prophet during his early years of trouble.
His first revelation was received by him in 612. It was dictated by the angel Gabriel, who is Mohammed's authority for the whole of the Koran. Now, if you look up the angel Gabriel in religious books and according to religious authorities in the United States, you will find that he appeared as a divine messenger to Daniel, to Mary, and to Zacharias. But nowhere do the religious authorities here agree that he ever appeared to Abraham, or Mohammed.
Well, Mohammed says that he not only appeared to Abraham but that he gave Abraham a black stone, which is the holy Kaaba, still intact and enshrined in the city of Mecca. Mohammed even has Gabriel's exact words to him, Mohammed. Gabriel said to him:
Recite thou, in the name of thy Lord who created; created man from clots of blood: Recite thou! For thy Lord is the most beneficent, who hath taught the use of the pen; hath taught man that which he knoweth not. (Koran, sura xcvi)After this first reception of the word of god, Mohammed passed through a period of extreme depression and gloom. He received no more revelations and finally determined to throw himself down from high mountains, but he was prevented by the appearance of the angel Gabriel. Then revelations began to pour down abundantly.
Mohammed's earliest disciples, besides his wife and his daughters, were his cousin, Ali, and the slave Zaid, whom he had adopted as a son. By and by he obtained other important converts, among whom were Abu Bakr, Zobayr and Othman, afterwards the caliph.
At first the Meccans were not offended by his religious revelations, but when he began to preach the unity of god, the resurrection and the responsibility to the deity, that aroused opposition. First there was disapproval and then persecution. Mohammed immediately had a revelation full of instructive legends of nations whom god had destroyed for their wickedness in rejecting the prophets who had been sent to them.
The persecution was intense, however, and some of his followers were compelled to take refuge in Abyssinia, and it was about this time that Mohammed had a relapse into the old faith. In 616 he published a revelation recognizing three Meccan idols, Lat, Ozza and Manah, as intercessors with Allah. In consequence of this concession to their faith, the Korayshites, his own tribe, fell down on their faces in adoration of Allah, and the exiles in Abyssinia returned to their native land. But Mohammed soon became ashamed of the weakness by which he had purchased public support. The verses were struck out of the Koran and the weakness was attributed to the devil. The verses in the Koran are
but God shall bring to nought that which Satan had suggested. Thus shall God affirm his revelations, for God is Knowing Wise! That he may make that which Satan hath injected, a trial to those in whose hearts is a disease, and whose hearts are hardened. (Koran, sura xxii, verses 52,53)
 Mohammed as portrayed by a Westerner. |
Now the Kaaba or Holy Stone at Mecca was the scene of an annual pilgrimage, and during this pilgrimage in 621 Mohammed was able to get six persons from Medina to bind themselves to him. They did so by taking the following oath.
Not consider anyone equal to Allah;In return Mohammed assured these six novitiates of paradise. The place where these first vows were taken is now called the first Akaba.
Not to steal;
Not to be unchaste;
Not to kill their children;
Not willfully to calumniate;
To obey the prophet's orders in equitable matters.
This paradise was no mean thing which he promised. The fifty-sixth sura contains a description of heaven. Those persons who attain it are in "gardens of delight," with "inwrought couches" whereon they could recline as "aye (ever) blooming youths," and that "flowing wine" of the best celestial vintage would be brought to them. They would enjoy their "favorite fruits" and be able to eat whatever birds they long for. "Houris [i.e., prostitutes] with large dark eyes" who were "ever virgin," never growing old, would supply them with the pleasures of physical love (sex).
With a promise like this, within one year, in 622 Mohammed was meeting with seventy-two men of Medina by night at the same ravine, and the oath now taken was called the second Akaba. Twelve of the seventy-two were chosen as elders and the rest were termed disciples. The same promise of paradise was made. The believers then swore to receive the prophet and to expend their property and their blood in his defense. A place of refuge was thus found and all those who wanted to leave the hostility of their countrymen gradually found their way to Medina. Finally only Mohammed and his two friends Abu Bakr and Ali were left. The hostility became so great that he finally effected his escape to a cave some distance from Mecca but in the opposite direction from Medina. There he remained in concealment with Abu Bakr for three days while the daughter of Abu brought food for both. After this time a guide brought three camels and the three men proceeded to the safety of Medina. The prophet reached Koba, a village just outside it on the fourteenth of September 622. He remained there for three days, being visited by adherents from Medina. This was the celebrated Hegira, or flight, from which the Mussulman era is dated.
 In this Islamic portrait, Mohammed rides a mythical steed into the seventh heaven. His face is veiled, in keeping with the Moslem tradition of never portraying his features. Moslems believe that there are seven stages to heaven. |
It was committed for safe custody to Hafsa, daughter of Omar, one of the widows of the prophet. She kept it during the ten years of her father Omar's caliphate. Then the caliph Othman appointed a commission, with the secretary Zaid at its head, to copy the copy of Hafsa and return it to her, for already various missionaries sent to different and newly conquered countries repeated it differently and various readings and interpretations were creeping into the text. Several copies were made by the commissioners, of which one was kept at Medina and the others sent to the great military stations. This was the great official text, prepared about the Moslem years 25 to 30 (about the year 650). After this all private copies were ordered destroyed. The original Koran, which Mohammed only reproduced here on earth, is preserved in heaven, in the presence of its original author Gabriel, on an enormous table there.
And thus the holy book of the Mohammedans, the Quran or Koran, came into being.
Armed combat was immediately born of the new religion and the first war was between Mecca and Medina.
Mohammed began to place himself on the level with crowned heads of nations and in 628 had a seal made with the inscription on it: "Mohammed the messenger of God." As the governor of Medina he became tyrannical and cruel. At one point he sacrificed one hundred camels to emphasize a preachment he made from the back of a camel. In one disagreement with Jews he had six hundred men of one tribe put to death and all of the women sold as slaves. He used private assassination. He added many wives to his family and concubines. He married women whom he had never even seen and some who were already married. To effectuate this he obtained from god a special law entitling him to exceed the usual number of wives. He finally coveted Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son Zaid. Zaid obligingly divorced her but when the young woman demanded a revelation to sanction the union, this was producted by Mohammed and the obliging Gabriel.
His character degenerated as he continued in power. But he developed a remittent fever in the year 632, at the age of 61, and died on the eighth of June 632. We will be coming back to talk about the Koran and more about Mohammed at a later date.
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