Muhammad

Title: Muhammad – His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

Author: Martin Lings (Abubakar Sirajuddin)

Publisher: Other Books, 2015 (First published 1983)

ISBN: 9789380081540

Pages: 451

Martin Lings was born in England and spent his higher studies in the US. At 31, he went to Cairo and became a lecturer in Cairo University. He learned Arabic and got immersed in the study of Sufism. He converted to Islam and adopted Abubakar Sirajuddin as his new name. Lings produced and staged Shakespearean plays which were always a fascination for him. He belonged to the perennialist stream of mystical philosophy and considered himself as a Sufi. The author wanted to be known by his adopted Muslim name in later life, but the publishers of this book continues to use his old Christian name as some kind of a ruse to attract people belonging to other religions. Though written in an archaic style, it is comparatively new, having published for the first time in 1983.

Muhammad, as we all know, is the prophet of Islam who established his new, monotheistic religion among the tribes of Arabia in the seventh century CE. Arabian polity was strongly riven by tribal affiliations. Blood feud was common, which escalated ordinary scuffles that can be expected in any society, to murder and retaliatory assassinations in return. Muhammad’s legacy consisted primarily in knitting the clans and tribes together into a homogeneous society. At least, they remained so till his death. An example cited in the book is exemplary to enlighten his message of accommodation. When the clans in his own tribe of Quraysh could not come to terms on who should be privileged to carry the sacred black stone inside Kabah, he intervened with an ingenious plan which was acceptable to all. The prophet asked for a piece of cloth to be brought inside and placed the holy relic in the middle of it. Then he asked the tribal elders of all clans to carry the cloth together and that settled the issue amicably. Similarly in Yathrib, to where he was forced to migrate, the tribes of Aws and Khasraj were always in a state of civil war. Muhammad ended the strife and united the people of Medina (Yathrib). This united army humbled all the other tribes of Arabia.

Muhammad’s prophecy was first acknowledged by Bahira, a Christian monk, when he was only nine years of age and was following a caravan. Jewish scholars also did the same, which shows the common thread of ecclesiastical etiquette that binds the three religions. Arabia was the sanctuary of paganism at that time. Hubal was the chief god worshipped in Kabah. Three goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were worshipped in the other nearby towns. Jews expressed their displeasure of the idolatry when they stopped visiting Kabah after the idol of Hubal was placed there. Quraysh of the pre-Islamic period were very tolerant. They even allowed an icon of the Virgin Mary and the child to be painted on an inside wall of Kabah (p.31). Even when the prophet was thrown out of Mecca, Muslims were still allowed to stay in the city and permitted to pray in the Kabah. The Quraysh hurled insults on the Muslims, who sometimes responded with violence. Muhammad and his followers used to pray in the glens outside Mecca clandestinely. The Quraysh saw them and ridiculed them, which ended in blows. The first blood was shed in the cause of Islam on that day, when Sa’d of Zuhrah struck and wounded one of the disbelievers with the jaw bone of a camel. The prophet was supposedly a good orator whose incising criticism so rattled the Quraysh that they exclaimed that ‘our fathers insulted, our ways scoffed at, and our gods reviled’. Naturally, the prophet was excommunicated from Mecca as a result of this.

Muhammad and his religion were not disposed to return the tolerance enjoyed by them at the hands of the Quraysh. One of his disciples, Abu Dharr of the Bani Ghifar tribe organized highwaymen to waylay the caravans of Mecca but would offer to give back what he had taken on condition that the traders would testify to the oneness of god and the prophethood of Muhammad – in other words, accept Islam (p.78). The book abounds with instances of such highhandedness. The Quraysh even allowed the prophet and his entourage to visit Kabah while they stayed out of the city. But no such magnanimity was showed in return. As soon as the holy city came in Muslim hands, the pagans were banned from visiting the shrine, which continues to this day. Hamzah’s violent retaliation on Abu Jahl for mocking the prophet assured the Quraysh of the new religion’s proneness to violence.

Intolerance is the hallmark of organized Islam in the present world. Contrary to what some of its apologists say, this was so even during the prophet’s lifetime, as seen in this book. The believers abused others at will, but the reverse of it was not permitted. Labid, who was a great Arabian poet of the time, recited a poem,

“Lo, everything save God is naught

And all delights away shall vanish”

The first line was acceptable to Muslims, but Uthman ibn Mazun of Jumah took strong exception to the second. He interjected that the delights of paradise won’t vanish and that the poet had abused god. Such fanatics don’t even leave poetic fantasy alone! In another instance of short temper, we see the antecedents of the attack on the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the prophet. Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf of Bani Nadir wrote satirical poems on Muhammad. Incensed at this, the prophet declared that “he did us injury and wrote poetry against us and none of you shall do this but he shall be put to the sword” (p.220). People who claim that violence is not the Islamic answer to rebuke would be hard put to explain these narrative tales in this book.

Lings claims that this book is written based on the earliest sources on the prophet’s life. The archaic language puts some readers off, but the structure of the book is logical and impartial, to a great extent. Supernatural occurrences are reduced to a minimum. The narrative does not feel like an original English text, which is expected when facts are heavily borrowed from early Arabic texts. It also includes a good index on places, persons, books and tribes.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star