ORIENTE MEDIO: PRIMERA PARTE

Muhammad

Muhammad was born in 570 in Meca. He became an orphan at the age of six. He was
take care of by his uncle Abu Talib who was an important figure in Meca´s society. When
he was 25 we married Khadija, who was involved in the trade business. He started going
to the mountains to meditate in order to speak with God. In 610 the angel Gabriel
appeared and told him to recite and speak the words of God, which he did. After this he
went back to Meca and told his wife who believed him and she became the first muslim.

At first he didn´t success in converting people. It was hard because Meca´s society was
pagan and they believed in dozens of gods, divinities and he was saying that there were
just one god, Allah. He also said that there were shouldn´t be images of god, which was
also difficult because the citizens of Meca went to visit the Kaaba, which was a pagan
sanctuary where there were images and statues of gods and divinities. Wealthy people
in Mecca didn´t support him because Muhammad wanted to take down the Kaaba and
that contributed a lot to Meca´s economy. He was never succesful in Meca.

In 622 Muhammad and his followers left Meca and went to Medina. Muslims consider
this year 0 because it´s when the first muslim community was created (ummah). In
Medina, Muhammad emerged as a religious al politican leader, leading the Medinan
community under the Contitution of Medina.

There were some battles from Medina and Meca from which Muhammad managed to
prevail over the forces of Meca, ad so Meca became a city ruled by Muhammad. Until
his death he lived in Medina and the Kaaba was cleaned of all the statues and images.
He died in Medina in 632.

The Quran:

- The word of god as revealed to Muhammad.

- It´s a text to make decissions about law, theology…etc
- It is a miracle, “inimitable”, “unique”, “divine”. There are no errors.
- The Quran consists of 114 chapters called Suras, which do not follow a
chronological order (it´s difficult to read).
- Each chapter is divided into verses, ayas (between 6204 and 6236)
- Reading the Quran discloses a thematic preoccupation with threee major topics:
law, the previous profet and the final judgement.
- The Quran wasn´t written out in full during Muhammad´s life but decades after
his death. Disperse texts and oral memories of those who knew or lived with
someone who knew the prophet.
- It took over two centuries for the Quran to be established as we know it today:
for the believer nothing was lost from Muhammad´s revelations.
 - Allah (god in Arabic) is the point of reference in all of the themes: He has sent a
message to all of his creatures to guide them, has given them the law by which
they should live and will bring about the end of the world where all shall be
judged strictly according to their deeds.
- Message is based on Judeo-Christian tradition.
- The Quran accepts the existance of mythical figures, divine powers called jinns.
- In the Quran, God created Adam and Eve, but Jesus is not the son of God, he is
another prophet like Muhammad.
- The stories of this prophet reflect the general islamic message.
- The moral is always the same. God will triumph over unbelievers and his message
will always remain in the world in one form or another.
- In order to enter paradise, you must accept the Quran and the authority of the
prophet and act according to it.

Abrogation of suras in Quran:

Allah says he has the power to “erase” what he said before to Muhammad. Muslims
scholars variously count the member of such abrogations in the Quran, running from 5
to 247 or higher. They explain that some truths are universal but that others adress the
temporal circunstances of an earliler revelation that are no longer applicable to a latter
one.

Most scholars divide the Quran into verses revealed by Muhammad in Meca when his
community of followers was weak and more inclined to compromise, and those revealed
in Medina where Muhammad´s strength grew.

The centrality of the figure of Muhammad in Islam: the Hadith and the Sunna:

Muhammad is the perfect muslim, an example to every muslim. Thus, knowing his life
and how he behaved and acted in important for muslims in order to have a guide
through their own lives.

The sayings and anecdotes of Muhammad constitutes the hadith (second in importance
for muslims after the Quran). It´s believed that the information of Muhammad´s life has
been transmited from the people that knew or hear about Muhammad to the collectors
of these books. Such transmissions are known as the Isnad, a “chain of transmitters”.

However, the tendency to fabricate hadith reports extended (many hadiths are false).
To stop this there is the creation of hadiths that condemmned false hadiths.

Muhammad´s practice or Sunna became a source of law in Islam. If you want to act
correctly act like Muhammad. If you insult/attack Muhammad you are
insulting/attacking Islam and the way of life of the muslims. Hadiths embodied the
Sunna.