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The Meccans were offended by Muhammad’s religious revelations when he began to preach the unity of god, the resurrection, and the responsibility to Allah. At first, there was merely disapproval, but this in time turned to persecution. The persecution caused some of his followers to flee to Ethiopia in 615 C.E. Mohammed and the few followers who stayed in Mecca were placed under siege and were to be starved into submission, when Mohammed had a relapse into the old faith. In 616 C.E., he published a revelation declaring that the three favorite goddesses of Mecca were real and able to intercede with Allah for the benefit of believers. Later, Mohammed became ashamed of his weakness in this matter. The verses were stricken from the Qur’an and it was explained that the revelation had come from Satan. This began the legend of the “Satanic Verses.”
Persecutions began again, but conversions continued. About this time, however, matters were pushed to the extreme when Mohammed and his family were excluded from all commercial and social intercourse. This quarantine lasted from 617 to 619 C.E., during which Muhammad’s wife Khadija died. The insecurity in which he lived at Mecca forced him to seek supporters elsewhere.
Due to the persecutions, in 622 C.E., Muhammad moved his group several hundred miles to the north to Medina, an event that is called the hegira (migration) and marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. In Medina, he became a successful politician and contracted many alliances by means of marriages. Once his power base had grown sufficiently, Muhammad began intercepting caravans and taking their money and goods. In the year 624 C.E., he led an attack on a Meccan caravan as it was returning from Syria during the holy month of Ramadan, when fighting was prohibited. When the Meccans learned of this and rushed to rescue the caravan, 300 Muslims are supposed to have defeated one thousand Meccans. This was considered a miracle.
After consolidating his hold on Medina, Muhammad chased the Jews from their farms and divorced Islam from both Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad accused local Jewish tribes of conspiring to aid Mecca. He attacked both the Medinese and Nadir tribes of Jews and forced them to emigrate to Syria. Two years later, the Qurayza tribe of Jews was attacked and all the men were killed.
Muhammad changed the nature of the salat, the daily prayers that each Muslim must recite. Previously, all Muslims had faced Jerusalem when saying prayers, but now they all were to face Mecca. Muhammad had a deep interest in Mecca: first, it was
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supposed to be an important religious center for Arabs at the time and for his new religion to spread, he needed that city; second, it was the seat of Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh; third, the Meccans continued to harass him and the city of Medina in an effort to repress his efforts. The property andpossessions of all of those who had left Mecca with him had been seized and a genuine state of war existed between Mecca and Medina.
In 628 C.E., Muhammad obtained a truce with Mecca. Eventually, Mecca became the religious capital of Islam and Medina remained the political capital. In 630 C.E., Muhammad attacked and conquered Mecca and smashed the 360 idols in the Ka’aba. He co-opted the shrine for Islam and declared the territory surrounding it to be forbidden to all non-Muslims. During the next two years, Islam swept across Arabia, taking by force any cities that did not voluntarily submit.
On June 8, 632 C.E., Muhammad suddenly died. However, his followers continued the expansion of Islam. By the 640s, Arabs possessed most of Syria, Iraq, Persia, and Egypt. Thirty years later they were conquering parts of Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia.
The Five Pillars
The Five Pillars of Islamic faith are considered the most essential beliefs of Islam. These are obligations that are required of every Muslim.
The first and perhaps most important of the Five Pillars is shahadah, the faith in the Oneness of Allah and that Muhammad had received and delivered Allah's final revelation to humanity. Every Muslim is expected to say the shahadah at least once in his or her life, but most say it every day:
“There is none worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
The second of the Five Pillars is salat, the prayers that each Muslim must recite five
times each day: morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, sunset, and late evening. When saying their prayers, a Muslim is required to be facing in the direction of Mecca, the city where Muhammad was born. Prayers make use of verses from the Qur'an and are said in Arabic.
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