Mecca - Part 1

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Mecca - Part 1

 

(p.21) AFTERWARDS HE FOUND IT almost impossible to describe the experience that

sent him running in anguish down the rocky hillside to his wife. It seemed to

him that a devastating presence had burst into the cave where he was sleeping

and gripped him in an overpowering embrace, squeezing all the breath from his

body. In his terror, Muhammad could only think that he was being attacked by a

'jinni', one of the fiery spirits who haunted the Arabian steppes and frequently

lured travellers from the right path. The jinn also inspired the bards and

soothsayers of Arabia. One poet described his poetic vocation as a violent

assault: his personal jinni had appeared to him without any warning, thrown him

to the ground and forced the verses from his mouth. [1] So, when Muhammad heard

the curt command " Recite! " he immediately assumed that he too had become

possessed. " I am no poet, " he pleaded. (p.22) But his assailant simply crushed

him again, until--just when he thought he could bear it no more--he heard the

first words of a new Arabic scripture pouring, as if unbidden, from his lips.

 

He had this vision during the month of Ramadan, 610 CE. Later Muhammad would

call it 'layla al-qadr' (the " Night of Destiny " ) because it had made him the

messenger of Allah, the high god of Arabia. But at the time, he did not

understand what was happening. He was forty years old, a family man, and a

respected merchant in Mecca, a thriving commercial city in the Hijaz. Like most

Arabs of the time, he was familiar with the stories of Noah, Lot, Abraham,

Moses, and Jesus and knew that some people expected the imminent arrival of an

Arab prophet, but it never occurred to him that 'he' would be entrusted with

this mission. Indeed, when he escaped from the cave and ran headlong down the

slopes of Mount Hira', he was filled with despair. How could Allah have allowed

him to become possessed? The jinn were capricious [changeable]; they were

notoriously unreliable because they delighted in leading people astray. The

situation in Mecca was serious. His tribe did not need the dangerous guidance of

a jinni. They needed the direct intervention of Allah, who had always been a

distant figure in the past, and who, many believed, was identical with the God

worshipped by Jews and Christians. [2]

 

Mecca had achieved astonishing success. The city was now an international

trading center and its merchants and financiers had become rich beyond their

wildest dreams. (p.23) Only a few generations earlier, their ancestors had been

living a desperate, penurious life in the intractable deserts of northern

Arabia. Their triumph was extraordinary, since most Arabs were not city dwellers

but nomads. The terrain was so barren that people could only survive there by

roaming ceaselessly from place to place in search of water and grazing land.

There were a few agricultural colonies on the higher ground, such as Ta'if,

which supplied Mecca with most of its food, and Yathrib, some 250 miles to the

north. But elsewhere farming--and, therefore, settled life--was impossible in

the steppes, so the nomads scratched out a meagre existence by herding sheep and

goats, and breeding horses and camels, living in close-knit tribal groups.

Nomadic ('badawah') life was a grim, relentless struggle, because there were too

many people competing for too few resources. Always hungry, perpetually on the

brink of starvation, the Bedouin fought endless battles with other tribes for

water, pastureland, and grazing rights.

 

Consequently the 'ghazu' (acquisition raid) was essential to the badawah

economy. In times of scarcity, tribesmen would regularly invade the territory of

their neighbors in the hope of carrying off camels, cattle, or slaves, taking

great care to avoid killing anybody, since this could lead to a vendetta. Nobody

considered this in any way reprehensible. The ghazu was an accepted fact of

life; it was not inspired by political or personal hatred, but was a kind of

national sport, conducted with skill and panache according to clearly defined

rules. It was a necessity, a rough-and-ready way of redistributing wealth in a

region where there was simply not enough to go around.

 

(p.24) Even though the people of Mecca had left the nomadic life behind, they

still regarded the Bedouin as the guardians of authentic Arab culture. As a

child, Muhammad had been sent to live in the desert with the tribe of his wet

nurse in order to be educated in the badawah ethos. It made a profound

impression on him. The Bedouin were not very interested in conventional

religion. They had no hope of an afterlife and little confidence in their gods,

who seemed unable to make any impact on their difficult environment. The tribe,

not a deity, was the supreme value, and each member had to subordinate his or

her personal needs and desires to the well-being of the group, and fight to the

death, if necessary, to ensure its survival. Arabs had little time for

speculation about the supernatural but were focused on 'this' world. Fantasy was

useless in the steppes; they needed pragmatic, sober realism. But they had

evolved a chivalric code, which, by giving meaning to their lives and preventing

them from succumbing to despair in these harsh conditions, performed the

essential function of religion. They called it 'muruwah', a complex term that is

difficult to translate succinctly. Muruwah meant courage, patience, endurance;

it consisted of a dedicated determination to avenge any wrong done to the group,

to protect its weaker members, and defy its enemies. To preserve the honor of

the tribe, each member had to be ready to leap to the defense of his kinsmen at

a moment's notice and to obey his chief without question.

 

Above all, a tribesman had to be generous and share his livestock and food. Life

in the steppes would be impossible if people selfishly hoarded their wealth

while others went hungry. A tribe that was rich today could easily become

destitute tomorrow. (p.25) If you had been miserly in good days, who would help

you in your hour of need? Muruwah made a virtue out of this necessity,

encouraging the 'karim' (the " generous hero " ) to care little for material goods

so that he would not become depressed by his life of deprivation. A truly noble

Bedouin would take no heed for the morrow, showing by his lavish gifts and

hospitality that he valued his fellow tribesmen more than his possessions. He

had to be prepared to give all his wealth--his camels, flocks, and slaves--to

others, and could squander his entire fortune in a single night by putting on a

superb feast for his friends and allies. But the generosity of the karim could

be self-destructive and egotistic: He could reduce his family to poverty

overnight, simply to demonstrate the nobility that flowed in his veins and

enhance his status and reputation.

 

Muruwah was an inspiring ideal, but by the end of the sixth century, its

weaknesses were becoming tragically apparent. Tribal solidarity ('asibiyyah')

encouraged bravery and selflessness, but only within the context of the tribe.

There was no concept of universal human rights. A Bedouin felt responsible

merely for his blood relatives and confederates. He had no concern for

outsiders, whom he regarded as worthless and expendable. If he had to kill them

to benefit his own people, he felt no moral anguish and wasted no time in

philosophical abstractions or ethical considerations. Since the tribe was the

most sacred value, he backed it, right or wrong. " I am Ghazziyya, " sang one of

the poets. " If she be in error, I will be in error; and if Ghazziyya be guided

right, I will go with her. " [2] (p.26) Or, in the words of a popular maxim:

" Help your brother whether he is being wronged or wronging others. " [3]

 

Each tribe had its own special brand of muruwah, which, the Arabs believed, had

been inherited from the founding fathers of the tribe and was passed, like other

physical and mental characteristics, from one generation to another. They called

this tribal glory 'hasab' ( " ancestral honor " ). [4] As the source of their

particular genius, tribesmen revered their forefathers as the supreme authority

and this inevitably encouraged a deep and entrenched conservatism. The way of

life ('sunnah') that the ancients had bequeathed to their descendants was sacred

and inviolable. " He belongs to a tribe whose fathers have laid down for them a

sunnah, " another poet explained, " Every folk has its own traditional sunnah;

every folk has its objects of imitation. " [5] Any deviation--however

trivial--from ancestral custom was a great evil. A practice was approved not

because of its inherent decency or nobility, but simply because it had been

sanctioned long ago by the fathers of the tribe.

 

The Bedouin could not afford to experiment. It would be criminally irresponsible

to ignore the 'shari'ah', the path to the waterhole that had been the lifeline

of your people from time immemorial. You learned to survive by following a set

of rules whose value had been proven by experience. But this unquestioning

acceptance of tradition could lead to rampant chauvinism: the sunnah [way of

life] of your people was the best and you could contemplate no other way of

doing things. You could only preserve the honor of your tribe by refusing to bow

to any other authority, human or divine. A karim ['generous hero'] was expected

to be proud, self-regarding, self-reliant, and aggressively independent. (p.27)

Arrogance was not a fault but a sign of nobility, whereas humility showed that

you came from defective stock and had no aristocratic blood in your veins. A

base-born person was genetically destined to be a slave ('abd'); that was all he

was good for. A true karim could not submit to anybody at all. " We refuse to all

men submission to their leading, " sang one poet, " till we lead them ourselves,

yea without reins! " [6] A karim would maintain this defiant self-sufficiency

even in the presence of a god, because no deity could be superior to a truly

noble human being.

 

In the steppes, the tribe needed men who refused to be bowed by circumstance and

who had the confidence to pit themselves against overwhelming odds. But this

haughty self-reliance ('istighna') could easily become reckless and excessive.

The Bedouin was easily moved to extremes at the smallest provocation. [7]

Because of his exalted sense of honor, he tended to respond violently to any

perceived threat or slight. He did not simply act in self-defense; true courage

lay in the preemptive strike. It is not enough for " a warrior, fierce as a lion,

to strike back and chastise the enemy who has struck him with a blow, " cried the

poet Zuhayr ibn 'Abi Salma, " he should rather attack first and become an

aggressor when no one wrongs him. " [8] The courage praised by the tribal poets

was an irresistible impulse that could not and should not be restrained. If a

wrong was done to a single member of his tribe, a karim felt the duty of

vengeance as a physical pain and a tormenting thirst. [9] It was a tragic

worldview. The Bedouin tried to glorify their struggle, but their life was grim

and there was no hope of anything better. (p.28) All beings, they believed, came

under the sway of 'dahr' ( " time " or " fate " ), which inflicted all manner of

suffering on humanity; a man's life was determined in advance. All things passed

away; even the successful warrior would die and be forgotten. There was an

inherent futility in this life of ceaseless struggle. The only remedy against

despair was a life of pleasure--especially the oblivion of wine.

 

In the past, many of the Bedouin had tried to escape from the steppes and build

a more secure, settled ('hadarah') life, but these attempts were usually

frustrated by the scarcity of water and arable land, and the frequency of

drought. [10] A tribe could not establish a viable settlement unless it had

either accumulated a surplus of wealth--an almost impossible feat--or took over

an oasis, as the tribe of Thaqif had done in Ta'if. The other alternative was to

become an intermediary between two or more of the rich civilizations in the

region. The tribe of Ghassan, for example, which wintered on the border of the

Byzantine empire, had become clients of the Greeks, converted to Christianity,

and formed a buffer state to defend Byzantium against Persia. But during the

sixth century, a new opportunity arose as a result of a transport revolution.

The Bedouin had invented a saddle that enabled camels to carry far heavier loads

than before, and merchants from India, East Africa, Yemen, and Bahrain began to

replace their donkey carts with camels, which could survive for days without

water and were ideally suited to navigate the desert. (p.29) So instead of

avoiding Arabia, foreign merchants trading in luxury goods--incense, spices,

ivory, cereals, pearls, wood, fabrics, and medicines--began to take their

caravans by the more direct route to Byzantium and Syria through the steppes,

and employed the Bedouin to guard their merchandise, drive the camels, and guide

them from one well to another.

 

Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)

Chapter 1, 'Mecca', p. 21-29

Karen Armstrong

Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

ISBN-13 978-0-00-723248-2

ISBN-10 0-00-723248-9

 

Notes:

 

[1] Tor Andrae, 'Muhammad: The Man and His Faith', trans. Theophil Menzel

(London, 1936), 59.

 

[2] In Arabic, the word 'Allah' simply means " God. "

 

[3] Toshihiko Izutsu, 'Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an' (Montreal and

Kingston, ON, 2002), 46.

 

[4] Ibid., 63.

 

[5] Labid ibn 'Rabi'ah, Mu'allaqah', 5.81, in Izutsu, 'Ethico-Religious

Concepts', 63; cf. Qur'an 2:170, 43:22-24.

 

[6] Izutsu, 'Ethico-Religious Concepts', 72.

 

[7] Ibid., 29.

 

[8] Zuhayr ibn 'Abi Salma, verses 38-39 in Izutsu, 'Ethico-Religious Concepts',

84.

 

[9] Nicholson, 'Literary History', 93.

 

[10] Mohammad A. Bamyeh, 'The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse'

(Minneapolis, 1999), 17-20.