Koran Curious - A Guide for Infidels and Believers (4 page)

Years after Muhammad’s death, however, stories of the miraculous would enhance and add philosophical spin to this opening period of the prophet’s life. Biographers would report that Halimah miraculously began to reproduce milk from her breasts after a long period without, as did the family’s pet donkey. Another purported miracle, one that Muhammad later denied, was said to have occurred one night while the 6-year-old future prophet slept. Halimah’s natural son told her that two angels dressed in white robes performed heart surgery on Muhammad, removing a blood clot using white purifying snow. Apparently, this miraculous event was enough to freak Halimah the hell out, and soon after she returned the boy to his natural mother, Aminah.

His return to Mecca would’ve been sad on two accounts. Firstly, being separated from his Bedouin stepfamily and childhood friends, and secondly, his reunion with his mother was only temporary as she suddenly fell ill and died. All told, Muhammad knew his mother for less than a year. The day after her burial, Muhammad would find a new home. This time, with his paternal grandfather, Abu al-Muttalib.

In many ways this was a small slice of good fortune for the boy, and it would help place him in good stead later as a young man, as Abu al-Muttalib was not only the sheikh of his clan, but also a dominant and well respected figure within Mecca. Biographers of the prophet report of the closeness that was the bond formed between grandfather and grandson, claiming in unison that Muhammad was the favored of all Abu al-Muttalib’s grandchildren. For instance, it is said that Muhammad would be carried on his grandfather’s shoulders each time he’d make a trip to the Kaaba.

This period of joy wouldn’t last long, however, as childhood tragedy would strike again, with Abu al-Muttalib passing away when Muhammad was only eight years of age. Handed onto an uncle, Muhammad would have a fourth parental guardian in the first decade of his life. Abu Talib was the only surviving full-brother of Muhammad’s own father, Abdullah. But what political and commercial power his grandfather had, his uncle certainly lacked. Abu Talib was a camel herdsman of modest wealth who traveled the length and breadth of the peninsular. For Muhammad, there’d be no free camel rides. He’d have to learn and earn his keep, and that he did. Staying a camel herdsman for the next thirty years of his life.

In sixth century Arabia, the camel was the Rolls Royce of the desert. (Presumably the goat was the Pinto) A man was nothing without a camel or camels. They were the ultimate status symbol, and the health and multitude of your camels, determined how successful you’d be in attracting a similarly wealthy and attractive wife. A man’s camels protected him against hunger, debt, blood feuds, and criminal punishment. They could be sold and used to settle any squabble or dilemma. The camel was loved and praised so incredibly so that of the seven surviving poems from pre-Islamic Arabia, one must decipher if the author is praising his lover or the camel.

Abu Talib would teach Muhammad everything there was to know about camels, and there was a lot. A herdsman would have to know how to tie them up at night, so they didn’t wander off; he’d have to learn how to wean a young camel off its mother’s milk; how to configure a saddle; know when to rest them; how to mend their sores; know what was suitable for them to eat and what was dangerous. One of the great travel writers of the African continent during the early 20
^th
century was the Egyptian Hassanein Bey. On camels in Arabia he wrote: “Nothing is more important than the condition of your camels. Not only must they be fat and well nourished from the start, but they must be allowed to drink their fill with deliberation and permitted to rest after the drinking.” The young Muhammad would learn not only the art of camel management, but also the ways of the desert: from finding waterholes to taking shelter from the violent sand storms; from finding new pastures to avoiding snake pits. No one likes a snake pit. Now, these were just the requisite skills of managing a camel or two, but Abu Talib was in the camel caravan business, which meant organizing and managing dozens of camels for perilous desert crossings.

Muhammad first accompanied Abu Talib on such a crossing at the tender age of nine, helping his uncle lead a caravan from Mecca to Syria. This particular caravan would carry Meccan merchandise to be sold in Syria, and then return procured Syrian merchandise to Mecca. As such, the camel caravan was to Arabia, what our shipping logistics are today. It was the lifeline that kept Mecca in business and the society functioning and the Koran declares such, “For the protection of the Quraysh: their protection is their summer and winter journeyings.” (Koran 106:1)

The most tradable commodities in those days were leather, textiles, and incense. In fact, incense was big business, and the primary pleasant smelling stuffs were those allegedly (not likely) offered to baby Jesus by the magi: frankincense and myrrh. In fact, it is estimated that at incense’s zenith, more than 4,000 tons of the stuff was exported from Arabia each year. Enough to make even a modern day cocaine cartel blush! What is important here, however, is Muhammad had to have had an intimate knowledge of buying, selling, negotiating these goods at market places throughout the peninsular. In the early days he would’ve watched on as his uncle haggled with vendors from Jerusalem or Damascus, listening to all the different dialects and accents. No doubt a great period for the prophet in acquiring a worldly knowledge.

Significantly for Muhammad, he would meet a great number of varying Arab cultures as the caravans passed through different territories. He met different tribes, and of great significance he came into contact with Jews and Christians. Presumably, it was here that Muhammad had his first real introduction to the stories of the Old Testament and the fanciful mythology of Jesus. Stories that must have thrilled a young boy from southern Arabia! After all, what kid even today isn’t gob smacked by the story of Noah’s Ark, a talking snake, and zombies? My kids were impressed with these stories and they own an XBox. As we will see later, these biblical stories would be drawn upon when Muhammad recited the Koranic scriptures, that’s if you don’t believe the fundamental Islamic belief that the words were handed to him directly via God’s proxy, the archangel Gabriel. Initially, the Meccans didn’t believe him, as they accused Muhammad of not only learning the Christian mythology from others but also of constructing the Koran in collusion with Jewish or Christian travelers. Specifically, he was charged with authoring the Koran with the help of a Roman blacksmith who lived on the outskirts of Mecca. The charge must have had some legitimacy to it, for it warranted a response from the prophet. He refutes the claim in Sura 16, verse 103:

“We know indeed that they say, “It is a man that teaches him.” The tongue of him they wickedly point to is notably foreign, while this is Arabic, pure and clear.”

Effectively, this is Muhammad defending the charge of plagiarism by using an analogy much like this: How could a Korean immigrant who didn’t know a lick of English author the work of Shakespeare’s
Othello
? But more on this later!

The caravan journey from Mecca to Syria was, for Muhammad, a travel through time, and he says as much in the following verse of the Koran: “Ways of life have passed away before you. Travel in the land and see what was the end of those who listened not to God’s messengers.’ (3:137) This verse is a direct reference to towns and civilizations that appear in the Bible but were communities no longer in Muhammad’s day. Their departing would be used later by the prophet as illustration that God punished those civilizations, such as Sodom and Gomorrah, who ignored the word of God, and as a result were now nothing more than ruins and tumbleweed.

Of particular interest to the youthful Muhammad was the Old Testament cities of Moab and Ammon. Ancient tradition holds that these cities descended from the biblical prophet Lot, the guy who gave up his daughters to be pack raped by a salivating crowd of gang rapists rather than hand over his two male guests. Conveniently, unlike the biblical narrative, the stories of Lots’ drunken incestual sexual relations with his drunken daughters are omitted from the Koran. Now, the link to Lot is important to Arabs because he was the nephew of Abraham, the patriarch of Arab and Jewish monotheism, and thus lineage to Lot gives them direct lineage to the revered Abraham and his son, Ishmael. This Arab belief is somewhat supported by biblical text. For instance, there is a reference to the men of Midian “wearing gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites”, which is contained within the story of Gideon’s war in the Book of Judges. More significantly, the Bible says the Midianite kings entered the field of battle with their camels wearing crescents (the symbol of Islam today) around their necks:

“Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Rise yourself and fall upon us, for as the man is, so is his strength.” And Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and he took the crescent ornaments that were on the necks of their camels.” (Judges 8:21)

For Muslims, the most important event in Muhammad’s adolescence and late teens was an event that was said to have taken place when Muhammad was still ten years of age while traveling with his uncle along the caravan route that led to a town called Bostra. There, in the town, was a Christian monk named Bahira. In fact, the town of Bostra was more or less a cell filled with all sorts of supposed holy men and eccentrics. Anyway, this Bahira character believed that the time of “the great Comforter”, as forewarned by the Gospel of John, would appear soon.

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”—John 14:26.

One day while sitting on a strand of rock with his arms reached towards the sky, in prayer to Jesus, Bahira spotted a caravan approaching in the distance, the caravan driven by Muhammad and his uncle Abu Talib. Suddenly, a brilliant white light shone on the approaching Meccans and the monk ran from his prayer spot and headed excitedly towards the approaching strangers. He greeted all the travelers and merchants, shaking hands and looking each one firmly in the eye. After greeting all, or so he thought, the monk was disappointed. Nothing special was featured on any of the strangers. Dejectedly he asked, “Is this everyone or have you left someone behind?” The men answered, “This is all of us”, they answered, “save only for a boy, the youngest of all.” Bahira asked they introduce the boy to him, and Muhammad was summoned from his mount. As soon as the monk laid eyes on Muhammad, he knew he was the one. Bahira lifted the shirt from Muhammad’s back and on his skin was a welt, which Bahira identified as fulfillment of some kind of prophecy. The monk became frantic, “this is the one”, he yelled. Quickly, excitement turned into mild panic, however, and Bahira turned to Abu Talib and said, “Take your nephew back to his country and guard him against the Jews, for, by God, if they see him and find about him what I know, they will do evil to him. A great future lies before this nephew of yours.” There are literally countless versions of this story told throughout Islam today, and the versions vary wildly depending on which Islamic sect or nation is retelling it.

Essentially, this is all that is known of Muhammad’s childhood through to his early twenties. What we do know, however, is quite telling, as it depicts a man who saw much outside the confines of Mecca’s walls; a man who listened to and heard thrilling stories and fables told by people other than his own; a man who saw the business world up close, experiencing the machinations between buyer and seller; a man who began to see the world in terms of good versus evil and reward versus punishment. At twenty-one years of age he had earned the title
al-Ameen
, which means ‘the trusty’, for his skilful and honorable management of the caravans. He was now a man with a reputable reputation and he was ready for the next step in his life.

Life in the Arabian Desert was a harsh and often cruel existence. If respective tribes weren’t waging a battle of survival against the hostile climactic extremities, they were waging war on one another, settling blood feuds or undertaking revenge killings. From the comfort of our 21
^st
century Western privileged lounge rooms, it is easy to refer to this ancient society as tribally barbaric, but vigilante justice served these people well. It ensured no crime went unpunished, and retribution for grieving families was swift and uncomplicated. Although some matters between rival tribes were resolved by mediation and arbitration, both the Bedouins and the urban populace of Mecca and Medina often resolved their differences by means of warfare, as a method for maintaining social order and justice.

Effectively, the collective military power of the tribe, combined with the fierce loyalties that existed within each clan, and the sharing of bloodguilt and the obligation of exacting revenge, provided each individual their own security from external threats. Essentially, the tribe was a unit or law upon itself, and it regarded every other tribe as an enemy, unless they had established alliances or treaties to protect one another from larger threats. In order to survive in this landscape, it was essential that one affiliated with a tribe. In other words, for those who fell outside the security of the tribe, he or she would be without protection and, therefore, vulnerable to any number of fates the human mind can imagine.

This is the culture Muhammad grew up within. It was a warrior culture and he was now a man, and would have to do his share of sword wielding, which meant performing executions when the situation so required. We will cover many of his astounding military successes in later chapters, but before we examine the bitterness of war, let’s keep my wife happy with a tale of romance, for love preceded war for the prophet.

First loves rarely end up being happily ever after, so I am told because I don’t watch or read anything slightly on the ‘chick flick’ side of the DVD aisle, and this was certainly the case for our star. Muhammad’s first love was the cousin he had spent most his childhood with. She was the daughter of his father’s brother, Abu Talib. Muhammad was now in his twenties, he had one or two camels of his own, which was on the modest side of middle class, and he steeled himself to ask his uncle for his daughter’s hand in marriage. But alas for Muhammad, Abu Talib had already promised her to a well-connected young man of the Beni Makhzum clan. The prophet was devastated. He had believed in his heart that his first cousin was the love of his life, but she was being betrothed to another because his rival suitor had more money, which left Muhammad with no honey. I’m so sorry!