108:3They will have no progeny. Some of the Quraysh—specifically, As ibn Waʾil—had said that the Prophet was “cut off,” that he would have no progeny since his three sons had died at an early age.
Sura 111
The Palm Fiber (Al-Masad)
111:1Abu Lahab was an uncle of the Prophet who, together with his wife, fiercely opposed the Prophet, and so this sura is directed against them as a reminder to others that wealth and material gains will not prevail. The image of the cord around his wife’s neck suggests that her “twisted” nature is evident to those who see her, while also reaffirming the Quranic dictum that “We have fastened every man’s fate around his own neck” (17:13) also applies to women.
Sura 112
Unity/Sincerity (Al-Ikhlas)
112:2Arabic samad: literally, “rock,” but connoting someone or something stable and immovable, at once irreducible and unreproducible—i.e., the Absolute. It is among the Beautiful Names of God, found only here in the Quran.
Sura 113
The Dawn (Al-Falaq)
113:1Falaqa means “to split,” hence the image is that of the dawn which splits or breaks apart from night.
113:2The evil here clearly refers to the evil practiced by God’s creatures, those imbued with (moral) agency.
113:4This refers to some hostile tribes in Medina whose members put a spell on the Prophet; this sura and the next were revealed in order to extricate him from their influence.
Sura 114
Humankind (Al-Nas)
114:5As noted in 7:20, “whispering” is the preferred mode of communication for both Satan and his son, aka al-Khannas, “the whisperer.”
Introduction
In the cave of Hira on the outskirts of the Arabian city of Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad is said to have received his first revelation. The cave is so small that only one person can enter it; it overlooks a rocky landscape, craggy, rich with bright bronze-colored sand. From this height the Prophet looked down—and meditated on what was right and wrong in the beliefs and practices of his people. He came down from the mountain, ablaze with language that was neither verse nor prose, language that we have ever since been struggling to understand, struggling to render into our own idiom.
Muhammad would meditate in the cave of Hira during the holy month of Ramadan, the time in each year when blood feuds were suspended. It was a time when Meccans who had wealth and leisure retreated to the outskirts of their town, to the hills that enclosed them, and to the caves that offered shelter and repose.
Muhammad had been following this practice for over a decade. Then, one night in Ramadan in the year 610, when he was about forty years old, he felt a strange stirring inside him. He welcomed the nighttime in this special month; it drew him deep into himself and allowed him to resist those impulses that pulled him back to the world, to concerns with family or business or travel. He was alert to repelling those impulses. They clouded his vision, they denied him peace of mind, and above all, they blocked his search for the truth. Yet this was a different stirring. It was deep, arresting. It overpowered him, and then it produced words, words that were not his.1 He listened:
“Read!” And he was shown a piece of silk with words embroidered on it.
He did not know how to read. “What shall I read?” he asked.
“Read!” came the command, and again the brocade was thrust before him.
He stammered, “But what shall I read?”
Muhammad could not read. All those who accompanied him on caravan trips, whether to Egypt or Syria, to Yemen or Abyssinia, could read commercial symbols but there was not yet a fully developed written Arabic.2 His companions handled the few documents of exchange that required reading or signing. When Muhammad had to sign, he would ask others to read aloud what was written, then he would sign by pressing the palm of his hand to the paper. Why then did this voice ask him to read?3
Even as he was thinking these thoughts, the voice commanded him, for the third time:
“Read!”
“But what, what shall I read?” Then the words appeared:
Read—in the Name of your Lord
Who created—
created humankind from a clot
of blood.
Read—for your Lord
is Most Bountiful,
Who taught by the pen—
taught humankind
what it did not know.
SURA AL-ʿALAQ, 96:1–5
According to some traditions, these words appeared on a coverlet of brocade and, urged for the third time, Muhammad somehow read them. But the Arabic command iqraʾ can mean not only “read!” but “recite!” hence in other traditions he is said to have recited the words after Gabriel. But in either scenario, he is said to have related that these words were written on his heart, through some miracle of comprehension. He wondered, had he become a man possessed, an ecstatic poet, the kind his clansmen distrusted, even despised? He had barely absorbed the experience when his whole body began to tremble. He waited for more counsel. But nothing came. He hurried down the mountain, running toward Mecca. Halfway down the voice returned. Now it was a booming voice with a face, a man’s face. The face appeared to come from beyond the horizon. The celestial form announced: “O Muhammad, you are the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” He tried to look away but wherever he turned, there was the Archangel Gabriel on the horizon, meeting his gaze.
Muhammad’s encounter on the mountain, in the tiny cave of Hira, was to change the course of world history. Revelations continued to come for the next twenty-two years, and they were eventually compiled as the text of Quran (literally, “recitation”), which, along with Muhammad’s practice, became the basis of the religion of Islam. These revelatory experiences raised him from a humble shepherd and a trader to the rank not only of prophet, but of statesman, military strategist, ruler, and, above all, a model of conduct for millions of human beings across the globe. His life can be marked by five dates: 570 CE,4 the approximate year of his birth; 595, when he married; 610, when he was called to prophecy in Mecca; 622, the year of the hijra or migration, when he left Mecca for Yathrib (later renamed Medina); and 632, when, after subduing his enemies, he died in Medina. Between the time of his birth and the time of his death, he had transformed and unified the warring tribes of Arabia into a single community of faith, and within fifty years of his death, the vast Islamic empire had overtaken the Persian and Byzantine empires, reaching the very gates of Europe. Today, his followers number almost two billion people.
Early Years
Muhammad was born into the Quraysh, the most powerful tribe of Mecca, and he belonged to the clan of Hashim. He was an orphan, losing his father, Abdullah, in the year of his birth and his mother, Amina, when he was just six. He was adopted first by his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib and then by his uncle Abu Talib; his first cousin ʿAli was a boyhood companion. At this time, Mecca was a thriving center of both religious worship and commerce. Muhammad was employed in its caravan trade. By all accounts, he was a striking young man, handsome, of medium build, with black eyes, a reddish complexion, and hair flowing to his shoulders. He rapidly earned the reputation of being al-Amin (the trustworthy). Hearing of his noble character, a wealthy businesswoman named Khadija sent him on one of her trading caravans to Syria. Khadija was a widow in her forties and she became so enamored of Muhammad’s qualities that she proposed marriage to him, which he accepted. They had two sons, who both died young, and four daughters. For twenty-five years he remained devoted to her as his only wife.
When Muhammad received the first revelation, Khadija was the first person to believe in him and support him. She had sent scouts to the mountain, who found him and brought him home. As soon as they left, he collapsed into her lap, telling her of his experience. “O son of my uncle,” she exclaimed, “rejoice . . . and be of good heart. By Him in whose hand is Khadija’s soul, I have hope that you will be the prophet of this people.”5 Muhammad received a similar assurance from Khadija’s Christian cousin Waraqa ibn Qusayy. The first man to accept the Prophet’s message was ʿAli. Among the early converts to Islam were the respected merchant Abu Bakr, who would later become the first caliph of the Islamic empire, and his uncle Hamza, known for his military prowess. ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, another prominent noble of Mecca (and later to become the second caliph), was initially shocked on learning that his sister Fatima had converted to Islam; but when he went to her house to upbraid her, he heard the beauty of what she was reciting from the Quran and he quickly embraced the new faith.
Opposition to the New Religion
Three years after the first revelation, the Prophet was instructed by the Archangel to disseminate the message of Islam publicly, and this is when resistance grew. Like Christianity, Islam was a revolutionary religion. Just as the values of Christianity were sharply opposed to those of the brutal and materialistic Roman empire, so the early verses of the Quran emphatically derided the corruption into which Meccan tribal society had degenerated. The new religion was focused on issues of social and economic justice, insisting on fairness in business transactions, denouncing usury, espousing rights for women and the poor, and prohibiting such savage practices as the burial of newly born unwanted young girls. Since Mecca was an economic and religious center, its Qurayshi leaders saw Muhammad as undermining their
