Exam: The Life of Muhammad

When and to whom was Muhammad born?

He was born in 570. Father Abdallah and Mother Amina

What where the Satanic Verses?

Have you considered, al-Lat, al Uzza, and Manat? The third the other? These are the swans (heron, crane) exalted whose intercession is to be hoped for

What is shahada

"I bear witness that there is no god except Allah" "And I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah."

In what way can Muhammad's early message be seen as a social reformist one?

1) God is the SOURCE (shirk = failure to recognize of god = fundamental failure) 2) God should be shown gratitude 3) Gratitude should extend to all people (generosity) 4) God will judge all All creation, all being, your life, your existence, all your wealth comes from god, you have a gift from god Proper response is to be grateful to god Gratitude to god should be shown as generosity to others because god has gifted to you to share it God will judge you based on how well you did

What are the five pillars of Islam

1. Bearing witness 2. Prayer 3. Alms 4. Fasting 5. Hajj

Hajj What are three major things that you do on the Hajj? What is the vertical and horizontal connectoins

1. Muslims go to the Ka'ba and circle around it 7 times praying. 2. Mt. Arafat where Muhammad gave last sermon. Next day in the desert Muslims ask the whole day for forgiveness, not sinful, but we all do things that where wrong. Ask forgiveness for things you did wrong. In pray the whole day. 3. On the way back from Mt. Arafat Muslims go to a fountain with a pillar in it and they throw stones at this pillar. They are demonstrating their rejection of Satan they are "stoning Satan" *Vertical:* Going to god, where god came to Muhammad in Jerusalem, the point in the world where god touched. This is a physical movement to be closer to God. To come closer to the sacred place. *Horizontally:* People of every race and ethnicity going on the hajj, transforms you and coming together as a community and hundreds of thousands, heightened spirituality ties them together, being the same.

What is the relationship between the Jews and the converted Arabs and the Meccan Muslins in Medina?

3 Jewish tribes: economically well set, and well armed, and defensive positions in the city, and defense of the city, and they need to be on boards if the city is attacked Arab tribes Two powerful tribes: convert to Islam, but still have Jews in them there are blood funds and a lot of Jews who have power. Resolve economic differences so they don't turn into constant back and forth Jews accept him as a prophet, But It appears that the Jews were always skeptical Politically this is not god for them, and maybe not excited about prophet coming, BUT better then had before. Jews were apposed to him in the beginning Not a idealic situation, not golden age

What is the importance of the tribe and clan in pre-Islamic period?

570 Quraysh: most powerful tribe in Mecca Clan Hashem was the most powerful clan but in decline. They controlled the Haji but were slowly losing that control. The Bedouins are important because of their ethos Bedouin ethos: Bravery, toughness, endure hardship without complaint. To live simple to be courageous in battle. Military Ethos. Ascetic: self-discipline. Communal care Bedouin leader was the job to care for orphans and women and caring for clan. Filing to do so = less then weak *Protection*

When was the first revelation and where did it take place?

610 was the first revelation Muhammad is starting this yearly practice Mt. Herat at the top there is a caveish thing, and indention and sheltered from weather. Muhammad would go up there and meditate and praying to god for weeks during Ramadan (name of a month) But a lunar calendar where the months shifts throughout the year. This is where the first revelation took place Khadji supported him

What and When was the Hijra? Why did it take place

622 Hijra (mecca to medina). This is the move from mecca to medina because the tension Muhammad created by the Satanic Verses. The Quraysh harass Muhammad's followers. Blockages of foods comes into play and they become strangled and it is getting extremely harsh, because they want to gets his hands on Muhammad but there is clan protections. Also, Abu Talib died which meant that Muhammad loses his protection which is a huge deal.

Alms (Zakat)

Basically like a income tax You give 2.5% - 5% not much higher. Don't give money until family is taken care of first Money is given to community to care for the poor. Money can also go abroad if everyone in the community is taken care of. *Vertical:* Recognize, offering part back to God. Purifying your wealth. I recognize where this wealth is coming from, and making a symbolic gift that God is the source self-transenfence. *Horizontal:* The money goes to the people in their community who need help, widow, poor, orphans, therefore connects them closer together

How did Muhammad use Abraham and the significant of articulation an Abrahamic grounding for Islam?

Connects mosaic Judaism with Islam We are all from the same god. Monotheism 2:11 and 2:12: Being a Jew or a Christian doesn't matter, but what matters is following word of god. Being Jews and christens don't matter for salvation. They are wrong 2:21: People who read the book will understand that being a good monotheism is what matters 1:24 : Abraham is leader of all people Abraham is the model and received the must basic message Submission to god in the model of Abraham 3:67: need to follow Abraham's faith: Bear witness that we are witness to god. God knows. Abraham was neither Christian nor Jewish, he was Muslim. True religion is of Abraham submission. Islam is the original monotheists. Established before Jews and Christians

What does the word Caliph mean?

Deputy or vice regent

What does the term Din mean?

Din (Deen): How people lives their lives --> dayn = debt. Submission is rooted in this concept of debt. Gratitude to god because god is the source

Pray What are the horizontal and vertical connections? Purification?

Done in a space that is set apart from everyday life. Ablution depending on your day. Towards Mecca. It is the tent pole that holds up you religion and it is the discipline and bases for building your faith, and seen as one of the most pillars Sunni: Pastor of mosque, scholar will give a sermon on Fridays. (Khutba) Friday is the sabth day. Congregational Rituals Purifications: Every day to the set apart Ablution Full body: head to toe you have to wash entire body Sex Menstruation Touching something that is dead Minor: Anything on your body that are in contact with the world that is not covered. Starting with the right side. Feet, hands, arms, face. Any contact. Symbolic act of washing away your worldly issues and problems. Symbolic. Cut your nails and your hair: cutting hair is the symbols of death and rebirth. Saved head = social death and shed old self. *Vertical:* Breaking out of everyday life and sacrificing to God five different times. Say the first surah, in the name of god. Conscious recollection of God. You are doing this five times *Horizontal:* Everyone in praying at the same time around you, you hear the call to prayer, and a sense of community matters and has an effect on people. The Friday congregational sermon and where community issues are addressed, which builds community (more explicit)

Fasting

During the month of Ramadan From sun up to sun down Fast beginning of new moon to end. Sun up and sun day. All physical pleasures you can't do. Then once the sun goes down there is a gathering and a feast, and a celebration. *Vertical:* A way of making a sacrifice, offering physical comfort and pleasure and offering it back up as a gift to god (like zakat). Sacrifice at a level of comfort and pleasure. The hungry is a reminder of god. *Horizontal:* You are reminded of all the people who go without, connect you to the needy in the community and then we go back to Zakat and how it is given at the end of Ramada. It is a community event, breaking of fast at After (a meal when you break your fast). Then a big dinner, visiting your family and communal gathering and festive. Not sad, concise of God and celebrating God.

Who where the four rightly guided Caliphs

Four rightly guided Caliphs: Ali, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman

What does the term Islam mean?

Islam = the practice of submitting to god

Who was Khadija? What was her life lie before Muhammad? What was her role in Muhammad's life during the Meccan Period?

Khadija was Muhammad's first wife She was an older widow when she meet Muhammad and she inherited a business from her husband by his death. But she was constantly getting cheated because she was a women and also need protection. She hired Muhammad to take her caravan and help her. Muhammad was super nice and respectful and offered to marry him. Muhammad agreed. Khadija was very supportive of Muhammad and they created a family out of love, very uncommon for during this time

Bearing Witness

Minor clause: Muhammad is his prophet. Inward declaration and joining a community and ties you to the religion of Abraham. Disciplining, shaping you and instituting, makes you muslim for the first time, invents your muslimsness. *Vertical:* act ties to God. There is no god but God *Horizontal:* ties to community. If you just do this one you are Muslim and cannot go to hell. You are connected to the community

*How did Muhammad initially try and connect to the Jews, in other words what was his argument for unity with the Jew?*

Muhammad asked Muslims to take on some things of Jews to create some continuity.....*NEED HELP HERE I AM A LITTLE CONFUSED*

What is the significance of the inicident of Satanic Verses for Muhammad for the Quraysh and, more broadly, for Islamic tradition - answer this in religious and socio-political terms? This is related to Muhammad's threat to the Meccan religio-economic-political system?

Radicalness of Islam comes from the satanic verses. By the retraction of the Satanic Verses causes Islam to be a religion that is strongly monotheist. Quraysh can't compromise politically and religiously, they are so monotheistic (Quraysh regions is now firmly rejected) Now Muhammad is a direct enemy rejected Quraysh way of life, religiously, politically and ethnically. Makes him just another priest among many, but then when he corrects himself he rejects all the gods and extreme monothesist No longer compromising. Monotheism.

Raiding and Trading

Raiding and Trading = basic life. Raiding was an established life in Bedouins. Sports if you could get in take their stuff and leave. And death wasn't invoked. Horses and Camels. Raiding is last option Danger in raiding is that the Bedouins have no government People were self-governed. If someone gets killed in a raid the system is that anyone in the clan who the person was killed can kill someone in the other clan. Revenge system (legal system, blood fund system) Problems were resolved with revenge but sometimes caused more problems Everyone in danger as police themselves If you gets kicked out of your clan you can get killed anytime because nobody cares Can't just go to another clan When settle considered weak Kaba were the Muslims go to Hajj these existed before so come worship spirits and ancestors, and idols and worship Mecca became very important for that reason. People come to city of Mecca to stay and economic boom, market, plus trade. Called Haram in Mecca with Kaba and Hajj: sacred zone, no politics, no fighting, raiding, no revenge -Mecca produces a materialistic culture. Everyone is cared for, tight communal ethos.

What are the "Satanic Verses"? What Quranic Verses are believed to have replaced them?

Satanic Verse: "Have you considered al-Lat, al Uzza and Mana? The third the other? These are the swans (herons, cranes) exalted whose intercession is to be hoped for" The verses that replaces them: *53.20-22:* the authoritative verses addressing the pressure from the Quraysh to compromise on the role of the other deities worshipped by many in Mecca and the important neighboring city of Taif *17:75-77:* Possibly the retraction/correction of the verse preserves in the account of Tabari and Ibn Sa'd *22.51:* the verses declared to be not only satanic, but also a common occurrence in prophecy *109:* This is the more accepted version of Muhammad's response to the pressure put on him by the Quraysh. *39:64-66:* then we get the emergence of the principles of exclusive worship pf God. Other deities or supernatural powers are demoted in the Islamic cosmology and ontology. *6.100, 37.158:* the goddesses are reduced to jinn *53.23-25:* the goddesess are reduces to mere illusion, to mere 'names' - which again will become clearer once we immerse our selves in the study of 'being' and 'tawhid'

*Political and Socio-economic pressures leading tension with the hijra and Quraysh*

There are three major elements to the threat that Muhammad tells. One political threat: Muhammad claims to be the only messenger of god. Politically speaking..... Shura: consile of wisest and oldest leader called hakim No claim to infallibility just people who are wise because we are finite and imperfect Muhammad is talking to the one source of god and the only truth in the language that they speak Muhammad is transiently critique: outside source for critzieing culture. *He is the only logical leader because he knows what the true is and the good. Once people accept his religion then he is the leader and when gives orders no one can question him* The other leader before him where only the wisest and oldest people, who where finite and imperfect. But now Muhammad has access to the infallible God who is perfect. *TRIPARTITE SOCIETY: Priest - warrior - peasant (always fighting) Access to truth and exists in the Islamic world. Muhammad is the fusing of the warrior and the Priest (ceaseropapism). He cannot be questioned* Economic tension: Rejects wealth and materialism which would be a fundamental and destructive change to society because the Quarysh live in luxury and Muhammad is changing the Quarysh's fundamental approach to wealth Second Economic Tension: The Hajj is this huge economic engine, and Muhammad was going to take that away because the Hajj is a place where everyone comes to worship their God's and with everyone converted to one religion, the Quarysh thought that no one will come to the Ka'ba

To what tribe and clan did Muhammad belong?

Tribe Quraysh Clan: Hashem

*How is the claim that Muhammad is ummi or illiterate prophet to be understood?*

When God appears to Muhammad, Muhammad says that he cannot read. This literally means that Muhammad is illiterate. Claiming his as illiterate raises Muhammad: Koran is seen as the High achievement of pottery so Koran is real because he couldn't have written the Koran and therefore someone else could have written it, therefore make Koran miraculous character of the Koran. Muhammad wasn't a fraud.

What is year one of the Islamic calendar? Is it the lunar or solar calendar?

Year one of the lunar calendar is the move from Mecca to Medina is year one.

What is a Kahin?

a lot like a psychic a low class person. Fortune teller. (belief in a spirit called *jinn* (djinn) people would lose their horses and then clan would go to Kahin and that person would go into a trance and communicate with the jinn and then they could tell the person who was behind it *Talk to the spirits*

What is a Hanif?

a monotheism who weren't alien with Jewishism and Christianity Muhammad is seen as a Hanif