10 - Chapter 6

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KAREN ARMSTRONG
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LIFE AND WORKS
Karen Armstrong, born on 14 November 1944, is a British writer, commentator
and historian of religion. Armstrong was born at Wildmoor, Worcestershire, into an Irish
family, which later moved to Birmingham. The postwar Britain, the place where Armstrong
grew as a teenager, was characterized by two features. According to her, it was not an easy
place to live. People of her generation wanted either to migrate to somewhere else or to bring
about a transformation in themselves.1 Second, the youth in the country were not bound by
restrictions of military service as their parents were in the time of war in the past. There was
more freedom to do what one desired to. In this atmosphere, Armstrong decided to go to the
convent because she was someone, who, as part of the strict Catholic culture, stayed away
from the street culture. She had a yearning to engage in the higher things of life and was
impelled by the desire “to find God”. 2 Therefore she became part of the Sisters of the Holy
Child Jesus. However, after seven years at the convent, Armstrong admits that she could not
discover God, her prayers were spiritless and her life devoid of spirituality. Moreover, she
experienced physical and psychological abuse at the convent, leading her to ask for
dispensation from her vows. She then studied English literature at St Anne’s College at
Oxford and even submitted her doctoral thesis three years later. But the external examiner
rejected the thesis, causing her to become extremely depressed and search for some other job.
Finally, in 1976, Armstrong began to teach English at James Allen’s Girls’ School
in Dulwich and at the same time started writing a memoir about the experiences she had at the
1
Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase-My Climb out of Darkness, (New York: Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004), viii.
2
Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase-My Climb out of Darkness, (New York: Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004), viii.
270
convent. This was published in 1982 as Through the Narrow Gate to excellent reviews. It was
during this period that Armstrong writes that she went through a period of atheism. “Even
more distressing than her health struggles is the feeling that she has permanently lost her faith:
‘I was finished with God; and God – if he existed at all – had long ago finished with me.’” 3
But when she embarked on a project of writing A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1993), in which she explores the idea of God in history over
four millennia and the three monotheistic religions, she experienced a return to God. She
writes, “I had no idea that I was about to ‘turn again’ and experience what the Greeks call
metanoia, or conversion.” Thus “she also begins to experience a kind of transcendence
through the silent devotion of her writing: ‘A disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings
about a state of ecstasy. ... We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend
our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.’”4 Reading about other faiths
proved to enrich her understanding of religion, as according to her, “My encounters with other
faith traditions showed me first how parochial my original understanding of religion had been,
and secondly made me see my own faith in a different way.” A History of God made
Armstrong’s name rise to prominence. She was noted for discovering the commonalities in
the major world traditions. In 1984, the British Channel Four commissioned her to author and
host a television documentary on the life of St. Paul, The First Christian, a project that
involved travelling to Jerusalem to gain a deeper understanding into the life of St Paul.
Armstrong expressed this journey as a “breakthrough experience” that went against her prior
notions about religion and served as an inspiration for several of her subsequent writings.
3
“Core Whispers”, January Magazine, April 2004; [Online]; available from
http://www.januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/spiralstaircase.html, (accessed 13 March 2016).
4
“Core Whispers”, January Magazine, April 2004; [Online]; available from
http://www.januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/spiralstaircase.html, (accessed 13 March 2016).
271
Armstrong’s The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious
Traditions (2006) builds on the themes she deals with in A History of God and examines the
origin, development and systematization of the major religions of the world. She has appeared
on television on various occasions, including on Rageh Omaar’s documentary on the Prophet,
The Life of Muhammad. She was an advisor for the award-winning, PBS-broadcast
documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced by Unity Productions
Foundation. The inspiration behind her study on Islam and Muḥammad is the assertion that it
is essential to understand religion and its manifestations, “not only in our own society but also
in other cultures.”5 Moreover, there is a growing trend of learning from the religious traditions
outside one’s own faith because people have come to recognize that there is a “deep unity in
mankind’s religious experience.”6 In this context, Armstrong observes that there has been an
entrenched hostility in the West towards Islam, which posed a continuous challenge to it,
ideologically and politically, from the Middle Ages through the Crusades right up to the
seventeenth century. This threat and fear of Islam prevented the West to make a rational,
objective assessment of the religion and thus hatred for Islam became one of the received
ideas in the western world. She advocates that the West should purge itself of the bigoted
views it has held about Islam since previous times and engage in a more tolerant and
compassionate study of the religion.7 She says: “We can no longer afford to indulge this type
of bigotry, because it is a gift to extremists who can use such statements to ‘prove’ that the
Western world is indeed engaged on a new crusade against the Islamic world. Muhammad
5
(accessed 13 March 2016).
Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time, (New York: Harper Collins
Publisher, 2006), 9.
6
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was not a man of violence. We must approach his life in a balanced way, in order to
appreciate his considerable achievements.”8
In the aftermath of the controversy over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses,
Armstrong realized the need to write a biography of Muḥammad for the western audience
such that the myths and ancient fables around his life and character prevalent in medieval
Christian writings and continuing to this day could be dispelled. Thus she wrote Muhammad:
A Western Attempt to Understand Islam (1991). She observes in her second book,
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time, “‘Muhammad was not a pacifist. He believed that
warfare was sometimes inevitable and even necessary.’ Armstrong argues that he prevailed by
compassion, wisdom and steadfast submission to God.”9
Armstrong has not only been writing on various religions so that her readers gain
a better understanding of other cultures and belief systems, she is even actively engaged in
promoting and fostering the values of mutual love, care and compassion for each other. Thus
she when she awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008, Armstrong called on
representatives of different faiths for authoring a Charter for Compassion, in the spirit of the
Buddhist Golden Rule, to give expression to moral priorities common across faith traditions,
so that it could promote universal brotherhood and a peaceful world. It was presented in
Washington D.C. on 12 November 2009. The signatories to the Charter include Queen Noor
of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Paul Simon. The Charter was
inspired by instilling Socratic humility, as Armstrong says: “A joint effort and a Socratic
8
“Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time,”The Fountain, December 2008; [Online]; available
from http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/Muhammad-A-Prophet-for-Our-Time,
(accessed 17 February 2016).
9
“Book Review: Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time,” The New York Times, 21 December 2006;
[Online]; available from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/arts/21iht-bookfri.3975049.html?_r=0 ,
(accessed 7 February 2016).
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humility and openness to others is required if we are to meet the challenges of our time and
create a just and viable world… That is why we are launching the Charter for Compassion.
Compassion does not mean pity; it means to ‘experience with’ the other. The golden rule, of
always treating all others as you would wish to be treated yourself, lies at the heart of all
morality. It requires a principled, ethical and imaginative effort to put self-interest to one side
and stand in somebody else’s shoes.”10
In May 2008 Armstrong was awarded the Freedom of Worship Award by the
Roosevelt Institute, one of four medals awarded every year to persons whose contribution to
society have upheld the Four Freedoms proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1941 as fundamental to democracy: freedom of speech and of worship, freedom from want
and from fear. The institute stated that Armstrong “brings together the voices of people from
all religions; she reminds the world that all different faiths, while distinct, share the core
principle of compassion and emphasizes that compassion entails putting oneself in the
position of the other.”11 Armstrong was honored Nationalencyklopedin’s International
Knowledge Award 2011 “for her long standing work of bringing knowledge to others about
the significance of religion to humankind and, in particular, for pointing out the similarities
between religions. Through a series of books and award-winning lectures she reaches out as a
peace-making voice at a time when world events are becoming increasingly linked to
religion.”12 On 3 June 2014, she was made honorary Doctor of Divinity by McGill University.
10
“Charter for Compassion: At one with our ignorance,” The Guardian, 10 November 2009; [Online];
available from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/10/charter-for-compassion-
our-ignorance, (accessed 12 March 2016).
11
“Fourteen individuals to receive honorary degree from McGill,”McGill Reporter, 30 April
2014; [Online]; available from http://publications.mcgill.ca/reporter/2014/04/fourteen-
personalities-to-receive-honorary-degree-from-mcgill/, (accessed 13 March 2016).
12
“Intervju med Karen Armstrong,” 7 October 2011; [Online]; available from
http://kunskapspriset.se/2011/10/internationella-hederspriset-2011-gar-till-karen-armstrong-
3/, (accessed 13 March 2016).
274
In the introduction to the book Armstrong explains the increased interest in religion
witnessed in the twentieth century after the near decline of the scope of religion three to four
decades back. Those people in the West who do not relate to any particular dogma and
institutionalized form of religion, too, are in search of spirituality and some kind of meaning
to life. A more radical version of this new turn to religion has manifested itself in the
emergence of fundamentalism, which Armstrong describes as an extreme political form of
faith that is dangerous for people and societies. It is due to this reason Armstrong asserts that
it is essential to understand religion and its manifestations, “not only in our own society but
also in other cultures.”13 Moreover, there is a growing trend of learning from the religious
traditions outside one’s own faith because people have come to recognize that there is a “deep
unity in mankind’s religious experience.”14 In this context, Armstrong observes that there has
been an entrenched hostility in the West towards Islam, which posed a continuous challenge
to it, ideologically and politically, from the Middle Ages through the Crusades right up to the
seventeenth century. This threat and fear of Islam prevented the West to make a rational,
objective assessment of the religion and thus hatred for Islam became one of the received
ideas in the western world.
Armstrong goes on to briefly discuss certain aspects of Islam that are most
misconstrued and misunderstood. Violence is one of the traits very often bracketed with Islam
and it is thought that it is inherently violent and fanatical. However, Armstrong differs, saying
that this is not true and explains that the rise in fundamentalism seen in the Muslim world
today is a recent phenomenon, which is not special only to Islam as there are religious
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fundamentalists in other faiths too. She also states that since the fundamentalist interpretation
of faith appeals to the youth, Muslim countries are especially affected because they have a
large young population. The West often perceives the ills afflicting Muslim societies as a
direct result of Islam, but Armstrong quoting Marshall Hodgson points out that the role of
religion should not be over-emphasized in a society, the example of female circumcision in
Africa serves as an example. The practice is not authorized in the Qurʾān, but because it was
prevalent in African countries before Islam, it was later incorporated in the Islamic law of
these countries. Similarly, Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia is incorrectly regarded as the standard
and authentic form of Islam, but is only a sect that was formed in the eighteenth century.
However, Armstrong is of the opinion that Islam is not entirely faultless, given that it is a
human institution and thus marked by errors. At the same time she claims that it is not unholy
or one that can have only a negative effect on its society. On the contrary, according to
Armstrong, “Islam shares many of the ideals and visions that have inspired both Judaism and
Christianity. Consequently it has helped people to cultivate values that it shares with our own
culture.”15
In her book, Armstrong says that she does not only cover the political and military
career of Muḥammad, but also examines and gives special emphasis to his spiritual insight
and religious experience that led him to take many of the steps during his prophetic career.
For her Muḥammad’s vision bears similarity with the founders of other major religions and
the faith he brought has themes similar to that of other traditions. Thus, Armstrong advocates
15
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that the West should purge itself of the bigoted views it has held about Islam since previous
times and engage in a more tolerant and compassionate study of the religion.16
MUḤAMMAD IN THE WEST
Armstrong traces in this chapter the beginning of the history of the bitter relations
between the West and Muslims and the manner in which Muḥammad and the religion he
founded have been portrayed with animosity and disgust by Christians scholars and
theologians. She explains the psychology behind the hatred felt by Christians toward Islam
and the Muslims’ prophet, and thus draws parallels with the threat that Muslims have
developed today for the West and its culture.
The bitterness exhibited by Christians for Muḥammad began first by a Christian
monk, Perfectus, in the mid-ninth century in Cordova where it spiralled into a movement of
outspoken hate and contempt for the Muslim prophet. This incident inspired numerous other
Christians to appear before the Muslim qāḍī and utter diatribes, causing the judges to take the
step of pronouncing death sentences to those who abused the Prophet Muḥammad. Those died
were revered by certain Christian groups as martyrs. Armstrong states that this was a very
unusual trend in a place like Muslim Spain where, as in the whole of Islamic empire in
general, Jews and Christians enjoyed religious liberty and had the freedom to engage in
religious propaganda, with the condition that they remained within bounds of decency and did
not say anything abusive and vitriolic about Muḥammad. In the martyr’s movement people
from all walks of life participated and Armstrong believes that at heart this was a movement
to go back to one’s own cultural roots in the Christian and Roman tradition, which had been
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threatened by the dominant Arab culture, language and religion. She asserts that “the loss of
cultural roots can be a profoundly disturbing experience and even in our own day it can
produce an aggressive, defiant religiosity as a means of asserting the beleaguered self.” 17 Thus
in the present day, Armstrong points out, Muslims have developed rage and hostility for the
Western culture because their own religious values and tradition appear to be in danger due to
the overarching influence in Muslim societies of everything western.
The rise of Islam was seen in the Christian world as a symbolic of the coming of
the great pretender Antichrist prophesied in the New Testament. This was mentioned in a
biography of Muḥammad written in a monastery near the Spanish city of Pamplona. It also
said that Muḥammad was an impostor, who falsely claimed to be prophet causing many
Christians to apostatize from their religion to join his ranks, was a sexual pervert and had
forced people into converting to his religion at the point of sword. The contents of this late
eighth century biography were used by the Christians who had initiated the martyr movement
in Cordova. After these few incidents there was a comparative calm in the relations between
Muslims and Christians, and both coexisted in the Arab empire. However, the beginning of
the Crusades in the eleventh century marked a resurgence of interest in and writing on the
distorted picture of Muḥammad, one that was marked by lack of knowledge even about the
basic doctrines of Islam, an example being the poem Song of Roland composed around the
time of the First Crusades. This portrayal of Muḥammad surrounded by false legends and tales
become a standard in the literature of the West and authors faithfully reproduced it from
generation to generation.18 According to Armstrong, the development of these ideas about
17
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Islam also showed the Christian tendency of lack of accommodation with other religions and
belief systems, which was unlike the situation of other religions in Muslim empires. The
reason given by her is the idea of heresy in Christianity: “the witch-hunts of the inquisitors
and the persecution of Protestants by Catholics and vice versa were inspired by abstruse
theological opinions which in both Judaism and Islam were seen as private and optional
matters.”19 Pope Clement V and King Charles of Anjou of France in the early fourteenth
century denounced Muslim presence on Christian land and there was systematic extermination
of Muslims from Sicily and Italy and deportation from Spain. Although Islamic philosophers
were venerated in the West, Muḥammad himself was regarded as a schismatic, denied of an
independent religious vision, as is evident in Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
Along with this general attitude towards Islam, there was also, from twelfth
century onwards, a category of individual scholars and thinkers among the Christians who
tried to present a relatively objective and positive picture of Muḥammad. Armstrong cites
William of Malmesbury as the first European to distinguish Islam from paganism around
1120. The first serious attempt to understand the religion and teachings of Islam was
undertaken by Peter the Venerable in 1141 when he commissioned a group of Spanish
Christian and Muslim scholars to translate the Qurʾān, produce a history of the Muslim world
and a book on the teachings of Islam. This provided the Christians a means of knowing the
faith of Islam with objectivity and historical accuracy, however, Armstrong points out that this
could not have great impact, as this scholarly attempt coincided with Christian losses at the
hands of the Muslims in the subsequent Crusades. 20 Gradually, Islam came to represent
19
20
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everything that the Christian West despised and denounced. For example, “in the later
writings of the fourteenth-century English reformer John Wycliffe, the main faults of ‘Islam’
were exactly the same as the faults of the Western Church in his own day: pride, greed,
violence and the lust for power and possession.” 21 Similarly Protestant reformers such as
Luther and Zwingli considered that their greatest problem was the Pope and the Catholic
Church, an evil which they described as their ‘internal Islam’. At the same time, during the
Renaissance, there were some Christian scholars, such as John of Segovia and Nicholas of
Cusa, who supported the view that a scientific discussion on ideas between Muslims and
Christians could be the only way to deal with the menace of Islam. Thus, in 1460 Nicholas of
Cusa wrote Cribratio Alchoran (The Sieve of the Qurʾān) which was not “conducted on the
usual polemical lines but attempted the systematic literary, historical and philological
examination”22 of the Qurʾān. The most authoritative work, regarded as the first
Encyclopaedia of Islam, was published in 1697 by Barthélmy d’Herbelot with the title
Bibliothéque orientale. Referring to Arabic, Turkish and Persian sources d’Herbelot tried to
provide an accurate account of the doctrines of Islam. However, the book recounts the
traditional picture of Muḥammad as a heretic and impostor. Eighteenth century saw more
enlightened works on Islam, such as that of Voltaire who regarded Muḥammad as a founder
of a rational religion and acknowledged Muslim polity as more tolerant than the Christian
tradition. In 1730, Henri, Comte de Boulainvilliers, in his Vie de Mahomed credits
Muḥammad as the forerunner of the Age of Reason. Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire “praised the lofty monotheism of Islam and showed that the Muslim
21
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venture deserved a place in the history of world civilisation.” 23 However, there was also
contempt for the religion of Islam, expressed by Gibbon himself, who thought that the
contents of the Qurʾān could only excite the mind of an Arabian who would be enraptured by
its sounds, but it cannot affect a European, because he would see it as dull, incoherent and
non-ingenious. A similar view was voiced by Thomas Carlyle in his famous lecture on
Muḥammad called “The Hero as Prophet”. Armstrong shows that with colonialism and
conquering of regions which were formerly under Muslim rule, there developed an attitude of
regarding Islam as inferior and the Oriental as illogical.24
Armstrong thus puts forth the argument that although Muslims had no deeply held
contempt for the West and even held it in admiration, the western attitude of ridicule for their
Prophet and their religion caused them to be ultimately alienated from the West. 25 Therefore,
to her, the responsibility for a new radical form of Islam and the hostility of Muslims goes to
the West and its centuries-long tradition of portraying Muḥammad as an enemy. This brings
her back to the theory that Muslims have suffered a loss of identity and culture at the face of
the incursions of western culture in their lives—a phenomenon that has caused some to turn to
their religion with fanaticism to rediscover and reconnect with their traditional roots. 26
According to Armstrong the Salman Rushdie affair in the 1980s and its aftermath saw many
writers critiquing Islam for being the opposite of everything that was idealized in western
tradition and that it encouraged a kind of thought-police, one that could never be the basis of a
23
24
25
26
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civilized and secure society. However, Armstrong says that her own reading of the Qurʾān and
study of Islam have led her to believe that “we should try to see him [Muḥammad] as a man of
the spirit, who managed to bring peace and civilisation his people.”27
MUḤAMMAD THE MAN OF ALLĀH
Armstrong explains that the Arabs of Mecca in the Ḥijāz had become prosperous
and very powerful in a matter of two generations from the time of their settlement there. The
source of their prosperity was the caravan trade which they organized to and from their city.
But because the most famous shrine of Arabia, the Kaʿbah, was located in their city, it
attracted pilgrims from all over the peninsula who also engaged in trade in the annual fairs
held there. The area around the shrine was declared sacred where no fighting was permitted,
something that added to the peace and security of the region and became a further boost to the
economy of Mecca as people could come safely and engage in business. Since the Kaʿbah was
held in special reverence by all Arabs and the tribe of Quraysh of Mecca worked as its
guardians, members of Quraysh enjoyed great honour among the Arabs. However, Armstrong
points out that the Arabs felt a sense of inferiority when they compared themselves to Jews
and Christians, who had been given a special scripture by God and had established mighty
civilizations just at the borders of Arabia. Thus they felt that they had been left out of the
divine plan. The situation in Arabia was marked by chronic disunity at the time when
Muḥammad began preaching: there was no single law to govern the various tribes, making
people follow rules within a group but transgressing bounds of decency outside of it. The
result of this disunity and constant warring was that the Arabs were unable to develop a
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civilization in the manner of the People of the Book. According to Armstrong, Muḥammad,
through his preaching of the message of monotheism and his ability to politically weld the
tribes together, was able to achieve this goal: “he had entirely transformed the conditions of
his people, rescued them from fruitless violence and disintegration and given them a proud
new identity.”28 The success of Muḥammad, Armstrong notes, depended upon his religious
vision and the reason why the first Muslims proved successful in the struggles they were
involved in was that religion held most importance for them.
Muḥammad’s biographers from eight century onwards, such as Muḥammad ibn
Isḥāq (d. c. 767), Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (d. 845), Abū Jaʿfar aṭ-Ṭabarī (d. 923) and Muḥammad
ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī (d. c. 820) are the sources Armstrong refers to. She observes that these
accounts of Muḥammad’s life are characterized by historical accuracy in that even incidents in
which Muḥammad’s apparent weaknesses and mistakes are evident are recorded faithfully.
The writers meticulously trace the source for the traditions, differentiate between a weak and a
strong tradition and sometimes give two conflicting traditions about the same event without
commenting on which is right. In the ninth century Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī and
Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Qushayrī sifted through the whole mass of prophetic traditions,
discarded many and collected and compiled the authentic ones. These collections of traditions,
or aḥādīth, form along with the Qurʾān an important source of Islamic law or shariʿah. Here
Armstrong explains the nature of the revelations that form part of the Qurʾān. According to
her, the Qurʾān is not an account of the life of Muḥammad: “it reveals the Creator rather than
His Messenger.”29 The verses of the Qurʾān were revealed not all at once, many came down
depending on the situation confronting Muslims in Mecca and Medina. Thus there is mention
28
Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time, (New York: Harper
Collins Publisher, 2006), 46.
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of the nature of life and death, answers to questions of people who express doubts concerning
the doctrines of monotheism and prophethood and even analysis of battles in which Muslims
were engaged in later on in Medina. Some early believers converted to Islam only by being
overwhelmed by the beauty of the language of the Qurʾān which they thought was divine.
People in the West, Armstrong notes, do find it difficult to be moved by the Qurʾān in the way
Muslims claim to be, but she explains this is because it has to be read in a particular frame of
mind such that it gives a sense of the divine presence. Moreover, she points out that the
Arabic language is very complex and dense, one whose complete import and form and cannot
be accurately had in translation, which is another reason why the Qurʾān in its translated form
does not seem extraordinary even to Muslims themselves. Non-Muslims find the Qurʾān
extremely repetitive, which Armstrong explains is because the Muslim scripture is not meant
for private perusal, but for liturgical recitation. 30 In one recitation the central tenets of the
Qurʾān are conveyed to the listener. Armstrong writes that the Qurʾān gives a
“contemporaneous commentary on Muḥammad’s career that is unique in the history of
religion: it enables us to see the peculiar difficulties he had to contend with, and how his
vision evolved to become more profound and universal in scope.” 31 From his biographies,
what becomes apparent according to Armstrong is that Muḥammad is not similar to the very
idealized, divine and supernatural figure of Jesus. He is more similar to the Hebrew prophets
such as Moses, David, Solomon and Elijah. Because Muḥammad lived in violent and
dangerous situations, a feature of tribal societies, he adopted measures which by present

29
30
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standards appear disturbing. In Armstrong’s view these means adopted by Muḥammad can be
understood if we appreciate the times he lived in and the responsibility he felt of creating a
good and just society, which could not happen had he not used measures he sometimes did.
For Armstrong, it is essential to examine the condition of Arabia and the
psychology of Arabians in order to properly estimate Muḥammad’s achievements and genius.
According to her, the acceptance of the message of monotheism by Arabs was a very daunting
task before Muḥammad because this idea is more easily acceptable to people who are living in
the security of a developed civilization or a political empire, as they have a wider, universal
perspective in which the lesser gods cease to hold importance and they come to associate
more with the idea of individualism. On the contrary, in the desert people lead a precarious
existence which causes them to also turn to smaller gods whom they think control various
aspects of life. Besides, people in tribal societies live in closely-knit groups which are more
attuned to living by communal ethos than by the spirit of individualism fostered by the belief
in One God and being personally accountable to Him after death. Moreover, Armstrong points
here that Muḥammad’s isolation was another feature of his achievements. That is, unlike the
prophets of Israel he had no ancient tradition of monotheism behind him nor was he born in a
politically grounded and secure empire as Jesus was in Rome. Thus Armstrong comments, “a
dispassionate observer would not have given him a chance. The Arabs, he might have
objected, were just not ready for monotheism: they were not sufficiently developed for this
sophisticated vision.”32 Therefore, the odds, according to Armstrong, were not in
Muḥammad’s favour, as is seen from the events of his life when he was often in deadly peril,
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yet he succeeded to bring Arabia out of the cycle of tribal violence through his prophetic
vocation.
PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA: THE PERIOD OF JĀHILIYYAH
The Arabia in which Muḥammad first preached his message offered a spectre of
disunity and continual tribal conflict. Armstrong describes the situation that existed at the time
Muḥammad proclaimed that he was sent by God with a message for the Arabians. The region
was an intractable desert with difficult terrain inhabited by a people who were looked upon as
uncivilized and barbaric by those who lived in cultured societies north of Arabia. The
Byzantine empire to the northwest and the Persian Sassanid empire to the northeast of Arabia,
however, had connections with Arabs in the Yemen and the border regions of Arab territories,
where some had even converted to Christianity. The Yemen was an area of constant struggle
for dominance between Byzantium and Persia. Persians supported Nestorian Christianity and
Judaism against the Byzantine’s support for Christians from the Monophysite sect. By 570 the
southern kingdom of Yemen had come under the suzerainty of the Persians. Moreover, in the
border regions Byzantines had forged ties with the Arab tribe of Ghassān who became a
Byzantine vassal state and thus worked as a buffer between them and the Arabs south of them.
The Ghassānids had even converted to Monophysite Christianity. Similarly, the Lakhmid
Arab tribe became confederates of Persians and converted to the Nestorian faith. However, as
the sixth century came to a close, both the empires had cut off their subsidies to their vassal
Arab states and incurred their anger. It was because of this state of affairs, according to
Armstrong, that the Arabs of the desert were extremely suspicious of the two ancient
monotheistic religions. That is, they saw them as instruments for furthering the empires’
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imperial control of Arabia.33 However, there seemed to be a sense of dissatisfaction among the
Arabians on account of their religious and political inferiority to the civilizations to their
north. Armstrong writes that unless the Arabs managed to create a Bedouin state of their own,
they were susceptible to exploitation by others and thus lose their precious independence. 34
The conditions in Arabia, however, precluded the possibility of creation of such a state.
Armstrong explains why.
The way of life of the Arabs of the desert was primarily nomadic, with some
people having adopted farming and agriculture. The nomads led a very precarious existence,
constantly competing with each other for space and resources. Due to a life of this nature,
people could be safe only when they lived together in a tribe which could protect its members
in their hour of crisis and exact revenge when wronged. The ideal which Arabs expected from
a strong a tribe was defined by the word muruwah, or manliness. It consisted of the following
traits: “Courage in battle, patience and endurance in suffering, and a dedication to the
chivalrous duties of avenging wrong done to the tribe, protecting its weaker members and
defying the strong.”35 However, a person showed these high qualities only for people of one’s
own tribe or clan, often transgressing the bounds of decency in one’s treatment of others.
There was no common or universal law by which all tribes were bound. Armstrong also
asserts that Arabs in the desert generally held communal ethos and were governed by the
communal mentality. If a member of a tribe was killed, the tribe that was wronged could
33
34
35
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avenge the harm done to it by killing any member of the aggressor tribe. Thus, “one member
of a tribe was much the same as another for such purposes.”36 This was the only way of
maintaining public order in a tribal society, however, it often resulted in a situation of
vendetta, as the tribe whose member was murdered for revenge did not accept it as justified
and continued the cycle of violence to take revenge. One characteristic of muruwah was its
egalitarianism: each member of the tribe was treated in the same way as others. The chief of
the tribe could not pass over his position to his son as only the best person for the task was
accepted as leader, not one who simply deserved to inherit the office because of kinship.
There were several barbaric customs that characterized seventh century Arabia, among them
being female infanticide and exploitation of women.
It was because of this state of affairs in which the Arabs lived, Armstrong
believes, they had no time for religion. Poets would sing of the achievement and glories of the
tribe and lament the demise of the strong and wise. There was neither mention of nor attempt
to understand theological questions, cosmic order or meaning of existence. But the Arabs did
have a spiritual life centred on the granite cube-like shrine of the Kaʿbah situated by the
sacred spring of zamzam in Mecca. The Kaʿbah was dedicated to the deity Hubal. Around the
circle of the Kaʿbah there was an area where the pilgrims observed the circumambulation or
ṭawāf. Around the Kaʿbah were also placed 360 idols belonging to the various tribes of
Arabia. Armstrong observes that the rites associated with the Kaʿbah had special spiritual and
psychological significance for the Arab pilgrims, although they appear strange to people
brought up in secular societies. She believes that everyone needs a private place in life where
one can centre oneself. The Kaʿbah provided this spiritual respite to the Arabs: “The tawwaf
36
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seems to have been recreative, helping the Arabs to centre themselves and discover in
symbolic gesture an eternal dimension to their lives.” 37 Apart from the Kaʿbah there were
shrines belonging to other deities, most prominent among them being the shrine of al-Lāt at
aṭ-Ṭāʾif, al-ʿUzzah at Nakhlah and Manāt at Qudayd. These three were together called banāt
al-Allāh, or the daughters of Allāh. The Arabs were very passionate about the cult of these
goddesses since they associated their forefathers with their worship. Thus they offered “a
sense of healing continuity,”38 any critique of which was intolerable and unacceptable to the
Arabs.
Armstrong notes here that the Arabs had heard of the civilizations abroad, their
marvelous material successes and the well-developed religion they believed in. These Arabs
adhered to ideas of communalism and were finding it difficult to lead life in an increasingly
capitalistic and trade-based society in which individualism was taking root. Thus Armstrong
remarks that “the old ideology had not equipped them for city life.”39
The ancestor of Quraysh who had founded and established the city of Mecca was
named Qusayy. His two sons ʿAbd ad-Dār and ʿAbd Manāf succeeded him. The former was
supported by the clans Makhzūm, Sahm, Jumah and ʿAdī while the latter had support in the
clans of Asad, Zuhrah, Taym and al-Hārith ibn Fihr. The first group was together called the
Ahlāf or the Confederates and the second formed the Mutayyabūn or the Scented Ones. The
internal politics between the two groups finally resulted in the Ahlāf enjoying only nominal
37
38
39
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privileges while the real power rested in the hands of the Mutayyabūn. The Quraysh engaged
in the mercantile business, carrying caravans along the route parallel to the Red Sea from the
Yemen to Syria, Palestine and Jordan, and the route that led from the Yemen to Iraq. The
trade ventures had made the Quraysh very rich and along with this, being custodians of the
venerated Kaʿbah had made them the most respected tribe in all of Arabia. The result of these
developments was an aggressive strain of capitalism that eroded old communal tribal values
and people became more selfish, individualistic and exploitative. In this changed scenario,
Armstrong opines, a new set of values was required which could address the new
individualistic tendencies in the Arabs and also solve the problems that had arisen because of
rampant materialism.40 She also states that many clans were pushed to the brink of economic
starvation with people within the tribe overlooking the responsibilities they had towards their
relatives and kin. It was because of this deterioration in the morality of their society, many
Quraysh had become disenchanted and lost with the young among them were in search of
spiritual and political answers to the problems that had come to afflict their people. This leads
Armstrong to one of the main themes of her book, that is, the religion of Islam, like several
other major world religions, emerged in the atmosphere of high finance rather than in the pure
life of the desert. And it was because of this environment of capitalism in which these
religions took shape, the founders of these religions were concerned with the disparities in
their societies and were thus inspired to bring a message of social justice and equality. In
Armstrong’s words: “These world religions had all developed in the commercial atmosphere
of city life, at a time when merchants were beginning to wrest some of the power which had
once been solely in the hands of the kings and the aristocratic and priestly castes. The new
40
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prosperity drew people’s attention to the disparity between rich and poor and made them
deeply concerned with problems of social justice. All the great religious leaders and prophets
had addressed themselves to these issues and provided their own distinctive solution.”41
Thus, according to her, the Arabs in the seventh century were beset by various ills
that affect a materialistic society. Muḥammad’s religious message was directed at providing a
solution to this situation in Mecca.
In Armstrong’s opinion Muḥammad had diagnosed this malaise of Mecca very
rightly and he believed that only a messenger from God could heal the problems of his city,
however, he did not know before receiving revelations that he would have to perform that
role.42 In one of his spiritual retreats in the year 610 on the cave of Mount Ḥirāʾ, Muḥammad
is said to have received the first revelations from God through the angel Gabriel. The angel
appeared in the cave and gave him the order to ‘Recite!’ Muḥammad is said to have replied
that he could not read. But the angel repeated his orders until it embraced Muḥammad so
strongly that he felt he had reached the limits of his endurance. The vision filled him with
horror and fear, causing him to think that he had become a kāhin or a soothsayer, something
he completely detested. Here, Armstrong remarks that the Hebrew prophets also had similar
religious visions and experiences of the divine. For example, Jeremiah had experienced God
as an agonising pain and Isaiah had cried when he saw the vision of God. She says that such
visions as Muḥammad received cannot be summarily dismissed as hysteria or epileptic
disorders. According to her, inspiration is always looked upon as a benign possession in both
41
42
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artistic and religious spheres. It seems as if the idea that inspires a poet, artist or a religious
person did exist independently and entered his mind unbidden and without warning. Thus she
remarks: “All truly creative thought is in some sense intuitive; it demands a leap forward into
the dark world of uncreated reality. Seen in this way, intuition is not the abdication of reason
but rather reason speeded up, encapsulated in an instant, so that a solution appears without the
usual laborious logical preparations.”43 But Armstrong also explains this religious experience
in secular terms. That is, Muḥammad was able to understand the problems confronting Mecca
more profoundly than any of his contemporaries and offered them an imaginative, spiritual
and social solution. Again Armstrong emphasizes that the solution was conditioned to the
special needs of Arabia and that Muḥammad had no clear understanding that he was giving
rise to a new world religion. Thus, she states, “In every religion, the idea of God or the
Ultimate Reality is culturally conditioned.” 44 Here Armstrong also points out that no religious
vision is new or completely original, rather the message proclaimed by Muḥammad, like all
other religious truths, was same as the old religion revealed by God. Muḥammad had only
been entrusted with the task of bringing this religion to the Arabs. The Qurʾān too affirms that
there is no difference between the various prophets. This, Armstrong argues, is the reason why
Muslims never had any problems in coexisting with people of other communities in the
empires that were formed after Muḥammad’s death.
43
44
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EARLY REVELATIONS AND THE FIRST CONVERTS
According to Armstrong when Muḥammad began his vocation as a prophet he
was only a warner, one who had to deliver a message to his people. He did not envisage a
political role for himself but had to only preach what he believed was sent down to him from
God for the Arabs. The message that Muḥammad conveyed to his contemporaries, Armstrong
holds, was initially centred on two ideas: one, the goodness of God and second, the social
command to be just and to look after the disadvantaged people around one. The first part of
the message was aimed at making people conscious of the blessings that God had bestowed on
them, be grateful by acknowledging His contribution to their successes and to not become
unthankful and heedless to divine commandments. These ideas are expounded in various early
Meccan sūrahs, for example Sūrah al-ʿAbasa and Sūrah aḍ-Ḍuḥā:
Let man consider his nourishment.
We poured out the rain abundantly,
then We split the earth into fissures
and therein made the grains to grow
and vines and reeds
and olives and palms,
and dense-tree’d gardens,
and fruits and pastures,
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an enjoyment for you and your flocks.45
And, as for the orphan, do not oppress him,
and as for the beggar, scold him not;
and as for thy Lord’s blessing, exalt it.46
Thus, Armstrong writes that the bedrock of the early message of the Qurʾān is that
people should strive to establish a just, equitable society and that it is wrong to hoard up
wealth for one’s person rather it should be distributed among the poor. 47 The emphasis on
creation of a just society in the Qurʾān, according to Armstrong, had made Muslims from the
beginning very sensitive to social injustice. So, she remarks that although Muslims are not
intolerant towards different versions of the truth, they are intolerant towards iniquity, as could
be seen from the events against Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran and President Anwar
al-Sadat of Egypt. Also, Armstrong points out that the importance of looking after the
deprived sections of society caused almsgiving to later became one of the pillars of Islam with
Muslims being required to give out a specific portion from their income to the poor and needy
—an attitude that continued in later Islamic empires when scholars, mystics and pious men
shunned the wealthy life to live frugally and share their money with those who were
disadvantaged and less fortunate. Those rulers who had to establish their credentials in the
eyes of the Muslim also lived simply and gave out generously to those who came seeking help
at their door. This trend was set in Islam by the Prophet himself who did not acquire more
45
Qurʾān 80: 24-32
46
Qurʾān 93: 9-11
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material goods than that which was according to his bare necessities and would distribute
whatever he received as gifts or booty to the poorer members of the community.
Since Armstrong is of the opinion that the core message of the Qurʾān, at least
initially, was socialist in tendency, aimed at reviving old Arab principles of sharing one’s
fortunes with the disadvantaged and striving for the creation of a just and equitable society,
she also deals with the question of why Muḥammad related this message to belief in God or
why he could not simply preach social reform without any reference to religion. According to
her analysis, this was because the tribal society of Arabia had been experiencing disintegration
from past several years since the time its people came to acquire more and more material
wealth. In this scenario, the old ideal of communalism according to which people of various
tribes were considerate towards others was replaced by a growing individualism with people
neglecting concern for tribe, family and relatives. Thus tribal unity was breaking down due to
the erosion of the communal ethics which the Arabs previously adhered to. In this context it
was important to introduce a new spirit that could replace the old one. Armstrong says that
Muḥammad realized that preaching reform would be merely cosmetic, because “they would
remain ineffectual unless the Quraysh placed another, transcendent value at the centre of their
lives.”48 This is why he provided a religious solution to the malaise that had afflicted Mecca.
Although his religious message was not new, since the Quraysh had from before believed in
God or Allāh, but he reminded them of the consequences such belief entailed. Thus, for
example, he emphasized the idea of returning to God to be held accountable to one’s deeds—a
thought that required understanding God and His creation from new eyes. Meccans were
urged to reconsider their material success, acknowledge God’s contribution for their prestige
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that had resulted from the Kaʿbah, the House of God, being in their city and to ponder over
the signs of God in the natural world to discover His goodness and greatness. In this way one
would appreciate God’s kindness, compassion and intelligence in the natural world. The
followers of Muḥammad were thus asked to imitate other creatures of God who had
compulsorily surrendered to His will in world of nature—they were asked to voluntarily do
God’s will and surrender to Him, thus they came to be known as muslim, or “one who
surrenders”. This was also how Muslims were expected to attain spiritual refinement.49
According to Armstrong, the monotheistic concept of God as it appears in the
Qurʾān truly represented Muḥammad’s spiritual genius. She believes that God in the Qurʾān is
described as a being who cannot be grasped by human thought and language, He could only
be spoken of in signs and symbols, while His real nature remained hidden from human
comprehension. This is why the Qurʾān often emphasizes on contemplating on the signs of
God and offers similitudes in order to understand God. Armstrong writes that “there are no
doctrines about God, defining what He is, but mere ‘signs’ of a sacramental nature where
something of Him can be experienced.”50 This brings her to explain how Muslims approach
their scripture. For them, the Qurʾān is not merely the history of prophets of previous times
rather it is a reflection of their own being. The struggle for good and evil recounted in the
lives of the prophets in the Qurʾān is looked upon by Muslims as “a spiritual drama endlessly
enacted within themselves.”51 The Qurʾān, according to Armstrong, aims to develop this
49
50
51
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imaginative, symbolic attitude in Muslims, including making an effort at the intellectual level
to observe the world around them in a symbolic way. An example is offered in the following
verses:
Surely in the creation of the heaven and the earth
and the alternation of night and day
and the ship that runs in the sea with profit
to men, and the water God sends down from heaven
therewith reviving the earth again after it is dead
and His scattering abroad in it all manner of
crawling things, and the turning about of the winds
and the clouds compelled between heaven and earth –
surely these are signs for a people having understanding.52
Armstrong comments that this emphasis on reflecting on the nature helped to
cultivate an attitude of intellectual and rational enquiry into the universe which caused
Muslims of the later period to develop natural disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy and
medicine.53
52
Qurʾān 2: 164
53
297
When Muḥammad began to preach in Mecca, he gained several young converts
from powerful clans while the majority of his followers were poor, women, slaves and
members of weak and not very powerful clans. Armstrong cites the example of Khālid ibn
Saʿīd, a youth from ʿAbd Shams, who saw a dream that he was being pushed into a pit of fire
by his father while Muḥammad prevented him from falling down into it. She interprets this
incident as the sense of danger and peril that the younger generation among the Arabs
experienced because they were not happy to see the rise of capitalism in their cities and thus
were in conflict with their elders. Thus, Armstrong comments that Muḥammad was
addressing the emotions of the youth of the Meccan society who could understand in the most
strong terms the problems affecting their people. 54 The earliest converts came from a group of
clans – Hāshim, al-Muṭṭalib, Zuhrah, Taym, al-Hārith ibn Fihr and ʿAdī – which were
financially and politically weak in Mecca and were on the one hand concerned about their
own position in the city against the materially more powerful clans and on the other hand
were also addressed by the social teachings of Muḥammad’s message. The group of clans
consisting of ʿAbd Shams, Nawfal, Asad, ʿĀmir, Makhzūm, Sahm, Jumah and ʿAbd ad-Dār
became enemies of Muḥammad’s mission as they were happy with the status quo that gave
position and prestige to them. Thus Armstrong is of the opinion that Islam had initially been a
movement of young men who felt acutely against the divisions, iniquities and hierarchies in
their society. So for example the early converts from powerful clans, such as Khālid ibn Saʿīd
and ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān from ʿAbd Shams, accepted Islam because they felt there was no
position for them at the top. Therefore the psyche of those who had already been in a weak
position and felt threatened by the individualism of the wealthier and stronger clans was most
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deeply affected by Muḥammad’s preaching. His critique of the wealthy, their hoarding of
fortune and neglect for the poor resonated with them and they responded to his call.55
In the initial years, the objections to Muḥammad’s message, according to
Armstrong, were mainly around the idea of the Last Judgement. She believes that Muḥammad
had borrowed this notion from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Belief in resurrection implied
that every individual was to be held accountable for his actions before God. Therefore, the
wealthy among the Quraysh found it threatening as this idea would have forced them to
abandon their selfish materialism and to share their fortune with the poor. Armstrong writes
that until now Muḥammad had not offered anything entirely new, some elements of what he
preached were known to the Arabs from pre-Islamic times and other aspects were taken from
Judaeo-Christian scriptures with which the Arabs were already partially acquainted. This is
why there was no cause for serious rupture of relations with Quraysh, but the incident of the
Satanic Verses heralded a sharp division between Muslims and the pagans.
THE SATANIC VERSES
According to the historian Ibn Isḥāq when the Prophet began to criticize the
goddesses worshipped by the Meccans and affirmed that there was only One God who alone
was worthy of worship, there developed great differences between him and the leaders of
Quraysh. Armstrong explains the reason as being due to the Meccans’ devotion to the past.
Pre-modern societies, she writes, did not welcome change or encouraged the questing spirit.
People of traditional times would see religion as a “treaty obligation” 56 and severing these
treaties meant inviting the wrath of the various gods to whom success and prosperity was due.
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Thus, it was believed that accepting Muḥammad’s message would cause them to run the risk
of threatening the traditional sanctities on which their society was founded and that pious
respect to these alone would guarantee their continuity.
At a time when opposition by the Quraysh was very high, Muḥammad is believed
to have attempted reconciliation with the Meccan leaders by giving them an allowance to
worship their three revered gods, or the banāt Allāh. This is known as the incident of the
“Satanic Verses”, about which western scholars are of the opinion that Muḥammad
temporarily conceded to polytheism, as when a chapter from the Qurʾān was being revealed to
him, he uttered two verses that declared that the “daughters of Allāh” were divine beings
worthy of worship. However, later another revelation claimed that Muḥammad had been
inspired by the Satan and the two verses accepting the worship of the goddesses were
expunged from the Qurʾān. Armstrong writes that western critics of Islam often use this
incident to point out that Muḥammad was an impostor because a prophet of God could not be
inspired by Satan to utter words that were not revealed by God and that he attempted to
tamper with revelations only to attract converts. However, she is of the opinion that the
incident of the Satanic Verses does not bear such negative interpretations as have been
projected by those who doubt Muḥammad’s veracity. Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel The
Satanic Verses which repeated the old myths that were held in the western pre-Renaissance
tradition about Islam and Muḥammad, evoked strong reactions from the Muslim community.
In the light of the interest generated in western audiences, Armstrong thus discusses in detail
the meaning of the incident of Satanic Verses which is believed to have occurred during the
Meccan phase of the life of Muḥammad. According to a more probable of the two versions
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given by Ṭabarī, Muḥammad was extremely depressed over the negative response of Quraysh
and wanted them to realize the truth of his message. He therefore meditated on the way in
which he could make the message enter into the hearts of his people. According to Ṭabarī, the
solution to the problem came to the Prophet while he was once sitting in the Kaʿbah. The
Prophet uttered these verses from a chapter revealed to him:
Have you considered al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzah
and Manāt, the third, the other?
these are the exalted birds [gharānīq]
whose intercession is approved.57
When the Quraysh came to know of this verse, they became very happy and
prostrated with Muḥammad at the Kaʿbah. However, later Gabriel came to the Prophet telling
him that he had erred and the corrected verses revealed were:
They are naught but names yourselves
have named, and your fathers; God had
sent down no authority touching them.
They follow only surmise and what their whims desire.58
57
58
Qurʾan 53: 23
301
Armstrong comments that the Satanic Verses incident indicates that what came to
Muḥammad was a progressive revelation and that he qualified what had been previously
revealed when he thought over the matter. She also comments on the Qurʾanic insistence on
monotheism. According to her, the idea of monotheism represents a higher stage in the
development of human consciousness. This is because people are able to view the universe
and its phenomena as perfectly harmonious and being controlled by a single force, while
polytheism means seeing varied gods responsible for different events in nature. Armstrong is
of the opinion that the seventh century Arabians’ spiritual psychology had made them more
receptive to monotheistic ideas: they were aware of a unified world outside their territories
and the idea of old tribal system with each tribe having its own way was looked upon as
inadequate and in need of reform.59
When the opposition in Mecca increased greatly, Muḥammad advised a group of
Muslims to seek shelter in the neighbouring country of Abyssinia which was then ruled by a
Christian king, Negus. Armstrong interprets the Abyssinian affair as a possible measure by
Muḥammad to establish an alternative trade route to the south for those Muslims who were
suffering from Meccan ban on their trade and businesses. Thus, she hold that there might have
been political or economic overtones to this venture by Muḥammad, however, it has not come
down very clearly in the sources as to what he had intended. About this time, that is, in 620,
Muḥammad had a mystical experience while he was resting after worship at the Kaʿbah.
Armstrong describes the experiences of isrāʾ (The Night Journey) and miʿrāj (Ascension to
Heaven) as religious experiences which are common to all mystical traditions, for example in
Buddhism and in the Throne Mysticism of Judaism. According to her in certain spiritual
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disciplines people learn special techniques to have these experiences. 60 What is common to all
these traditions is that those who have such experiences describe God as being an ineffable
reality.
Being overwhelmed by the beauty of the language of the Qurʾān was often the
reason why many Meccans were awestruck and accepted the revelations as divine. The Qurʾān
often speaks of the hardening of people’s hearts against the divine truth, however, Armstrong
writes that many were able to break down the barriers and reserves that held them from
recognizing the truth in Muḥammad’s preaching and came into the fold of Islam. ʿUtbah ibn
Rabīʿah of ʿAbd Shams was an example of the former while al-Ṭufayl ibn ʿAmr of the tribe of
Daws was an example of the latter category of people who surrendered before the words of
the Qurʾān. Armstrong compares the experience Muslims have when they listen to the Qurʾān
with the experience of transcendence people often have when they come into contact with art
and music—a theory described by George Steiner and Peter Fuller in their book, Real
Presences: Is there anything in what we say? This deep feeling of having been touched by the
transcendent is what, according to Armstrong, prompted the first Muslims to take the
unprecedented step of breaking with the past and violating the traditional sanctities of their
society. The Qurʾān was able to address something buried deep inside them and thus
“encourage them to change their lives at a level that was far deeper than the rational.” 61 This
was also the reason why ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, the most ardent enemy of Islam in early days,
60
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was converted to the religion when he heard few verses from the Qurʾān, became struck at the
nobility of the divine speech and went to announce his conversion to the Prophet.
HIJRAH TO MEDINA
In the year 620 Muḥammad met some Arab pilgrims from Yathrib, an oasis north
of Mecca. When he preached the doctrines of Islam and told them that he was sent to the
Arabs as a prophet, they responded positively to his message. The reason was the situation
that existed in the city from which they came. Yathrib was an oasis where an agricultural
settlement had developed with various tribal groups living alongside each other. There were
two main groups in Yathrib. First comprised of the Jews who predated the coming of the
Arabs and developed irrigation and date farming in the oasis. The three main Jewish tribes in
the seventh century were the Banū Qurayẓah, the Banū Naḍīr and Banū Qaynuqaʿ. They were
followed by the Banū Qaylah from South Arabia. This tribe had two main branches: the Banū
Aws and the Banū Khazraj. These two Arab clans were extremely hostile to each other and
fought continually, either side being supported by one or the other of the Jewish tribes. It was
this situation that made the Aws and the Khazraj receptive to Muḥammad’s message because
they thought he would be the source of establishing the long-sought after unity, which because
of their terrible enmity for each other could not come about with the help of one of their own
number. Moreover, since they were living next to the Jews they had become acquainted with
the idea of monotheism and were more ready to believe in it compared to the Quraysh of
Mecca.62 Also the old pagan ideals were breaking down and not able to provide solutions to
the conflict that had devastated the oasis. The new morality provided by Islam was another
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reason why Medinans responded to the religion. At the First Pledge of ʿAqabah in 621,
thirteen Medinans from both the Aws and the Khazraj came to owe their allegiance to the
Prophet. Armstrong writes that at this oath-taking nothing political was discussed; it was
purely religious. Muḥammad sent a Muslim Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr to preach Islam to Medinans.
As a result, almost all Medinan households of Aws and Khazraj came over to Islam. Thus in
622, seventy-five of the Muslim converts of Medina came for what is known as the Second
Pledge of ʿAqabah. The oath taken this time is called the Pledge of War in which the
Medinans pledged to undertake war with Muḥammad, if required. Here Armstrong comments
that Islam did not suddenly become a violent or martial religion, rather the step of the hijrah
or migration to Medina, which Muḥammad was about to take with all his companions in
Mecca, was extremely unprecedented in the history of Arabia. It required complete severance
of ties of blood and kinship with the Quraysh—something that was bound to irk them.
Therefore, in this context the Medinans agreed to protect the Prophet and the Muslims in the
manner in which they would protect their own women and children in case they were attacked
from outside.63
In Medina Muḥammad formed an ummah or community of believers. Therefore,
Armstrong states that in Islam kinship is not the basis of society, rather it is religion that binds
all believers together into a single community. The Muslims, Jews and pagans were required
to live side by side in peace. The Jews were not forced to convert to Islam unless they so
wished, thus they formed a kind of a parallel community whose scripture was recognized by
the Qurʾān. Muḥammad even made several friendly gestures to the Jews, for example he
instituted the fast of ʿĀshūraʾ and bade his followers to fast on the Jewish Day of Passover
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and in the beginning Muslims were commanded to offer their prayers in the direction of
Jerusalem, the qiblah of the Jews. To restore peace in Medina, Muḥammad forbade Muslims
from fighting each other. Initially Muḥammad only had the position of the mediator of serious
disputes between people and tribes.
Muḥammad began to face problems in the community. Among the first were, as
Armstrong explains, the malcontents who had accepted Islam superficially and were ready to
find defects in the new movement. They all had centred round ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUbayy who was
on the verge of being designated leader of Medina before the arrival of Muḥammad. The other
more serious problem was that of the Jews, who joined Ibn ʿUbayy and turned against Islam.
They did not accept Muḥammad as prophet of God and would often scoff and ridicule the
Muslims’ religion and knowledge. According to Armstrong the more probable reason why the
Jews did not reconcile with the Muslims is that they felt that their political position was
greatly undermined with the coming of Muḥammad, thus they became vehemently opposed to
him.64 When their enmity became very clear, Armstrong states that Islam “formerly declared
its independence of the older faith.”65 The Muslims now turned toward the Kaʿbah in prayer
and fasted during the month of Ramaḍān. According to Armstrong, in Medina certain Jews
did accept Islam and it were these who informed Muḥammad of Abraham, the forefather of
both Moses and Jesus. Thus, although Moses was Muslims’ favourite prophet in Mecca, in
Medina the focus shifted to Abraham. Muḥammad claimed that his religion was the pure
religion of Abraham the ḥanīf and that it was the Jews who had introduced innovations in the
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pure religion revealed by God. This chronology of the prophets, which Armstrong believes
Muḥammad came to learn in Medina, bestowed his religion greater authenticity and
connection with the past.
THE ‘THEOLOGY OF JUST WAR’
Since Muslims were engaged in battles in Medina Armstrong devotes
considerable space to understanding the “theology of war”, as she puts it, in Islam. According
to her, it is difficult for people in the West who are brought up in the Christian tradition to
associate political and military success with a prophet. The strictly non-worldly teaching of
Christ, his crucifixion and the persecution, humiliation and poverty of Christian saints have
become synonymous with true religious achievement. Thus separation from the political
establishment, enduring suffering at the hands of authorities and dying in the cause of one’s
religion are regarded as supreme religious triumphs. Therefore, in the West religion and state
are considered exclusive to each other. This is why, Armstrong observes, westerners find it
difficult to understand the mixing of religion and politics in Islam. According to Armstrong,
there was a difference in the conditions in which Islam and Christianity developed as
religions. Christianity was born in the Roman empire where peace, security and stability were
already established by the pax Romana. Thus, Jesus and his disciples were not worried about
the political and social order. Similarly, Armstrong notes that when Christianity became the
official religion of the empire in the fourth century, “the new Christian establishment did not
feel that they had to create an entirely new political order: they simply baptised the old Roman
law and institutions.”66 In comparison, she notes that Muḥammad was born in Arabia at a time
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when conflict and bloodshed was rife in the region. A tribe could kill the member of another
tribe with impunity; there was no law and order, no political or social system in place. As a
result of this situation, Armstrong opines, Muḥammad faced such circumstances that he had to
find a political solution to them.
It is in this context that the various legal, political and social commands of the
Qurʾān revealed during the Medinan period can be understood. Here Armstrong comments
that while the content of the revelations changed considerably compared to what they
constituted in the Meccan period, the central tenets of belief in God, accountability to Him
and surrender to His will were not lost sight of. Thus she writes, “It has been said that there is
not a single Quranic concept that is not theocentric: it remains strikingly God-centred.” 67 She
believes that although Muḥammad played the role of a statesman, he was still deeply inspired
as he had been in Mecca and that he was gradually trying to bring peace to the Arabs. This,
too, was the reason why Muḥammad and the first Muslims had to engage in warfare because
peace in the volatile and dangerous conditions of Arabia could not be brought about except
through the sword, as the Muslims lived in an atmosphere where they feared for their lives
and thus had to take recourse to the sword. In this connection, Armstrong also discusses the
meaning of the word ‘jihād’, which believers were asked to engage in in the Medinan period.
Jihad, as she explains, is an obligation upon Muslims to engage themselves in a struggle on all
of these fronts—moral, spiritual and political. Thus, fighting for the creation of a just and
equitable society is also part of the Qurʾānic ideal towards which Muslims are supposed to
strive. This brings Armstrong to discuss the ‘theology of just war’ which, according to her, the
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Qurʾān evolved when Muslims came to Medina. She refers to the following verse from the
Qurʾān to explain this concept:
Leave is given to those who fight because
they were wronged – surely God is able
to help them –
who were expelled from their homes
unjustly, because they said
‘Our Lord is God.’ Had God not driven back
the people, some by the means of others,
there had been destroyed cloisters and churches,
oratories and mosques, wherein God’s Name
is much mentioned.68
Thus if Muslims did not ward off attack by others, places of worship would not
remain extant. Therefore, in some instances, war could be justly engaged in.
Armstrong begins the section on Muslims’ raids and expeditions against Meccan
caravans by observing that Muḥammad initially planned to launch a modest offensive so that
Muslims could gain booty and thus make ends meet. The raid or ghazū was a national sport in
68
Qurʾān 22: 40
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Arabia and a rough and ready way of acquiring financial resources. Thus two expeditions
were sent against in the year 623, but both failed to seize goods and no fighting happened.
However, in January 624 in a raid sent south of Mecca, a Meccan was killed by a Muslim,
Abdullāh ibn Jaḥsh, in the holy month of Rajab when all fighting was prohibited. The
Muslims brought back two Meccans prisoners and booty to Muḥammad but they were treated
with scorn by the Medinans who were scandalized at the spilling of blood in a sacred month.
Armstrong remarks that Muḥammad himself had no scruples about fighting in the holy
months because their holiness depended upon the pagan tradition which he was aiming to
overcome, but when he noticed that his followers still had sensitivities about the past
traditions, he refused to accept the booty. Moreover, Meccans began to derisively ask why
Muḥammad, who claimed to be a prophet from God, was the first to go against the commands
of God with respect to the sacred Meccan sanctuary. A revelation from the Qurʾān freed the
raiders of guilt and it was said that the Quraysh had themselves debarred Muslims from
worshipping God at Mecca and expelled them from their own country—sins that were graver
than that which they were imputing on Muslim raiders and Muḥammad. The analysis of this
event leads Armstrong to state that in Islam a man of God has the duty to fight manifest
wrongs, such as pointed in the verse from the Qurʾān revealed at this juncture. This, according
to Armstrong is another principle in the theology of war in Islam. That is, in Islam a believer
is tasked with fighting against tyranny and injustice. It is regarded as a sacred duty to stand up
for the weak and those who are oppressed.69 The jihād that Muslims do today is, in
Armstrong’s view, inspired by this Islamic teaching.
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At another place, Armstrong also makes the point that the Qurʾān allows war only
in self-defense, implying that Muslims should never be the ones to open hostilities. Also,
when the enemy proposes a cessation of hostilities, Muslims should immediately accept to
make a treaty rather than continue with fighting. This, Armstrong writes is because, ‘the
purpose of any war must be to restore peace and harmony as soon as possible.’70
BATTLES AND LEGISLATIONS
In March 624 another expedition set out to capture the booty from a rich caravan
coming from Syria under the leadership of Abū Sufyān. Muḥammad along with 350
Emigrants and Anṣār left Medina to capture the goods of this caravan, having no intention to
fight. But Abū Sufyān came to know that a group of Muslims was advancing towards him and
warned the Meccans to protect their caravan. Thus a one thousand-strong Meccan army came
to fight the Muslims. The caravan evaded the Muslims when the reached Badr and were
informed of the Quraysh who had set out to defend their goods. A battle thus ensued in which
the Quraysh suffered heavy losses with most of their senior leaders including Abū Jahl dead.
Of the prisoners taken at Badr, Muḥammad had two executed as they had launched a scathing
critique on him in Mecca—an incident interpreted by Armstrong to mean that Muḥammad
was very sensitive to intellectual criticism. 71 The remaining prisoners were given lodging in
the homes of their captors, treated well and provided with food. Armstrong points out here
that the treatment meted out to the hostages taken by Muslims in the present-day is
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contradictory to the teaching of the Prophet and the manner in which the early Muslims dealt
with their prisoners of war.
Since the victory at Badr was achieved against all odds, the Muslims being far
fewer in number and having lesser military resources, Armstrong comments that the event
was considered a direct intervention from God. According to her, it has been common in the
history of monotheistic religions that unexpected success in holy war is regarded as help from
God, increasing people’s conviction and firmness in the cause that they have dedicated
themselves to.72 In these events it is believed that God reveals Himself by imparting His
special succour to believers and thus such happenings of divine intervention in history come
to acquire a symbolic significance. This for example, Armstrong points out, is similar to the
Jewish and Christian belief that God intervened to protect Moses and the Children of Israel
from Pharaoh’s army when the latter was drowned in the Red Sea—this is mentioned in the
Qurʾān as furqān, an event in which God separated the just from the unjust. This explanation
of events in history, something common to the monotheistic traditions, as Armstrong explains,
is taken by the faithful to believe that God is involved in their mundane affairs.
The defeat at Badr was followed by the battle of Uḥud in March 625. The Quraysh
had vowed to take revenge and thus planned to utilize the profits gained from the caravan
safely brought back by Abū Sufyān for preparations of an attack on Medina. About seven
hundred Muslims came out to defend the city against the three thousand-strong contingent
under the leadership of Abū Sufyān. Although Muslims made gains in the beginning of the
battle, they suffered ignominious reverses as the archers designated to protect the rear of the
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army left their positions. About sixty-five Muslims were dead. One of the aftermaths of the
battle of Uḥud was that a revelation came down that allowed Muslim men to take four wives.
Armstrong comments that this legislation is wrongly taken in the West as a piece of male
chauvinism. However, according to her, this injunction was instituted to solve the problem of
many women who had become widows and orphans when their husbands, fathers and brothers
died in battle. The new guardians of orphans would keep them unmarried in order to exploit
their inheritance, therefore, Armstrong writes that Muslims were allowed to marry these
orphans and widows on the condition that they administered their property equitably. She also
mentions that the Qurʾān follows this command to marry more than one woman with the
condition that a man should treat each of his wives fairly, if he thought he would give
preferential treatment to one, he should remain monogamous.73 People in the West are
generally of the opinion that women are treated iniquitously in the Islam. Armstrong answers
that the Qurʾānic legislations should be read in the context of seventh-century Arabia, when
women had no rights of inheritance and female infanticide was common. She believes that in
the primitive situation that existed in Arabia the commands of the Qurʾān in relation to
women were revolutionary. Armstrong also delves into the question of the ḥijāb, which she
thinks was a protocol that applied only to the wives of the Prophet to “prevent a scandalous
situation developing which Muḥammad’s enemies could use to discredit him.” 74 Armstrong
writes that veiling and remaining segregated in a corner of the house were later additions to
the religion of Islam, which were borrowed by Muslims from the Persian and Byzantine
traditions.
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Two years later in 627 the Meccans advanced on Medina under a formidable
contingent of ten thousand men, which also included their Bedouin allies. Muslims could not
muster strength comparable to the Meccans and so they decided to defend the city from inside
by digging a trench that would protect the exposed part of Medina, other parts being naturally
protected by cliffs, volcanic rocks and dense vegetation. The Meccans could not cross the
trench and their cavalry too had been rendered useless. The Quraysh tried to bring the Jewish
tribe of Banū Qurayẓah to their support so that they could attack the Muslims from the rear
and thus leaving them helpless. However, with the help of diplomacy Muḥammad created
distrust between the Quraysh and the Jews. The Meccan confederacy ultimately retired as its
resources were dwindling and the exceptionally cold weather had made it impossible to
continue to lay siege. Thus Armstrong comments that Muḥammad succeeded in dismantling
the most powerful confederacy that had ever been seen in Arabia, proving that he was strong,
would tolerate no further onslaughts on the ummah and in this way he would bring the bloody
conflicts raging in Arabia to an end by joining his enemies too with the community he had
founded.75
RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS
Armstrong writes that the Jewish tribes of Medina had become a real security
threat for Muḥammad, as was evident when Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf of the Banū Naḍīr went
straight to Mecca to sing praises of the dead of Quraysh, incite their passion for revenge and
express his support for the Meccans. The two powerful Jewish tribes to the south of Medina
could, Armstrong states, attack the Muslims from the rear while if the Meccans
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simultaneously proceeded against them from the north, the Muslim state would have been
destroyed. The Banū Qaynuqāʿ, the allies of Ibn ʿUbayy, had broken their covenant with
Muḥammad and wanted the old alliance to be revived so that Muḥammad’s position could be
weakened. After the killing of a Jewish man of Qaynuqāʿ and revenge by his tribesman,
Muḥammad asked them to leave Medina. Here, Armstrong differentiates between the anti-
Semitism that was prevalent in Christian Europe for thousands of years. According to her,
Muḥammad’s quarrel with Qaynuqāʿ “was purely political and was never extended to those
smaller Jewish clans in Medina who remained true to the Covenant and lived side by side with
the Muslims in peace.”76 The killing of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf too falls in this category, as
Armstrong explains. He was involved in seditious activity which prompted Muḥammad to
take action against him. Although Armstrong believes that Muḥammad was very sensitive to
criticism of his ideology, here she mentions that Muḥammad got Kaʿb killed but tolerated his
tribe Banū Naḍīr’s presence in Medina. This was because although they were dissidents, they
had not directly involved themselves in sedition. After Uḥud, members of Banū Naḍīr were
expelled on charge of plotting to kill Muḥammad. Armstrong has discussed in detail the issue
of the Banū Qurayẓah. During the Siege of Medina led by the Meccan confederacy, there was
news that the tribe of Qurayẓah had disaffected to the Meccans and was even engaged in
negotiations with them to attack the Muslims from the rear and make the Quraysh’s task easy.
Armstrong states that the Qurayẓah had brought the ummah to the brink of extinction. The
punishment for Qurayẓah was to be decided by Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, a Khazrajite and former ally
of the Jewish tribe. He came to the conclusion that all the seven hundred men should be slain
and their wives and children be sold into slavery. Muḥammad accepted this as the right
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decision. For westerners, according to Armstrong, this incident is equivalent to the Nazi
atrocities and it completely distances them from Muḥammad. However, she cites Watt and
Rodinson to state that the event took place in a very primitive society and thus should not be
judged by twenty-first century standards.77 In Armstrong’s analysis, not executing the men of
Qurayẓah would have caused them to go to Khaybar and swell the ranks of Jewish opposition
of Medina. She thinks that the incident should be condemned without reserve but also states
that it was not a grave crime by present-day standards. Muḥammad was not in an environment
where there was security and order. Thus, according to Armstrong, in the context of what
Muḥammad was trying to achieve—that is, peace for Arabia—it was a necessary step to quell
opposition with strict measures. Otherwise, war and vengeance would have continued in an
interminable cycle. She also comments that Muḥammad was not driven by anti-Semitism in
the way in which the Christian West was, an example of this being the centuries’ long good
relations between Jews and Muslims, with the Jews living alongside the Muslims in the
Islamic empire in which they enjoyed complete religious autonomy.
RECONCILIATION WITH MECCA
After the defeat of the Meccan confederacy and the execution of the Banū
Qurayẓah, Armstrong writes that Muḥammad’s conception of his mission changed, as it had
after the unprecedented victory at Badr. According to Armstrong, when Muḥammad came to
Medina he had no grand ideas of what would follow. He had simply escaped from Mecca to
save his life and join his companions at Medina. But after the resounding success at Badr,
Muḥammad came to believe that unity of tribes in Arabia could be possible. When he
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successfully disbanded the confederation that had turned against Medina, many Bedouin tribes
became impressed and joined the ummah that Muḥammad had formed. Thus after this
experience, Armstrong observes, Muḥammad desired to not only bring Mecca within the
ummah but also hoped for expansion northward. Although she believes that Muḥammad did
not have plans for a world conquest, he did want to convey the message of the Qurʾān to Arab
tribes north of Medina on the borders of the great Byzantine and Sassanid empires. Traditions
have it that Muḥammad sent embassies with letters and rich gifts to the Abyssinian Negus, the
Egyptian Muqawqis, and Byzantine and Persian governors. The contents of the letters,
Armstrong notes, implies that Muḥammad’s religious vision had expanded as he asked these
rulers to accept him as a prophet who was sent by God to all Arabs. But she also asserts that
Muḥammad still looked at Islam as a religion for the Arabs and not for the entire world. Part
of his expanding vision was his building up of alliances with neighbouring Bedouin tribes,
most of which became part of the ummah only politically and not religiously.
Mecca, Armstrong writes, was part of Muḥammad’s religious vision for Arabia.
However, according to her, he had no definite plan of bringing its people within the ummah,
launching an offensive being an option he did not wish to resort to. According to Armstrong,
Muḥammad meditated deeply on this issue and found a way to reconciliation with Mecca in a
dream in which he saw himself in the pilgrim’s dress standing in the Kaʿbah with his head
shaved and holding its keys in his hands. Thus he asked his companions to prepare for
pilgrimage to Mecca during which they were supposed to carry no arms at all. About a
thousand people accompanied Muḥammad from Medina, but they were stopped by the
Meccans from entering the city and thus all of the Muslims stopped at a place called
Ḥudaybiyah at some distance from Mecca. Armstrong comments that Muḥammad had not
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expected events to turn out in this manner, however, he used his ingenuity and imagination to
respond to the situation as it unfolded. The pact that was later signed between the Quraysh and
Muḥammad, too, according to Armstrong, was thought over and contemplated by Muḥammad
when the Meccans were adamant to prevent them from performing the pilgrimage. Thus she
believes he was able to arrive at a solution to the problem which was very different from his
previous policy towards Mecca and which would prove unacceptable to his own followers.
The step Muḥammad took involved signing a ten-year no war pact with the Quraysh,
according to which he had to agree to certain humiliating conditions, such as going back to
Medina without performing the pilgrimage, returning a member of Quraysh to Mecca if he
converted to Islam and migrated to Medina without the consent of his guardian and not
demanding the return of a Muslim who went to Mecca and was refrained from going to
Medina.
There was considerable disagreement and even mutiny amongst his companions,
however, Armstrong notes that Muḥammad, under inspiration, had taken a step that took him
on the road to peace.78 In her analysis of the treaty of Ḥudaybiyah, Armstrong writes that
Muḥammad was aware at some deep level of the rationale for the steps he took. First, by
gaining access to the Sanctuary, he proved to the Meccans and the Bedouin tribes that he did
not wish to destroy the venerated Kaʿbah and that he had no hostile intentions. Second,
making peace with Mecca and abandoning their economic blockade, he aimed to reconcile the
Quraysh with him. Armstrong notes that this was an unprecedented political and religious
solution. The Sūrah al-Fatḥ that came down at this time revealed the significance of the events
at Ḥudaybiyah: through the peace that was established between Meccans and the Muslims, it
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became easier for pagans and Muslims to meet and discuss on Islam in a relaxed atmosphere,
in the way they had never done after the hijrah to Medina, causing double as many people to
enter Islam than ever before. Moreover, Armstrong notes that Muḥammad demonstrated at
Ḥudaybiyah that the religion he had brought was rooted in the most sacred traditions of the
Arabs, that he did not wish to destroy the Kaʿbah rather he venerated it in the manner in which
they did. This, along with the political success of the ummah, caused many Arabs and
Meccans themselves to reconsider Islam and express their intention to accept the faith.
THE POLICY OF PEACE
Here, Armstrong notes that Muḥammad’s attitude at Ḥudaybiyah lays down a
principle in the Islamic theology of war and peace. According to her, westerners who think
that Islam is an inherently violent religion must consider Muḥammad’s policy of peace. That
is, according to Islam, Muslims should sometimes engage in fighting in order to preserve
decent values, but if the circumstances suggest that peace can be established, they should
immediately go for it even if it involves a temporary loss of face. Thus she says that the Quran
“evolves a complementary theology of war and peace.” 79 In Armstrong’s view, Muḥammad
could not completely break away from the ethos of the tribal system, as it was not in his
power to effect a radical change. For example, the Qurʾān considers the taking of revenge as a
social and religious duty. According to Armstrong, it is difficult for Christians to accept such
injunctions because they have been brought up in the tradition in which forgiving of wrongs is
regarded as the highest virtue. But Armstrong clarifies that Jesus did not have to concern
himself with the maintenance of public order, as Muḥammad was required to do after he
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became head of state in Medina. Therefore, he laid down legislations concerning various
social issues. Certain legislations of the Qurʾān are very severe, such as the cutting off of the
hands of the thief, but Armstrong notes that these were relevant in the context of the times in
which they were revealed. Thus, she believes that it is wrong to “stigmatise the Qurʾān and
the Islamic tradition as brutal”80 because some Islamic countries are still following these
commandments which were relevant only in the primitive times. The Qurʾān, Armstrong
writes, maintains that vengeance should be exacted only to the extent to which one has been
harmed, bringing an end to the cycle of violence. The Qurʾān also encourages Muslims to
forgive and forgo retaliation, something which Armstrong notes encouraged the atmosphere
of peace and also was a moral advance to the Arabian ethos. Thus, Armstrong notes that “‘the
cultivation of kindness and compassion had been central to the Islamic message.” 81 Another
principle which helped in bringing peace within the ummah was that new converts were
forgiven their past deeds against the Muslims. For example, when Khālid ibn al-Walīd came
to accept Islam, he expressed concern that their might be a vendetta over his participation in
many battles against the Muslims, but Muḥammad assured him that entering Islam
represented a completely new start. Muḥammad’s desire to bring peace to Arabia was also
evident when he issued a general amnesty at the conquest of Mecca in 630 and did not coerce
people to accept Islam. After the surrender of Mecca, tribes from all over Arabia came to
pledge their allegiance to Muḥammad, who, Armstrong notes, “made no effort to enforce
strict theological orthodoxy, hoping that the political submission would eventually lead to the
religious surrender of islām.”82

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THE ISLAMIC IDEAL
Armstrong describes the goal of Islam in the last chapter of her book. According
to her, the goal was given to Muslims by their Prophet Muḥammad when he had redeemed
human history by establishing a good and just society along with giving people the way to
individual salvation. This political success, Armstrong notes, acquired a sacramental value
among Muslims: “political activity would continue to be a sacred responsibility and the later
success of the Muslim empire a ‘sign’ that mankind as a whole could be redeemed.” 83
Armstrong believes that the Qurʾān emphasized the eternal fate of the individual more than
social reform, but because Muḥammad was born in Arabia at a time when society was steeped
in immorality and chaos, individual reform could not have been attained without improving
the social conditions. Thus Muḥammad used political power not because he wanted to acquire
it solely to gain political authority but because his chief aim had been the creation of a good
society. It is this vocation that Armstrong believes Muslims still take very seriously, as they
see it as realizing God’s will in human history. 84 Thus if a society is not governed by just and
equitable laws, it is upon Muslims to acquire political power and redeem it. The fact that after
the death of the Prophet, Muslims were able to establish a political empire was for them a sign
of their success and that if a society was organized according to God’s will it would have the
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upper hand. Muslim jurists of the later period developed this into a theology according to
which Muslims had to unite the entire world under a single polity and “it was a duty of all
Muslims to engage in a continued struggle to make the world accept the divine principles and
create a just society.”85 This has been inspired by the Prophet himself, who, it is believed, did
not retire from the life of the world rather struggled to create an ideal society in Medina.
The Muslim empires were however defeated by western European powers and the
Muslim world became dominated by colonialists. In these circumstances, Muslims questioned
themselves whether Islam was not the right religion and why the social legislations of the
Qurʾān could not hold the Muslim societies together in the modern age as it did in the
previous ages. West with its culture and secular values had proved to be triumphant, while
Muslim society, based on the Qurʾān seemed to have failed and become impotent in
comparison. The result was that many reform and fundamentalist movements sprung up in the
Muslim world, with people wanting to return to their original roots and rediscover their lost
identity. Armstrong believes that Pakistan and Iran in the present day are examples of reviving
Islamic values as against the western secularism and to help Islam work effectively once again
as it had in the past in the time of the empires. Armstrong thus concludes by repeating the
words of Wilfred Cantwell Smith who said that “a healthy and functioning Islam was crucial
because it had helped Muslim people to cultivate decent values and ideals which we in the
West also share because they spring from a common tradition.”86
CONCLUSION
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One of the inspirations for Armstrong to study Islam and the life of Muḥammad
was when she saw Islamic architecture in Samarkand and read about Sufism for a television
programme. When she first encountered it, Armstrong felt that it was a tradition “that could
speak to me.”87 That Islam has similarities with the major religions of the world, particularly
the Judaeo-Christian traditions, is one of the recurring themes of Armstrong’s biography on
Muḥammad. In her analysis of the nature of the revelations, Muḥammad’s religious
experience and insights, Muslims’ approach to their scripture and the ideals they strive
towards, Armstrong follows a phenomenological approach. That is, she tries to understand the
spiritual and inner religious feelings experienced by the followers of Islam and the mental
framework in which they study their holy book. For them, Armstrong explains, the Qurʾān is
not merely the history of prophets of previous times rather it is a reflection of their own being.
The struggle for good and evil recounted in the lives of the prophets in the Qurʾān is looked
upon by Muslims as “a spiritual drama endlessly enacted within themselves.” 88 The Qurʾān,
according to Armstrong, aims to develop this imaginative, symbolic attitude in Muslims, part
of which is also to make intellectual effort to look at the world around them in a symbolic
way. While describing the conversion of the first Muslims to Islam, Armstrong tries to
express how they were influenced by and what they felt when they heard the recitations of the
Qurʾān. The Qurʾān often speaks of the hardening of people’s hearts against the divine truth,
however, Armstrong writes that many were able to break down the barriers and reserves that
held them from recognizing the truth in Muḥammad’s preaching and came into the fold of
Islam. Armstrong compares the experience Muslims have when they listen to the Qurʾān with
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the experience of transcendence people often have when they come into contact with art and
music—a theory described by George Steiner and Peter Fuller in their book, Real Presences:
Is there anything in what we say? This deep feeling of having been touched by the
transcendent is what, according to Armstrong, prompted the first Muslims to take the
unprecedented step of breaking with the past and violating the traditional sanctities of their
society. The Qurʾān was able to address something buried deep inside them and thus
“encourage them to change their lives at a level that was far deeper than the rational.” 89In her
biography, Armstrong therefore does not only cover the political and military career of
Muḥammad, but also examines and gives special emphasis to his spiritual insight and
religious experience that led him to take many of the steps during his prophetic career.
Armstrong remarks that the inspirations Muḥammad claimed to have received
were similar to the religious visions and experiences of the divine of the Hebrew prophets. For
example, Jeremiah had experienced God as an agonising pain and Isaiah had cried when he
saw the vision of God. Therefore, in her analysis of the nature of the revelations of the Qurʾān
she says that such visions as Muḥammad received cannot be summarily dismissed as hysteria
or epileptic disorders. According to her, inspiration is always looked upon as a benign
possession in both artistic and religious spheres. It seems as if the idea that inspires a poet,
artist or a religious person did exist independently and entered his mind unbidden and without
warning. Thus she remarks, “All truly creative thought is in some sense intuitive; it demands a
leap forward into the dark world of uncreated reality. Seen in this way, intuition is not the
abdication of reason but rather reason speeded up, encapsulated in an instant, so that a
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solution appears without the usual laborious logical preparations.” 90 Since Armstrong wrote in
the aftermath of the Salman Rushdie affair, when many writers critiqued Islam for putting
curbs on that which was cherished and idealized in the western tradition, in this book she
asserts that her own reading of the Qurʾān and study of Islam have led her to believe that “we
should try to see him [Muḥammad] as a man of the spirit, who managed to bring peace and
civilisation his people.”91
Armstrong’s approach is not purely phenomenological, however, as she does not
rule out the social, economic and moral conditions prevalent in Arabia in the seventh century
as being responsible for and influencing the rise of Islam and the development of
Muḥammad’s religious vision. Thus she believes that the religion of Islam, like several other
major world religions, emerged in the atmosphere of high finance rather than in the pure life
of the desert. And it was because of this environment of capitalism in which these religions
took shape, the founders of these religions were concerned with the disparities in their
societies and were thus inspired to bring a message of social justice and equality. According to
Armstrong, the Arabs in the seventh century were beset by various ills that affect a
materialistic society. Muḥammad’s religious message was directed at providing a solution to
this situation in Mecca. In Armstrong’s opinion Muḥammad had diagnosed this malaise of
Mecca very rightly and he believed that only a messenger from God could heal the problems
of his city, however, he did not know before receiving revelations that he would have to
perform that role.92 Thus, according to her, Muḥammad was able to understand the problems
90
91
92
325
confronting Mecca more profoundly than any of his contemporaries and offered them an
imaginative, spiritual and social solution. Although Muḥammad’s message was socialist in
nature, Armstrong explains why he gave it religious overtones. According to her analysis, this
was because the tribal society of Arabia had been experiencing disintegration from past
several years since the time its people came to acquire more and more material wealth. In this
scenario, the old ideal of communalism according to which people of various tribes were
considerate towards others was replaced by a growing individualism with people neglecting
concern for tribe, family and relatives. Thus tribal unity was breaking down due to the erosion
of the communal ethics which the Arabs previously adhered to. In this context it was
important to introduce a new spirit that could replace the old one. Armstrong says that
Muḥammad realized that preaching reform would be merely cosmetic, because “they would
remain ineffectual unless the Quraysh placed another, transcendent value at the centre of their
lives.”93 This is why he provided a religious solution to the malaise that had afflicted Mecca.
This is thus a secular explanation of the experience had by Muḥammad during his prophetic
vocation.
Throughout the book, Armstrong also maintains that no religious vision is new or
completely original, rather the message proclaimed by Muḥammad, like all other religious
truths, was same as the old religion revealed by God. For example, Armstrong describes the
experiences of isrāʾ (The Night Journey)and miʿrāj (Ascension to Heaven) as religious
experiences which are common to all mystical traditions, for example in Buddhism and in the
Throne Mysticism of Judaism. According to her in certain spiritual disciplines people learn
93
326
special techniques to have these experiences. 94 Another example through which she points out
the commonality between the monotheistic traditions is their belief in divine intervention in
history. Thus she states that in the history of monotheistic religions that unexpected success in
holy war is regarded as help from God, increasing people’s conviction and firmness in the
cause that they have dedicated themselves to.95 In these events it is believed that God reveals
Himself by imparting His special succour to believers and thus such happenings of divine
intervention in history come to acquire a symbolic significance. This for example, Armstrong
points out, is similar to the Jewish and Christian belief that God intervened to protect Moses
and the Children of Israel from Pharaoh’s army when the latter was drowned in the Red Sea—
this is mentioned in the Qurʾān as furqān, an event in which God separated the just from the
unjust. This explanation of events in history, Armstrong explains, is taken by the faithful to
believe that God is involved in their mundane affairs.
Armstrong also deals with the question of the battles engaged in by Muslims
during the lifetime of Muḥammad. She states that in the Christian tradition of the West
separation from the political establishment, enduring suffering at the hands of authorities and
dying in the cause of one’s religion are regarded as supreme religious triumphs. Therefore, in
the West religion and state are considered exclusive to each other. This is why, Armstrong
observes, westerners find it difficult to understand the mixing of religion and politics in Islam.
According to Armstrong, there was a difference in the conditions in which Islam and
Christianity developed as religions. Christianity was born in the Roman empire where peace,
94
95
327
security and stability were already established by the pax Romana. Thus, Jesus and his
disciples were not worried about the political and social order. Similarly, Armstrong notes that
when Christianity became the official religion of the empire in the fourth century, “the new
Christian establishment did not feel that they had to create an entirely new political order: they
simply baptised the old Roman law and institutions.” 96 In comparison, she notes that
Muḥammad was born in Arabia at a time when conflict and bloodshed was rife in the region.
A tribe could kill the member of another tribe with impunity; there was no law and order, no
political or social system in place. As a result of this situation, Armstrong opines, Muḥammad
faced such circumstances that he had to find a political solution to them. It is in this context
that the various legal, political and social commands of the Qurʾān revealed during the
Medinan period can be understood. Here Armstrong comments that while the content of the
revelations changed considerably compared to what they constituted in the Meccan period, the
central tenets of belief in God, accountability to Him and surrender to His will were not lost
sight of. She believes that although Muḥammad played the role of a statesman, he was still
deeply inspired as he had been in Mecca. This, too, was the reason why Muḥammad and the
first Muslims had to engage in warfare because peace in the volatile and dangerous conditions
of Arabia could not be brought about except through the sword, as the Muslims lived in an
atmosphere where they feared for their lives and thus had to take recourse to the sword.
Armstrong also discusses the meaning of the word “jihād”, which believers were asked to
engage in in the Medinan period. Jihād, as she explains, is an obligation upon Muslims to
commit to a struggle on all fronts—moral, spiritual and political. Thus, fighting for the
creation of a just and equitable society is also part of the Qurʾānic ideal towards which
96
328
Muslims are supposed to strive. Armstrong states that in Islam a man of God has the duty to
fight manifest wrongs. This, according to Armstrong is a principle in the theology of war in
Islam. That is, “Islam fights against tyranny and injustice. A Muslim may feel that he has a
sacred duty to champion the weak and the oppressed.”97 The jihād that Muslims do today is, in
Armstrong’s view, inspired by this Islamic teaching. At another place, Armstrong also makes
the point that the Qurʾān allows war only in self-defense, implying that Muslims should never
be the ones to open hostilities. Also, when the enemy proposes a cessation of hostilities,
Muslims should immediately accept to make a treaty rather than continue fighting. This,
Armstrong writes is because, “the purpose of any war must be to restore peace and harmony
as soon as possible.”98She notes that Muḥammad’s attitude at Ḥudaybiyah lays down a
principle in the Islamic theology of war and peace. According to her, westerners who think
that Islam is an inherently violent religion must consider Muḥammad’s policy of peace. That
is, according to Islam, Muslims should sometimes engage in fighting in order to preserve
decent values, but if the circumstances suggest that peace can be established, they should
immediately go for it even if it involves a temporary loss of face. Thus she says that the Quran
“evolves a complementary theology of war and peace.”99
Muḥammad laid down certain legislations pertaining to law and order. This is seen
in stark contrast with the strictly religious and non-worldly vocation of Jesus. Armstrong
explains this by noting that Jesus did not have to concern himself with the maintenance of
97
98
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329
public order, as Muḥammad was required to do after he became head of state in Medina.
Therefore, he laid down legislations concerning various social issues. In doing so, she
believes that he could not completely break away from the ethos of the tribal system, as it was
not in his power to effect a radical change. Certain legislations of the Qurʾān are very severe,
such as the cutting off of the hands of the thief, but Armstrong notes that these were relevant
in the context of the times in which they were revealed. Thus, she believes that it is wrong to
“stigmatise the Qurʾān and the Islamic tradition as brutal”100 because some Islamic countries
are still following these commandments which were relevant only in the primitive times. The
Qurʾān, Armstrong writes, maintains that vengeance should be exacted only to the extent to
which one has been harmed, bringing an end to the cycle of violence. The Qurʾān also
encourages Muslims to forgive and forgo retaliation, something which Armstrong notes
encouraged the atmosphere of peace and also was a moral advance to the Arabian ethos. Thus,
Armstrong notes that “the cultivation of kindness and compassion had been central to the
Islamic message.”101
There have been some writers who claim that Muḥammad was driven by political
ambition to conquer the world. Armstrong duffers, believing that Muḥammad did not have
plans for a world conquest, but that he did want to convey the message of the Qurʾān to Arab
tribes north of Medina on the borders of the great Byzantine and Sassanid empires. Traditions
have it that Muḥammad sent embassies with letters and rich gifts to the Abyssinian Negus, the
Egyptian Muqawqis, and Byzantine and Persian governors. The contents of the letters,
Armstrong notes, implies that Muḥammad’s religious vision had expanded as he asked these
100
101
330
rulers to accept him as a prophet who was sent by God to all Arabs. But she also asserts that
Muḥammad still looked at Islam as a religion for the Arabs and not for the entire world. Part
of his expanding vision was his building up of alliances with neighbouring Bedouin tribes,
most of which became part of the ummah only politically and not religiously. Mecca,
Armstrong writes, was part of Muḥammad’s religious vision for Arabia. However, according
to her, he had no definite plan of bringing its people within the ummah. According to
Armstrong, Muḥammad meditated deeply on this issue and found a way to reconciliation with
Mecca in a dream in which he saw himself in the pilgrim’s dress standing in the Kaʿbah,
which led him to go there for pilgrimage. Armstrong comments that Muḥammad had not
expected events to turn out in this manner, however, he used his ingenuity and imagination to
respond to the situation as it unfolded. The pact that was later signed between the Quraysh and
Muḥammad, too, according to Armstrong, was thought over and contemplated by Muḥammad
when the Meccans were adamant to prevent them from performing the pilgrimage. Thus she
believes he was able to arrive at a solution to the problem which was very different from his
previous policy towards Mecca.
Therefore, Armstrong is of the opinion that Muḥammad had not pre-planned nor
did he have the ambition for all that he achieved. When he migrated to Medina, he was only
escaping from Mecca to save his life. However, as he was able to bring together the warring
clans in Medina into a single community, he realized that there was potential for unity in
Arabia on the basis of the religion that he had brought. Thus he started consolidating his
position in Medina by forestalling attacks against the ummah and forming alliances with other
tribes around Medina—a step towards reducing intertribal conflict and warfare that had
plagued Arabia since previous generations. Although he had effected an economic blockade
331
of Mecca initially and engaged in battles with it, when the propitious time came, Muḥammad
entered into a peace treaty with the Quraysh. Again Armstrong points out that Muḥammad
had no definite plan of bringing Mecca within his ummah, he acted as the situations and
events unfolded. And when there was opportunity for establishing peaceful relations with
Mecca, he immediately accepted. When Mecca finally surrendered, delegations from tribes all
over Arabia came to pledge their allegiance to Muḥammad and thus become part of the
ummah. Muḥammad, according to Armstrong, had thus “entirely transformed the conditions
of his people, rescued them from fruitless violence and disintegration and given them a proud
new identity.”102
While welding the Arab tribes together, Muḥammad had to use measures that
Armstrong believes are not in accordance with present standards, but she says that the
seventh-century Arabia was rife with instability and warfare, a situation which compelled
Muḥammad to take certain steps necessary to bring an end to the continual conflict. To
westerners, for example, the execution of the Banū Qurayẓah is equivalent to the Nazi
atrocities and it completely distances them from Muḥammad. However, Armstrong cites Watt
and Rodinson to state that the event took place in a very primitive society and thus should not
be judged by twenty-first century standards. 103 In Armstrong’s analysis, not executing the men
of Qurayẓah would have caused them to go to Khaybar and swell the ranks of Jewish
opposition of Medina. She thinks that the incident should be condemned without reserve but
also states that it was not a grave crime by present-day standards. Muḥammad was not in an
environment where there was security and order. Thus, according to Armstrong, in the context
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103
332
of what Muḥammad was trying to achieve—that is, peace for Arabia—it was a necessary step
to quell opposition with strict measures. Otherwise, war and vengeance would have continued
in an interminable cycle. On Muḥammad’s relations with Armstrong is of the opinion that he
was not driven by anti-Semitism in the way in which the Christian West was, an example of
this being the centuries’ long good relations between Jews and Muslims, with the Jews living
alongside the Muslims in the Islamic empire in which they enjoyed complete religious
autonomy.
In her study of the life of Muḥammad, Armstrong also describes how Muslims
emulate him with regard to the goal that they think Islam gives them in this world. According
to her, Muslims believe that the Prophet Muḥammad redeemed human history by establishing
a good and just society along with giving people the way to individual salvation. This political
success, Armstrong notes, acquired a sacramental value among Muslims: “political activity
would continue to be a sacred responsibility and the later success of the Muslim empire a
‘sign’ that mankind as a whole could be redeemed.” 104 Armstrong says that the Qurʾān
emphasized the eternal fate of the individual more than social reform, but because Muḥammad
was born in Arabia at a time when society was steeped in immorality and chaos, individual
reform could not have been attained without improving the social conditions. Thus
Muḥammad used political power not because he wanted to acquire it solely to gain political
authority but because his chief aim had been the creation of a good society. It is this vocation
that Armstrong believes Muslims still take very seriously, as they see it as realizing God’s
will in human history.105 Thus if a society is not governed by just and equitable laws, it is upon
104
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333
Muslims to acquire political power and redeem it. The fact that after the death of the Prophet,
Muslims were able to establish a political empire was for them a sign of their success and that
if a society was organized according to God’s will it would have the upper hand. Muslim
jurists of the later period developed this into a theology according to which Muslims had to
unite the entire world under a single polity and “it was a duty of all Muslims to engage in a
continued struggle to make the world accept the divine principles and create a just society.” 106
This has been inspired by the Prophet himself, who, it is believed, did not retire from the life
of the world rather struggled to create an ideal society in Medina.
The Muslim empires were however defeated by western European powers and the
Muslim world became dominated by colonialists. In these circumstances, Muslims questioned
themselves whether Islam was not the right religion and why the social legislations of the
Qurʾān could not hold the Muslim societies together in the modern age as it did in the
previous ages. West with its culture and secular values had proved to be triumphant, while
Muslim society, based on the Qurʾān seemed to have failed and become impotent in
comparison. The result was that many reform and fundamentalist movements sprung up in the
Muslim world, with people wanting to return to their original roots and rediscover their lost
identity. Armstrong believes that Pakistan and Iran in the present day are examples of reviving
Islamic values as against the western secularism and to help Islam work effectively once again
as it had in the past in the time of the empires. Armstrong thus concludes by repeating the
words of Wilfred Cantwell Smith who said that “a healthy and functioning Islam was crucial
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because it had helped Muslim people to cultivate decent values and ideals which we in the
West also share because they spring from a common tradition.”107
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335

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6

Karen Armstrong, born on 14 November 1944, is a British writer, commentator

metanoia, or conversion.” Thus “she also begins to experience a kind of transcendence

on television on various occasions, including on Rageh Omaar’s documentary on the Prophet,

documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet (2002), produced by Unity Productions

appreciate his considerable achievements.”8

compassion, wisdom and steadfast submission to God.”9

and stand in somebody else’s shoes.”10

position of the other.”11 Armstrong was honored Nationalencyklopedin’s International

emergence of fundamentalism, which Armstrong describes as an extreme political form of

ideas in the western world.

religion should not be over-emphasized in a society, the example of female circumcision in

MUḤAMMAD IN THE WEST

developed today for the West and its culture.

The bitterness exhibited by Christians for Muḥammad began first by a Christian

the overarching influence in Muslim societies of everything western.

generation to generation.18 According to Armstrong, the development of these ideas about

independent religious vision, as is evident in Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

undertaken by Peter the Venerable in 1141 when he commissioned a group of Spanish

tradition. In 1730, Henri, Comte de Boulainvilliers, in his Vie de Mahomed credits

regarding Islam as inferior and the Oriental as illogical.24

MUḤAMMAD THE MAN OF ALLĀH

involved in was that religion held most importance for them.

Muḥammad’s biographers from eight century onwards, such as Muḥammad ibn

“contemporaneous commentary on Muḥammad’s career that is unique in the history of

dangerous situations, a feature of tribal societies, he adopted measures which by present

For Armstrong, it is essential to examine the condition of Arabia and the

psychology of Arabians in order to properly estimate Muḥammad’s achievements and genius.

sophisticated vision.”32 Therefore, the odds, according to Armstrong, were not in

PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA: THE PERIOD OF JĀHILIYYAH

Armstrong explains why.

maintaining public order in a tribal society, however, it often resulted in a situation of

being female infanticide and exploitation of women.

solution to this situation in Mecca.

In Armstrong’s opinion Muḥammad had diagnosed this malaise of Mecca very

visions as Muḥammad received cannot be summarily dismissed as hysteria or epileptic

empires that were formed after Muḥammad’s death.

According to Armstrong when Muḥammad began his vocation as a prophet he

Meccan sūrahs, for example Sūrah al-ʿAbasa and Sūrah aḍ-Ḍuḥā:

Let man consider his nourishment.

We poured out the rain abundantly,

then We split the earth into fissures

and therein made the grains to grow

and vines and reeds

and olives and palms,

and dense-tree’d gardens,

and fruits and pastures,

And, as for the orphan, do not oppress him,

and as for the beggar, scold him not;

and as for thy Lord’s blessing, exalt it.46

whatever he received as gifts or booty to the poorer members of the community.

compulsorily surrendered to His will in world of nature—they were asked to voluntarily do

According to Armstrong, the monotheistic concept of God as it appears in the

Surely in the creation of the heaven and the earth

and the alternation of night and day

and the ship that runs in the sea with profit

to men, and the water God sends down from heaven

therewith reviving the earth again after it is dead

and His scattering abroad in it all manner of

crawling things, and the turning about of the winds

and the clouds compelled between heaven and earth –

surely these are signs for a people having understanding.52

Armstrong comments that this emphasis on reflecting on the nature helped to