Muhammad was the Prophet of the God. He was the last and final Prophet. His sudden death in 632 CE marked a time of challenge for Muslims as they faced the uncertainty of the future. The most imminent challenge the Muslim community faced was the prospect of who would be the heir to Muhammad. Who was the rightful heir? There was much divide on this subject throughout the Muslim community between the Sunnis and the Shi`a. Along with the uncertainty of who the authority of Islam would now be, the challenge of what kind of authority they would bring also plagued Muslims. Islam was still a developing religion amongst the already dominant religions of Judaism and Christianity so the Muslim community now had the challenge of still expanding their …show more content…
Questions surrounding legitimacy and what authority the next caliphs would hold created the most tensions within each caliph’s successorship. However, Muhammad had a legion of followers who were well versed in his teachings and style of rule that “before the Prophet died, he had created the conditions for a universal brotherhood on the basis of faith, a principle which he vigorously substituted for the old blood-ties and tribal loyalties of the Arabs” (Rahman 25). Muhammed preached monotheism, which “demanded a radical break from the polytheism of pre-Islamic Arabia” (Berkey 72). This set up the concepts of authority that the caliphs that took over Muhammad’s rule after his death and unified the authority to conduct themselves to the laws and rules on the one God. Therefore, this united the tribes that became part of the Islamic Empire through the authority of a monotheistic state and religion. The Rashidun dynasty became the first to rule after the death of Muhammad. However, this decision created a divide amongst the two sects of Islam; the Sunnis and Shi`a. Their opposing views about legitimacy ignited the instability that would reign towards the end of the Rashidun rule and still marks for the tensions between the two groups in the Muslim community today. Yet, because of the expansion of Islam with the Near East, the caliphs had to draw in multiple …show more content…
In the beginning, “the institutions of Islam at this point were still grounded in Arabian identities”, but with the erection of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem a more Islamic identity emerged as the essence of Islam through the preservation of the Qur`anic text – the epitome of the Islamic tradition (Berkey 77). Islam had expanded on such a large scale geographically that it was only natural that their presence on the religious scale be established. It proclaimed the emergence of Islam as a supreme new faith linked to biblical tradition yet distinct from the religions of the conquered people. The Dome contrasted against the other religions already heavily present in the Near East. It was “in the thick of a competition, almost a confrontation, between Christianity and Islam”, but inexplicitly also shaped the original perception of the Dome through this competition (Grabar 54). By explicitly inscribing the text of the Quran for the first time it signified that the people of Islam had now reached a point after the death of Mohammed that they felt they knew who they were and were coming to realize what they were as Muslims. In this way “the Dome reflects the process by which Islam gradually came together in a distinctive shape” (Berkey
He became known as “the Prophet,” and was meant to be God’s final prophet. The main two groups of Islam are the Shia and Sunni which were created after Muhammad’s death. The Islamic religion as well as the Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic; these three religions have small disputes but they all believe in only one god. There were two men that wanted to be the first caliph (successor) of Muhammad.
Writing about a topic that has been on an upward slope of controversy and criticism within the past two decades, Fred Donner a notable Islamic History professor at the University of Chicago whom has written multiple texts about the origins of Islam, tells the tale of the beginnings of Islam and how it would be shaped into its current manifestation today with Muhammad and the Believers. Donner admirably conveys the early history of Islam and its success to its centrality and “Believers’ Movement” opposed to many western historians accrediting it to the need of social and economic reform. Muhammad and the Believers is split up into five chapters, all of which Donner imparts his main thesis of Islam being a group of believers (mu’minun) opposed
The Hagia Sophia and the Dome of the Rock are two of some of the greatest and most important monuments in the Eastern and the modern world. The Hagia Sophia is an amazing depiction of the Byzantine architecture. It symbolizes the “Golden era” of the Byzantine Empire and is a symbol of modern day Istanbul. The Dome of the Rock is located in Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock is currently a shrine for Islamic believers and some Jews that believe the grounds are sacred. It holds a great religious significance to the rise of Islam in Jerusalem. Even though these major achievements in architecture were built at different times and were built with different styles, they hold many similarities. These similarities include such fascinating examples of
There are few events that have affected world history as profoundly as the battles and expeditions between 632 and 720, and everyone lives with those consequences to the present day. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the death of Islam was very possible. The Arab conquests were remembered merely as one of the history’s more improbable “might-have-beens”. It may easily have been the end, if not for the decisive action taken by the early Muslim leadership, notably by the first two caliphs (or successors of the Prophet). Like Muhammad himself, they were from urban commercial backgrounds, but they saw clearly that the Muslim community had to expand or break up.
...s a scene from an imagined future Jerusalem where Islam’s Dome of the Rock stands beside a rebuilt Jewish temple and worshipers of different faiths mingle in the courtyard. Is this scene too good to be true? Does each religious claim to the Dome of the Rock, reinforced through visual culture, make such an event unlikely to ever occur? It is ideas such as these that I hope to examine further in my paper.
Throughout his life, the Prophet Muhammad proved to be exceptionally adept at uniting diverse groups, negotiating a series of alliances and loyalty arrangements that spanned religious, tribal, ethnic, and familial lines (Berggren 2009). Among other things, this ability enabled Muhammad to forge a shared identity and found a nascent Islamic state from a diverse and even heterogeneous community (Rahman 1982; Ernst 2003, pp. 87-93). This diversity proved to be both a source of strength and conflict for Islam, and following the death of Muhammad early Islamic communities engaged in extensive debates not only about the nature of his teachings or how to carry his legacy forward, but also about the terms that should be used to define his authority. Although this debate produced a colorful array of movements within the tapestry of early Islamic civilization, this essay offers a critical examination of two particularly distinct perspectives on the nature of prophetic authority: namely, those articulated
The second heir of Rome was the Islamic civilization. Unlike Byzantium, the Islamic civilization was not formed by political forces or bound by a shared cultural past. Instead Islam was one of the first civilizations that was formed around by religion. The religion Islam was founded by Muhammad and rapidly grew through the 7th century transforming into a strong imperial power. Muhammad’s death in 632 CE created a rift in the Islamic world as he died without a clear heir. Thus the two primary factions within Islam formed, the Shias and the Sunnis. For the next eight centuries, the Islamic empire continued to grow and expand despite internal conflicts. The Islamic empire encompassed portions of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Indian
In The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, art historian and archeologist Oleg Grabar questions the historical context of the Dome of the Rock and its direct association with early Islamic history. Grabar breaks his argument down into several parts. The first section addresses what ways the early Islamic history of the Dome of the Rock can be researched. He explains how two typical forms of cultural identification, reconstruction and dating, do not necessarily give any answers regarding the historical Islamic significance of the building because they are already known. He also explains that textual evidence is unreliable because most of the descriptive texts concerning Jerusalem rarely delve into the historical circumstances of the time. Grabar then choses three elements of the Dome of the Rock that he believes can be tied to current events of the time and provide a historically relevant reason for its construction. In the second part he defines the three elements and provides proof how the three together can be used to give reason as to why Abd al-Maliq built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
The prophet Muhammad had a significant impact on the rise and spread of the religion Islam. According to World Civilizations, Muhammad “began receiving revelations transmitted from Allah,” and later these revelations became holy scripts in the Quran. Muhammad started off with very few followers but as the faith of Allah started to spread, he gained more followers and he became a threat to Mecca’s rulers. As mentioned in World Civilization, “in 622 Muhammad left Mecca for Medina where his skilled leadership brought new followers.” In Medina, Muhammad became the religious authority in the area and he used this power to conquer Mecca, a holy place for Islamic believers. By the time of his death, he was able to have created a religious empire that controlled all of the Arabian Peninsula.
However, depending on one’s religious background, these ideas can be very different from each other. Therefore, upon entering the Great Mosque of Cordoba, many people coming from a Christian faith might feel lost because of the difference between the idea of a temple in Islam and Christianity. Western viewers come with expectational baggage of what a religious space should look like and when they are subjected to different view, it might feel confusing, since they have a different idea of worship.
After ‘The Year of Sorrow’ in which both Muhammad’s uncle- Abu Talib and wife- Kadijah died Muhammad is warned by the angel Gabriel that the situation is getting too dangerous for him in Mecca. “Muhammad knew the faith must find expression in a community which would insure its external force and the opportunity to prevail against opposition” (Cragg). It is at this point that Muhammad is invited to become a leader in Medina (622ce).
The Prophet is a book of short essays by Kahlil Gibran on a variety of themes ranging from love and marriage to pain and death presented by a character named Almustafa. By using a variety of rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes, and imagery, he enhances the ideas presented in each section and makes them easier for the reader to comprehend and put into practice. Although written in 1923, all of the themes are still very relevant in today’s world, perhaps even more so.
Throughout the life of Muhammad he had many qualities that enabled him to interrelate with people. He was well known for his trustworthiness and superior qualities that were to later on help him achieve the greatest achievements both as a prophet and a statesman.
All praises to Allah SWT because He chooses me to read this special book that relates to the life of our beloved prophet Muhammad SAW and his practices. The author is a great person despite his achievements and positions in this world. However, his humble and right intention to write this book made the content easily understood by me and everybody. Honestly, it was a long time I am not crying because of the miss feeling towards our Prophet Muhammad SAW. But then, when I started to read the first chapter of this book about the life of the Prophet SAW, a few tears dropped from my eyes. Muhammad SAW is just an ordinary person but he has extraordinary characteristics that makes everybody loves and cares about him. I started to reflect myself, can I be like him?
During Muhammad’s time, he united many areas in Arabia and was able to establish a religious communi...