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You should know this Man
Muhammad: The Most Influential Person in History and
the Prophet of Islam
To every Muslim, Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) is Allah's (creator of universe) greatest creation and was sent as a messenger and mercy of all mankind.
This is the belief of more than two billion Muslims.
BUT WHAT OF THE NON-MUSLIMS?
Surprisingly, over the centuries, manual eminent non-Muslim have rated Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) most highly and given due recognition to his greatness.
Michael H. Hart, a Christian American,
an astronomer, a mathematician, a chess master,
and a scientist, after extensive research, in his book,
"The 100" has rated Prophet Muhammad
(salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) as number one and to be considered as the most influential figure in human history.
Professor K. S. Ramakrishna Rao, a Hindu professor, says about Prophet Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam):
"the principle of universal brotherhood and the doctrine of equality of mankind which he proclaimed represents a very great contribution to social uplifting humanity."
"All great religions preach the same doctrine, but the Prophet of Islam had put this theory into actual practice."
George Bernard dawn, a British philosopher says in his book,
"The Genuine Islam":
"I have studied him... He must be called the Savior of humanity."
Lamartine, in his book "Historiede la Thurguie" says:
"As regards to all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is the any man greater than he?"
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Table of Contents
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MUHAMMAD
THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN HISTORY
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The non-Muslim
VERDICT ON MUHAMMAD
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Biblical Prophecies
About Prophet Muhammad
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MUHAMMAD
THE Prophet of ISLAM
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Need for Understanding
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Man is Gregarious
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The Prophet -- A Historic Personality
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Past misrepresentation
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War for Self-Defense
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Battlefield humanised
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Bitterest enemies pardoned
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Theory Merged with Practice
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Peasant and King EQUAL before God
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Pilgrimage -- HAJJ -- A Living Testimony
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ISLAM -- A Beacon to a drifting world
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ISLAM -- Emancipated Women
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Women had right to own property
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The Golden Mean
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The Test
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Impeccable Character
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Undying Love for the Holy Prophet
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Followers of best caliber
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Perfect Model for Human Life
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Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) -- The Greatest
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The Unlettered Prophet
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Muhammad (salah Allahu Alayhe wa salaam) -- Untainted and Pure
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Consistent unto death
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More than Honest
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Scientific Orientation -- A Legacy from MUHAMMAD (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)
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Debt of the West to Arabs for Science
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ISLAM -- A Complete Way of Life
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Sublime Teachings
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Based on correct faith and right actions
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GOD -- There is none like unto Him
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This life is preparation for the hereafter
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Man's Destiny
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THE BIBLE, THE QUR'AN
AND SCIENCE
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A Summary of Prophet Muhammad's (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)
FAREWELL SERMON
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MUHAMMAD
THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN HISTORY
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The following extract has been taken from the book THE 100 — a Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart where he explains why he chose Muhammad to be Number 1 on his list.
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My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels.

Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive.

The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time a backward area of the world, far from the centers of trade, art, and learning.

Orphaned at age six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was illiterate.
His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow.
Nevertheless, as he approached forty, there was little outward indication that he was a remarkable person.

Most Arabs at that time were pagans, who believed in many gods.

There were, however, in Mecca, a small number of Jews and Christians;
it was from them no doubt that Muhammad first learned of a single, omnipotent God who ruled the entire universe.
When he was forty years old, Muhammad became convinced that this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him, and had chosen him to spread the true faith.

For three years, Muhammad preached only to close friends and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in public.
As he slowly gained converts, the Meccan authorities came to consider him a dangerous nuisance.
In 622, fearing for his safety, Muhammad fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles north of Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable political power.

This flight, called the Hijra, was the turning point of the Prophet's life. In Mecca, he had had few followers.
In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence that made him a virtual dictator.
During the next few years, while Muhammad's following grew rapidly, a series of battles were fought between Medina and Mecca.

This was ended in 630 with Muhammad's triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror.
The remaining two and one-half years of his life witnessed the rapid conversion of the Arab tribes to the new religion. When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of southern Arabia.

The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia had a reputation as fierce warriors.
But their number was small; and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no match for the larger armies of the kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas to the north.
However, unified by Muhammad for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief in the one true God, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of conquests in human history.
To the northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople.

Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents.
On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine.

By 642, Egypt had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend in 642.

But even these enormous conquests-which were made under the leadership of Muhammad's close friends and immediate successors, Abu Bakr and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab - did not mark the end of the Arab advance.

By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean There they turned north and, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.

For a while, it must have seemed that the Moslems would overwhelm all of Christian Europe. However, in 732, at the famous Battle of Tours, a Moslem army, which had advanced into the center of France, was at last defeated by the Franks. Nevertheless, in a scant century of fighting, these Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the word of the Prophet, had carved out an empire stretching from the borders of India to the Atlantic Ocean-the largest empire that the world had yet seen.

And everywhere that the armies conquered, large-scale conversion to the new faith eventually followed.

Now, not all of these conquests proved permanent.
The Persians, though they have remained faithful to the religion of the Prophet, have since regained their independence from the Arabs.
And in Spain, more than seven centuries of warfare 5 finally resulted in the Christians reconquering the entire peninsula.
However, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the two cradles of ancient civilization, have remained Arab, as has the entire coast of North Africa.
The new religion, of course, continued to spread, in the intervening centuries, far beyond the borders of the original Moslem conquests.

Currently it has tens of millions of adherents in Africa and Central Asia and even more in Pakistan and northern India, and in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, the new faith has been a unifying factor.
In the Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict between Moslems and Hindus is still a major obstacle to unity.

How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of Muhammad on human history?
Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book.
Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus.

There are two principal reasons for that decision.

First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity.
Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism),
St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament.

Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles.
In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam.
Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Qur'an, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah.

Most of these utterances were copied more or less faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime and were collected together in authoritative form not long after his death.
The Qur'an therefore, closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words.

No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived. Since the Qur'an is at least as important to Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the influence of Muhammad through the medium of the Qur'an has been enormous.
It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity.

On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus.

Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time.

Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them.
For example, the South American colonies would probably have won their independence from Spain even if Simon Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests.
Nothing similar had occurred before Muhammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him.
The only comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan.
These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan.

It is far different with the conquests of the Arabs.
From Iraq to Morocco, there extends a whole chain of Arab nations united not merely by their faith in Islam, but also by their Arabic language, history, and culture.

The centrality of the Qur'an in the Moslem religion and the fact that it is written in Arabic have probably prevented the Arab language from breaking up into mutually unintelligible dialects, which might otherwise have occurred in the intervening thirteen centuries.

Differences and divisions between these Arab states exist, of course, and they are considerable, but the partial disunity should not blind us to the important elements of unity that have continued to exist.
For instance, neither Iran nor Indonesia, both oil-producing states and both Islamic in religion, joined in the oil embargo of the winter of 1973-74.
It is no coincidence that all of the Arab states, and only the Arab states, participated in the embargo.
We see, then, that the Arab conquests of the seventh century have continued to play an important role in human history, down to the present day.

It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history.
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The non-Muslim
VERDICT ON MUHAMMAD
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The following quotes of famous non-Muslim personalities have been compiled from numerous sources. On close analysis, one naturally comes to the conclusion that anyone who truly studies this Man is in awe of the person of Muhammad
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"I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior of Humanity."
George Bernard dawn in "The Genuine Islam"

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"It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knew how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself fell, whenever I reread them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher."
- Annie Besant in 'The Life and Teachings of Mohammad,'
Madras, 1932

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"Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him."
-Diwan Chand Sharma, The Prophets of the East
Calcutta, 1935

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"People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius, in one hand, and Alexander, Caesar and Hitler in the other, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third sense. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone. Perhaps the greatest leader is all times was Mohammad, who combined all the three functions. To a lesser degree Moses did the same."
- Jules Masserman in 'Who Were Histories Great Leaders?'
TIME Magazine, July 15, 1974

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"Head of the state as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but, he was pope without the pope's claims, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue. If ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a Right Divine, it was Mohammad, for he had all the power without instruments and without its support. He cared not for dressing of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life."
Reverend Bosworth Smith in 'Muhammad and Muhammadanism,' London 1874

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“Four years after the death of Justinian, AD. 569 ... Was bon in Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race (Muhammad). To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the title of a Messenger of God."
- Dr. William Draper, M.D. L.L.D. In 'History of Intellectual Development of Europe', London 1875

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"in little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal ruler of Medina, with his hands on the lender that was to shake the world."
-John Austin, "Muhammad the Prophet of Allah" in T.P.'s and Cassel's Weekly, 24th September, 1927.

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The following is from 'Historie de la Turquie,' by Alphonse de LaMartaine, Paris, 1854

"Never has a man set himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was superhuman: to subvert superstitions which had been interposed between man and his Creator, to render God unto man and man unto God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos for the material and disfigured gods of idolatry then existing. Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design no other instrument than himself, and no other aid, except a handful of men living in a corner of the desert. Finally, never has a man accomplished such a huge and lasting revolution in the world, because in less than two centuries after its appearance, Islam, in faith and arms, reigned over the whole of Arabia, and conquered in God's name Persia, Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India, Syria, Abyssinia, all the known continent of Northern Africa, numerous Islands of the Mediterranean, Spain, and a part of Gaul.

"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great men in modern history to Muhammad? The most famous men created arm, laws, and empires only. They founded, if anything, at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislation, empires, peoples, and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the souls."

"On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has become law, he created a spiritual nationality which has blended together peoples of every tongue and of every race. He has left to us as the indelible characteristic of this Muslim nationality, the hatred of false gods and the passion for the One and Immaterial God. This avenging patriotism against the profanation of Heaven formed the virtue of the followers of Muhammad: the conquest of one-third of the earth to his dogma was his miracle; or rather it was not the miracle of a man but that of reason."

"The idea of the unity of God proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of fabulous theogenies, was in itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of idols and set on fire one-third of the world. His life, his meditations, his heroic revilings against the superstitions, of his country, and his boldness in defying the furies of idolatry; his firmness in enduring them for fifteen years at Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scorn and almost of being a victim of his fellow countrymen: all these and, finally his incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his faith in his success and his superhuman security in misfortune, his forbearance in victory, his ambition which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayer, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction. It was his conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is: the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words.

"PHILOSOPHER, ORATOR, APOSTLE, LEGISLATOR, CONQUEROR OF IDEAS, RESTORER OF RATIONAL BELIEFS....
'of a religion without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad'. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask: is there any man greater than he?"
-Alphonse de LaMartaine in 'Historie de la Turquie,' Paris 1854

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"I believe that if a man like him were to style the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness."
- Sir George Bernard dawn in 'The Genuine Islam', 1936

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"By a fortune absolutely unique in history, Muhammad is a threefold founder of a nation, of an empire and of a religion"
- Reverend Bosworth-Smith in "Mohammed and Mohammedanism" 1946

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"That's his (Muhammad's) reforms enhanced the status of women in general is universally admitted."
- H.A.R. Gibb, Mohammedanism, London 1953

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" 'I believe in One God and Mahomet the Apostle of God’ is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue, and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion.”
- Edward Gibbon and Simon Oakley, History of the Saracen Empires, London 1879

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"... a mass of detail in the early sources shows that he was an honest and upright man who had gained the respect and loyalty of others who were likewise honest and upright men."
"Muhammad is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities"
Encyclopedia Britannica
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Biblical Prophecies
About Prophet Muhammad
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The following quotes are from the Bible that clearly foretell a Prophet to come that will be like Moses who will be the Spirit of truth that will guide mankind to all truth. He will not speak of his own but of what God will "put in his mouth". Prophet Muhammad was illiterate and could not read nor write. He always claimed that he did not write the Qur'an but declared what was revealed to him from God.
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"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like you (Moses), and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him."
- The Old Testament, foretelling a Prophet like Moses
Holy Bible, Deuteronomy 18:18

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"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."
- Jesus Christ (alayhe salaam) referring to Prophet Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)
Holy Bible, John 16:13-14

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"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things so ever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you."
- The Bible foretelling about the coming of an unlettered Prophet
Holy bible, John 16:13-14
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MUHAMMAD
THE Prophet of ISLAM
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The following has been reprinted from the Book "Islam and Modern Age" by a non-Muslim, Hindu Professor K.S. Ramakrishna Rao, Head of the Department of Philosophy, Government College for Women, University of Mysore, Karnataka, INDIA
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In the desert of Arabia was Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) born, according to Muslim historians, on April 20, 571. The name means highly praised. He is to me the greatest mind among all the sons of Arabia. He means so much more than all the poets and kings that preceded him in that impenetrable desert of red sand.

When he appeared, Arabia was a desert -- a nothing. Out of nothing a new world was fashioned by the mighty spirit of Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) -- a new life, a new culture, a new civilization, a new kingdom which extended from Morocco to Indies and influenced the thought and life of three continents -- Asia, Africa, and Europe.

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Need for Understanding
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When I thought of writing on Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) The Prophet, I was a bit hesitant because it was to write about a religion I do not profess and it is a delicate matter to do so for there are many persons professing various religions and belonging to diverse school of thought and denominations even in same religion.

Though it is sometimes, claimed that religion is entirely personal yet it can not be gain-said that it has a tendency to envelop the whole universe seen as well unseen.

It somehow permeates something or other our hearts, our souls, our minds their conscious as well as subconscious and unconscious levels too.

The problem assumes overwhelming importance when there is a deep conviction that our past, present and future all hang by the soft delicate, tender silked cord.
If we further happen to be highly sensitive, the center of gravity is very likely to be always in a state of extreme tension.
Looked at from this point of view, the less said about other religion the better.
Let our religions be deeply hidden and embedded in the resistance of our innermost hearts fortified by unbroken seals on our lips.

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Man is Gregarious
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But there is another aspect of this problem. Man lives in society.

Our lives are bound with the lives of others willingly or unwillingly, directly or indirectly.
We eat the food grown in the same soil,
drink water, from the same the same spring
and breathe the same air.

Even while staunchly holding our own views,
it would be helpful, if we try to adjust ourselves to our surroundings,
if we also know to some extent, how the mind our neighbor moves and what the main springs of his actions are.

From this angle of vision it is highly desirable that one should try to know all religions of the world, in the proper spirit, to promote mutual understanding and better appreciation of our neighborhood, immediate and remote.

Further, our thoughts are not scattered as appear to be on the surface.

They have got themselves crystallized around a few nuclei in the form of great world religions and living faiths that guide and motivate the lives of millions that inhabit this earth of ours.

It is our duty, in one sense if we have the ideal of ever becoming a citizen of the world before us, to make a little attempt to know the great religions and system of philosophy that have ruled mankind.
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The Prophet -- A Historic Personality
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In spite of these preliminary remarks, the ground in these field of religion,
where there is often a conflict between intellect and emotion is so slippery that one is constantly reminded of fools that rush in where angels fear to tread.

It is also not so complex from another point of view.
The subject of my writing is about the tenets of a religion which is historic and its Prophet who is also a historic personality.

Even a hostile critic like Sir William Muir speaking about the Holy Qur'an says that,
"There is probably in the world no other book which has remained twelve centuries with so pure text."

I may also add Prophet Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) is also a historic personality, every event of whose life has been most carefully recorded and even the minutest details preserved intact for the posterity.
His life and works are not wrapped in mystery.

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Past misrepresentation
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My work today is further lightened because those days are fast disappearing when Islam was highly misrepresented by some of its critics for reasons political and otherwise.
Prof. Bevan writes in Cambridge Medieval History,
"Those account of Mohammad and Islam which were published in Europe before the beginning of 19th century are now to be regarded as literary curiosities."
My problem is to write this monograph is easier because we are now generally not fed on this kind of history and much time need be spent on pointing out our misrepresentation of Islam.

The theory of Islam and Sword for instance is not heard now frequently in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that there is no compulsion in religion is well known. Gibbon, a historian of world repute says, "A pernicious tenet has been imputed to Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all the religions by sword."

This charge based on ignorance and bigotry, says the eminent historian, is refuted by Qur'an, by history of Muslem conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of Christian worship. The great success of Mohammad's life had been effected by sheer moral force, without a stroke of sword.

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War for Self-Defense
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But in pure self-defense, after repeated efforts of conciliation had utterly failed, circumstances dragged him into the battlefield. But the prophet of Islam changed the whole strategy of the battlefield.

The total number of casualties in all the wars that took place during his lifetime when the whole Arabian Peninsula came under his banner, does not exceed a few hundreds in all.

But even on the battlefield he taught the Arab barbarians to pray, to pray not individually, but in congregation to God the Almighty.

During the dust and storm of warfare whenever the time for prayer came, and it comes five times a every day, the congregation prayer had not to be postponed even on the battlefield.

A party had to be engaged in bowing their heads before God while other was engaged with the enemy.
After finishing the prayers, the two parties had to exchange their positions.

To the Arabs, who would fight for forty years on the slight provocation that a camel belonging to the guest of one tribe had strayed into the grazing land belonging to other tribe and both sides had fought till they lost 70,000 lives in all;
threatening the extinction of both the tribes to such furious Arabs, the Prophet of Islam taught self-control and discipline to the extent of praying even on the battlefield.

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Battlefield humanised
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In an aged of barbarism, the Battlefield itself was humanized and strict instructions were issued
not to cheat,
not to break trust,
not to mutilate,
not to kill a child or woman or an old man,
not to hew down date palm nor burn it,
not to cut a fruit tree,
not to molest any person engaged in worship.

His own treatment with his bitterest enemies is the noblest example for his followers.
At the conquest of Mecca, he stood at the zenith of his power.
The city which had refused to listen to his mission, which had tortured him and his followers, which had driven him and his people into exile and which had unrelentingly persecuted and boycotted him even when he had taken refuge in a place more than 200 miles away,
that city now lay at his feet.

By the laws of war he could have justly avenged all the cruelties inflicted on him and his people.
But what treatment did he accord to them?
Mohammad's heart flowed with affection and he declared,
"This day, there is no REPROOF against you and you are all free."

"This day" he proclaimed,
"I trample under my feet all distinctions between man and man, all hatred between man and man."

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Bitterest enemies pardoned
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This was one of the chief objects why he permitted war in self defense, that is to unite human beings.
And when once this object was achieved, even his worst enemies were pardoned.
Even those who killed his beloved uncle, Hamazah,
mangled his body,
ripped it open,
even chewed a piece of his liver.

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Theory Merged with Practice
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The principles of universal brotherhood and doctrine of the equality of mankind which he proclaimed represents one very great contribution of Mohammad to the social uplift of humanity.
All great religions have preached the same doctrine but the prophet of Islam had put this theory into actual practice and its value will be fully recognized, perhaps centuries hence, when international consciousness being awakened, racial prejudices may disappear and greater brotherhood of humanity come into existence.

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Peasant and King EQUAL before God
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Miss. Sarojini Naidu speaking about this aspect of Islam says,
"It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy;
for in the mosque, when the minaret is sounded and the worshipers are gathered together,
the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and the king kneel side by side
and proclaim, God alone is great."
The great poetess of India continues,
"I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes a man instinctively a brother.
When you meet an Egyptian,
an Algerian and Indian and a Turk in London,
it matters not that Egypt is the motherland of one and India is the motherland of another."

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ISLAM -- Civilised Spain and is the answer to today's social dilemma
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Mahatma Gandhi, in his inimitable style, says,
"Some one has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent Islam -- Islam that civilized Spain,
Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of brotherhood.
The Europeans of South Africa dread the Advent of Islam.
They may claim equality with the white races.
They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin.
If it is equality of colored races then their dread is well founded."

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Pilgrimage -- HAJJ -- A Living Testimony
------- ----- -------
Every year, during the Hajj, the world witnesses the wonderful spectacle of this international Exhibition of Islam in leveling all distinctions of race, color and rank.
Not only the Europeans,
the African,
the Arabian,
the Persian,
the Indians,
the Chinese
all meet together in Medina as members of one divine family,
but they are clad in one dress every person in two simple pieces of white seamless cloth,
one piece round the loin the other piece over the shoulders,
bare head without pomp or ceremony, repeating
"Here am I O God; at thy command;
thou art one and alone;
Here am I."

Thus there remains nothing to differentiate the high from the low and every pilgrim carries home the impression of the international significance of Islam.

In the opinion of Prof. Hurgronje,
"the League of Nations founded by Prophet of Islam put the principle of International Unity of Human Brotherhood on such Universal foundations as to show candle to other nations."
In the words of same Professor,
"the fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done the realization of the idea of the League of Nations."

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ISLAM -- A Beacon to a drifting world
------- ----- -------
The prophet of Islam brought the reign of democracy in its best form.
The Caliph Caliph Ali and the son in-law of the prophet, the Caliph Mansur, Abbas, the son of Caliph Mamun and many other caliphs and kings had to appear before the judge as ordinary men in Islamic courts.
Even today we all know how the black Negroes were treated by the civilized white races.
Consider the state of BILAL, a Negro Slave, in the days of the Prophet of Islam nearly 14 centuries ago.
The office of calling Muslims to prayer was considered to be of status in the early days of Islam and it was offered to this Negro slave.
After the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet ordered him to call for prayer and the Negro slave, with his black color and his thick lips, stood over the roof of the holy mosque at Mecca called the Ka'ba the most historic and the holiest mosque in the Islamic world, when some proud Arabs painfully cried loud,
"Oh, this black Negro Slave, woe be to him. He stands on the roof of holy Ka'ba to call for prayer."
At that moment, the Prophet announced to the world, this verse of the Holy QUR'AN for the first time.

"O mankind, surely we have created you, families and tribes, so you may know one another.
Surely, the most honorable of you with God is MOST RIGHTEOUS AMONG you.
Surely, God is Knowing, Aware." [49:13]

And these words of the Holy Quran created such a mighty transformation that the Caliph of Islam,
the purest of Arabs by birth, offered their daughter in marriage to this Negro Slave,
and whenever, the second Caliph of Islam, known to history as Umar the great, the commander of faithful, saw this Negro slave,
he immediately stood in reverence and welcomed him by "Here come our master; Here come our lord."

What a tremendous change was brought by Qur'an in the Arabs, the proudest people at that time on the earth.
This is the reason why Goethe, the greatest of German poets, speaking about the Holy Quran declared that,
"This book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence."
This is also the reason why George Bernard dawn says,
"If any religion has a chance or ruling over England, say, Europe, within the next 100 years, it is Islam".

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ISLAM -- Emancipated Women
------- ----- -------

It is this same democratic spirit of Islam that emancipated women from the bondage of man.
Sir Charles Edward Archibald Hamilton says,
"Islam teaches the inherent sinlessness of man.
It teaches that man and woman and woman have come from the same essence, posses the same soul and have been equipped with equal capabilities for intellectual, spiritual and moral attainments."
------- ----- -------

Women had right to own property
------- ----- -------

The Arabs had a very strong tradition that one who can smite with the spear and can wield the sword would inherit.
But Islam came as the defender of the weaker sex and entitled women to share the inheritance of their parents.

It gave women, centuries ago right of owning property,
yet it was only 12 centuries later, in 1881, that England,
supposed to be the cradle of democracy
adopted this institution of Islam and the act was called
"the married woman act",

but centuries earlier, the Prophet of Islam had proclaimed that "Woman are twin halves of men.
The rights of women are sacred.
See that women maintained rights granted to them."
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The Golden Mean
------- ----- -------
Islam is not directly concerned with political and economic systems, but indirectly and in so far as political and economic affairs influence man's conduct, it does lay down some very important principles to govern economic life.
According to Prof. Massignon, it maintains the balance between exaggerated opposites and has always in view the building of character which is the basis of civilization.
This is secured by its law of inheritance,
by an organized system of charity known as Zakat,
and by regarding as illegal all anti-social practices in the economic field like monopoly,
usury,
securing of predetermined unearned income and increments,
cornering markets,
creating monopolies,
creating an artificial scarcity of any commodity in order to force the prices to rise.
Gambling is illegal.

Contribution to schools,
to places of worship,
hospitals,
digging of wells,
opening of orphanages are highest acts of virtue.

Orphanages have sprung for the first time, it is said, under the teaching of the Prophet of Islam.
The world owes its orphanages to this prophet born an orphan.
"Good all this" says Carlyle about Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam).
"The natural voice of humanity, of pity and equity, dwelling in the heart of this wild son of nature, speaks."

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The Test
------- ----- -------
A historian once said a great man should be judged by three tests:

1. Was he found to be of true metel by his contemporaries?
2. Was he great enough to raise above the standards of his age?
3. Did he leave anything as permanent legacy to the world at large?

This list may be further extended but all these three tests of greatness are eminently satisfied to the highest degree in case of Prophet Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam).
Some illustrations of the last two have already been mentioned.

The first is:
Was the Prophet of Islam found to be of true mettle by his contemporaries?

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Impeccable Character
------- ----- -------
Historical records show that all the contemporaries of Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) both friends foes, acknowledged the sterling qualities, the spotless honesty, the noble virtues, the absolute sincerity and every trustworthiness of the Apostle of Islam in all walks of life and in every sphere of human activity.

Even the Jews and those who did not believe in his message, adopted him as the arbiter in their personal disputes by virtue of his perfect impartiality.

Even those who did not believe in his message were forced to say "O Mohammad, we do not call you a liar, but we deny him who has given you a book and inspired you with a message."

They thought he was one possessed.
They tried violence to cure him.

But the best of them saw that a new light had dawned on him and they hastened him to seek the enlightenment.
It is a notable feature in the history of Prophet of Islam that his nearest relation, his beloved cousin and his bosom friends, who know him most intimately, were not thoroughly imbued with the truth of his mission and were convinced of the genuineness of his divine inspiration.
If these men and women, noble, intelligent, educated and intimately acquainted with his private life had perceived the slightest signs of deception, fraud, earthliness, or lack of faith in him, Mohammad's (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) moral hope of regeneration, spiritual awakening, and social reform would all have been foredoomed to a failure and whole edifice would have crumbled to pieces in a moment.

On the contrary, we find that devotion of his followers was such that he was voluntarily acknowledged as dictator of their lives.
They braved for him persecutions and danger;
they trusted, obeyed and honored him even in the most excruciating torture and severest mental agony caused by excommunication even unto death.
Would this have been so, had they noticed the slightest backsliding in their master?

------- ----- -------

Undying Love for the Holy Prophet
------- ----- -------
Read the history of the early converts to Islam, and every heart would melt at the sight of the brutal treatment of innocent Muslim men and women.

Sumayya, an innocent women, is cruelly torn into pieces with spears.

An example is made of
"Yassir whose legs are tied to two camels and the beast were are driven in opposite directions.",

"Khabbab bin Arth is made to lie down on the bed of burning coal with the brutal legs of their merciless tyrant on his breast so that he may not move and this makes even the fat beneath his skin melt.",

"Khabban bin Adi is put to death in a cruel manner by mutilation and cutting off his flesh piece-meal."

In the midst of his tortures, being asked weather he did not wish Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) in his place while he was in his house with his family, the sufferer cried out that he was gladly prepared to sacrifice himself his family and children and why was it that these sons and daughters of Islam not only surrendered to their prophet their allegiance but also made a gift of their hearts and souls to their master?

Is not the intense faith and conviction on part of immediate followers of Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam),
the noblest testimony to his sincerity and to his utter self-absorption in his appointed task?

------- ----- -------

Followers of best caliber
------- ----- -------
And these men were not of low station or inferior mental caliber.
Around him in quite early days, gathered what was best and noblest in Mecca, its flower and cream,
men of position, rank, wealth and culture,
and from his own kith and kin, those who knew all about his life.

All the first four Caliphs, with their towering personalities, were converts of this period.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that
"Mohammad is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities".

But the success was not the result of mere accident. It was not a hit of fortune.
It was a recognition of fact that he was found to be true metal by his contemporaries. It was the result of his admirable and all compelling personality.

------- ----- -------

Perfect Model for Human Life
------- ----- -------

The personality of Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)!
It is most difficult to get into the truth of it.
Only a glimpse of it I can catch.
What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes.
There is Mohammad the Prophet, there is Mohammad the General; Mohammad the King (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Warrior (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Businessman (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Preacher (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Philosopher (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Statesman (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Orator (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the reformer (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Refuge of orphans (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Protector of slaves (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Emancipator of women (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Law-giver (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Judge (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam);
Mohammad the Saint (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam).
Subhan'Allah.

And in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is like, a hero..

Orphanhood is extreme of helplessness and his life upon this earth began with it;
Kingship is the height of the material power and it ended with it.

From an orphan boy to a persecuted refugee and then to an overlord,
spiritual as well as temporal,
of a whole nation and Arbiter of its destinies,
with all its trials and temptations,
with all its vicissitudes and changes,
its lights and shades, its up and downs,
its terror and splendor,
he has stood the fire of the world and came out unscathed to serve as a model in every face of life.

His achievements are not limited to one aspect of life, but cover the whole field of human conditions.
------- ----- -------

Muhammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) -- The Greatest
------- ----- -------
For instance,

1. If greatness consist in the purification of a nation, steeped in barbarism and immersed in absolute moral darkness, that dynamic personality who has transformed, refined and uplifted an entire nation, sunk low as the Arabs were, and made them the torch-bearer of civilization and learning, has every claim to greatness.

2. If greatness lies in unifying the discordant elements of society by ties of brotherhood and charity, the prophet of the desert has got every title to this distinction.

3. If greatness consists in reforming those warped in degrading and blind superstition and pernicious practices of every kind, the prophet of Islam has wiped out superstitions and irrational fear from the hearts of millions.

4. If greatness lies in displaying high morals, Mohammad has been admitted by friend and foe as Al-Ameen, or the faithful.

5. If a conqueror is a great man, here is a person who rose from helpless orphan and an humble creature to be the ruler of Arabia, the equal to Khosrow and Caesars, one who founded great empire that has survived all these 14 centuries.

6. If the devotion that a leader commands is the criterion of greatness, the prophet's name even today exerts a magic charm over millions of souls, spread all over the world.

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The Unlettered Prophet
------- ----- -------

He had not studied philosophy in the school of Athens of Rome, Persia, India, or China.
Yet, He could proclaim the highest truths of eternal value to mankind.

Illiterate himself, he could yet speak with an eloquence and fervor which moved men to tears, to tears of ecstasy.

Born an orphan blessed with no worldly goods, he was loved by all.

He had studied at no military academy; yet he could organize his forces against tremendous odds and gained victories through the moral forces which he marshaled.

Gifted men with genius for preaching are rare.

Descartes included the perfect preacher among the rarest kind in the world. Hitler in his Mein Kamp has expressed a similar view.
He says "A great theorist is seldom a great leader. An Agitator is more likely to posses these qualities. He will always be a great leader. For leadership means ability to move masses of men. The talents to produce ideas has nothing in common with capacity for leadership."
"But", he says,
"The Union of theorists, organizer and leader in one man, is the rarest phenomenon on this earth; Therein consists greatness."

In the person of the Prophet of Islam the world has seen this rarest phenomenon walking on the earth, walking in flesh and blood.

And more wonderful still is what the reverend Bosworth Smith remarks,
"Head of the state as well as the Church,
he was Caesar and Pope in one;
but, he was pope without the pope's claims,
and Caesar without the legions of Caesar,
without an standing army,
without a bodyguard,
without a palace,
without a fixed revenue.

If ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a right divine It was Mohammad, for he had all the power without instruments and without its support. He cared not for dressing of power.
The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life."
------- ----- -------

Muhammad (salah Allahu Alayhe wa salaam) -- Untainted and Pure
------- ----- -------

After the fall of Mecca,
more than one million square miles of land lay at his feet,
Lord of Arabia,
he mended his own shoes and coarse woolen garments,
milked the goats,
swept the hearth,
kindled the fire and attended the other menial offices of the family.

The entire town of Medina where he lived grew wealthy in the later days of his life.

Everywhere there was gold and silver in plenty and yet in those days of prosperity many weeks would elapse without a fire being kindled in the hearth of the king of Arabia, His food being dates and water.

His family would go hungry many nights successively because they could not get anything to eat in the evening.
He slept on no soften bed but on a palm mat, after a long busy day to spend most of his night in prayer, often bursting with tears before his creator to grant him strength to discharge his duties.

As the reports go, his voice would get choked with weeping and it would appear as if a cooking pot was on fire and boiling had commenced.

On the very day of his death his only assets were few coins a part of which went to satisfy a debt and rest was given to a needy person who came to his house for charity.
The clothes in which he breathed his last had many patches.
The house from where light had spread to the world was in darkness because there was no oil in the lamp.
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Consistent unto death
------- ----- -------
Circumstances changed, but the Prophet of God did not.
In victory or in defeat,
in power or in adversity,
in affluence or in indigence,
he is the same man,
disclosed the same character.

Like all the ways and laws of God,
Prophets of God are unchangeable.

------- ----- -------

More than Honest
------- ----- -------
An honest man, as the saying goes, is the noblest work of God, Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) was more than honest.

He was human to the marrow of his bones.
Human sympathy, human love was the music of his soul.
To serve man, to elevate man, to purify man, to educate man, in a word to humanize man-this was the object of his mission, the be-all and end all of his life.
In thought, in word, in action he had the good of humanity as his sole inspiration, his sole guiding principle.

He was most unostentatious and selfless to the core.
What were the titles he assumed?
Only true servant of God and His Messenger.
Servant first, and then a messenger.
A Messenger and Prophet like many other prophets in every part of the world, some known to you, many not known you.
If one does not believe in any of these truths one ceases to be a Muslim.
It is an article of faith.

"Looking at the circumstances of the time and unbounded reverence of his followers",
says a western writer,
"the most miraculous thing about Mohammad is, that he never claimed the power of working miracles."

Miracles were performed but not to propagate his faith and were attributed entirely to God and his inscrutable ways.

He would plainly say that he was a man like others.
He had no treasures of earth or heaven.
Nor did he claim to know the secrets of that lie in womb of future.

All this was in an age when miracles were supposed to be ordinary occurrences, at the back and call of the commonest saint, when the whole atmosphere was surcharged with supernaturalism in Arabia and outside Arabia.

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Scientific Orientation -- A Legacy from MUHAMMAD (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)
------- ----- -------
He turned the attention of his followers towards the study of nature and its laws, to understand them and appreciate the Glory of God. The Qur'an says,

"God did not create the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in play.
He did not create them all but with the truth.
But most men do not know."

The world is not illusion, nor without purpose.
It has been created with the truth.
The number of verses inviting close observation of nature are several times more than those that relate to prayer, fasting, pilgrimage etc. all put together.

The Muslim under its influence began to observe nature closely and this give birth to the scientific spirit of the observation and experiment which was unknown to the Greeks.
While the Muslim Botanist Ibn Baitar wrote on Botany after collecting plants from all parts of the world, described by Myer in his Gesch. der Botanikaa-s, a monument of industry,
while Al Byruni traveled for forty years to collect mineralogical specimens, and Muslim Astronomers made some observations extending even over twelve years.
Aristotle wrote on Physics without performing a single experiment, wrote on natural history, carelessly stating without taking the trouble to ascertain the most verifiable fact that men have more teeth than animals.

------- ----- -------
Debt of the West to Arabs for Science
------- ----- -------
Galen, the greatest authority on classical anatomy informed that the lower jaw consists of two bones, a statement which is accepted unchallenged for centuries till Abdul Lateef takes the trouble to examine a human skeleton.

After enumerating several such instances, Robert Priffault concludes in his well known book
The making of humanity,
"The debt of our science to the Arabs does not consist in starting discovers or revolutionary theories. Science owes a great more to Arabs culture; it owes is existence."
The same writer says,
"The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized but patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute methods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, were altogether alien to Greek temperament.
What we call science arose in Europe as result of new methods of investigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of Mathematics in form unknown to the Greeks.
That spirit and these methods, concludes the same author, were introduced into the European world by Arabs."

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ISLAM -- A Complete Way of Life
------- ----- -------
It is the same practical character of the teaching of Prophet Mohammad (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) that gave birth to the scientific spirit,
that has also sanctified the daily labors and the so called mundane affairs.

The Qur'an says that God has created man to worship him but the word worship has a connotation of its own.
God's worship is not confined to prayer alone, but every act that is done with the purpose of winning approval of God and is for the benefit of the humanity comes under its purview.

Islam sanctifies life and all its pursuits provided they are performed with honesty, justice and pure intents.
It obliterates the age-long distinction between the sacred and profane.

The Qur'an says if you eat clean things and thank God for it, it is an act of worship.
It is saying of the prophet of Islam that Morsel of food that one places in the mouth of his wife is an act of virtue to be rewarded by God.

Another tradition of the Prophet (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam) says,
"He who is satisfying the desire of his heart will be rewarded by God provided the methods adopted are permissible."

A person was listening to him exclaimed
'O Prophet of God, he is answering the calls of passions, heis only satisfying the craving of his heart.'
Forthwith came the reply, "Had he adopted an awful method for the satisfaction of his urge, he would have been punished; then why should he not be rewarded for following the right course?"

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Sublime Teachings
------- ----- -------
This new conception of religion that it should also devote itself to the betterment of this life rather than concern itself exclusively with super mundane affairs, has led to a new orientation of moral values.
Its abiding influence on the common relations of mankind in the affairs of every day life,
its deep power over the masses,
its regulation of their conception of rights and duty,
its suitability and adaptability to the ignorant savage and the wise philosopher are characteristic features of the teaching of the Prophet of Islam.

------- ----- -------

Based on correct faith and right actions
------- ----- -------
But it should be most carefully born in mind this stress on good actions is not the sacrifice correctness of faith.

While there are various school of thought,
one praising faith at the expense of deeds,

another exhausting various acts to the detriment of correct belief,

Islam is based on correct faith and righteous actions.

Means are important as the end and ends are as important as the means.
It is an organic Unity.
Together they live and thrive.

Separate them and both decay and die.

In Islam faith can not be divorced from the action.
Right knowledge should be transferred into right action to produce the right results.
How often the words came in Qur'an -- "Those who believe and do good works, they alone shall enter paradise".

Again and again, not less than fifty times these words are repeated as if too much stress can not be laid on them.
Contemplation is encouraged but mere contemplation is not the goal.

Those who believe and do nothing can not exist in Islam.

These who believe and do wrong are inconceivable.

Divine law is the law of effort and not of ideals.
It chalks out for the men the path of eternal progress from knowledge to action and from action to satisfaction.

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[sasatefa2009]

GOD -- There is none like unto Him
------- ----- -------
But what is the correct faith from which right action spontaneously proceeds resulting in complete satisfaction?
Here the central doctrine of Islam is the Unity of God.
"There is no deity but Allah" is the pivot from which hangs the whole teaching and practice of Islam.
He is unique not only as regards to His divine being but also as regards His divine attributes.

As regards the attributes of God, Islam adopts here as in other things too, the law of golden mean.
It avoids on the one hand, the view of God which divests the divine being of every attribute and
rejects, on the other, the view which likens him to things material.

The Qur'an says,
On the one hand, there is nothing which is like Him,
on the other, it affirms that
He is Seeing, Hearing, Knowing.
He is the King who is without a stain of fault or deficiency, the mighty ship of His power floats upon the ocean of justice and
equity.
He is the Beneficent, the Merciful.
He is the Guardian over all.

Islam does not stop with this positive statement.

It adds further which is its most special characteristic, the negative aspects of problem.

There is also no one else who is guardian over everything.
He is the meander of every breakage, and no one else is the meander of any breakage.
He is the restorer of every loss and no one else is the restorer of any loss what-so-over.

There is no deity but one God, Allah,
above any need,
the maker of bodies,
creator of souls,
the Lord of the day of judgment,
and in short, in the words of Qur'an,
to Him belong all excellent qualities.

Regarding the position of man in relation to the Universe, the Qur'an says:

"God has made subservient to you whatever is on the earth or in universe.
You are destined to rule over the Universe."

But in relation to God, the Quran says:

"O man!
God has bestowed on you excellent faculties and has created life and death to put you to test in order to see whose actions are
good
and who has deviated from the right path."

In spite of free will which he enjoys, to some extent, every man is born under certain circumstances and continues to live under
certain circumstances beyond his control.

With regard to this God says, according to Islam;

it is My will to create any man under condition that seem best to Me.

Cosmic plans, finite mortals can not fully comprehend.

But I will certainly test you in prosperity as well in adversity, in health as well as in sickness, in heights as well as in
depths.

My ways of testing differ from man to man, from hour to hour.
In adversity do not despair and do resort to unlawful means.
It is but a passing phase.
In prosperity do not forget God.
God-gifts are given only as trusts.
You are always on trial, every moment on test.
In this sphere of life there is not to reason why, there is but to do and die.
If you live in accordance with God; and if you die, die in the path of God.
You may call it fatalism. but this type of fatalism is a condition of vigorous increasing effort, keeping you ever on the alert.

Do not consider this temporal life on earth as the end of human existence.
There is a life after death and it is eternal.
Life after death is only a connection link, a door that opens up hidden reality of life.
Every action in life however insignificant, produces a lasting effect.
It is correctly recorded somehow.

------- ----- -------
This life is preparation for the hereafter
------- ----- -------
Some of the ways of God are known to you, but many of His ways are hidden from you.
What is hidden in you and from you in this world will be unrolled and laid open before you in the next.
The virtuous will enjoy the blessing of God which the eye has not seen, nor has the ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts
of men to conceive of they will march onward reaching higher and higher stages of evolution.
Those who have wasted opportunity in this life shall under the inevitable law, which makes every man taste of what he has done, be
subjugated to a course of treatment of the spiritual diseases which they have brought about with their own hands.
Beware, it is terrible ordeal.

Bodily pain is torture, you can bear somehow.

Spiritual pain is hell, you will find it almost unbearable.

Fight in this life itself the tendencies of the spirit prone to evil, tempting to lead you into iniquities ways.
Reach the next stage when the self-accusing spirit in your conscience is awakened and the soul is anxious to attain moral
excellence and revolt against disobedience.
This will lead you to the final stage of the soul at rest, contented with God, finding its happiness and delight in him alone.
The soul no more stumbles.
The stage of struggle passes away.
Truth is victorious and falsehood lays down its arms.
All complexes will then be resolved.
Your house will not be divided against itself.
Your personality will get integrated round the central core of submission to the will of God and complete surrender to his divine
purpose.
All hidden energies will then be released.
The soul then will have peace.

God will then address you:
"O thou soul that art at rest, and restest fully contented with thy Lord return to thy Lord. He pleased with thee and thou pleased
with him; So enter among my servants and enter into my paradise."

------- ----- -------

Man's Destiny
------- ----- -------
This is the final goal for man;
to become, on the, one hand, the master of the universe
and on the other, to see that his soul finds rest in his Lord,

that not only his Lord will be pleased with him but that he is also pleased with his Lord.

Contentment, complete contentment,
satisfaction, complete satisfaction,
peace, complete peace.

The love of God is his food at this stage and he drinks deep at the fountain of life.
Sorrow and defeat do not overwhelm him and success does not find him in vain and exulting.

The western nations are only trying to become the master of the Universe. But their souls have not found peace and rest.

Thomas Carlyle, struck by this philosophy of life writes,

"and then also Islam-that we must submit to God;
that our whole strength lies in resigned submission to Him, whatsoever He does to us, the things He sends to us, even if death and
worse than death, shall be good, shall be best;
we resign ourselves to God."
The same author continues,
"If this be Islam, says Goethe, do we not all live in Islam?"
Carlyle himself answers this question of Goethe and says,
"Yes, all of us that have any moral life, we all live so.
This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth."

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--- ------- ----- -------- ----- ------- ---

THE BIBLE, THE QUR'AN
AND SCIENCE
---------- ------- ----- ------- ----------
------- ---------- ----- ---------- -------
The Holy Scriptures examined in the light of modern knowledge by the then non-Muslim Dr. Maurice Bucaille
--- ------- ----- -------- ----- ------- ---

The Qur'an is the expression of Revelation made to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel, which was immediately taken down, and was
learned by heart and recited by the faithful in their prayers, especially during the month of Ramadan. Muhammad himself arranged it
into suras, and these were collected soon after the death of the Prophet, to form, under the rule of Caliph Uthman. (12 to 24 years
after the Prophet's death), the text we know today.

In contrast to this, the Christian Revelation is based on numerous indirect human accounts. We do not in fact have an eyewitness
account from the life of Jesus, contrary to what many Christians imagine.

It was in a totally objective spirit, and without any preconceived ideas that I first examined the Qur'anic Revelation. I was
looking for the degree of compatibility between the Qur'anic text and the data of modern science. I knew from translations that the
Qur'an often made allusion to all sorts of natural phenomena, but I only had a summary knowledge. It was only when I examined the
text very closely in Arabic that I kept a list of them, at the end of which I had to acknowledge the evidence in front of me:
The Qur'an did not contain a single statement that was assailable from a modern scientific point of view.

I repeated the same test for the Old Testament and the Gospels, always preserving the same objective outlook. In the former I did
not even have to go beyond the first book, Genesis, to find statements totally out of keeping with the cast-iron facts of modern
science.

As we shall see later on, the Qur'an deals with many subjects of interest to science, far more in fact than the Bible. There is no
comparison between the limited number of Biblical statements which lead to a confrontation with science, and the profusion of
subjects raised by the Qur'an that are of a scientific nature. None of the latter can be contested from a scientific point of view;
this is the basic fact that emerges from our study.

In view of the state of knowledge in Muhammad's day, it is inconceivable that many of the statements in the Qur'an which are
connected with science, could have been the work of a man.

It is, moreover, perfectly legitimate, not only to regard that Qur'an as the expression of a Revelation, but also to award it a
very special place on account of the guarantee of authenticity it provides and the presence in it of scientific statements which,
when studied today, appear as a challenge to human explanation.

Why should we be surprised at this when we know that, for Islam, religion and science have always been considered twin sisters?
From the very beginning, Islam directed people to cultivate science; the application of this precept brought with it the prodigious
strides in science taken during the great era of Islamic civilsation, from which, before the Renaissance, the West itself
benefited.

--- ------- ----- -------- ----- ------- ---

A Summary of Prophet Muhammad's (salah Allahu alayhe wa salaam)
FAREWELL SERMON
---------- ------- ----- ------- ----------
------- ---------- ----- ---------- -------
This sermon was delivered on the ninth day of Dhul Hijjah (12th Month of the Islamic Lunar calendar) 622 AD in the Uranah Valley of
Mount Arafat.
--- ------- ----- -------- ----- ------- ---

O People, listen to my words for I do not know whether I will be amongst you for another year. Just as you regard this month, this
day, and this city as sacred, so regard the lives and property of all amongst you as sacred and inviolable.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your wives but they also have certain rights. Treat them with
kindness and love for you have taken them in trust. Keep always faithful to the trust placed in you and do not sin.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship Allah, say your five daily prayers (salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give
Zakat generously. Go if possible on a pilgrimage (Hajj). You know that you are each other's brothers and are all equal. No one is
superior except in devotion to Allah and good works. Guard against committing injustices.

O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN.

Understand my words, I leave behind me two things -- the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Follow these and you will never go astray. Beware
of Shaitan and safeguard your religion. Pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may they understand my words
better than those who listen to me directly.

Be my witness, O Allah, that I have conveyed your message.

--- ------- ----- -------- ----- ------- ---

[Kurifodo]

Can't spell Mohammed without HAM!

[Euphorical]

Why should I care about some batshit pedo who piggy-backed another religion thousands of yrs ago

I'll pass

[HitIer]

This article is about the history of Islam as a culture and polity. For the history of the Islamic faith, see Spread of Islam. For Islamic civilization, see Muslim world. For military conquests, see Islamic conquests. For chronology, see Timeline of Islamic history.
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The history of Islam concerns the political, economic, social, and cultural developments in the territories ruled by Muslims or otherwise substantially influenced by the religion of Islam.
Despite concerns about reliability of early sources, most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century. A century later, the Islamic empire extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus river in the east. Polities such as those ruled by the Umayyads (in the Middle East and later in Iberia), Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks were among the most influential powers in the world. The Islamic civilization gave rise to many centers of culture and science and produced notable astronomers, mathematicians, doctors and philosophers during the Golden Age of Islam. Technology flourished; there was investment in economic infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and canals; and the importance of reading the Qur'an produced a comparatively high level of literacy in the general populace.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, destructive Mongol invasions from the East, along with the loss of population in the Black Death, greatly weakened the traditional centers of the Islamic world, stretching from Persia to Egypt, but in the Early Modern period, the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals were able to create new world powers again.
During the modern era most parts of the Muslim world fell under influence or direct control of European Great Powers. Their efforts to win independence and build modern nation states over the course of the last two centuries continue to reverberate to the present day.
Contents [hide]
1 Timeline
2 Early sources
3 Islamic origins
4 Rashidun Caliphate
5 Umayyad Caliphate
6 Middle East during the Golden Age
6.1 Abbasid Caliphate
6.2 Fatimid Caliphate
6.3 The Crusades
6.4 Ayyubid dynasty
7 Mongol period
7.1 Mongol invasions
7.2 Islamic Mongol empires
7.3 Mamluk Sultanate
8 Al-Andalus
8.1 Emirs of Al-Andalus
9 Islam in Africa
9.1 Maghreb
9.2 Horn of Africa
9.3 Great Lakes
10 Islam in East and South Asia
10.1 Southeast Asia
10.2 Indian Subcontinent
10.3 China
11 Early Modern period
11.1 Ottoman Empire
11.2 Safavid Empire
11.3 Mughal Empire
12 Modern period
12.1 Ottoman Empire partition
12.2 Arab–Israeli conflict
12.3 Other Islamic affairs
13 See also
14 Notes
15 References
16 Sources
17 External links
Timeline[edit]
Main article: Timeline of Muslim history
The following timeline can serve as a rough visual guide to the most important polities in the Islamic world prior to the First World War. It covers major historical centers of power and culture, including Arabia, Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Persia (modern Iran), Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel/Palestine), Egypt, Maghreb (north-west Africa), al-Andalus (Iberia), Transoxania (Central Asia), Hindustan (modern Pakistan and north India), and Anatolia (modern Turkey). It is necessarily an approximation, since rule over some regions was sometimes divided among different centers of power, and authority in larger polities was often distributed among several dynasties. For example, during the later stages of the Abbasid Caliphate, even the capital city of Baghdad was effectively ruled by other dynasties such as the Buyyids and the Seljuks, while the Ottomans commonly delegated executive authority over outlying provinces to local potentates, such as the Deys of Algiers, the Beys of Tunis, and the Mamluks of Iraq.

Dates are approximate, consult particular articles for details.
Early sources[edit]
Main article: Historiography of early Islam
The study of the earliest periods in Islamic history is made difficult by a lack of sources.[1] For example, the most important historiographical source for the origins of Islam is the work of al-Tabari.[2] While al-Tabari was an excellent historian by the standards of his time and place, use of his work as a source is problematic for two reasons. For one, his style of historical writing nonetheless permitted liberal use of mythical, legendary, stereotyped, distorted, and polemical presentations of its subject matter. Second, al-Tabari's descriptions of the beginning of Islam post-date the events by a large amount of time, al-Tabari having died in 923 CE.[3][4]
Differing views about how to deal with the available sources has led to the development of four different approaches to the history of early Islam. All four methods have some level of support today.[5][6] The descriptive method uses the outlines of Islamic traditions, while being adjusted for the stories of miracles and faith-centred claims within those sources.[7] Edward Gibbon and Gustav Weil represent some of the first historians following the descriptive method. On the source critical method, a comparison of all the sources is sought in order to identify which informants to the sources are weak and thereby distinguish spurious material.[8] The work of William Montgomery Watt and that of Wilferd Madelung are two source critical examples. On the tradition critical method, the sources are believed to be based on oral traditions with unclear origins and transmission history, and so are treated very cautiously.[9] Ignaz Goldziher was the pioneer of the tradition critical method, and Uri Rubin gives a contemporary example. The skeptical method doubts nearly all of the material in the traditional sources, regarding any possible historical core as too difficult to decipher from distorted and fabricated material.[10] An early example of the skeptical method was the work of John Wansbrough.
Nowadays, the popularity of the different methods employed varies on the scope of the works under consideration. For overview treatments of the history of early Islam, the descriptive approach is more popular. For scholars who look at the beginnings of Islam in depth, the source critical and tradition critical methods are more often followed.[5]
After the 8th century CE, the quality of sources improves.[11] Those sources which treated earlier times with a large temporal and cultural gap now begin to give accounts which are more contemporaneous, the quality of genre of available historical accounts improves, and new documentary sources—such as official documents, correspondence and poetry—appear.[11] For the time prior to the beginning of Islam—in the 6th century CE—sources are superior as well, if still of mixed quality. In particular, the sources covering the Sasanian realm of influence in the 6th century CE are poor, while the sources for Byzantine areas at the time are of a respectable quality, and complemented by Syriac Christian sources for Syria and Iraq.[12]
Islamic origins[edit]
Main articles: Pre-Islamic Arabia, Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, Muhammad, and Qu'ran

Arabia united under Muhammad
Islam arose within the context of Late Antiquity.[11] The second half of the sixth century was a period of political disorder in Arabia and communication routes were no longer secure.[13] Religious divisions were an important cause of the crisis.[14] Judaism became the dominant religion in Yemen while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf.[14] While much of Arabia remained polytheistic, in line with broader trends of the age there was yearning for a more spiritual form of religion.[14] Many were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith, but those faiths provided intellectual and spiritual reference points, and the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic began to be replaced by Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic throughout the peninsula.[14] On the eve of the Islamic era, Quraysh was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in western Arabia.[15] To counter the effects of anarchy, they upheld the institution of "sacred months" when all violence was forbidden and travel was safe.[16] The polytheistic Kaaba shrine in Mecca and the surrounding area was a popular pilgrimage destination, which had significant economic consequences for the city.[16][17]
According to tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around the year 570.[18] His family belonged to the Quraysh. When he was about forty years old, he began receiving what Muslims consider to be divine revelations delivered through the angel Gabriel, which would later form the Quran, enjoining him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day, and castigate social injustices of his city.[19] Muhammad's message won over a handful of followers and was met with increasing opposition from notables of Mecca.[20] In 618, after he lost protection with the death of his influential uncle Abu Talib, Muhammad took flight to the city of Yathrib (subsequently called Medina) where he was joined by his followers.[21] Later generations would count this event, known as the hijra, as the start of the Islamic era.[22]
In Yathrib, where he was accepted as an arbitrator among the different communities of the city under the terms of the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad began to lay the foundations of the new Islamic society, with the help of new Quranic verses which provided guidance on matters of law and religious observance.[22] The surahs of this period emphasized his place among the long line of Biblical prophets, but also differentiated the message of the Quran from Christianity and Judaism.[22] Armed conflict with Meccans and Jewish tribes of the Yathrib area soon broke out.[23] After a series of military confrontations and political maneuvers, Muhammad was able to secure control of Mecca and allegiance of the Quraysh in 629.[22] In the time remaining until his death in 632, tribal chiefs across the peninsula entered into various agreements with him, some under terms of alliance, others acknowledging his prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic practices, including paying the alms levy to his government, which consisted of a number of deputies, an army of believers, and a public treasury.[22]
See also: Early social changes under Islam
Rashidun Caliphate[edit]
Main article: Rashidun Caliphate

The Rashidun caliphate
After Muhammad died, a series of four Caliphs governed the Islamic state: Abu Bakr (632-634), Umar ibn al-Khattab (Umar І, 634-644), Uthman ibn Affan, (644-656), and Ali ibn Abi Talib (656-661). These leaders are known as the "Rashidun" or "rightly guided" Caliphs in Sunni Islam. They oversaw the initial phase of the Muslim conquests, advancing through Persia, Levant, Egypt, and North Africa.

After Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr, one of his closest associates, was chosen as the first caliph (Arabic: خَليفة‎‎ khalīfah, lit. successor). Although the office of caliph retained an aura of religious authority, it laid no claim to prophecy.[24] A number of tribal leaders refused to extend agreements made with Muhammad to Abu Bakr, ceasing payments of the alms levy and in some cases claiming to be prophets in their own right.[24] Abu Bakr asserted his authority in a successful military campaign known as the Ridda wars, whose momentum was carried into the lands of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires.[25] By the end of the reign of the second caliph, Umar I, Arab armies, whose battle-hardened ranks were now swelled by the defeated rebels[26] and former imperial auxiliary troops,[27] conquered the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Egypt, while the Sassanids lost their western territories, with the rest to follow soon afterwards.[24]
Umar improved administration of the fledgling empire, ordering improvement of irrigation networks and playing a role in foundation of cities like Basra. To be close to the poor, he lived in a simple mud hut without doors and walked the streets every evening. After consulting with the poor Umar established the Bayt al-mal,[28][29][30] a welfare institution for the Muslim and non-Muslim poor, needy, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. The Bayt al-mal ran for hundreds of years under the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century and continued through the Umayyad period and well into the Abbasid era. Umar also introduced child benefit for the children and pensions for the elderly.[31][32][33][34] When he felt that a governor or a commander was becoming attracted to wealth or did not meet the required administrative standards, he had him removed from his position.[35] The expansion of the state was partially terminated between 638–639 during the years of great famine and plague in Arabia and Levant, respectively.

The western parts of the Byzantine empire conquered by Arabs
During Umar's reign, within 10 years, Levant, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Fezzan, Eastern Anatolia, almost the whole of the Sassanid Persian Empire, including Bactria, Persia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Caucasus and Makran, were incorporated into the Islamic State.
Local populations of Jews and indigenous Christians, who lived as religious minorities and were taxed (while Muslims paid "Zakat") to finance the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars, often aided Muslims to take over their lands from the Byzantines and Persians, resulting in exceptionally speedy conquests.[36][37] As new areas were conquered, they also benefited from free trade with other areas of the growing Islamic state, where, to encourage commerce, taxes were applied to wealth rather than trade.[38] The Muslims paid Zakat on their wealth for the benefit of the poor. Since the Constitution of Medina, drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Jews and the Christians continued to use their own laws and had their own judges.[39][40][41] To assist in the quick expansion of the state, the Byzantine and the Persian tax collection systems were maintained and the people paid a poll tax lower than the one imposed under the Byzantines and the Persians.
In 639, Muawiyah I was appointed as the governor of Syria after the previous governor died in a plague along with 25,000 other people.[42][43] To stop the Byzantine harassment from the sea during the Arab–Byzantine wars, in 649 Muawiyah I set up a navy, manned by Monophysitise Christians, Copts and Jacobite Syrian Christians sailors and Muslim troops, which defeated the Byzantine navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655, opening up the Mediterranean to Muslim ships.[44][45][46][47]
Early Muslim armies stayed in encampments away from cities because Umar feared that they may get attracted to wealth and luxury, moving away from the worship of God, accumulating wealth and establishing dynasties.[35][48][49][50] Staying in these encampments away from the cities also ensured that there was no stress on the local populations which could remain autonomous. Some of these encampments later grew into cities like Basra and Kufa in Iraq and Fustat in Egypt.[51]
When Umar was assassinated in 644, Uthman ibn Affan became the next caliph. As the Arabic language is written without vowels, speakers of different Arabic dialects and other languages recited the Qur'an with phonetic variations that could alter the meaning of the text. When Uthman ibn Affan became aware of this, he ordered a standard copy of the Qur'an to be prepared. Begun during his reign, the compilation of the Qur'an was finished sometime between 650 and 656, and copies were sent out to the different centers of the expanding Islamic empire.[52]
The Qur'an and Muhammad talked about racial equality and justice (notably in Muhammad's Farewell Sermon),[53][54][55][56][57][58][59] discouraging tribal and nationalistic differences . But after Muhammad's passing the old tribal differences between the Arabs started to resurface. Following the Roman–Persian Wars and the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars deep-rooted differences between Iraq (formerly under the Persian Sassanid Empire) and Syria (formerly under the Byzantine Empire) also existed. Each wanted the capital of the newly established Islamic State to be in their area.[60]
As Uthman ibn Affan became very old, Marwan I a relative of Muawiyah I slipped into the vacuum, becoming his secretary and slowly assuming more control. When Uthman was assassinated in 656, Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, assumed the position of caliph and moved the capital to Kufa in Iraq. Muawiyah I, the governor of Syria, and Marwan I demanded arrest of the culprits. Marwan I manipulated every one and created conflict, which resulted in the first civil war (the "First Fitna"). Ali was assassinated by Kharijites in 661. Six months later in 661, in the interest of peace, Ali's son Hasan, made a peace treaty with Muawiyah I. In the Hasan–Muawiya treaty, Hasan ibn Ali handed over power to Muawiya on the condition that he would be just to the people and not establish a dynasty after his death.[61][62] Muawiyah subsequently broke the conditions of the agreement and established the Umayyad dynasty, with a capital in Damascus.[63] Husayn ibn Ali, by then Muhammad's only living grandson, refused to swear allegiance to the Umayyads. He was killed in the Battle of Karbala the same year, in an event still mourned by Shia on the Day of Ashura. Unrest, called the Second Fitna continued, but Muslim rule was extended under Muawiyah to Rhodes, Crete, Kabul, Bukhara, and Samarkand, and expanded in North Africa. In 664, Arab armies conquered Kabul,[64] and in 665 pushed into the Maghreb.[65]
Umayyad Caliphate[edit]
Main article: Umayyad Caliphate

The Umayyad caliphate
The Umayyad dynasty (or Ommiads), whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph, ruled from 661 to 750. Although the Umayyad family came from the city of Mecca, Damascus was the capital. After the death of Abdu'l-Rahman ibn Abu Bakr in 666,[66][67] Muawiyah I consolidated his power. Muawiyah I moved his capital to Damascus from Medina, which led to profound changes in the empire. In the same way, at a later date, the transfer of the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad marked the accession of a new family to power.
As the state grew, the state expenses increased. Additionally the Bayt al-mal and the Welfare State expenses to assist the Muslim and the non-Muslim poor, needy, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled, increased, the Umayyads asked the new converts (mawali) to continue paying the poll tax. The Umayyad rule, with its wealth and luxury also seemed at odds with the Islamic message preached by Muhammad.[68][69][70] All this increased discontent.[71][72] The descendants of Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib rallied discontented mawali, poor Arabs, and some Shi'a against the Umayyads and overthrew them with the help of the general Abu Muslim, inaugurating the Abbasid dynasty in 750, which moved the capital to Baghdad.[73] A branch of the Ummayad family fled across North Africa to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba, which lasted until 1031 before falling due to the Fitna of al-Andalus. The Bayt al-mal, the Welfare State then continued under the Abbasids.
At its largest extent, the Umayyad dynasty covered more than 5,000,000 square miles (13,000,000 km2) making it one of the largest empires the world had yet seen,[74] and the fifth largest contiguous empire ever.
Muawiyah beautified Damascus, and developed a court to rival that of Constantinople. He expanded the frontiers of the empire, reaching the edge of Constantinople at one point, though the Byzantines drove him back and he was unable to hold any territory in Anatolia. Sunni Muslims credit him with saving the fledgling Muslim nation from post-civil war anarchy. However, Shia Muslims accuse him of instigating the war, weakening the Muslim nation by dividing the Ummah, fabricating self-aggrandizing heresies[75] slandering the Prophet's family[76] and even selling his Muslim critics into slavery in the Byzantine empire.[77] One of Muawiyah's most controversial and enduring legacies was his decision to designate his son Yazid as his successor. According to Shi'a doctrine, this was a clear violation of the treaty he made with Hasan ibn Ali.

The Mosque of Uqba (Great Mosque of Kairouan), founded by the Umayyad general Uqba Ibn Nafi in 670 AD, is the oldest and most prestigious mosque in the Muslim West; its present form dates from the 9th century, Kairouan, Tunisia.
In 682 AD Yazid restored Uqba ibn Nafi as the governor of North Africa. Uqba won battles against the Berbers and Byzantines.[78] From there Uqba marched thousands of miles westward towards Tangier, where he reached the Atlantic coast, and then marched eastwards through the Atlas Mountains.[79] With about 300 cavalrymen, he proceeded towards Biskra where he was ambushed by a Berber force under Kaisala. Uqba and all his men died fighting. The Berbers attacked and drove Muslims from north Africa for a period.[80] Weakened by the civil wars the Umayyad lost supremacy at sea, and had to abandon the islands of Rhodes and Crete. Under the rule of Yazid I, some Muslims in Kufa began to think that if Husayn ibn Ali the descendent of Muhammad was their ruler, he would have been more just. He was invited to Kufa but was later betrayed and killed. Imam Husain's son Imam Ali ibn Husain was prisoned along with Husain's sister and other ladies left in Karbala war. Due to opposition by public they were later released and allowed to go to their native place Medina. One Imam after another continued in the generation of Imam Husain but they were opposed by the Caliphs of the day as their rivals till Imam Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah came in power as first Caliph of Fatimid in North Africa when Caliphate and Imamate came to same person again after Imam Ali. These Imams were recognized by Shia Islam taking Imam Ali as first Caliph/ Imam and the same is institutionalised by the Safavids and many similar institutions named now as Ismaili, Twelver etc.
The period under Muawiya II was marked by civil wars (Second Fitna). This would ease in the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, a well-educated and capable ruler. Despite the many political problems that impeded his rule, all important records were translated into Arabic. In his reign, a currency for the Muslim world was minted. This led to war with the Byzantine Empire under Justinian II (Battle of Sebastopolis) in 692 in Asia Minor. The Byzantines were decisively defeated by the Caliph after the defection of a large contingent of Slavs. The Islamic currency was then made the exclusive currency in the Muslim world. He reformed agriculture and commerce. Abd al-Malik consolidated Muslim rule and extended it, made Arabic the state language, and organized a regular postal service.

Umayyad army invades France after conquering the Iberian Peninsula
Al-Walid I began the next stage of Islamic conquests. Under him the early Islamic empire reached its farthest extent. He reconquered parts of Egypt from the Byzantine Empire and moved on into Carthage and across to the west of North Africa. Muslim armies under Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began to conquer the Iberian Peninsula using North African Berber armies. The Visigoths of the Iberian Peninsula were defeated when the Umayyad conquered Lisbon. The Iberian Peninsula was the farthest extent of Islamic control of Europe (they were stopped at the Battle of Tours). In the east, Islamic armies under Muhammad bin Qasim made it as far as the Indus Valley. Under Al-Walid, the caliphate empire stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to India. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf played a crucial role in the organization and selection of military commanders. Al-Walid paid great attention to the expansion of an organized military, building the strongest navy in the Umayyad era., This tactic was crucial for the expansion to the Iberian Peninsula. His reign is considered to be the apex of Islamic power.
Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik was hailed as caliph the day al-Walid died. He appointed Yazid ibn al-Muhallab governor of Mesopotamia. Sulayman ordered the arrest and execution of the family of al-Hajjaj, one of two prominent leaders (the other was Qutayba ibn Muslim) who had supported the succession of al-Walid's son Yazid, rather than Sulayman. Al-Hajjaj had predeceased al-Walid, so he posed no threat. Qutaibah renounced allegiance to Sulayman, though his troops rejected his appeal to revolt. They killed him and sent his head to Sulayman. Sulayman did not move to Damascus on becoming Caliph, remaining in Ramla. Sulayman sent Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik to attack the Byzantine capital (siege of Constantinople). The intervention of Bulgaria on the Byzantine side proved decisive. The Muslims sustained heavy losses. Sulayman died suddenly in 717.
Yazid II came to power on the death of Umar II. Yazid fought the Kharijites, with whom Umar had been negotiating, and killed the Kharijite leader dawndhab. In Yazid's reign, civil wars began in different parts of the empire.[81] Yazid expanded the Caliphate's territory into the Caucasus, before dying in 724. Inheriting the caliphate from his brother, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ruled an empire with many problems. He was effective in addressing these problems, and in allowing the Umayyad empire to continue as an entity. His long rule was an effective one, and renewed reforms introduced by Umar II. Under Hisham's rule, regular raids against the Byzantines continued. In North Africa, Kharijite teachings combined with local restlessness to produce the Berber Revolt. He was also faced with a revolt by Zayd ibn Ali. Hisham suppressed both revolts. The Abbasids continued to gain power in Khurasan and Iraq. However, they were not strong enough to make a move yet. Some were caught and punished or executed by eastern governors. The Battle of Akroinon, a decisive Byzantine victory, was during the final campaign of the Umayyad dynasty.[82] Hisham died in 743.
Al-Walid II saw political intrigue during his reign. Yazid III spoke out against his cousin Walid's "immorality" which included discrimination on behalf of the Banu Qays Arabs against Yemenis and non-Arab Muslims, and Yazid received further support from the Qadariya and Murji'iya (believers in human free will).[83] Walid was shortly thereafter deposed in a coup.[84] Yazid disbursed funds from the treasury and acceded to the Caliph. He explained that he had rebelled on behalf of the Book of Allah and the Sunna. Yazid reigned for only six months, while various groups refused allegiance and dissident movements arose, after which he died. Ibrahim ibn al-Walid, named heir apparent by his brother Yazid III, ruled for a short time in 744, before he abdicated. Marwan II ruled from 744 until he was killed in 750. He was the last Umayyad ruler to rule from Damascus. Marwan named his two sons Ubaydallah and Abdallah heirs. He appointed governors and asserted his authority by force. Anti-Umayyad feeling was very prevalent, especially in Iran and Iraq. The Abbasids had gained much support. Marwan's reign as caliph was almost entirely devoted to trying to keep the Umayyad empire together. His death signalled the end of Umayyad rule in the East, and was followed by the massacre of Umayyads by the Abbasids. Almost the entire Umayyad dynasty was killed, except for the talented prince Abd al-Rahman who escaped to the Iberian Peninsula and founded a dynasty there.
Middle East during the Golden Age[edit]
Main article: Islamic Golden Age
Abbasid Caliphate[edit]
Main article: Abbasid Caliphate

Abbasid caliphate
The Abbasid dynasty rose to power in 750, consolidating the gains of the earlier Caliphates. Initially, they conquered Mediterranean islands including the Balearics and, after, in 827 the Sicily.[85] The ruling party had come to power on the wave of dissatisfaction with the Umayyads, cultivated by the Abbasid revolutionary Abu Muslim.[86][87] Under the Abbasids Islamic civilization flourished. Most notable was the development of Arabic prose and poetry, termed by The Cambridge History of Islam as its "golden age".[88] Commerce and industry (considered a Muslim Agricultural Revolution) and the arts and sciences (considered a Muslim Scientific Revolution) also prospered under Abbasid caliphs al-Mansur (ruled 754 — 775), Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786 — 809), al-Ma'mun (ruled 809 — 813) and their immediate successors.[89]
The capital was moved from Damascus to Baghdad, due to the importance placed by the Abbasids upon eastern affairs in Persia and Transoxania.[89] At this time the caliphate showed signs of fracture amid the rise of regional dynasties. Although the Umayyad family had been killed by the revolting Abbasids, one family member, Abd ar-Rahman I, escaped to Spain and established an independent caliphate there in 756. In the Maghreb, Harun al-Rashid appointed the Arab Aghlabids as virtually autonomous rulers, although they continued to recognise central authority. Aghlabid rule was short-lived, and they were deposed by the Shiite Fatimid dynasty in 909. By around 960, the Fatimids had conquered Abbasid Egypt, building a capital there in 973 called "al-Qahirah" (meaning "the planet of victory", known today as Cairo). In Persia the Turkic Ghaznavids snatched power from the Abbasids.[90][91] Abbasid influence had been consumed by the Great Seljuq Empire (a Muslim Turkish clan which had migrated into mainland Persia) by 1055.[89]
Expansion continued, sometimes by force, sometimes by peaceful proselytising.[85] The first stage in the conquest of India began just before the year 1000. By some 200 (from 1193 — 1209) years later, the area up to the Ganges river had fallen. In sub-Saharan West Africa, Islam was established just after the year 1000. Muslim rulers were in Kanem starting from sometime between 1081 and 1097, with reports of a Muslim prince at the head of Gao as early as 1009. The Islamic kingdoms associated with Mali reached prominence in the 13th century.[92]
The Abbasids developed initiatives aimed at greater Islamic unity. Different sects of the Islamic faith and mosques, separated by doctrine, history, and practice, were pushed to cooperate. The Abbasids also distinguished themselves from the Umayyads by attacking the Umayyads' moral character and administration. According to Ira Lapidus, "The Abbasid revolt was supported largely by Arabs, mainly the aggrieved settlers of Marw with the addition of the Yemeni faction and their Mawali".[93] The Abbasids also appealed to non-Arab Muslims, known as mawali, who remained outside the kinship-based society of the Arabs and were perceived as a lower class within the Umayyad empire. Islamic ecumenism, promoted by the Abbasids, refers to the idea of unity of the Ummah in the literal meaning: that there was a single faith. Islamic philosophy developed as the Shariah was codified, and the four Madhabs were established. This era also saw the rise of classical Sufism. Religious achievements included completion of the canonical collections of Hadith of Sahih Bukhari and others.[94] Islam recognized to a certain extent the validity of the Abrahamic religions, the Qur'an identifying Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and "Sabi'un" or "baptists" (usually taken as a reference to the Mandeans and related Mesopotamian groups) as "people of the book". Toward the beginning of the high Middle Ages, the doctrines of the Sunni and Shia, two major denominations of Islam, solidified and the divisions of the world theologically would form. These trends would continue into the Fatimid and Ayyubid periods.
Politically, the Abbasid Caliphate evolved into an Islamic monarchy (unitary system of government.) The regional Sultanate and Emirate governors' existence, validity, or legality were acknowledged for unity of the state.[95] In the early Islamic philosophy of the Iberian Umayyads, Averroes presented an argument in The Decisive Treatise, providing a justification for the emancipation of science and philosophy from official Ash'ari theology; thus, Averroism has been considered a precursor to modern secularism.[96][97]
Golden Baghdad Abbasids[edit]
Early Middle Ages

According to Arab sources in the year 750, Al-Saffah, the founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, launched a massive rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate from the province of Khurasan near Talas. After eliminating the entire Umayyad family and achieving victory at the Battle of the Zab, Al-Saffah and his forces marched into Damascus and founded a new dynasty. His forces confronted many regional powers and consolidated the realm of the Abbasid Caliphate.[98]
In Al-Mansur's time, Persian scholarship emerged. Many non-Arabs converted to Islam. The Umayyads actively discouraged conversion in order to continue the collection of the jizya, or the tax on non-Muslims. Islam nearly doubled within its territory from 8% of residents in 750 to 15% by the end of Al-Mansur's reign. Al-Mahdi, whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph when his father was on his deathbed. Baghdad blossomed during Al-Mahdi's reign, becoming the world's largest city. It attracted immigrants from Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Persia and as far away as India and Spain. Baghdad was home to Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians, in addition to the growing Muslim population. Like his father, Al-Hadi[99] was open to his people and allowed citizens to address him in the palace at Baghdad. He was considered an "enlightened ruler", and continued the policies of his Abbasid predecessors. His short rule was plagued by military conflicts and internal intrigue.

An Arabic manuscript written under the second half of the Abbasid Era.
The military conflicts subsided as Harun al-Rashid ruled.[100] His reign was marked by scientific, cultural and religious prosperity. He established the library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom"), and the arts and music flourished during his reign. The Barmakid family played a decisive advisorial role in establishing the Caliphate, but declined during Rashid's rule.[101]
Al-Amin received the Caliphate from his father Harun Al-Rashid, but failed to respect the arrangements made for his brothers, leading to the Fourth Fitna. Al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn took Baghdad, executing Al-Amin.[102] The war led to a loss of prestige for the dynasty.
Rise of regional powers[edit]

Regional powers born out of the fragmentation of the Abbasid caliphate
The Abbasids soon became caught in a three-way rivalry among Coptic Arabs, Indo-Persians, and immigrant Turks.[103] In addition, the cost of running a large empire became too great.[104] The Turks, Egyptians, and Arabs adhered to the Sunnite sect; the Persians, a great portion of the Turkic groups, and several of the princes in India were Shia. The political unity of Islam began to disintegrate. Under the influence of the Abbasid caliphs, independent dynasties appeared in the Muslim world and the caliphs recognized such dynasties as legitimately Muslim. The first was the Tahirid dynasty in Khorasan, which was founded during the caliph Al-Ma'mun's reign. Similar dynasties included the Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuqs. During this time, advancements were made in the areas of astronomy, poetry, philosophy, science, and mathematics.[105]
High Baghdad Abbasids[edit]
Early Middle Ages

Upon Al-Amin's death, Al-Ma'mun became Caliph. Al-Ma'mun extended the Abbasid empire's territory during his reign and dealt with rebellions.[106] Al-Ma'mun had been named governor of Khurasan by Harun, and after his ascension to power, the caliph named Tahir as governor of his military services in order to assure his loyalty. Tahir and his family became entrenched in Iranian politics and became powerful, frustrating Al-Ma'mun's desire to centralize and strengthen Caliphal power. The rising power of the Tahirid dynasty became a threat as Al-Ma'mun's own policies alienated them and other opponents.
Al-Ma'mun worked to centralize power and ensure a smooth succession. Al-Mahdi proclaimed that the caliph was the protector of Islam against heresy, and also claimed the ability to declare orthodoxy. Religious scholars averred that Al-Ma'mun was overstepping his bounds in the Mihna, the Abbasid inquisition which he introduced in 833 four months before he died.[107] The Ulama emerged as a force in Islamic politics during Al-Ma'mun's reign for opposing the inquisitions. The Ulema and the major Islamic law schools took shape in the period of Al-Ma'mun. In parallel, Sunnism became defined as a religion of laws. Doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shi'a Islam became more pronounced.
During the Al-Ma'mun regime, border wars increased. Al-Ma'mun made preparations for a major campaign, but died while leading an expedition in Sardis. Al-Ma'mun gathered scholars of many religions at Baghdad, whom he treated well and with tolerance. He sent an emissary to the Byzantine Empire to collect the most famous manuscripts there, and had them translated into Arabic.[108] His scientists originated alchemy. Shortly before his death, during a visit to Egypt in 832, the caliph ordered the breaching of the Great Pyramid of Giza to search for knowledge and treasure. Workers tunneled in near where tradition located the original entrance. Al-Ma'mun later died near Tarsus under questionable circumstances and was succeeded by his half-brother, Al-Mu'tasim, rather than his son, Al-Abbas ibn Al-Ma'mun.
As Caliph, Al-Mu'tasim promptly ordered the dismantling of al-Ma'mun's military base at Tyana. He faced Khurramite revolts. One of the most difficult problems facing this Caliph was the ongoing uprising of Babak Khorramdin. Al-Mu'tasim overcame the rebels and secured a significant victory. Byzantine emperor Theophilus launched an attack against Abbasid fortresses. Al-Mu'tasim sent Al-Afshin, who met and defeated Theophilus' forces at the Battle of Anzen. On his return he became aware of a serious military conspiracy which forced him and his successors to rely upon Turkish commanders and ghilman slave-soldiers (foreshadowing the Mamluk system). The Khurramiyyah were never fully suppressed, although they slowly declined during the reigns of succeeding Caliphs. Near the end of al-Mu'tasim's life there was an uprising in Palestine, but he defeated the rebels.
During Al-Mu'tasim's reign, the Tahirid dynasty continued to grow in power. The Tahirids were exempted from many tribute and oversight functions. Their independence contributed to Abbasid decline in the east. Ideologically, al-Mu'tasim followed his half-brother al-Ma'mun. He continued his predecessor's support for the Islamic Mu'tazila sect, applying brutal torture against the opposition. Arab mathematician Al-Kindi was employed by Al-Mu'tasim and tutored the Caliph's son. Al-Kindi had served at the House of Wisdom and continued his studies in Greek geometry and algebra under the caliph's patronage.[109]
Al-Wathiq succeeded his father. Al-Wathiq dealt with opposition in Arabia, Syria, Palestine and in Baghdad. Using a famous sword he personally joined the execution of the Baghdad rebels. The revolts were the result of an increasingly large gap between Arab populations and the Turkish armies. The revolts were put down, but antagonism between the two groups grew, as Turkish forces gained power. He also secured a captive exchange with the Byzantines. Al-Wathiq was a patron of scholars, as well as artists. He personally had musical talent and is reputed to have composed over one hundred songs.[110]

Minaret at the Great Mosque of Samarra.
When Al-Wathiq died of high fever, Al-Mutawakkil succeeded him. Al-Mutawakkil's reign is remembered for many reforms and is viewed as a golden age. He was the last great Abbasid caliph; after his death the dynasty fell into decline. Al-Mutawakkil ended the Mihna. Al-Mutawakkil built the Great Mosque of Samarra[111] as part of an extension of Samarra eastwards. During his reign, Al-Mutawakkil met famous Byzantine theologian Constantine the Philosopher, who was sent to strengthen diplomatic relations between the Empire and the Caliphate by Emperor Michael III. Al-Mutawakkil involved himself in religious debates, as reflected in his actions against minorities. The Shīʻi faced repression embodied in the destruction of the shrine of Hussayn ibn ʻAlī, an action that was ostensibly carried out to stop pilgrimages. Al-Mutawakkil continued to rely on Turkish statesmen and slave soldiers to put down rebellions and lead battles against foreign empires, notably capturing Sicily from the Byzantines. Al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by a Turkish soldier.
Al-Muntasir succeeded to the Caliphate on the same day with the support of the Turkish faction, though he was implicated in the murder. The Turkish party had al-Muntasir remove his brothers from the line of succession, fearing revenge for the murder of their father. Both brothers wrote statements of abdication. During his reign, Al-Muntasir removed the ban on pilgrimage to the tombs of Hassan and Hussayn and sent Wasif to raid the Byzantines. Al-Muntasir died of unknown causes. The Turkish chiefs held a council to select his successor, electing Al-Musta'in. The Arabs and western troops from Baghdad were displeased at the choice and attacked. However, the Caliphate no longer depended on Arabian choice, but depended on Turkish support. After the failed Muslim campaign against the Christians, people blamed the Turks for bringing disaster on the faith and murdering their Caliphs. After the Turks besieged Baghdad, Al-Musta'in planned to abdicate to Al-Mu'tazz but was put to death by his order. Al-Mu'tazz was enthroned by the Turks, becoming the youngest Abbasaid Caliph to assume power.
High Abbasids
Jurisprudence
Four constructions of Islamite law
Abu Hanifa (Iraq teacher)
Malik bin Anas (Medina Imam)
Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i (Egyptian Iman)
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (Baghdad teacher)
Early Abbasids
Literature and Science
Hunayn ibn Ishaq, physician, Greek translator;
Ibn Fadlan, explorer;
Al Battani, astronomer;
Tabari, historian and theologian;
Al-Razi, philosopher, medic, chemist;
Al-Farabi, chemist and philosopher;
Abu Nasr Mansur, mathematician;
Alhazen, mathematician;
Al-Biruni, mathematician, astronomer, physicist;
Omar Khayyám, poet, mathematician, and astronomer;
Mansur Al-Hallaj, Sufism mystic, writer and teacher
Al-Mu'tazz proved too apt a pupil of his Turkish masters, but was surrounded by parties jealous of each other. At Samarra, the Turks were having problems with the "Westerns" (Berbers and Moors), while the Arabs and Persians at Baghdad, who had supported al-Musta'in, regarded both with equal hatred. Al-Mu'tazz put his brothers Al-Mu'eiyyad and Abu Ahmed to death. The ruler spent recklessly, causing a revolt of Turks, Africans, and Persians for their pay. Al-Mu'tazz was brutally deposed shortly thereafter. Al-Muhtadi became the next Caliph. He was firm and virtuous compared to the earlier Caliphs, though the Turks held the power. The Turks killed him soon after his ascension. Al-Mu'tamid followed, holding on for 23 years, though he was largely a ruler in name only. After the Zanj Rebellion, Al-Mu'tamid summoned al-Muwaffak to help him. Thereafter, Al-Muwaffaq ruled in all but name. The Hamdanid dynasty was founded by Hamdan ibn Hamdun when he was appointed governor of Mardin in Anatolia by the Caliphs in 890. Al-Mu'tamid later transferred authority to his son, al-Mu'tadid, and never regained power. The Tulunids became the first independent state in Islamic Egypt, when they broke away during this time.
Al-Mu'tadid ably administered the Caliphate. Egypt returned to allegiance and Mesopotamia was restored to order. He was tolerant towards Shi'i, but toward the Umayyad community he was not so just. Al-Mu'tadid was cruel in his punishments, some of which are not surpassed by those of his predecessors. For example, the Kharijite leader at Mosul was paraded about Baghdad clothed in a robe of silk, of which Kharijites denounced as sinful, and then crucified. Upon Al-Mu'tadid's death, his son by a Turkish slave-girl, Al-Muktafi, succeeded to the throne.
Al-Muktafi became a favorite of the people for his generosity, and for abolishing his father's secret prisons, the terror of Baghdad. During his reign, the Caliphate overcame threats such as the Carmathians. Upon Al-Muktafi's death, the vazir next chose Al-Muqtadir. Al-Muqtadir's reign was a constant succession of thirteen Vazirs, one rising on the fall or assassination of another. His long reign brought the Empire to its lowest ebb. Africa was lost, and Egypt nearly. Mosul threw off its dependence, and the Greeks raided across the undefended border. The East continued to formally recognise the Caliphate, including those who virtually claimed independence.
At the end of the Early Baghdad Abbasids period, Empress Zoe Karbonopsina pressed for an armistice with Al-Muqtadir and arranged for the ransom of the Muslim prisoner[112] while the Byzantine frontier was threatened by Bulgarians. This only added to Baghdad's disorder. Though despised by the people, Al-Muqtadir was again placed in power after upheavals. Al-Muqtadir was eventually slain outside the city gates, whereupon courtiers chose his brother al-Qahir. He was even worse. Refusing to abdicate, he was blinded and c