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The Middle East

The Middle East
Module 1
Written Assignment 1

Essay Questions

1. What is Muhammad's importance in the Muslim tradition? How do Islamic perceptions of him compare to those of the West?

The belief in Islam was developed after Muhammad was called to be a messenger of God. After the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad in 610 C.E., he spent the next twenty-two years receiving divine revelations from God. Like his prophetic predecessors, Muhammad used these divine messages to re-establish a religion and a religious "nation" or umma, based on the beliefs that his people had forgotten or deviated from. He went against the leaders of Mecca and their pagan ways to bring back a monotheistic religion that only honored and recognized the one true God. After the death of Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and protector, he was invited to mediate the differences between the tribes of Yathrib, an oasis city about 200 miles north of Mecca. This journey, known as the hijrah in Arabic, marks the introduction of Islam to humankind through the Prophet Muhammad, and is the first year of the Muslim calendar. Followers of Muhammad who believed in Islam were called Muslims, meaning "those who submit to the will of God." Both the Jews and Arabs of Yathrib welcomed Muhammad and his followers. The city was about to erupt in civil war, and the people looked to Muhammad to unite them. They renamed Yathrib Madinaht unNabit, which means "City of the Prophet." Yathrib was then called Madinah (Medina) and Muhammad remained in Medina to lead the new Islamic community there. After being invited by the people of Medina to lead their city, Muhammad began to establish an Islamic community with unique customs. Finally in AD. 630, Muhammad, with an army of 10,000, captured Mecca. An important part of Muhammad's capture of Mecca was his rededication of the Kaaba to the worship of One God. The holy shrine, a stone structure in the form of a 40 by 35 by 50-foot cube, traditionally housed Arab...