This treatise on Islam is design is to bring the Western anti-jihad community up to speed in short order on the situation we face in dealing with Jihad and its fundamentalist offshoots like Hezbollah. This is the door through which Muhammad’s Mercantile roots can be thoroughly understood. Only by understanding Islam’s Mercantile economic roots can we understand the nature of the caravan trail, the black market, and the slavery of the age.
A.
Muhammad was born in 570 AD. Muhammad was born of the Nobility of Mecca. His house, the Quraysh, were the stewards and keepers of the Ka’aba, the great Cube of worship in Mecca, in present day Saudi Arabia. In Muhammad’s day, trade was brought to the desert city via the caravan routes. Mecca was a city of all faiths, for housed within the Ka’aba were the chief idols of all the Nomadic Tribes of Arabia and many idols from far beyond the Arabian sands. As many idols as days in the year were stored within the confines of the Ka’aba, whose foundation, legend has it, was constructed by Abraham and his son, Ishmael at the Naval of the Universe.
In this age of Mercantilism, the bazaar of Mecca was a center for spiritual pilgrimages as much as a center of trade and learning. Mecca was also a center for the slave traders of the day. Without the spiritual elements housed in the Ka’aba, however, Mecca would have fallen far afield of the Caravan destinations nearer the Mediterranean.
It would not be until Muhammad was 40 years old that he would have his first visit from the Angel Gabriel; however, by his mid-twenties, Muhammad was known as Al-Amin, due to his wisdom, his persuasive talents and leadership traits. Muhammad’s persuasive charisma and charm made him a naturally talented salesman. When contracted by a wealthy widow-woman named Khadija to lead a Caravan and doubling the expected return, he was offered marriage by Khadija and accepted.
After years of the Caravan trade, Muhammad took to the habit of praying in marathon sessions in the caves around Mecca. When Gabriel’s message came to Muhammad he thought himself possessed by a demon. The message was radical and it was a clear warning – “There is no God but Allah.” In 610, this “monotheism” of Muhammad which proclaimed the “oneness” of Allah, which beseeched men to reject idol worship and worship instead the supreme God, Allah, caught on amongst many young seekers, who were entranced by the persuasions and Charisma of Muhammad.
The Noble Merchant families and tax collector elites of Mecca watched the infant group of “Muslims” with growing concern. Afterall, without the idols in the Ka’aba, Mecca would lose much of its main attraction for the caravan tradesman and Mecca might fall to the fate of so many buried ghost towns of the desert, and its markets would yield nothing of worth. In the opinion of the Meccan Elite, pragmatism called for the universal tolerance of idolatry. Therefore, it is in this call of Muhammad to an idol-less god that trade, taxation and the security of the Meccan Noble houses was threatened by Muhammad’s movement.
And it was under this Mercantile sense of self-preservation that Muhammad’s followers were systematically marked and persecuted for their patently absurd notions of a singular god, which supposedly reigned supreme yet held no image or visible form to be seen and worshiped.
Over the course of twelve years, from 610 to 622 AD, Muhammad and his Muslim brethren, which numbered around 80, set about the task of public speaking and reforming the society that was built on idolatry. This doomsayer cult was seen as an agitating lot by those who held to the tribal customs and traditions of the political mainstream in Mecca, as the small band preached its message of dire warnings, fire and brimstone, and prophecy in a manner that was all-too intelligible to the Caravans which arrived throughout the year to the Meccan marketplace. Long at the crossroads of cultural learned men and a place for the exchange of worldly wisdoms, Muhammad’s followers were quickly identified by the street captains of the Noble Houses as zealots that sought to overthrow the established leadership of Mecca, that sought to destroy the moral fabric of society.
Over time, these agitators were pushed out of the market square and into an exiled position at the outskirts of town. No longer welcome in Mecca, the Muslims became outcasts and were punished, beaten, jailed and thrown into the lawless sections of the city where persecution became a brand. Slowly but surely, the Islamic faith was marginalized, persecuted, and outlawed by the political heads, who were worried over the possibility of the spread of this particular strain of religion in and around Mecca. In this strained relationship, the Muslims were caged in the ghetto sections of Mecca in order for the Noble houses of Mecca to keep tabs on the spread and influence of the faith.
With his followers held in a state of persecution, in a situation akin to that of Modern day Gaza, Muhammad sought aid and political pressure from surrounding township leaders – to no avail. Legend has it that Muhammad sought the help of Taif’s Chieftain, who was aghast at Muhammad’s invitation to convert to Islam. He rejected Muhammad’s too forward invitation, called him a zealot charlatan, and had his townfolk line up on either side of the mountainous road back to Mecca for three miles that they might stone him every step of his way out of town back to his base. This tradition shows the level of persecution, rejection, animosity, and political mentality of the city heads along the caravan routes. By the same token it shows the picture of a humble and mendicant prophet seeking the simple freedom of worship.
Muhammad did not give up on his quest for support. On many occasions he sought outside aid. On one famous episode, Muhammad devised a caravan of emissaries called Mujahiroun, who were the Muslim prosyletizers sent to the Kingdom of Axum (Ethiopia) to request the aid of the leaders in the African belt and to seek converts. Fearing the possibility of rebellion and war should this group be successful in its aims, the Meccan leaders sent warriors to hunt down and bring back this band of messengers, eventually applying political muscle to the task, seeking the return of these dissident escaped prisoners directly from the leaders of the Caravan and Slave Trade centers in Africa.
Islam, in this sense, was born of persecution, and overcame this political state of impotence in a daring escape.
Muhammad, in his Meccan years, challenged the established tribal customs of Arabia in many ways. By rejecting idolatry and fashioning himself as a Prophet of the one true god Allah, he positioned himself to unite the disperse Moon God worshiping tribes scattered throughout Arabia. For over a thousand years, the Arabian peninsula had witnessed the cults of the Moon God “ilah” which held the Moon to be the Father of the Sun and the stars…in the pantheon of idols, ilah was just one of the more widely established cult figurines. However, by raising ilah to the supreme position of al-lah or Allah and removing the idol mold of worship while claiming direct connection to the supernatural realm, Muhammad was a threat to the caravan route leaders in terms of projection politics, whose adherents, if not contained, could potentially grow throughout Arabia and destabilize the merchant agreements already established by the Heads of the Noble houses along the Caravan trail.
This corralling and herding of Muhammad’s followers, then, was considered to be necessary to maintain the political order of the day. This persecution would eventually lead Muhammad to take flight from Muhammad. In the year 622, the year of the Hegira, a new religion would leap into the Arabian scene…as a nation began to organize around its message and prophet.
Throughout Muhammad’s life, he had garnered reknown as a Man who could solve disputes peaceably. Known as al-Amin, or wise counselor, the feuding Arabian and Jewish tribes of a city to the Northeast of Mecca, known as Yathrib, sent messengers to ask for Muhammad’s help in ending the bloody feuds which plagued the city’s leaders. In this call for help, Muhammad recognized a chance to gain legitimacy for his Muslim adherents and a chance for his faith to gain the protection it needed to grow without the Meccan political heads keeping him held down. Betrayed, these correspondences found their way into the hands of the Meccan leadership. Alarmed, Mecca’s leaders decided to clamp down on Muhammad, himself, before he had a chance to gain ascendance for his movement.
Realizing the change in the air, Muhammad sought to deceive those whose charge was to arrest him. To throw off the Meccan forces in pursuit, Muhammad’s followers were smuggled out of Mecca piecemeal under the cloak of the Caravans. Ali, his cousin and son-in-law remained in Muhammad’s dwelling as a decoy while Muhammad and Abu Bakr took flight from the city. With his pursuers hot on their trail, Abu Bakr and Muhammad took refuge in a series of caves for two or three days, laying low and praying not to be discovered.
Their prayers were answered, while his pursuers searched the caves for signs of life and evidence of human presence, the forces passed over the cave in which Muhammad and Abu Bakr were hiding with held breath. In the night, as the legend goes, a pigeon had roosted at the mouth of the cave and spiders had built a web over the entrance. This “miracle” allowed Muhammad to escape to Yathrib unmolested. Historically speaking, the most likely date of this event was September 11th, 622.
By October, Muhammad had met in a Shura Council with the leaders of Yathrib, who agreed to make Muhammad their King if he could end the tribal warfare raging amongst them. In doing so, the city was renamed Madinat al-Nabi, or City of the Prophet. Today, we have shortened this name to Medina.
The Hegira, or hijra, was the famed “flight” of Muhammad. The Arabic word “hijra” is translated as migration; however, in Islam it serves as the birth of the Faith as a Nation, and within twenty years, Caliph Uthman, while compiling the Koran into a final format, would mark the Hegira as year 1 of the New Religion. Thereafter in Islamic literature, dates would be placed down in terms of the Hegira. The bulk of the Koran was recited by Muhammad in the city of Mecca. However, as history proves, the true impact of the Koran would be felt most acutely by the world in terms of the Medinan Suras, following the Hegira.
In Islam, the persecution of the followers of Muhammad that led to the Hegira would serve as the spiritual guide posts and overarching uniting element of the faith which would provide the inspiration and legend of a religion, whose leader sought not war but salvation for the true monotheists of Arabia. It is through this lens that modern Jihadi Fundamentalists such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah must be seen, that their efforts must be understood in terms of a revolt from the perceived persecutions of their particular leaders. Indeed, only through this prism can the leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s post-July War charge that Israel’s strength is nothing save a spider web, be truly understood in terms of persecution and prophecy.
B. The Razzia
In the time of Muhammad, the “razzia” or caravan raid was held as a noble sport. The key to this twisted chivalry was the lack of blood spilt in the engagements by the adventurers. The caravan routes of Arabia were led by contracted heads who were familiar with the areas watering holes and oases, who could navigate the shifting sands of the desert and reach their destinations without lousing the members of their convoy, or their cargo along the way. Cut off from civilization, in the wilds of the lawless deserts, bands of men could surprise these caravans with the force of arms and demand a percentage of the goods, wares, and monies held by those in the convoy. If blood was spilt, Arab tribal custom held that blood money must be paid to the offended family.
Therefore, the key to a truly noble razzia was in the overwhelming forces of the raiders, since the caravan heads and convoy members would be less likely to offer resistance to the theft of these pirates of the desert if they were outgunned or separated and surrounded.
Again, this was a mercantile age. Wealth was seen as static – whoever had the most wealth could purchase the most supplies, hire the most men, acquire the best camels and horses, and gain the best arms and armor. In this understanding, the tribal chieftains of Arabia sought to steal as much wealth for their banner as possible in these sporting times. Muhammad was brought up in this environment and was most likely trained in the art of the razzia by his uncle Abu Talib of the Quraysh tribe.
Indeed, history may yet prove out that the salesmanship of Muhammad, which led to Khadija’s investments to multiply so well may have had more to do with his gifts of raiding than his ability to persuade and sell in the marketplace.
Upon settling in Medina, Muhammad set about consolidating his power while at the same time inviting the tribes of Yathrib to join the Muslim faith in the one true god – Allah. Soon, word reached him from his family members in the Meccan Aristocracy that the remaining Muslims of Mecca had been imprisoned or stockaded and that the Property and Possessions of the Muslims who had migrated to Yathrib had been reclaimed by the Meccan authorities, looted, sacked and burned.
It was upon the receipt of this intelligence that Muhammad’s Arab pride came into conflict with his Islamic Faith’s determination to reform the wayward tribal customs of Arabia.
It was at this point that Muhammad, now well-positioned in Medina, had to make the fateful choice of whether to turn the other cheek in the face of this affront or to choose the path of strength and will to regain just recompense for the losses of his community of followers.
His decision would change the face of both the religion of Islam and determine the fate of the entire region and world for the next 1400 years.
After due consideration over the perceived unconscionable actions of Mecca’s political elites, Muhammad chose the path of the Razzia. Knowing the Caravan Routes of the Meccan traders well, Muhammad devised a succession of Caravan raids to steal back what was unjustly siezed from his followers and at the same time to send a message to Mecca that the Muslims of Medina would not yield to pressures of a persecution that for far too long had unjustly been thrust upon them.
It was at this point in Islam’s infancy that the Rationale of Islamic Persecution justified theft as the proper method of resolving the crimes that befell Islam’s adherents. This ethical choice of charting out 12 or 13 acts of piracy to gain vengeance and justice by restoring lost wealth would further isolate Muslims as outlaws and set Medina and Mecca on a collision course.
Though carefully planned and coordinated, the Razzias enshrined by the Koran, were not always clean affairs. In fact, blood was spilt on one raid during a traditionally holy month in which raiding was not permitted, forcing Muhammad to attempt to set terms for blood money to be paid. The Meccan trade dropped off heavily as a result of the Muslim razzias and soon Muhammad’s band of desert pirates, seeking justice after 12 years of persecution, would grow in number to 300 armed men and at the same time were placed on the Meccan Authority’s most wanted criminal list.
It was only a matter of time before a Meccan Posse in pursuit of Muhammad’s gang became a Meccan Army.
It was only a matter of time before the Koranic injunction to commit acts of Piracy would yield Koranic injunctions to commit acts of war in self-defense.
These exploits of Muhammad would be enshrined in the Koran and taught as lessons to the following generations of Muslims as they followed a similar path of expansion, which would always be presented as a path of Persecution to Piracy to War via Jihad.
The rationale of persecution would be the uniting element of Islam throughout the centuries. One can only wonder at what would have happened if Muhammad had made the ethical choice to simply turn the other cheek upon hearing that his possessions in Mecca were forfeit.
C. Taif – Two Ethical Case Studies
The Utter humiliation Muhammad experienced at the hands of the Taif Chieftain and the subsequent stoning of Muhammad demonstrate that monotheism was a threat to the idolatrous order of the trade lines of the day. Muhammad’s refusal to offer any resistance to the people of Taif as they treated him like an outcast of evil is the essence of the Meccan Tradition of Islam and image of Muhammad as a peaceful Prophet seeking justice for his followers and refuge from the persecution of Islam.
However, the humble piety and steadfast peace of Muhammad’s stance at Taif would yield a new understanding of Islam during the Medinan Suras…an understanding in which Jihad would be defined and shape the direction and methods of Islam’s future conquest of the region.
Around the year 630, or 8 A.H., Muhammad’s warriors which had grown to near 10,000 men, who had hardened in seven years of Jihad and Razzia, had grown in wealth. Their numbers of mounted cavalry had exponentially increased and these men came at last to lay siege to the city of Taif.
Destroying the food and water lines into the city by cutting through the defenseless idolaters tending the fields in the surrounding countryside and mountainside, Muhammad’s warriors were thrown back again and again as the high walls of the fortified city would not give way. Desirous of a breach, Muhammad dispatched groups of riders to gather supplies and to bring back the ultimate weapons of siege warfare, the catapult.
Upon arrival of the catapults to the walls of Taif, Muhammad had his men load clay pots filled with oil and fitted with fuses onto the mortar arms, and ordered them to light the combustible shotputs and fire them over the walls.
His men-at-arms were shocked at the implications of the tactic. During their Meccan period and early Medinan Razzia period of becoming a fighting force, Muhammad had laid down the Koranic injunctions of Allah, which held that women, children and the elderly were not to be killed. Another injunction held that a Muslim should never kill another Muslim. These Muslims understood that the catapults could not be guided and that anyone in the path of the projectiles would be killed on the other side of the wall. In addition to the innocent women, children and elderly of Taif, there were Muslim prisoners held within the fortress city. There was no guarantee that the tactic would yield victory and no guarantee that the dictates of their religion would be upheld.
To this concern, Muhammad chastised his men, saying [paraphrasing here] “This is Jihad. Innocent civilians will be killed, yes – but they are of the infidel and idolaters in Allah’s sight. Muslims will be killed, yes – but they will become martyrs in Allah’s sight and be raised up to heaven to abide in the Gardens of Allah. One cannot stop Jihad because infidels will be killed or because martyrs will be created. Can you? Fire the catapults!”
It was on this day that Jihad was given its complete expounding to the Islamic faithful. These two ethical cases of Taif show the broad shift in the tactics of the Prophet Muhammad and the tactics of the military leader, Muhammad. Jihad’s path, for seven years had yielded many miraculous victories and stunning reversals for the Muslims of Muhammad, but on this day a doctrine of Abrogation, in which the most recent dictums of Muhammad eclipsed in value the older verses, was set in place as a tenet of faith in the ever evolving face of Allah.
It was on this day, 1400 years ago at the gates of Taif, that the precedent for the attacks of 9/11/2001 were set into the fundamentals of the Muslim faith, the Muslim ethos, and in terms of Islamic Persecution.
Indeed, the Katyusha diplomacy of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah holds this same fundamental reading of justice for persecution through Jihad.
No doubt, the willingness of Nasrallah to take part in the Taif Agreement of 1989 held a double dose of irony to the Muslims of the Hezbollah fold, who were able to retain their catapults under the watchful the eyes of world media and rise as the only legitimate militia force of Lebanon, retaining their weapons as the “legitimate right” of an occupied and persecuted people.
D. Idolatry & Punishment
Placing Jihad in context with history and the Islamic Traditions, made up of the Koran, the Hadith (eyewitness accounts) and Sira (the official biography of Muhammad) is a time consuming task when considering the sheer volume of literature which makes up the Sunnah (collected traditions) of Islam.
The demand for a correct contextual reading of Muhammad by the defenders and apologists of Islamic Terror and Islamic Extremists, who continually call for the “Arrogant Westerners” to realize that Islam is a religion of Peace is a daunting challenge.
The challenge is amplified when considering that there is no Chronological Koran, that the Hadith are gradated in terms of their validity and alternately accepted and denied by the various schools of Islam, and the fact that Ishaq’s original biography of Muhammad’s life is no longer existant. This reality leaves Westerners who seek answers to become paralyzed when attempting to discover the nature of Islam, Jihad, and Muhammad’s teachings. The question “Where do I begin?” is never answered by the apologists who demand this contextual reading and the sheer volume of the texts regarding the subject of Islam and the varied readings within these texts leave these undaunted few who are willing to accept the challenge jilted, confused, and frustrated in their efforts.
The instance of the Hegira, the choice to raid caravans for recompense, and the ethical cases of Muhammad at Taif allow a framework for the beginnings of study on the subject of Jihad for those undaunted few who are seeking to understand where to begin the effort. These historical instances are rooted in Islamic Traditions.
By considering the nature of Islamic Persecution in terms of these events, the truly interested seeker can gan a solid toehold on the mountain of evidences available on the subjects. The climb is long and harrowing, but in time, with this solid start, the student will be able to reveal to the Western Political Leaders and the Western Audience at large the true nature of Jihad, Islam, and its Prophet Muhammad.
The concept of idolatry, when taken out of context from the Meccan Mercantile Caravan Market can easily be compared to the idolatry chastised in the Old and New Testaments. However, to remove idolatry from the Meccan Mercantile setting does a great disservice to the Muslim Concept of Persecution, and simply allows old opinions of an ineffectual nature to truly break through the blinders of denial that render Jihad untouchable through its relation to Islam in the realm of ideology.
Only when idolatry is taken in context with Mecca can the Razzias and Jihads of Muhammad, the conquests of his heirs, and the terrorist acts of terroristic jihadis be judged by modernity, and objectively determined to fall in the category of Justice or Punishment.
Westerners of the Judeo-Christian heritage tend to take heart in being considered “Peoples of the Book” by Muslims who may seek to wage a militant Jihad against their societies. But what should be determined by the West is the Nature of Jihad and its willingness to Punish infidels at the behest of the injunctions of Muhammad as it has evolved, yet remained remarkably unchanged, through time.
We must ask ourselves if the Rationale of the Razzia and the Rationale of the Taif Jihad are the dictates and positions of a “Peaceful Faith”. We must ask ourselves, in the West, if the Surrender sought by Muhammad’s Jihads are of a spiritual nature…or if Jihadism crosses over all bounds of individual liberty and man-made laws of the modern age, whilst seeking the punishment of all infidels unto Submission or until Subjugation to Islam throughout the world is Total.
The answers to these questions will help shape a proper individual judgment as to the peaceful or war-like nature of Islam and will provide wise council to our Western political state policies through an educated population that elect leaders based on their understanding of the threat of Jihad’s pull and evil. Without a proper evaluation of Islamic Persecution, our modern leaders are flying headlong into a world of blindness as they face off with state and non-state actors in the current War on Terror, as they make fate-filled decisions whose ramifications will be felt for decades, particularly if the decisions made are the wrong ones.
********************
I look forward to answering any questions you may have on the subject. Notice I did not go into great depth on the definition and realities of Jihad. This was done on purpose. In full, our state policy has no true understanding of Jihad, so much so that no definition is considered to be a final say on the matter. The pupose of my work will be to build toward the definition of Jihad as “an ideological nexus of Deceit”. It has many facets and angles. Over time, if I am effective in my study and direction, the pieces of the Jihad puzzle will become clear to you.
Journal entry 6-29-08
Gary H. Johnson, Jr.
