BEFORE ISLAM.
Before the advent of Islam, the Arabs were in the age of ignorance .They had no exact religion to live their life. They were in the Dark Age .They live in the land of scarcity and tribal war. Bedouins were divided into tribes and groups; they had tribal system generations and generations used to fight a tribal war. People need the protection of tribal head to survive, as without being associated with any tribe you would be vulnerable as Arabia was land of scarcerecourses like water and green pastures. So everyone , every tribe in constant struggle to get hold of wells of water and green pastures and mostly bloody battles arouse for control on water and green pastures and that wars goes on and on from generations to generations. The water acted as the lifeblood for the Bedouins. These people of Arabs have nothing plentiful except the expressing of themselves in the poetry.
They usually expressed themselves in form of poetry. The poets in each tribe usually get honorable and respectable positions, who can say poetry at a drop of hat. They use power of their words as poetry narrates their ancestor’s achievements and glories of past and lament on their defeats. They express the glory of tribe by powerful verses. They celebrated their cultural events through poetry. They had believed on all the stories told to them. They always impressed by powerful words due to this same reason when Mohammad (PBUH) recite verses of Holy Quran, it was very powerful message and words of deep impact and Arabs never heard such a great and glorfied verses so they get impressed as words had very strong message of social justice and equality of all classes, that mobilized the poor classes as it giving them message of equality and justice.
GODS OF ARABS
The people of Arabs had their different gods. Their gods are in the form of sculptures and totems. They had the totem for rain, fire night and many others. They kept their god in the sacred shrine of that time .this shrine was called KABBAH, it was rediscovered by IBRAHIM (prophet of Allah) centuries ago. KABBAH believed to be first place where worship of ONE and TRUE GOD took place. It also had the sacred black stone, which is called HIJRA E ASWAD (in Arabic) means BLACK STONE. People of Arab respect KABBAH as sacred the place and they don’t fight in vicinity of MECCA (the holy city) so people all over the world comes here for trade and business as overall city of MECCA and KABBAH used to be sacred places so no bloodshed so it make the city the economic hub of the region and it gave region peace and stability. People came here from the different regions and exchange their goods. At that, time kabbah plays a very economical role in their lives. It became the centre of trade and place of earning money for the Arabs. At that time, it had the mixture of the different cultures.
When Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H was born, the period of civilization began. Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H became orphan at age of six. After the death of his parents, his uncle Abu-Talib, who was the head of tribe, took the custody of Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H. Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H had to face many difficulties. His uncle taught him all the lessons, which will become useful in his future life. Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H had the qualities of patience, honesty, dignity and good communication. He was involved in trade. He traded the goods of Hazrat khadija toward the Syria. She was the woman to whom Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H got married. Both of them had the good combination as they have the characteristics of the trade and good communication. When the people came in kabbah for trade, hazrat Mohammad P.B.U.H had good dealings with them due to the good communication skills.
He had the qualities of resolving the disputes among the people. He believed in the peace and harmony. One of the greatest examples was of the dispute of sacred stone. The head of tribes fought to place the sacred stone in the KABBAH. Holy Prophet Mohammad P.B.U.H resolved the dispute in the way that he suggest to put the stone in the cloth and the carried it to the KABBAH by all the tribal head. All of them felt very happy and in the gratitude, they offer him to put this stone. This is one of fine example of his abilities to resolve disputes and work for peace within society. He was also famous as Al-Ameen (The trusted one.) and Al-Sadiq (The Trueful person)
Beginning of Prophetic career of Holy Prophet P.B.U.H
Holy Prophet P.B.U.H used to meditate in the cave of MECCA. One day he had the most defining moment of his life. This was the first revelation. An angel revealed to him in form of human and told him “RECITE IN THE NAME OF ALLAH”. This was the message of the creator of this world, Allah. The angle also said to spread this message of Allah to the whole humanity. The Prophet was the ordinary man this was the very strange experience for the prophet. From here the prophetic career of Hazrat Mohammad P.B.U.H started.
Holy prophet P.B.U.H began to spread Islam in the Arabs. Allah sent His message to Holy Prophet P.B.U.H through revelations. He gave the message of Allah to the people of Arabs. Then they thought to write this message to save it forever. In this way the writing of quran began. As Holy Prophet P.B.U.H got the revelation from Allah, people wrote it down. Some of his opponents mainly the tribal heads were not happy with HOLY PROPHET as his message was of equality and of strong social justice and telling people that that there is NO GOD BUT ONE GOD AND ALL THE IDOLS ARE FLASE GODS. DON’T WORSHIP THEM AND WORSHIP ONE TRUE GOD. As more and more people started following HOLY PROPHET, their supremacy becomes in danger and value of KABBAH getting questioned so they going to suffer economic loss and their position in society.
MESSAGE OF ISLAM FOR WHOLE HUMANITY
He preached the Arabs that in the religion of Allah there is only the concept of one god. It is the concept of unity and submission of will to Allah .he told that there is no difference between the people in the name of caste. There is no concept of tribal system. He told that the Islam is the follower of social justice. Islam believes in the equality. There is no concept of owner and slave .all people are equal for the Allah. The superiority not based on the high caste or the tribal heads. It is based on the TAQWA (BEING POISE). People have the equal right of having the wealth and precious things. This concept became famous in the Arabs due to its equality.
HIJRA (MIGRATIION) of Muslims to MADINA
When Holly Prophet P.B.U.H preached each and every part of Islam then people start to enter under the one banner of Islam. Due to preaching of Holy Prophet, large number of people accepted the Islam. Islam gave those patterns to live the lives, which had not given by any other religion .People became fade up from the existing rule of tribal system, inequality and social injustice. Because of these reasons the Islam spread easily and speedily in the Arab’s people.
When large no of people were accepting Islam due to preaching of HOLY PROPHET Mohammad P.B.U.H, the Arab elders and custodians of KABBAH were terrified and annoyed from HOLY PROPHET as his followers grows their days of rulers going to be numbered. They made plans to assassinate HOLY PROPHET but they were afraid that if they killed him then the tribe of HOLY PORPHET will take severe revenge from them as HOLY PROPHET belongs to one of most powerful tribe of Arabia. Holy Prophet always had the protection of head of his tribe (his uncle) also many had same protections but people who were not protected were tortured and killed.
When His uncle died the enemies of Islam, got the opportunity to finally assassinate Holy Prophet P.B.U.H. as they were still afraid of revenge of his tribe so all other tribes unite and they include one of their elder in a killing squad, so tribe of HOLY PROPHT can’t fight with whole Arabs. At that point GOD told to HOLY PROPHET to do migration from MECCA to city later known as MADINA (city of prophet)
Holy Prophet P.B.U.H had the good skills of an arbitrator .He resolved some very bloody disputes of people of MADINA in recent past, so he was welcomed there with open hearts by residents of MADINA , the local population of city incudes JEWS, Christians , Muslims and Budions.
JEWS and Christians migrated from other countries centuries ago and they settled in MADINA as their holy books and holy people told them about a prediction that one day a prophet of ALLAH will appear in this city, so they migrated centuries ago and were waiting for that promised prophet, now they mostly forgot why they migrated to that land.
Life period of Holly Prophet P.B.U.H in Madina
In the Madina, Holy Prophet P.B.U.H lived with the people of different religions in perfect harmony, as mentioned earlier population of MADINA consists of JEWS, CHRISTIANS and BUDIONS, He preached Islam there, he never force any one to accept Islam or to adopt certain life style, in Madina followers of different believes lived peacefully with mutual respect for each other beliefs and religions and created a BROTHERHOOD. They know how to respect the religion of others. The Holy Prophet P.B.U.H lived In the Madina according to principle of Islam. They offered their prayers five times a day. Here Holy Prophet P.B.U.H also preached not to differentiate between the white and black. The real example of that time was the selection of Hadrat Bilal (he was a black Abyssinian (Ethiopian) slave) to call Muslims for prayers (AZZAN) this was great honor for him as he was selected over many elders. People of that time were surprised on this step of Holy Prophet P.B.U.H because for the sacred work mostly the highly status people were selected and Holly Prophet P.B.U.H selected the slave for this task. He removed the discrimination between the people of various race and casts. In Islam there is no advantage or leverage of any elder, Arab, non-Arabs, whites or blacks or religion, race, skin color has nothing to do with any religious of social status. So Islam truly put all humans equal and created a universal BROTHERHOOD.
Direction for prayers of Muslims. (Kabbah)
Once the Muslims were offering their prayers, Holly Prophet P.B.U.H got the revelation from Allah. In this message; Allah had given the direction for offering prayers. This direction was toward the KABBAH, at that time KABBAH was still filled with totems and idols and Arabs worship them. Reason of start praying in direction of KABBAH as it is believed to be first place in this world where worship of ONE and TRUE GOD was done.
Here is a lesson for all of us, that Islam don’t believes on physical things or symbolic things, ALLAH didn’t ordered them to bend against idols and totems , ALLAH ordered them to pray towards first MOSQUE ever created, so it’s not matter of what’s inside of hearts.
Victory of Mecca
The non-Muslims try to wipe out the Muslims. They fought many battles with Muslims. Holy prophet never waged any war by his own will against his opponents, he was forced to fight many battles as self-defense.
Muslims were always outnumbered, got least weaponry horses and they were least trained for hand to hand combat battles. . The non-Muslims were in large amount and armed, but Muslims fought with conviction and dedication that they are fighting for ALLAH and protecting themselves. And they believed that HELP OF ALLAH IS WITH THEM SO THEY WIN ALL BATTLES.
So these unusual and extraordinary wins over greater opponents, actually convinced many non-believers that there is hand of ALLAH with Muslims so they joined Islam.
Now Holy PROPHET made his army. Thousands of people accepted Islam. The Muslims then decided to go back to their home place MECCA again. They surrounded the whole Mecca for many days and at last the non-believers gave up .They were very terrified that now Muslims will take revenge as they murdered many innocent Muslims in past decade, forced them to leave their homes and waged many wars on Muslims. Also in tribal society the rules of war were simple, one who win will take savage revenge from defeated army.
But HOLY PROPHET had some other plans for defeated MECCANS, he showed a very huge act of generosity and world never seen such act of MERCY, he declared general forgiveness for all. History never seen such a victory that no blood shed was done not a single drop of blood was dropped.
The Muslims entered the Mecca and began to circle around the KABBAH seven times. They raised their staff and broke the totems and sculptures of Arabs. They demolished concept of symbolic worship. Holy Prophet spread the concept of ALLAH as the unity. He said to worship Allah as one GOD. Allah has no partner and you have to worship Him without any picture or idol.
CONCEPT OF DRAWING PICTURES IN ISLAM:
Generally it is believed that Muslims believed that to draw a picture is SIN, it’s not true as all Muslims draw pictures, they photographed themselves for whole reasons that is any person photographed himself or draw a picture, Muslims were very fond of arts so drawing pictures were one of their finest traits.
Well it is correct Muslims didn’t draw pictures of HOLY PROPHET as they believed other Muslims might eventually worshipping his pictures as symbolism so they forbade their self to draw any picture of holy prophet. But few historians drew few pictures of HOLY PROPHET only for the historic importance and show him as an historic figure. They took great care in doing it, and never show or draw his face, always put white veil on his face and hide his face or show bright light near his face so face can’t be seen. But these pictures were never being of any religious importance, it was for historic purpose and they show HOLY PORPHET as an historic figure.
PEACE UNITY AND HARMONY WITH CHRISTIANS AND JEWS.
The smashing of idols into dust was the new beginning of Islam. The Muslims began to conquer the other areas and they moved toward the Syria. Here Muslims also shows the great example of peace and unity. In the church of Syria, they offered their prayers fives times a day and Christians also offered their Sunday prayers in same location. This was the peaceful combination of Muslims and christens. Two different religions shared the same building. This shows that the Islam is the religion of peace and harmony. When they grew in amount, they built their own mosque, which was one of the great wonders of Islam. Similarly when Muslims occupy Jerusalem, it was most holy place for three main stream religions, Muslims, Christianity and Jews. Muslims always allowed them to worship according to their own faiths and shared same building with them for their prayers. So Muslims were always peaceful and know how to co-exist together with other religions.
Muslims spread throughout the three continents in just over 200 years, and at that time Muslim empire was greatest and even greater than Roman Empire. The places, which they conquered, they changed them totally. They change the infrastructure and made the empire strong. They used the techniques of water purification and grew crops. They devise a system to by turbines to send water to low water areas, so there was water and crops were in abundant and overall economy strong and people were more prosperous. The Muslims used these methods centuries ago, when whole Europe was struggling badly in dark ages. , they introduced concept of running water and water purification system. Islam changed the whole life of humanity.
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