From: Tyagi@HouseOfKaos.Abyss.com
Subject: Islam3:Mecca
Date: Fri,  7 Jan 94 15:28:49 PST

940107

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Assalam alaikum, my kin.

This is part 3 in a continuing series on Islam and Sufism.

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On the tribal aspects of Mohammed's birthplace, Parrinder writes,

"Like all Arabs, Mohammed was a member of a tribe, the Quraysh, and the
conditions of tribal life form one of the important elements in his own
background and the rise of Islam.   Some time before Mohammed's birth,
the Quraysh had come into possession of the barren valley of Mecca,
with its shrines and wells, and had settled there.  They soon built a
thriving community that flourished on commerce, and rapidly rose
from their former status of insignificance to become one of the most
powerful tribal groups in the peninsula.  Although the Quraysh lived
in a city, and although Mohammed himself was born in a city, the ties of
the Quraysh with their former existence in the desert were still very
strong.  In order to maintain contact with the desert life, it was their
practice to send children to live for a time with a nomad group.
Mohammed spent part of his childhood in such a group."

_World Religions..._, Parrinder Ed., page 464.

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On Mohammed's environment generally, H.D. Lewis and R.L. Slater write:

"The Mecca of the seventh century where Muhammad was born and where 
he taught is seen today as no mean city.  It was a thriving commercial
town at the juncture of caravan routes crossing the Arabian desert.

"It was also a religious centre renowned throughout Arabia.  The
Ka'bah sanctuary in the heart of the city attracted many pilgrims.
It reflected the complex pattern of Arabian paganism, a paganism
best described as a nature worship verging on polytheism, a worship
which included a veneration of sacred stones, natural phenomena,
and particular places associated with divine powers or agencies.
The pilgrims who came to the Ka'bah from all parts of the tribal
Arabia might have special regard for the famous Black Stone set
in one of the walls of the central building.  This was an object of
immense veneration.  But there were many other sacred stones in
the Ka'bah as also the shrines of the three goddesses of Mecca,
al-Izzat, the goddess of power, Manat, the goddess of fate, and
Allat, the goddess of fertility.  There was also some recognition
of a supreme Being named Allah, the creator of heaven and earth....

"Muhammad therefore had no need to argue for the *existence* of Allah
and he did not do so.  What he emphasized was the reverence due to
Allah.  The worship of Allah, he argued, should be the only worship.
All other worship was idolatrous.

"Nor was he the first to maintain this view.  Besides mentioning Jews
and Christians, 'the people of the Book', the Qur'an refers to an
obscure, pre-Islamic tradition of monotheism represented by the
so-called Hanifs, who believed that Allah was the only God and
apparently shared Muhammad's conviction that Allah and none else
was the Lord of the Ka'bah, the 'Lord of the House'...

"Neither the name Allah, then, nor the belief in one supreme deity,
was entirely new to Arabia.  Nevertheless, the Hanifs seemed to be
comparatively few and far between, the Jews and Christians were
aliens, and the great majority of Muhammad's fellow countrymen
in Mecca and beyond Mecca were pagans in practice and belief.
The Ka'bah in Muhammad's day was the citadel of a confused
idolatry.  While, therefore, Muhammad could appeal to a vague
belief in one supreme God named Allah, he was something more
than a reformer.  He was not merely calling upon men to be
logical and put into practice what they already believed.
To all intents and purposes, the faith he preached meant a
parting of the ways.  It challenged the whole complex of
pagan belief wedded to tribal custom which found expression
in the Ka'bah rituals as well as the shrine.  The measure of
the man, therefore, must be taken in the light of the measure
of the force of this challenge, the resistance it was bound to
arouse, and Muhammad's achievement despite this resistance.
He found an Arabia which merely looked over its shoulder at
Allah and left an Arabia for whom Allah was all in all, the First
and the Last."

_The Study of Religions_, 1969, published by Pelican Books,
 (originally written in 1966); pages 97-99.

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Part 3 in a continuing series.


Assalam alaikum, my kin.
Love is the law, love under will.

Haramullah (Allah's Woman)
Tyagi@HouseofkAos.Abyss.com