The Rise of Islam

And Islamic Literature

Major Points of this Section

1. God's revelations were first received around 610 by the prophet Muhammad, whose followers later collected them into the Koran, which became the basis for a new religion and community known today as Islam.– Also referred to in English as "Quran", or

"Qur'an". The latter is the correct transcription, but for class the commonly used translation "Koran“ will be used.

2. Though most of the pre-Islamic literature of Arabia was written in verse, prose became a popular vehicle for the dissemination of religious learning.

3. As its title "the Recitation" suggests, the Koran was made to be heard and recited; because it is literally the word of God, Muslims do not accept the Koran in translation from Arabic.

4. Although Persian literature borrowed from Arabic literary styles, it also created and enhanced new poetic styles, including the ruba'i (quatrain), ghazal (erotic lyric), and masnavi (narrative poem).

5 More widely known than any other work in Arabic, the Thousand and One Nights is generally excluded from the canon of classical Arabic literature due to its extravagant and improbable fabrications in prose, a form that was expected to be more serious and substantial than verse.

God's revelations were first received around 610 AD by the prophet Muhammad, whose followers later collected them into the Koran, which became the basis

for a new religion and community known today as Islam • The word 'Islam' is best

translated with 'submission [under the will and guidance of God]', but it has a deeper meaning by coming from the same Arabic root (s-l-m) as 'salam', peace, and 'salama', safety and security. Hence, the word 'Islam' explains large parts of the central core of the religion.

The Sources for Mohammad's LifeThe main source on Muhammad's life are Muslim sources written in Arabic •Tthe Qur'an. The recitation of God’s word to Mohammad .•The Sīrat rasūl allāh (means the Life of the Messenger of God; Arabic: سيرة

الله (رسول•Hadith--used to denote a saying, act or tacit approval either validly or invalidly ascribed to Muhammad

Mohammad’s Name in Text

Muhammad

• Born Muhammad ibn Abdullah (571 AD), he is said to have been a merchant who traveled widely.

• Muslims believe that in 610, at about the age of forty, while praying in a cave called "Hira" near Mecca, he experienced a vision. Later, he described the experience (to those

close to him) as a visit from the Angel Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses sent by God which were later collected as the Qur'an.

• Gabriel told him that God (Allah) had chosen him as the last of the prophets to mankind.

• He eventually expanded his mission as a prophet, publicly preaching a strict monotheism and predicting a Day of Judgment for sinners and idol-worshippers — such as his tribesmen and neighbors in Mecca.

• He did not completely reject Judaism and Christianity, two other monotheistic faiths known to the Arabs;

• Mohamed said that he had been sent by God in order to complete and perfect their teachings.

• Many of his neighbors resented his preaching, and persecuted Muhammad and his followers.

• In 622, he was forced to flee from Mecca and settle in Yathrib (now known as Medina) with his followers, where he was the leader of the first avowedly Muslim community.

• War between Mecca and Medina followed, in which Muhammad and his followers were eventually victorious.

• The military organization honed in this struggle was then set to conquering the other tribes of Arabia.

• By the time of Muhammad's death, he had unified Arabia, spread Islam throughout the Arab Peninsula, and launched expeditions to the north, towards Syria and Palestine.

• After Muhammad’s death there came a major division between two groups.

• The principal issue upon which Islam's first major sectarian split occurred centers on the question of leadership.

Sunni --the largest denomination of Islam.• According to Sunni thought, Muhammad died

without appointing a successor to lead the Muslim community.

• After an initial period of confusion, a group of his most prominent companions gathered and elected Abu Bakr, the Prophet's close friend and father-in-law, as the first Caliph.

• Abu Bakr ( الصديق بكر alternative ,ابوspellings, Abubakar, Abi Bakr, Abu Bakar) (ca. 573 – August 23, 634) ruled as the first of the Muslim caliphs (632 – 634).

• Sunnis initially believed that the position of Caliph should be democratically chosen, but after the first four Rightly Guided Calliphs the position turned into a hereditary dynastic rule.

• After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, there has never been another Caliph.

Shi'a – the 2nd Largest Islamic denomination in the world• They follow Ali ibn Abi Talib ( أبي بن علي

(ca. 599 – January 661 CE) (طالب• He was an early Islamic leader and is held by

the Sunni Muslims as the fourth and last of the Khulafā-i-Rāshidūn (rightly guided caliphs).

• Shi'a Muslims see him as the first imam and first rightful caliph.

• He was Muhammad's cousin, and, after marrying Fatima, his son-in-law as well.

• After Muhammad's death, Islam spread out of Arabia to conquer the Persian and Byzantine empires.

• Though Muslim invaders were defeated in their attempt to conquer Tours, France, in 732, Islam spread to southern Spain, northern India, the Caucasus, and northern Africa by merchants and traders as much as by military conquest. – Charles Martel’s defeat of a Muslim invading

force at Tours is the subject of the epic poem The Song of Roland.

• The Koran forbids conversion by coercion, so Muslim rulers were tolerant of other religions based on revelation, such as Judaism and Christianity.

As its title "the Recitation" suggests, The

Koran was made to be heard and recited • Since it is literally

the word of God, Muslims do not accept the Koran in translation from Arabic.

• By contrast, the Christian Bible is accepted by believers in translations into any number of languages.

• The Koran is primarily dialogic: God speaks to Muhammad or gives him messages to recite.

• There is no narrative thread or history of a single group of people, as in the Jewish and Christian bibles.

• The revelations were received in verses ('ya), which have been grouped according to subject into larger divisions (Suras).

• The earliest and shortest Suras evoke the wonder and glory of God; the later and longer ones often include legal prescriptions and sage counsel.

The Arabian Nights• More widely known

than any other work in Arabic, the Thousand and One Nights is generally excluded from the canon of classical Arabic literature due to its extravagant and improbable fabrications in prose, a form that was expected to be more serious and substantial than verse.

• The Nights is an anonymous work whose provenance is uncertain.

• Due to the Persian names of its principle characters and setting, it was probably begun as a collection of tales in Middle Persian that had been translated from Sanskrit.

• The nucleus of these stories is formed by an old Persian book called Hazâr Afsâna (the Thousand Myths) (in Persian هزارافسانه).

.

• The core of the Nights is thought to have been translated, perhaps orally, into Arabic at the caliphate court in Baghdad, reputedly by the storyteller Abu abd-Allah Muhammed el-Gahshigar in the 9th century

• It circulated widely, particularly in Syria and Egypt, from which the two distinct branches of the manuscript emerged.

• Stories were added from various sources, including European ones.

• Thus, the original character of the Nights was lost.

• The tales vary widely; they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and Muslim religious legends.

The Stories

• Some of the famous stories Shahrazad spins in many western translations are Aladdin's Lamp, Sindbad the Sailor, and the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves;

• However some scholars think that Aladdin and Ali Baba were in fact inserted only in the 18th century by Antoine Galland, a French orientalist, who had heard them in oral form from a Maronite story-teller from Aleppo in Syria.

• Numerous stories depict djinns, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography; the historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist.

• Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.

• By the 20th century, Western scholars agreed that the Nights is a composite work consisting of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places.

• Several layers in the work, including one originating in Baghdad and one larger and later, written in Egypt, were distinguished in 1887 by August Müller.

• By the mid-20th century six successive forms had been identified:

• The forms are the 8th-century Arabic translations of the Persian Hazar Isfana, called Alf khurafah and Alf laylah; a 9th-century version based on Alf laylah but including other stories then current; the 10th-century work by Ibn 'Abdus; a 12th-century collection, including Egyptian tales; and the final version, extending to the 16th century and consisting of the earlier material with the addition of stories of the Islamic counter-crusades and Oriental tales brought to the Middle East by the Mongols.

Sites Cited

• Islamic Literature and Civilization http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/courses/RelComL262_04.htm 15 Nov. 2005.

• WW. Norton Review <http://www.wwnorton.com/nawol/s9_overview.htm> 15 Nov. 2005.

• Islam Unveiled With Rational Thinking http://www.humanists.net/alisina/ This site clearly has an agenda. 15 Nov. 2005.