okay good morning um so we are doing Muhammad and the r of Islam Today Muhammad um as you know is one of the most important and influential figures in human history he is as important as Jesus um but ironically we actually don't know that much about Muhammad in fact fact we probably know more about Jesus than we know about Muhammad with Jesus at least we have a lot of his quotations a lot of his sayings which give us insight into his philosophy his religion his thinking but but with Muhammad we don't have that many quotations we don't have that many written sources in fact the Quran which is the holy book of the Islamic ition doesn't really mention him even though in theory it is written by him in fact one of the um earliest written documents about Muhammad is actually from a Christian Bishop written about 20 30 years after Muhammad's death in 632 CE okay so we know he exist so we know that he was a real person and he was the founder of the Islamic tradition and this is what um sibiel says about Muhammad at that time a certain man from along those same sons of Ishmael whose name was mammed okay so mammed is Muhammad in fact we we don't even know what his real name is Muhammad just means blessed one in Arabic a merchant okay so he was a merchant as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher so he was a prophet who rallied the the U Arabs to his cause abing the their vain Cults they turned to the Living God who had appeared to the Father Abraham okay so Muhammad converted the polytheistic Arabs to the monism of the Jews so mammed legislated for them not to e carry on not to drink wine not to speak falsely and not to engage in forn fornication he said with an oath God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him forever and he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved ishmail okay so what he's saying is the Arabs are the descendants of Abraham just like the Jews and the Christians but now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise to Abraham and his seed to you okay you have been you have God promised you the promised land and now this land has been taken away from you okay Jerusalem um Israel has been taken away from you and now we will take it back by going to war Jihad holy war love sincerely only the god of Abraham and go and cease the land which God gave to your father Abraham no no one will be able to resist you in battle because God is with you okay so this is actually very similar the story of Moses in the Bible right the the Jews were enslaved in Egypt and Moses appeared before them and promised to take them back to Israel right so this is clearly following an ancient tradition and so moabit in many ways is like Moses in fact what's really strange is that in the Quran the most um quoted figure the figure that is most mentioned is Moses not Muhammad or um Jesus okay so let's try to figure out what's going on here first of all um what Muhammad is saying is that Christians Jews and Arabs are all one big family why because in the Bible it says that Abraham made a covenant with Yahweh Yahweh Abraham swore allegiance to Yahweh in return Yahweh gave him the promised land now the promised land is not Israel the promised land is all that territory going from the Nile to the Tigers in modern day Iraq so basically the entire Middle East okay that's what the promised land is now this is important because Abraham um had a wife Sarah Sarah for most of her of her life was not able to give birth and if you don't have um descendants if you don't have children they don't get the promised land right so in desperation Sarah gave Abraham her maid named Hagar and Abraham impregnant Hagar and Hagar gave birth to a son named ishmail and then ishmail went to the Arabian Desert and he is the father of the Arab people okay and that's where Muhammad comes from the Arabs Sarah by the miracle of God would eventually be able to give birth to the the Israelites okay and as we know the Israelites will eventually become the Christians so in other words the Christians the Jews and the Muslims they have a common ancestor in Abraham okay so this is what so this is what this is saying so even though we don't have that many written sources about Muhammad we have something called the Hadi okay the Hadi the Hadith is Arabic and it just means an oral tradition so there are these stories about Muhammad that has been passed on orally from generation to generation celebrating his life and so let's go over what is traditionally understood about Muhammad so Muhammad was born in the year 570 into um an Arab tribe okay and he's born born in a place called Mecca in the Arabian Desert he became a Traer because a merchant because most people at that time were either Nomads or merchants and at a very young age he married a very waly Widow and until the age of 40 his life was prosperous but un uninvent then 40 he started to meditate in a cave okay that's a very common thing to go to a cave um and to meditate as a form of religious worship and while he was at the Cave the angel Gabriel appeared before Muhammad and he said to Muhammad you and your family have lost away you are the descendants of ishmail who brought the religion of Yahweh to the desert back then you were monotheistic but then over time you be you became corrupted and became polytheistic and so you have a mission to tell your fellow Arabs the story of Yahweh the story of the Bible and to return them to the love of Yahweh return them to monotheism and so Gabriel in a series of Visions would tell Muhammad the story of the Bible okay including Moses um his taking the people uh the chan people the Jews from Egypt back to the promised land and this is considered a miracal and true because Muhammad was an illiterate Merchant who had no exposure to the Bible so this had to be true and this shows that um this is all a miracle so Muhammad is now inspired by the Archangel Gabriel to to preach the word of God but at this time Arabia is a polytheistic primitive and backward Society so the people of Mecca reject him he spend 30 13 years in Mecca preaching the word but they reject him So eventually he decides to move to Medina okay and this move is very important it's called the hij okay the immigration he and his followers moved from Mecca to Medina and this starts the Islamic tradition and this marks the year zero in the Islamic calendar just as the birth of Jesus marks the year zero in the Christian calendar okay so he goes to Medina because the tribes there have invited him to be a judge the tribes there uh one of the tribes is actually Jewish they're fighting amongst themselves and they need someone to arbitrate to arbitrate their disputes and so Muhammad goes and he creates something called the constitution of Medina which promises is the freedom of religious um expression to all people okay there will be no religious Prejudice in Medina eventually over time more and more followers are attracted to his message of monotheism and he starts to build a following an army and but because he's preaching a faith that is counter the mainstream Faith he gets attacked by other Arab tribes and there are some setbacks but through the love of God through the will of God he triumphs over them and he unites the Arabian Peninsula now at this point they are a threat to the two major world Empires at this time the bantine Empire who the hears to the Roman Empire as well as the sassanian Persian Empire and they both attack him sorry they both attack the Muslims but again through the miracle of God the Muslims are able to defeat both Empires and in less than 100 years they conquer most of the world okay it is one of the greatest mysteries in Ro history how this happened all right how was it possible for Desert people okay these are desert Nomads who are poor PRI and backward how they were able to defeat two World Empires and Conquer most of the world their empire at their height would stretch from Spain in the west all the way to India and would include Egypt the lavant Mesopotamia and um Iran okay very impressive how do they do that and this mystery has never been solved we will try in today's class to solve this mystery in today's class we'll try to answer three major questions first of all who was Muhammad really who was this person what did he believe what did he want that's that's first question second question is how was this new religion Islam able to try all right and the third and last question is why do we know so little about the early history of the Islamic tradition okay so given that we know so little about the early history and given that there are few written sources about the early history and very little archaeology has been done because Mecca and Medina are the two holiest sites in the Islamic tradition all right so we don't have that much evidence in this situation we can only use historical analogues are there historical incidents that narrow or similar to what happened uh in the Aran P Peninsula 1500 years ago and the answer is there are some there are actually many many similarities all right so I was look at three ones three I I'll just look at three okay the first is from 1850 to 1864 in China there's something called the typing Rebellion I'm not sure if you know the story but what happened was there was this um young man only his 20s but his name is honi Trent and he's trying to become a scholar official by taking the N by taking the um examination and he spelled three times already after his third attempt uh he runs into a Christian Miss missionary who gives him a pamplet and he just produces that pamphlet and he learns about Jesus then he has a dream where he meets Jesus and Jesus tells him you're my brother you're my little brother and after he fails the exam for the fourth time he decides to abandon um the that scholar official uh route and embrace his Destiny as the brother as a Chinese brother of Jesus and eventually over the course of 10 years he's able to build a following that eventually conquers most of China and is's almost able to overthrow the Ching Empire but there are some other factors at work for example the Western Powers mainly the British Empire intervene on behalf of the of the Ching Dynasty so a very similar situation with the Muslim conquest of the world right these are peasants who have this very strange new religion and somehow they're able to beat a major Empire and what the story of the typing Rebellion tells us is a new religion that is revolutionary in the right social historical economic circumstances can be very powerful okay so what drove the taiping soldiers in battle was both the idea of religious devotion God is with us and revolutionary Zeal we are making a new world and when soldiers are infused with both religious devotion and revolutionary Zeal they're not afraid to die they will fight to the death and that's why they were able to overwhelm the government's soldiers okay same thing happened in something in something called the war of the canudos from 1896 to 1898 in Europe the canudos is a northern province in Brazil and Brazil um for its for it for most of its history was an extremely racist Society where minorities were persecuted by the predominantly Spanish and white colonizers and it was extremely unequal Society where few landlords controlled all the wealth so the canoodles was a rebellion to overthrow these landlords and establish a kingdom of heaven it was led by this preacher who preached the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven just like Jesus and he was surrounded by these peasants who overthrew the landlords they were surrounded by Bandits who were criminals basically they didn't have any guns they didn't have any weapons they didn't have any soldiers the bris Army saw them as a threat and they saw they sent three Expeditions against these peasants all three times the prison prison Army was destroyed okay they lost the battle why because again when peasants have revolutionary Zeal and religious devotion they're not afraid to die and so hand to hand they were able to defeat the bridan soldiers who were well armed and well trained so so with the fourth Expedition the brisen Army decided to send everyone the entire brison Army was sent against this peasant Uprising because they saw this as a threat to the social order and what they did was rather than engag the peasants in handen combat directly they surrounded the area with artillery and they bombarded the uh peasants until they were dead they basically nuked The Peasants okay because they could not defeat the peasants hand to hand or directly and in both times the typing rebellion and the war of of the canos you can say it was a religious movement but they were both revolutions they're they were trying to overthrow the established social order okay so let's look at one more example of this which is the French revolu reolution now we're we're going to spend a lot of time on the French Revolution next semester so I don't want to spend too much time on it right now okay but but you know the basic outline of the French Revolution right where um the nobility and the mar were overthrown and they established a new ref government and the monarchies of Europe United against France because they saw France as a threat to the established social order of Europe and the French revolutionaries were able to defeat the combined armies of Europe and under Napoleon they established a French Empire okay so all three in incidents are very similar to what happened um in the Arabian peninsula in 600 uh C so in other words what I believe happened is the Muslims were the world's first Global Revolution okay so let me explain what I mean by that okay so first of all let's let's better understand the araban peninsula at this time okay so this is the year 600 and again there are two major world Empires between the araban peninsula there's the Byzantine Empire which is basically like like this okay okay this these are byzantines so and they are thees to the Romans so basically the Eastern Roman Empire okay and they still think think of themselves as the Roman Empire but historically we we call them the bantine now and over here okay are what we call the sassanian Persian Empire and as you can see they're huge okay this is India and this is Spain by the way okay and this is Egypt so these are huge World Empires and then you have the Arabs in the araban peninsula which is which is this desert okay and you look at this map you'll be like oh my God how was it possible for the Arabs to defeat both the bantin Empire and the sassanian Persian Empire and the answer is this what people don't understand what do not recognize is in 600 CE the hotbed of innovation was actually here in the araban peninsula this was the most crazy the most open and the most Cosmopolitan Center in the world at this time and and that's what people don't really understand so let me explain why okay as you can see from this map Arabia thean Peninsula is a desert but it's basically the center of the world and remember in this class what you taught is the world has always been connected through trade okay so the Arabian Peninsula even though you can't really have cities because you don't have any rivers and you can't really grow crops so you can't have agriculture they've been trading with other nations and Civilizations for thousands of years okay because there's a crisscross of Empire so if India wanted to access Egypt okay because again Egypt for the longest time was the wealthiest ization then they had to First send their goods to Arabia and and then the uh Nomads would transport the goods into Egypt okay so what does it mean to be a training center well the first thing that it means is you have access to the most advanced technology information and knowledge in the world because you're a Trader you go everywhere and you bring back not just Goods but stor stories and information they know everything about the world they know exactly what's happening in the bis Empire they know exactly what's happening in Assassin Empire even though most people don't know what's happening in the desert okay also because you're traitors they're extremely open-minded and Cosmopolitan they have no prejudices they have to be friends of everyone and the third thing is big are Traders they have to constantly learn new information okay so that's the first unique characteristic about the Aran Peninsula at this time these are open-minded Cosmopolitan people who are constantly absorbing new information new knowledge to better their society the second thing about the Arabian peninsula is that it's a war Society you don't have cities you don't have centralized control just all just tribes okay just different Clans different families fighting each other so honor is very important if you offend someone in my family we go to war okay but guess what because they're always at War these are strong brave people who know how to fight and that's why both the byzantines and the cians hired these people as mercenaries okay and so as mercenaries they were learning the most advanced Warcraft military doctrine of both the Assassin and the byzantines they have these were the best soldiers in the world basically and what happened is that over time the byzantines and assassins would establish client um States within the Arabian Peninsula okay so these are client states all right so there so that's the second thing this is a war Society okay who know how to fight the third thing that makes the Aran Peninsula so Innovative is its diversity all right so what what what do I mean by that okay so as we discussed last class Augustine creates this intellectual blueprint for the Catholic church and the focus is on obedience okay the idea is Orthodoxy meaning there is only one proper way to understand our religion if you if you disagree then it's heresy okay and as we discussed the problem with the Christian religion is it's very very confusing so we talked about about the example of the godhead right Jesus Holy Spirit and God are one and the same well this creates a lot of problems for example the very basis of the Christian religion is that Jesus died for our sins right Jesus was sacrificed he was crucified and he suffered for our sins here's a question though how does God suffer how does God die that makes no sense so one the that has never ended okay even today Christians still fight fight over it's the idea of christology what is the nature of Christ is he Divine is he human is he both is he half half was he human here and then Divine up there there are lots of possibilities and even today Christians cannot agree Okay so F even so from the first day Christians have fought over each other um over the nature of Christ and the nature of the godhead okay and again because of or Orthodoxy there's only one interpretation and you must follow that interpretation and if you don't follow that interpretation guess what uh you either have to go somewhere else or you die and so they're forced to go East right they either go to the sassan Empire or they go to the araban desert many CH School Arian desert why because in Aran desert there's no Cal Authority you're free to practice the faith as you choose and guess what often those who are the most her heretical those who want to practice your own faith are the most Innovative because they like to ask questions they like to explore they want to practice a personal faith they believe that God is someone you communicate with right the Catholic Church demands that you can only access God through priests you're not to read the Bible you're not you're not allowed to question Orthodoxy and the most intelligent people want to do that they want to speak to God they want to practice own personal faith they want to ask questions and in those what and and in this world at this time the only place you can do that is the Arabian Desert you have lots of Christians here Christians who are um very controversial they all end up in the Arabian Desert okay in order to practice their faith you also have a lot of Jews in the Aran desert why well first of all I mean the Aran desert is very close to Jerusalem right so there there's always been used there as traitors and when they go to Iran desert remember this is common story about uh how the Arabs and the Jews come from one big family Abraham okay so they're able to coales in in a mingle in Mary fairly easily you also had a lot of Jews who are escaping persecution right you also have a lot of Jews who fought in the Civil Wars against Rome and they lost and they had to run to the um uh Arabian Desert okay so have a lot of Jews here as well you also have zorin uh from the Assassin Empire who again want to practice their own personal faith so the Arabian Desert it is a hotbed of religious diversity and religious tolerance you are allowed to practice any th and people respect that okay and again they have some of the smartest Jews and Christians and Jans in the world at this point people who will eventually lend their expertise to the Arab military machine all right so they will help the Arabs develop Innovative Siege Warfare and Military Doctrine and science as well okay does that make sense at the same time while Arabia is increasing in terms of innovation and wealth and diversity both the buys and and assassin are declining in terms of in terms of social uh stability okay so as we discussed in this class whenever you have stability what happens is you will eventually have inequality and Corruption so people within the bisan Empire are extremely unhappy for three reasons the first reason is the problem of landlessness second problem is debt these are problems that have existed throughout human history why are there so many Revolutions in Chinese history because of these two two problems right because there are few people who control all the land and because the peasants get into debt so much that they can't they can't pay it back and their entire family for Generations are enslaved to the landlords but also at this time because of the Catholic Church you also have the problem of religious persecution all right you are not allowed to practice your own faith you are only allowed to practice the faith that the Catholic Church demands of you and the same situation is also true in the Persian Empire all right so the people are extremely unhappy at the same time there's a lot of instability within the government of these Empires why well first of all because they're always fighting each other okay so Wars they're always fighting each other and that causes them to lose a lot of resources okay second is whenever you have large cities you have the problem of plagues right disease plagues so there are these um plagues called the Justin Justinian plague that wiped out about 10 to 20% of the population at this point and the third problem is Civil Wars right because whenever an emperor dies they fight over who's the next Emperor so in other words we think it seems that the byzantines and the Sans are really strong and the Arabs are really weak when you actually analyze it you realize that oh wow the bisans are extremely weak the Assassin are really weak and the Arabs are really strong the problem with the Arabs though is they're divided right they divide into like thousands tens of thousands of different tribes so the question now is how do you unite them so you need a leader to come and Inspire the people okay and this is Muhammad now what's important for us to understand is there are lots of different prophets uh who think they're the Messiah at this point okay because both the zor aan religion and the Christian religion and the um Jewish religion believe that the Messiah will come okay and we call this apocalyptic eschatology this is very this is very very popular right because with Empires because the more stable Empires are the more corruption the more inequality the more social social stagnation there there are okay so people actually turn towards the idea of apocalyptic eschatology so there are hundred people who who fig of themselves as a messiah but eventually Muhammad becomes a messiah of their people okay and why well fortunately we have a formulation of a great leader that we've learned in this class all right so let me remind you of this formulation the first is the person is so strategic that he becomes Visionary second is that the person is so Innovative he becomes revolutionary the third is the person is so disciplined he becomes selfless right and we and so there are many individuals we've met in this class that that follow this formula so for example Phillip of Macedon as well as Julius Caesar Phillip and Julius Caesar we we imagine Warfare they made their armies into meritocracies where the very best and the most loyal were able to rise up in the ranks regardless of class or cast okay and they were selfless they were always in the the first in battle they put their lives they put the soldiers lives first okay and so we can say that whoever Muhammad was fit would fit this description okay so let me explain all right you are in the Arabian peninsula there are tens of thousands of different factions different tribes who have been fighting each other for centuries they don't really like each other now how do you unite them how do you get everyone to work together and defeat both the Banes and assassins well you have if you H if you have three different messages you can unite everyone okay the first message is this We Are All God's Children okay Arabs Jews Christians we are all descendence of Abraham therefore we are all God's children we are one big family there should be no religious difference and persecution Among Us and because we're all God's children and because we're all different we should be free to practice any religion we want the Christian religion is just as valid as the Jewish religion okay so the first thing that you say Okay second thing that you will you can say is that we are we okay so you're basically creating meritocracy native meritocracy is basically Revolution right the idea of class the idea of cast the idea of tribal loyalties goes against the will of God because we're all God's children we're all equal in the eyes of God therefore those who are most willing to work hard to achieve God's Vision on Earth should rise to the talk regardless of your religion regardless of your class regardless of your cast it's a meritocracy okay and the third message is God gave us the promised land this land that extends from the Nile to the Tigers is what God promised us we are all God's children so each and every one of us should have land but the bises the Persians stole this land from us but the landlords the wealthy stole it from us therefore we must fight a Jihad to take it back because that is God's will when we take it back when we take it back we'll establish a kingdom of heaven on Earth we'll follow God's law God's law demands equality it demands mercy and tolerance it demands openness that is God's law okay so it's Muhammad so in other words Muhammad was a revolutionary who wanted to overthrow the social order in order to establish the Kingdom of Heaven he was the Messiah promis to the Jews and promised to the Christians and who will now unite Arabs Christians and Jews in achieving the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth that's who who Muhammad was okay and so let's go back and we read the description of Muhammad and his army by cbles to see if this is correct okay at that time a certain man from along the same lines same Sons as if of Ishmael whose name was mammed a merchant as if by God's command Okay so he is the Messiah he's the promised one God has ordered him to do this appeared them to as a preacher okay so he United them okay and they started to see themselves as all the children of Abraham and therefore the children of God and then mammed gave them the law of God not to eat carryon not to drink wine not to speak falsely and not to engage in fornication this is a law of God this is the Kingdom of Heaven he said with an oath God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him forever this is the land that God promised to us his children but the Romans have it the Persians have it the landlords have it and he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved Ishmael but now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise of Abraham and his seed to you okay I have come to you you as God's Messenger as God's Prophet to tell you that this land is yours and you must take it back love sincerely only the god of Abraham and go and cease the land which God gave to your father Abraham cease the land overthrow the tyrants overthrow the landlords take it back no one will be able to resist you in battle because God is with you okay so this combines re revolutionary zeal overturning of social order with religious devotion God is with us and this is the same mentality that drove the French Revolution the war of the canos in Brazil and the taiping rebellion in China and so this is the first truly Global Revolution okay and this explains why the Muslim were able to triumph over both the byzantines and the Sans because when they wherever they went they freed the people from debt and lessness and religious persecution you are now allowed to practice any faith you want you have that freedom now that's important to people you now have some land where you can grow crops and you we will wipe away your debt okay so in less than 100 years okay look look what happened they were able to conquer the entire Persian Empire and half of the ban Empire right that's a power of religious de religious de devotion and revolutionary Zeal so that's how they were able to do it now the last question we have is um why don't we know any of this why isn't this hot in history books the answer is because the Revolutionary worked out because they won they achieved the revolution but now after they achiev the revolution they become an Empire if you're an Empire you don't want people to revolt against you so you have to whitewash this history right you don't want people to know that Muhammad was a revolutionary so you changed the history the history is that Muhammad was disgusted by the inequality and Corruption he saw in the world around him and he promised the people freedom from religious persecution from death and from landlessness and that's what Drew follow followers to him right you don't want another Muhammad appearing in your Empire so you change the history and say that oh no no the real conflict was that Muhammad wanted monotheism the Arabs wanted polytheism that's what the problem was okay and the the same is true in China today right who created the Chinese Revolution who enabled the Communist Party to control China Mone right do you learn about maone in in school no you don't same thing you understand so they're trying to whitewash their history because it's embarrassing for a global Empire to celebrate a revolutionary who hated corruption and inequality see and that's why there's so little written about Muhammad and that's why the Quran doesn't really tell that much that much that doesn't really tell us that much about Muhammad okay because his Revolution won okay is this clear to you you have any questions for okay all right so um we have two more classes before the semester ends okay they're both on Dante the reason why is Dante is the greatest poet the greatest prophet in human history and he's really second coming of Homer remember Homer created Greek civilization well Dante with his work the vine comedy will create modern Europe European civilization okay so next class next Tuesday we'll start looking at Dante