Beginnings of Islam part 2

Where we left off in the last video, we saw Muhammad being born into a tribal Arabia. He's born into a powerful tribe, the Quraish, who are in control of Mecca. But his early life is difficult. His mother dies when he's six; his grandfather, who's taken charge of him, dies when he's eight years old. But he's able to, under the care of his uncle, become a merchant. At the age of twenty-five, he marries a wealthy merchant widower named Khadijah, who was fifteen years his senior.

Then we saw, at age forty in 610, while meditating in a mountain outside of Mecca, he receives the first revelation of the Quran according to Islamic tradition. He's skeptical of it at first, but he is reassured, and then he soon receives many more revelations. Within roughly three years, he starts to preach those revelations. Now, as we mentioned in that last video, what he was preaching did not sit well with his own tribe, those who ruled Mecca, the Quraish. He was preaching a monotheistic tradition based on Judaism and Christianity. He was preaching that there is no god but God. But Mecca, power, its economy was based on people making pilgrimages there to worship the idols at the Kaaba. So the Quraish did not like Muhammad's revelations, and they did not like these early Muslims. They persecuted them, they killed them, they tortured them.

We saw in 615 the migration of some of Muhammad's followers to Abyssinia, the kingdom of Aksum, modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia, to escape some of that persecution. Things got worse for Muhammad. We saw in that last video the death of his first wife and, up to that point, his only wife. This is where we start to see a bit of a turning point for Muhammad and his followers. In 620, and this is according to Muslim traditions, there isn't historical evidence for this, and this is one of the more metaphysical events that we'll talk about in this narrative. But according to the Islamic faith, in 620, Muhammad had a night journey from Mecca to the farthest mosque, which today is believed by many Muslims to be the Al-Aqsa mosque, which was built later in Jerusalem.

So, right, right, let me write over here: So, a night journey according to the Muslim faith to Jerusalem, where he ascended with Gabriel to the heavens, and he conversed with some of the prophets of old. Once again, this is clearly a metaphysical thing, but it's a significant event in the Muslim faith. Now the Quraish continued to persecute Muhammad and the early Muslims in Mecca. We have some of them that are now in the kingdom of Aksum, and Muhammad learns that there is a community, a growing community of Muslims in the town of Yathrib, who are starting to follow Muhammad or his revelation.

They come to him and they invite him to come to Yathrib, because there's actually a lot of fragmentation; there's warring tribes, and they're seeking an outsider to help bring some peace and authority to this place where there is already a burgeoning Muslim community. So in 622, you have the famous migration of Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib, which is renamed Medina. Medina literally means "the city." From then on, it really becomes the base of Muhammad and the early Muslims.

Once he's in Medina, he is no longer just a prophet; he isn't just continuing to have his revelations according to Islamic tradition, but he essentially rules over Medina and governs it. He's starting to become both a political ruler and a spiritual ruler. Now the Quraish in Mecca are still not happy, because Muhammad is continuing to preach, and he's continuing to get more and more followers. So you start having, at first, a series of skirmishes between the armies of the Quraish, or the members of the Quraish, and some of the early Muslims.

But these skirmishes eventually emerge into full-on conflict. Here are some of the significant battles that occurred between the Quraish tribe—remember, that's Muhammad's own tribe—and the early Muslims, the early followers of Muhammad and his revelations. So, most famously perhaps, you have the Battle of Badr, because this is the first time that you have a significant confrontation between a very small, that you wouldn't even necessarily call this an army—a small group of Muslims, roughly a little over 300 according to Muslim tradition—versus 900 or a little over 900 on the Quraish side. The Muslims are outnumbered three to one, but this results in a Muslim victory.

So you can imagine the early Muslims start to see this as a turning tide; they were able to defeat the powerful Quraish tribe. Now, the Quraish were not happy with that, and roughly a year later, you have another battle outside of Medina, on Mount Uhud. Once again, the Muslims, which are now larger, but they continue to be outnumbered even more than three to one. This is closer to four to one, right over here, and this results in a Quraish victory. This is right over there outside on the northern side of what is now called Medina.

But then, a few years later, you have a significant battle where the Quraish have built a confederacy, and they want to end this—the teachings of Muhammad; they want to end these Muslims whose preachings are threatening the pilgrimage, the legitimacy of the Quraish tribe in Mecca. So they laid siege to the city of Medina, and as a defensive measure, the Muslims in Medina create a trench around the city, and that's why this is called the Battle of the Trench. Once again, according to Islamic tradition, the Muslims are outnumbered three to one.

So this is right over here, the Battle of the Trench, in which the Muslims are victorious, and this is a significant blow to the legitimacy, the prestige of the Quraish tribe. A year later, you have the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah between the Quraish and the Muslims, and this is significant because it's starting to put these early Muslims on the same footing as the powerful Quraish tribe. It has some allowances for the Muslims to make pilgrimages to the Kaaba.

But then, as we go into 630, there's an incident in which one tribe kills some members of another tribe. Remember, we're still in a very tribal society, and the other tribe, the one that had some members killed, was aligned, was friendly with the early Muslims. So the early Muslims did not appreciate this; they sent an ultimatum to the Quraish, and the Quraish essentially said, "Well, you know, that doesn't matter; we don't really take what you have to say seriously." They take one of the options of the ultimatum, which is making the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah null and void.

So now that the treaty is not there, and once again, this is according to Muslim traditions, which are our main accounts that we have of this time, we then have, in 630, 10,000 Muslims, which is a very significant number. Remember, six years ago we were talking about only 300 Muslims in the Battle of Badr, but ten thousand Muslims march on Mecca, and they are able to take the city peacefully.

What this results in is essentially most of the city converting to Islam, and famously Muhammad goes into the Kaaba and destroys the idols there. According to Islamic tradition, he makes the Kaaba a center of the Muslim faith, and it is even today. Now, from that point, the spread of Islam continues. You have Muhammad and his armies—this green area is essentially what they were able to conquer in the remainder of his life. He lives for another—oops! He lives for another two years after the acceptance of Islam by Mecca, and they're able to conquer most of this green, this dark green area here.

As we'll see shortly after that, most of Arabia and even Persia, and within a few hundred years, a large chunk of the world were able to be conquered by these Muslim armies.