Showing posts with label Muhammad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muhammad. Show all posts

Sunday, February 26, 2023

The Rashidun Caliphate

After the death of Muhammad in June 632, his followers discussed who should carry on his message to all parts of the world. Muhammad's close companion Abu Bakr was named first caliph in Medina and promptly began converting the entire Arab Peninsula to Islam.

Abu Bakr died two years later and was succeeded by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Muhammad's father-in-law. Umar had originally been opposed to Muhammad, but had come around. As the second caliph, he expanded the caliphate to cover two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire as well as part of Persia. Jewish tradition claims Umar allowed Jews into Jerusalem to worship. Umar was assassinated in November 644 by a Persian slave.

Umar's successor was Uthman, who advanced Islam into Byzantine territory until he was assassinated in June 656.

From 656 until 661 the caliphate was headed by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, a member of Muhammad's clan and had married Muhammad's daughter, Fatima. His election was opposed by the members of Uthman's clan, and they did not recognize his authority. After Ali, there were those who felt the caliphate should be ruled by heredity, as opposed to being ruled by political choices. Ali's rule was the beginning of the Shia-Sunni civil war.

Sunnis say that the first four caliphs were all related to Muhammad through marriage and were among his closest companions. They were the Rashidun, the "Rightly Guided" caliphs. The Shia group (about 10-15% of Muslims) claims that originally Muhammad chose Ali as his successor, but he was passed over for Abu Bakr. They said Islam should be led by descendants of Muhammad and Ali. Sunnis believe the leader should be chosen by political means, as were Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman.

This clash between the two groups ended the Rashidun Caliphate and gave rise to the Umayyad Caliphate,  which has been mentioned a few times in this blog. The Umayyads expanded Islam even further and  started clashing with Western Europe. We will see how that turned out tomorrow.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

The Father of the Kitten

Abu Hurairah (c.603 - 681) was a companion of Muhammad whose name (as it comes down to us) means "Father of the Kitten" because of his affection for cats. His real name is unknown, but medieval scholars looking back at his works think he may have been 'Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣakhr. He converted to Islam after the leader of his tribe met and was impressed by Muhammad in Mecca. Going to Mecca to meet Muhammad himself, he found a stray kitten which he carried in his sleeve, earning him the nickname by which history knows him.

Abu Hurairah followed Muhammad in his travels, listening and learning from him. He was known for having a prodigious memory, and could recite thousands of hadith. Hadith (Arabic; "talk" or "discourse") are reports of what Muhammad said (or approved of based on his actions or inactions). He was so famous for his knowledge of these that one of the foremost authorities on jurisprudence admitted to marrying Abu Hurairah's daughter to be closer to Abu Hurairah and his knowledge of hadith.

Horses were also important to Abu Hurairah, but in a different way: he made himself a wealthy man by horses. Well, not just by breeding horses. He participated in the Ridda Wars, begun after Muhammad's death by the Rashidun Caliphate to bring to heel rebellious Arabian tribes. The Rashidun Caliphate was successful in all engagements, and the process of uniting all of the Arabian Peninsula under one rule was begun.

A mausoleum was constructed to honor him in 1274 by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars. There has been some scholarly disputation over the trustworthiness of the hadith attributed to Abu Hurairah, but it is mostly along Sunni-Shia lines: Abu Hurairah falls into the Sunni camp, and the minority Shia arguments are mostly ignored. 

The Rashidun Caliphate was the start of Islam spreading westward in the Mediterranean and toward Europe. I'll start talking about that campaign next time.

Friday, February 24, 2023

Cats in the Middle Ages

Dick Whittington's cat might have made his reputation according to the legend, but cats were not always a welcome sight in the Middle Ages. They were used in many amusing  marginalia, but they were considered to be linked to the supernatural and paganism. Fear of their presence, especially in time of trouble such as during the Black Death, led to events such as the Kattenstoet in Ypres.

Technically, Kattenstoet means "Festival of the Cats," which sounds delightful. It commemorates, however, the medieval practice of throwing cats from a high belfry tower in the Cloth Hall. This was considered symbolic of banishing evil. Nowadays it is less fatal for felines: a jester tosses plush toy cats from the tower to waiting arms below.

(Associating cats with the evil of the Black Death, of course, may have led to eliminating one of the potential brakes on its spread, because of course cats might have helped keep in line the spread of rodents whose fleas would have carried the disease.)

Cats weren't always disliked: the number of cats in the margin of manuscripts suggest that they were actually quite common in the monasteries where such manuscripts were being created. Cats also appear in many illustrations of domestic scenes, suggesting that they were a common pet.

The Islamic world saw cats as more preferable than "unclean" animals like dogs, probably because cats are seen cleaning themselves daily. Cats were even acceptable in mosques. Their reputation was probably enhanced by Abu Hurairah, a companion of Muhammad, whose name means "father of the kitten." He fed and cared for stray cats at his mosque. Abu Hurairah was not likely his real name, and his attachment to cats was not his most significant feature. I'll tell you more about him tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

The First Crusade Announced

Christianity in the Middle Ages did not approve of Islam and its swift growth. It was not many years after the death of Muhammad in 632 CE that the Islamic occupation of Jerusalem was established in 638. Even though Jews and Christians were allowed in the city, and a treaty was signed between the caliph and the Patriarch of Jerusalem guaranteeing protection of Christian holy places, Western Europe and the papacy saw Jerusalem as a problem to solve.

Pope Urban II decided it was important to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule, and to that end he announced there would be a special gathering at Clermont in France in 1095. Clermont was the site of a couple religious councils. He was holding one on 18 November, 1095. Urban had received a request for aid from Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus against the Muslim Turks

On 27 November he spoke from a wooden platform to a crowd of thousands of the faithful that had gathered. On each of four sides of the platform were men with leather conical "megaphones" who repeated his words so that they could reach as far as possible to the crowds. (I have read this in the past, but cannot now find a reference for it, so take it as literary license for now.)

In short, he called all Christians to join in a war against the Muslims to free the Holy Land. This would also be an important pilgrimage for any involved, and would include a plenary indulgence (a remission of all penance for sins) to those who partook. When Urban finished his announcement, he concluded Deus vult! (Latin for "God wills it.") The crowd erupted, repeating his Deus vult.

The result of all this? We'll see tomorrow whether they succeeded.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Medieval Eclipses

[source]
Eclipses were a mystery for awhile, but eventually enough took place that astronomers could spot the patterns. European astronomers in the 1600s were able to publish books explaining how lunar and solar eclipses took place. Prior to that, however, they were mysterious occurrences whose importance was tied to whatever was happening on the ground.

In 632, an eclipse that was visible in Medina on 27 January coincided with the death of Ibrahim, the son of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad interpreted this as a sign for his followers to pray for Ibrahim.

On 2 August 1133, a total eclipse took place. When King Henry I of England died months later, it "confirmed" for the popular culture that eclipses were bad omens for rulers. They knew that the eclipse portended bad news; they just had to wait a long time to find out what the bad news was.

There's a stone in Ireland whose carvings are interpreted as the first recorded eclipse. You can see it above. The two sets of concentric circles colliding in the middle represent the eclipse. The circular carvings above it represent the other stars that appeared in the sky at the moment of totality. The overall pattern enabled astronomers to determine when the eclipse took place. So it is pretty well established that the earliest recording of an eclipse was made on the Loughcrew Cairn Megalithic Monument in Ireland; the eclipse took place on 30 November, 3340 BCE.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

When Syria Changed Hands

The population of Syria is currently about 60% Sunni and 13% Shia Muslim. 'Twas not always thus.

Map of ancient Syria, 1683 [source]
Syria joined the Greek-Macedonian Empire thanks to Alexander the Great about 330 BCE, taking it from Persian rule. It was from the Greeks that it gained the name Syria, confusing it with Assyria to the east. Later it was captured and occupied by the Armenians in 83 BCE, and by Pompey the Great in 64 BCE, joining it to the Roman Empire. The language in Syria was Aramaic, and its connection to the Roman Empire helped spread Aramaic-speaking Roman citizens farther afield than they might otherwise have traveled. There are Aramaic inscriptions on Hadrian's Wall, left there by Roman soldiers from Syria.

When the Roman Empire split, Syria became a province of the Byzantine Empire. There it might have stayed, except for Muhammad. He took 1000 men into Syria when he heard that tribes in Duma were preparing to attack Medina. This expedition in 626 set the stage for the Battle of Yarmouk in 636.

The battle lasted from 15 August to 20 August. Estimates put the Byzantine defending army between 80,000 and 150,000 and the Muslim army between 25,000 and 40,000. Our poor ability to estimate long-ago armies aside, it is clear that historians assume the Muslim army was much smaller. They prevailed, however, and the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius blamed his own personal failings (he had married his niece). He was in Antioch at the time and, having not enough resources to mount a campaign to re-take the territory, he retrieved a relic of the True Cross and retreated to Constantinople.

The Battle of Yarmouk was a tremendous victory for the Muslims and the beginning of their westward advance.