Muhammad’s continuing success gradually impinged on the Quraysh in Mecca. Some defected and
joined his community. His
marriage to a Quraysh woman provided him with a useful go-between. In 628
he and his followers tried to make an Islamized hajj but were forestalled by the Meccans. At
Al-Hudaybiyah, outside Mecca, Muhammad granted a 10-year truce on the
condition that the Meccans would allow a Muslim pilgrimage the
next year. Even at this point, however, Muhammad’s control over his
followers had its limits;
his more zealous followers agreed to the pact only after much persuasion. As
in all instances of charismatic leadership, persisting loyalty was
correlated with continuing
success. In the next year the Meccans allowed a Muslim hajj; and in the
next year, 630, the Muslims occupied Mecca without a struggle. Muhammad began to receive
deputations from many parts of Arabia. By his death in 632 he was ruler of
virtually all of it.
The Meccan Quraysh were allowed to
become Muslims without shame.
In fact, they quickly became assimilated to the actual muhajirun, even though
they had not emigrated to Medina themselves. Ironically, in defeat they had accomplished
much more than they would have had they achieved victory: the centralization
of all of Arabia around their polity and their shrine, the Ka‘bah, which had
been emptied of its
idols to be filled with an infinitely greater invisible power.
Because intergroup conflict was
banned to all members of the ummah on the basis of their shared loyalty to the emissary of a
single higher authority, the limitations of the Meccan
concept of haram, according to
which the city quarterly became
a safe haven, could be overcome. The broader solidarity that Muhammad had
begun to build was stabilized
only after his death, and this was achieved, paradoxically,
by some of the same people who had initially opposed him. In
the next two years one of his most significant legacies became
apparent: the willingness and ability of his closest supporters to sustain
the ideal and the reality of one Muslim community under one
leader, even in the face of significant opposition. When Muhammad died,
two vital sources of
his authority ended—ongoing revelation and his unique ability to exemplify
his messages on a daily basis. A leader capable of keeping revelation alive
might have had the
best chance of inheriting his movement, but no Muslim
claimed messengership, nor had Muhammad unequivocally designated any other
type of successor. The ansar, his early supporters in Medina, moved to elect their own leader,
leaving the muhajirun to choose
theirs, but a small number of muhajirun managed to
impose one of their own over
the whole. That man was Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad’s earliest followers and
the father of his favourite wife,
‘A’ishah. The title Abu Bakr took, khalifah (caliph), meaning deputy or
successor, echoed revealed references to those who assist major
leaders and even God himself. To khalifah he appended rasul Allah, so that his authority was based on his assistance
to Muhammad as messenger of
God.
Islamic history / edited by Laura S.
Etheredge. Britannica Educational Publishing
(a
trademark of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.): New York.
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