Muhammad and the Development of Islam In 622 CE, Muhammad and his community of followers found sanctuary in the city that had figured so prominently in the earlier tragedies of his life: the city of Yathrib. It was a watershed event for the future of Islam.

The Ka'bah in Makkah, from a 17th century glazed tile from Turkey

Before the Qur'an advised Muhammad to emigrate, he spent 13 years in Mecca where he and his followers were subject to abuses and torture of extreme sorts - some were killed. During this time, the Qur'an did not permit retaliation. Hence the Muslims bore the abuses. A small group, under the advice of Muhammad, had already migrated to Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The Meccans sent emissaries to extradite the refugees in order to mete out further punishment onto followers of the renegade faith. In the King of Abyssinia's court, Muhammad's followers explained both their grievances and faith to the Christian King, known as The Negus. The Meccans also made their case - considering theological rejection of idolatry and criticism of their time-honored ways to be an intolerable offense. When the Christian king Negus heard that the Qur'an made mention of Mary and Christ, he asked for those specific passages to be recited; after listening, he considered Muhammad's way and the way of Christ as 'emanating from the same lamp', and judged it unconscionable to allow the extradition of the Muslim refugees.

During the height of persecution, Muhammad and his followers were forced into the Meccan outskirts, and were censured and boycotted. Scant food, clothing and shelter were available. They lived under these conditions for a number of years, during which time Muhammad's wife Khadijah died, presumably in part due to malnourishment. His father figure, Abu Talib died. Although Abu Talib remained in the religion of the Quraysh, he was desperately trying to reconcile Muhammad's followers and the Quraysh idolaters. Abu Talib was often the message bearer sent by the Quraish leadership, offering Muhammad wealth, women, absolute political authority, and freedom and empowerment for all of his supporters, if only he would redact the spiritual portion of the message — belief in One God. Abu Talib was a Meccan elder whose presence and known sympathy for Muhammad and his followers helped attenuate some of the abuses hurled upon the Muslims. The death of both of these figures, Khadija, and Abu Talib, is seen as extremely significant - these were of Muhammad's closest family and, through the bonds of endearing and nurturing love, they provided him with a type of transcending support.

Shortly after this time, Muhammad visited the neighboring town of Taeef in order to explain the Qur'an and the way of Abraham to the elders. He was pelted with stones. At this point, Muhammad's mission was deemed a failure. During a following night, he was awoken while sleeping. It was the Arch-Angel Gabriel, who led Muhammad on a two-part journey that is considered one of the pinnacles of Muhammad's spiritual development. The first part was known as the Isra (the night journey.)

In his own words, Muhammad explained that this journey was not limited by the ordinary perceived constructs of time and space. Hence it was considered miraculous. In Gabriel's company, he was transported to Jerusalem in instants - where he was receivedby an assembly of history's prophetic lineage, Abrahamic (Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, David Solomon, Moses, Aaron, John, and Jesus) and non-Abrahamic (Adam, Noah, Idrees, Jonah, Job, Hood, Shuaib, Luqman...and others). There he bonded with each, and led the assembly in prayers and devotions to God. From Jerusalem, the second part of the journey commenced, known as the Meraaj. Muhammad ascended to the far reaches of the cosmos, and met again with the prophets in their celestial (inner forms), and witnessed the dynamics of the angelic and infernal realms to be encountered in the traditional attestation of post-mortal existence. For the rest of his earthly life, he often spoke about these to believers as warnings and exhortations. The postures of the proper Islamic ritual prayer are thought to be in emulation of the postures Muhammad saw the angels assuming before the Divinity.

Finally, Muhammad penetrated the 'furthest limit of creation,' beyond where Gabriel could accompany him. At this juncture, Muhammad explained, he alone held intimate converse with the Divinity itself, and was encompassed with The Presence of God. The subject of this meeting is food for much mystical interpretation, but Muhammad would say that his eyes saw only light, while witnessing and discourse were accomplished by that faculty which the Qur'an calls 'Fuwaad' (translated in English as' heart.') He described an inarticulable feeling of peace and coolness. He added that any terror regarding the task of bearing the Message of God to a world of hostility, hatred, and resistance fell away.

Returning to Mecca, where time seemed to have passed, Muhammed shared this news with some of his followers. It is said that when skeptics asked for details of what Jerusalem was like, he answered their questions accurately, even though he had never physically visited Jerusalem. He also correctly predicted the arrival and contents of a large caravan from Jerusalem. He claimed to have spotted this caravan during his journey.

Shortly after this experience, the townspeople of Yathrib, having heard of Muhammad and his reputation for wisdom and just arbitration, invited him to emigrate there with his followers and to assume temporal and judicial leadership of the extremely factional city. After most of his followers had migrated, Muhammad escaped potential assassins and bounty hunters in the desert and arrived himself in Yathrib. The manner in which he eluded these threats are recorded. The accounts are seen as Providential signifiers of his authenticity as Messenger of God, given protection from harm when Divinity sees its necessity. Indeed, later Muslim scholars would develop an Islamic lunar calendar that takes as its point of origin the journey from Makkah to Yathrib, known as the Hijrah. The year 622 of our Common Era therefore equals Year 1 AH (or Anno Hegirae) in the Muslim calendar.

The years in Yathrib — now renamed Medinat-un-Nabawi, the 'City of the Prophet' or Madinah, required Muhammad to act as statesman as well as preacher and prophet. He drafted laws, dispensed justice, negotiated treaties and trade pacts, and settled legal disputes. In addition, the Qur'an by this point permitted the bearing of arms, but only in cases of self-defense. Three incidents of armed conflict occurred between the Medinese Muslims and the Meccans and their allies. The success of Muhammad and his followers in resisting a coalition of Arabian tribes led by the Meccans intent on liquidating them was considered Providential.

Despite the size of his following, Muhammad encountered strains of resistance in Medina. The Qur'an harshly rebukes one group, the Hypocrites ( Munafiqoon), who nominally accepted Muhammad yet allied themselves with his enemies. Some of the Jewish tribes around Median also resisted him. Ironically, many of the Medinese gentiles (pagans) were familiar with the Jewish Rabbinical claim that the advent of a great prophet of God who would usher in a period of Jewish dominance was imminent. In fact, this expectation may have encouraged the Medinese gentiles to accept Muhammad as the temporal ruler of Medina.

According to Islamic scholarship, some of the Jewish tribes, in the course of time, judged that Muhammad was not an authentic prophet of God, and many were disappointed that he did not ally himself with Jewish political interests against those of the local gentile tribes. They rejected him on both theological and political grounds. According to various accounts, the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir engaged in assassination attempts on Muhammad's life. The tribe of Banu Qurayza is said to have joined with the Meccans, Hypocrite Medinese, and other hostile tribes in an attempted genocide of the Muslim community of Medina.

The Banu Nadir tribespeople were allowed to depart in exile with their wealth. The adult males of the Banu Qurayza tribe who had been party to the attempted genocide were executed for treason in accordance with the Halakhah (Jewish Law), this judgment having been made by an arbiter named Saad who was selected by the Banu Qurayza tribe. At the same time, many Jews supported Muhammad and acknowledged him as their temporal, but not religious, leader. These Jews were afforded full religious freedom, and when Muhammad was called upon to judge in cases involving these Jews, he decisions respected their Mosaic law. One of the most famous martyrs in the Islamic tradition is a Jew named Mukhayriq, whose body was prayed upon by Muhammad. It was Mukhayriq who used a Talmudic precedent to disengage himself from the Jewish Sabbath to join Muhammad in fending off a Meccan military assault on Medina. The Qur'an is critical of the Jewish tribes that betrayed Muhammad, and compliments those Jews that it claims acted with piety.

Roughly 17 months after arriving in Medina, Muhammad took the important step of changing the directional focus of prayer (Qiblah) from Jerusalem to Mecca. Deeply symbolic, this decision established the community of Muhammad as distinctive in its liturgical practice although still part of the Abrahamic family.

In 630, after a massacre of Muslims by some alleged Meccan terrorists violated a truce between Muhammad and the Meccans. Muhammad marched down to Makkah with a vast new army. He entered the city unopposed with head bowed down in humility and gratitude; at long last, Islam had taken possession of its holy city. Muhammad immediately granted and emphasized amnesty to all Meccan townsfolk, no matter what their behavior toward Muslims had been. Next, he ordered all pagan idols to be thrown out of the Kabba precinct, and solemnly re-dedicated the shrine to Allah as the sole God of all Creation. Earlier features of pilgrimage worship were preserved, but in a 'restored and purified sense.' For instance, the traditional circumambulation around the Kabba which had been a time-honored practice for pilgrims for centuries was maintained in the hajj (pilgrimage) rites, but now it would be obligatory to be fully dressed in pilgrim garb rather than naked or stained in the sacrificial blood of an offering as had been the pagan custom.

Driven by the Qur'anic revelation, Muhammad had forged (or perhaps adapted) a monotheistic faith that was firmly rooted in the Arab progeny of Abraham and his son Ishmael. The Qur'an considered Islam to be a rejuvenation of the way of Abraham and the two great monotheistic faiths - Judaism and Christianity - that preceded it. The Qur'an retained many of the features of local religious practice, vestiges of the religious traditions of Abraham, including the pilgrimage to Makkah, the circumambulation around the Kabba and the veneration of Allah — not as the supreme god, but the only God — that would be familiar to the Arab tribes.

The Qur'an did not enlist a hierarchy of patriarchs, bishops, priests and prelates. It uses the term Awliyya-ullah (Friend of God, Saint), Muthaqoon (those who are aware), Alimoon (those who know), and other generic titles to describe capacities attainable by all human beings. It measures human beings hierarchically not by title, secular education, theological knowledge, class, sex, or race, but by piety and nobility of conduct. One of the hallmarks of Islamic popular piety is its rejection of a priestly class that might serve to obstruct the relationship between the individual and Divinity. Nevertheless, Islamic history has been enriched with the advent of Saints and Sages who served at different times as guides and expositors of various areas of Islamic practice. Such men and women were recognized for their piety and erudition, not just on a scholarly level, but on a spiritual one as well. In addition, on a practical level, there are legions of Islamic scholars and Imams, roughly comparable to rabbinical scholars in Diaspora Judaism, who as theological or legal experts would continue to elaborate within the Islamic tradition with interpretations of the Qur'an and the Hadith.

Muhammad was also concerned about unity, because the Qur'an exhorts mankind to embrace a spirit of unity under God and non-sectarianism in approach to Divinity. Islam became the mortar of faith that bonded the manifold tribes together in an unshakable fortress of religious solidarity, which exemplified itself by uniting the perennially conflicting tribes of Arabia. Like Messianic Judaism (yet unlike Pauline Christianity), early Islam, making no distinction between the sacred and the mundane, reached into aspects of life now considered 'secular'. It held forth the idea of a nation under God (unprecedented in the Arabian context), born of piety (an Ummah), a theocratic political entity that would supercede tribal boundaries through the unifying authority of the Belief in the one God as expounded by The Qur'an.