I thought I would blog on Muhammad because I find it interesting who the people were who founded these world religions thousands of years ago. The film discussed him somewhat but I wanted to discuss him more. I also thought it would be interesting to gather information from a Chrsitian website, on Islam's founder.Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. Born in a Quraish tribe in Mecca, Muhammad's father died shortly before Muhammad's birth. Traditionally, mothers in the Quraish tribe, feared for the quality of the air their children were breathing. Therefore, they would hand their infants to nurses who would bring them to the desert, since they believed the air was healthier. Muhammad's mother continuously did this however and finally 'received' her child again when he was five. She died shortly after his return and he was in the care of his grand father.
And then, as the parent figure usually does in Muhammad's life, he dies just two years after.
Muhammad's uncle, Abu Talib, took care of him and probably became the closest father figure to Muhammad. Later on, he was proud of the hardwork he did for his uncle. At the age of 25, he married Khadija, a wealthy widow merchant who was nearly twice his age. She eventually gave birth to four daughters and two sons. The sons, however died in infancy.
Looking for the one true religion, Muhammad explored the caves outside Mecca and meditated. I found it interesting that, according to this website, Muhammad was having such troubling meditations and dreams that he planned to commit suicide as his way to escape them. But before he could the angel Gabriel appeared and told him, "O Muhammad, thou who art the Prophet of the lord, I am Gabriel".
Gabriel would periodically come to Muhammad, helping him write the Qur'an. when he was meditating and reiterate that Muhammad was the prophet for God. Fearing that the messages were actually from evil beings, his wife calmed him and convinced him of their legitimacy.
His converts eventually grew large enough that Muhammad spoke out against the false gods the Meccans worshipped. This brought bloodshed and Muhammed eventually compromised with the Meccans, bringing three of their gods as lesser deities. He later regretted the decision, and claimed it came from Satan.
His wife died ten years after his intiation of Islam, and he bgan marring women every year since. Some women were even as young as seven! This usually happened, due to war plundering and even though Islam only allowed men to be married to four women, an exception was made for Muhammad.
Islam spread rapidly, much bloodshed was built and many mosques were built across the area. Muhammad was eventually poisoned by Zainab, who was the ex-wife of his adopted son. He spit out the poison before it could kill him but it eventually lead to his death at the age of 64.
Islam continued to spread however over the area, much credit given to the four Khalifs who were elected to somewhat "continue" Muhammad's work in a sense. This website gave an interesting perspective since it was from a Christian website, ContenderMinistries. The last line, "Please remember to pray for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are giving their lives for their faith, and for those Muslims who have been deceived by a false prophet, and are in desperate need of the saving grace of Christ," gave an unsurprisng view from one modern religion to another. I hope one day that more people will become more accepting of others' religions.
Thanks for reading this post, along with my others! :)
After his wife, he married a women every since, some as young as seven...this is crazy. I find it interesting that, a christian website would report this. You would think this is something they would leave out.
ReplyDeletehaha true, i agree. Yet it is a different culture, and a different time. We may simply find it so amazing because we don't act in that fashion or see it every day. And by amazing I do mean crazy.
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