by Sergey Adamov
| The only way to conclude that Islam is a kind and gentle faith is to ignore the history of Mohammed’s conquests including the Battle of Khaybar, and the next several generations of rapid expansion by the sword — compared to that, ISIS and Al Qaeda are truly kinder and gentler Islam. |
The Hijra (literally translated as “migration,” and in modern interpretation as “emigration”) of the Prophet is what changed the character of his religion and still influences the culture, politics, and social psychology of the ummah, the global community of the faithful.
On one of the last days of July 622 AD, Muhammad secretly left his hometown of Mecca, where he had received revelations, began preaching monotheism and created the first community. The reason for the resettlement, or in fact, a hasty escape, was a threat to the life of the prophet.
Most of Muhammad's relatives from the Quraysh tribe that inhabited Mecca remained pagans. For a time, they tolerated the denunciations of idolatry. But when Muhammad said that the ancestors of those who did not believe in Allah were imprisoned in Jahannam - the fiery Gehenna (and thus openly broke with the tradition of honoring the forefathers), the leaders of the Quraysh decided to deal with the preacher.
Hiding from his fellow tribesmen, Muhammad stayed in the house of one of those he could trust - Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, his father-in-law and future successor (after the death of the prophet, Abu Bakr would become the first caliph). But it was dangerous to live there too.
Muhammad and Abu Bakr fled at night into the desert near Mecca, where they hid for three more days. Only when the Quraysh lost track of the troublemaker did the prophet and his father-in-law leave for the city of Yathrib (340 kilometers as the crow flies). Yathrib, from the moment of Muhammad's arrival there, received a new name - Medina, or more precisely Al-Madina an-Nabawiyya, the City of the Prophet.
"THOSE WHO GAVE SHELTER"
Muhammad, forced to leave his homeland in a hurry, did not come to an "empty place". In Yathrib, where the preaching of Islam was more successful than in Mecca, by the time of the Hijra there already existed a community of Ansars - local residents who had accepted the new faith. Even before the Prophet's resettlement, many Meccans had immigrated to this city, hiding from the pagans - they were called muhajdirs, that is, literally migrants, from the Arabic "hajar" - "to migrate".
It should also be noted that the motive of migration has accompanied the history of Islam from its earliest years. Already in the fourth year of Muhammad's preaching in Mecca, in 614 CE, due to problems with the top of the Quraysh, the prophet suggested that part of the faithful move across the Red Sea and take refuge in the Christian Kingdom of Aksum (the territory of present-day Ethiopia). The first group of emigrants headed by Usman ibn Affan, the son-in-law of the prophet and the future third caliph, left for Aksum. Another group of muhajirs moved across the sea in the fifth year of preaching, in 615.
Thus, even when the Prophet of Allah lived in his hometown, Islam began to expand territorially, without reference to any “historical homelands.”
By the time of the Hijra, the Islamic community had existed for almost ten years, and the Prophet had written the first Meccan suras (chapters) of the Koran. However, in the Muslim tradition, the time up until the migration from Mecca to Medina is called the era of jahiliyyah - pagan ignorance, and the era of Islam is only counted from the Hijra. Therefore, the day of Muhammad's "immigration" became the first day of the new chronology.
“Indeed, those who believed and migrated and fought with their wealth and their lives in the way of Allah, and those who gave refuge to the emigrants and helped them, these are indeed helpers and friends of one another,” says the 72nd verse of the 8th surah of the Quran, Al-Anfal (The Spoils).
FOREIGN CITY, OTHER SURAS
Many founders of world religions have spoken of the fact that they essentially have no home in this world. The Gospel of Matthew quotes Jesus Christ as saying, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). The Church Fathers interpreted these words of Christ as evidence that His Kingdom is not of this world.
In the case of Islam, a different context is important: when the prophet lost his home and city, this became the beginning of the ummah as a religious and at the same time political and military association (this is the difference between the Islamic community and the Church and the state in the Christian understanding), called upon to convert the world into dar-al-Islam, the territory of Islam, through peaceful and armed jihad.
If you strictly follow the text of the Koran, then this turning point is quite difficult to track. The holy book is not built chronologically, but from the most voluminous suras to the shortest. This is the appearance that the Koran took from the moment of its codification under the aforementioned third caliph Uthman ibn Affan.
But depending on the time of revelation, the chapters of the Quran are divided into two categories: “Meccan” and “Medina”, which also differ in their focus.
The bulk of the Koran (approximately two-thirds) consists of Meccan suras, revealed before the Hijra. They reveal the foundations of the doctrine, questions of ethics and morality, and arguments in favor of monotheism.
The 16th verse of the Meccan Surah An-Nahl (The Bees) states the following:
"Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good advice, and argue with them in the best way. Indeed, your Lord knows best who has strayed from His path, and knows best who is guided."
But after the resettlement, the tone of the text changes.
The Medinan suras are not so much about how to convert fellow Arabs to the true faith, but rather about how the new armed religious-political community should build relations with the outside world - the pagans and the Ahl al-Kitab, the “people of the book” (Christians and Jews).
The 29th verse of the Medinan Surah At-Tawbah (Repentance) states:
“Fight those of the People of the Book who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor do they hold unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor do they follow the true religion, until they pay the tribute with their own hands, and are humbled.”
This situation marked the moment when the Ummah, through migrations and military campaigns, had covered the Arabian Peninsula. By the time of Muhammad's death in 632 (10th year of the Hijra), the Islamic community had approached the borders of Zoroastrian Iran and the Christian Byzantine Empire.
"The writing of the Koran took place when Muslims lived among pagans, it is quite natural that Islam was spread through proselytism. The first to be converted were pagans, but also Christians and Zoroastrians. Here is an example - Muslim Iran, the entire nation was converted," noted Roman Silantyev, an Islamologist and deputy chairman of the expert council for conducting state religious studies examinations at the Ministry of Justice, in a commentary to Regnum News Agency.
"BE LIKE ME"
The spread of the Islamic religion within the framework of the Caliphate in the Middle East and Maghreb - North Africa was accompanied by the migration of Arab tribes. It is not surprising why now from Morocco to Iraq and from Syria to Sudan people speak different dialects of Arabic. Some of them are descendants of immigrants, some are descendants of Syrians, Egyptians, Berbers and other peoples who accepted the new faith and assimilated. And assimilated not always under duress.
Zoroastrianism gave way to Islam and "shrank" to a few communities because it was an ethnic religion, "the faith of the Persians." But Islam, from its inception, was not the faith of the Arabs, just as Christianity was not the faith of the Syrians, Greeks, and Romans.
Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism know a separate institution of missionaries (as a rule, the faith was preached by priests and monks). But in Islam there is no such institution of priesthood, and the conversion of non-believers to the faith of the prophet is the duty of every member of the ummah. The process of conversion - dawah also implies a reward from the Almighty for the Muslim who brought the newly converted to the community.
The concept of jihad (literally, "zeal"), as is known, is not equivalent to a holy war. The struggle for faith implies both self-improvement and preaching Islam in the non-Muslim world ("great jihad"), and the affirmation of faith in the fight against its opponents - "small jihad".
The Medina Surah Al-Imran states: “O People of the Book! Let us come to a common word between us and you, that we will not worship anyone except Allah, nor will we associate anything with Him, nor will we take one another as lords besides Allah.”
In other words, non-believers from among the people of the book are invited to reconsider their views and join the ranks of the faithful.
When political Islam – already in the form of the Caliphate – expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula, the concept of “tribute” or “poll tax” (jizya) mentioned in Surah At-Tawba became fundamental for building relationships between the Caliphs and their subjects who did not convert to Islam.
The established order of things gently "nudged" people to change their faith: if you don't want to pay tribute, convert to a new faith; if you want to participate in political and economic activity, change your faith. So there were economic reasons for adopting the religion and way of life that the settlers brought with them.
Also important is the approach that can be called “ be like me,” notes Silantyev. “Roughly speaking, you are friends with Muslims, you live in their environment, you accept their customs,” explains the religious scholar.
This method of “great jihad” – appeal through soft power, through communication and example – was effective not only during the time of the first caliphs. And not only when Islam was spreading in a non-Arab, foreign-cultural environment – in Persia, Khorezm, the Indus Valley, the Volga region, Bengal or the island of Java.
Similarly, “preaching through communication and interaction” works in our time, when Islamic communities exist all over the world and spread the faith beyond the “ethnic Muslim” environment.
"There are recent examples in our society, for example, the actor Sergei Romanovich, he converted to Islam under the influence of friends, and then left this religion. A classic of the genre. Or the MMA wrestler Alexander Emelianenko trained with Muslims, and also converted. The environment plays a key role," notes Silantyev.
The global task of such an action is to constantly expand and agitate so that the ummah expands. In practice, the mechanics of conversion can be built on different models, for example, through marriage. In the modern world, Muslims can find partners online, create relationships, and then set a mandatory condition for marriage - a change of faith. Moreover, the target "audience" of preachers is, as a rule, women or children.
The "Great Jihad" is facilitated by economic processes that stimulate the migration of Muslims from the countries of "Dar-al-Islam" to places historically inhabited by non-believers. In the modern world, these non-believers often turn out to be unbelievers, i.e., unconverted. We are talking, we note, about the struggle for faith through preaching, communication and personal example - as the immigrant muhajirs from Mecca preached faith among the Arabian pagans.
EXTREMELY HIGH PERCENTAGE OF RADICALS AMONG NEOPHYTES
But if we are not talking about traditional Islam, but about its radical distortions (for example, about modern Salafism or Wahhabism), then here the “struggle for faith” in a non-Islamic environment is understood differently. Extremists, who proclaim the goal of restoring the state-ummah of the first caliphs (this is what the ISIS* “caliphate” was supposed to be), see the outside world as an object of aggression, and Muslim migrants as a potential vanguard of the armies of Islam. The historical caliphate of the 7th century expanded not only by “fire and sword,” but the Salafis of the 21st century see the situation differently.
And here the methods of proselytism – preaching, involvement in the community – can be dangerous. “Radicals often recruited women online, often, excuse me, ugly ones. They say: even if you are not a beauty, come to us in the Islamic State*, in Iraq, Syria, we guarantee you family happiness. A quarter of the widows of ISIS members are neophytes, it is a well-known fact,” notes Roman Silantyev.
There are known cases of "honey traps" when lonely men are approached through social networks and dating sites. However, the motives of men who fall for the hook of radicals may differ. Extremist preaching of the supposedly "correct" understanding of religion and jihad is carried out not only among migrants from "traditionally Islamic" ethnic groups, but also among "infidels" from the indigenous population.
"We have an extremely high percentage of radicals among neophytes. The most active preaching is done by Wahhabis, on the Internet, in Wahhabi mosques, prayer houses, many go to them. Some people are attracted by radical political motives - I hate the government, the police - I will go to ISIS*, I will kill, blow things up," Silantyev notes.
Such "proselytism" also threatens traditional Islam. As an example, we can cite the story of the newly converted Alla Saprykina, who received the name Aminat after accepting Islam. Having been recruited by radicals, the woman committed a terrorist act, killing a representative of the Muslim clergy of Dagestan, Sheikh Said Chirkeysky, who defended the dogmas of traditional Islam against extremists. Another example is one of the leaders of the terrorist underground in the North Caucasus, Said Buryatsky ( Alexander Tikhomirov ).
Therefore, the attitude towards neophytes in the Islamic environment itself is often wary, despite the fact that Islam historically arose as a religion based on migrations and preaching among neophytes. Thus, active proselytism, which can be skillfully manipulated by radicals, often plays a destructive role in society, despite the fact that it was initially dictated exclusively by good intentions.
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