The Rise of Islam
And Islamic
Literature
Major Points of this Section
1. God's revelations were first received around 610 by
the prophet Muhammad, whose followers later
collected them into the Koran, which became the
basis for a new religion and community known today
as Islam.
– Also referred to in English as "Quran", or
"Qur'an". The latter is the correct transcription, but
for class the commonly used translation "Koran“
will be used.
2. Though most of the pre-Islamic literature of Arabia
was written in verse, prose became a popular vehicle
for the dissemination of religious learning.
3. As its title "the Recitation"
suggests, the Koran was made to
be heard and recited; because it is
literally the word of God, Muslims
do not accept the Koran in
translation from Arabic.
4. Although Persian literature
borrowed from Arabic literary
styles, it also created and enhanced
new poetic styles, including the
ruba'i (quatrain), ghazal (erotic
lyric), and masnavi (narrative
poem).
5 More widely known than
any other work in Arabic,
the Thousand and One
Nights is generally excluded
from the canon of classical
Arabic literature due to its
extravagant and improbable
fabrications in prose, a form
that was expected to be
more serious and substantial
than verse.
God's revelations were first received around 610 AD by
the prophet Muhammad, whose followers later
collected them into the Koran, which became the basis
for a new religion and community known today as Islam
• The word 'Islam' is best
translated with 'submission
[under the will and guidance of
God]', but it has a deeper
meaning by coming from the
same Arabic root (s-l-m) as
'salam', peace, and 'salama',
safety and security. Hence, the
word 'Islam' explains large
parts of the central core of the
religion.
The Sources for Mohammad's Life
The main source on Muhammad's life
are Muslim sources written in Arabic
• Tthe Qur'an. The recitation of
God’s word to Mohammad
.
• The Sīrat rasūl allāh (means the
Life of the Messenger of God;
Arabic: ‫)سيرة رسول هللا‬
• Hadith--used to denote a saying,
act or tacit approval either validly
or invalidly ascribed to Muhammad
Mohammad’s
Name in Text
Muhammad
• Born Muhammad ibn Abdullah
(571 AD), he is said to have
been a merchant who traveled
widely.
• Muslims believe that in 610, at
about the age of forty, while
praying in a cave called "Hira"
near Mecca, he experienced a
vision. Later, he described the experience (to those
close to him) as a visit from the Angel
Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize
and recite the verses sent by God which
were later collected as the Qur'an.
• Gabriel told him that God (Allah) had
chosen him as the last of the prophets
to mankind.
• He eventually expanded his mission
as a prophet, publicly preaching a
strict monotheism and predicting a
Day of Judgment for sinners and
idol-worshippers — such as his
tribesmen and neighbors in Mecca.
• He did not completely reject Judaism
and Christianity, two other
monotheistic faiths known to the
Arabs;
• Mohamed said that he had been sent by God in
order to complete and perfect their teachings.
• Many of his neighbors resented his preaching,
and persecuted Muhammad and his followers.
• In 622, he was forced to flee from Mecca and
settle in Yathrib (now known as Medina) with
his followers, where he was the leader of the
first avowedly Muslim community.
• War between Mecca and Medina followed, in
which Muhammad and his followers were
eventually victorious.
• The military organization honed in this
struggle was then set to conquering the other
tribes of Arabia.
• By the time of Muhammad's death, he had
unified Arabia, spread Islam throughout the
Arab Peninsula, and launched expeditions to
the north, towards Syria and Palestine.
• After Muhammad’s death there came a major
division between two groups.
• The principal issue upon which Islam's first
major sectarian split occurred centers on the
question of leadership.
Sunni --the largest denomination
of Islam.
• According to Sunni thought, Muhammad died
without appointing a successor to lead the
Muslim community.
• After an initial period of confusion, a group of
his most prominent companions gathered and
elected Abu Bakr, the Prophet's close friend
and father-in-law, as the first Caliph.
• Abu Bakr (‫ابو بكر الصديق‬, alternative spellings,
Abubakar, Abi Bakr, Abu Bakar) (ca. 573 –
August 23, 634) ruled as the first of the
Muslim caliphs (632 – 634).
• Sunnis initially believed that the position of
Caliph should be democratically chosen, but
after the first four Rightly Guided Calliphs the
position turned into a hereditary dynastic rule.
• After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923,
there has never been another Caliph.
Shi'a – the
Largest Islamic
denomination in the world
nd
2
• They follow Ali ibn Abi Talib (‫)علي بن أبي طالب‬
(ca. 599 – January 661 CE)
• He was an early Islamic leader and is held by
the Sunni Muslims as the fourth and last of the
Khulafā-i-Rāshidūn )rightly guided caliphs).
• Shi'a Muslims see him as the first imam and
first rightful caliph.
• He was Muhammad's cousin, and, after
marrying Fatima, his son-in-law as well.
• After Muhammad's death, Islam spread out of Arabia
to conquer the Persian and Byzantine empires.
• Though Muslim invaders were defeated in their
attempt to conquer Tours, France, in 732, Islam
spread to southern Spain, northern India, the
Caucasus, and northern Africa by merchants and
traders as much as by military conquest.
– Charles Martel’s defeat of a Muslim invading
force at Tours is the subject of the epic poem The
Song of Roland.
• The Koran forbids conversion by coercion, so
Muslim rulers were tolerant of other religions based
on revelation, such as Judaism and Christianity.
As its title "the Recitation" suggests, The
Koran was made to be heard and recited
• Since it is literally
the word of God,
Muslims do not
accept the Koran
in translation from
Arabic.
• By contrast, the
Christian Bible is
accepted by
believers in
translations into
any number of
languages.
• The Koran is primarily dialogic: God speaks to
Muhammad or gives him messages to recite.
• There is no narrative thread or history of a
single group of people, as in the Jewish and
Christian bibles.
• The revelations were received in verses ('ya),
which have been grouped according to subject
into larger divisions (Suras).
• The earliest and shortest Suras evoke the
wonder and glory of God; the later and longer
ones often include legal prescriptions and sage
counsel.
The Arabian Nights
• More widely known
than any other work in
Arabic, the Thousand
and One Nights is
generally excluded
from the canon of
classical Arabic
literature due to its
extravagant and
improbable fabrications
in prose, a form that
was expected to be
more serious and
substantial than verse.
• The Nights is an anonymous work whose
provenance is uncertain.
• Due to the Persian names of its principle
characters and setting, it was probably begun
as a collection of tales in Middle Persian that
had been translated from Sanskrit.
• The nucleus of these stories is formed by an
old Persian book called Hazâr Afsâna (the
Thousand Myths) (in Persian ‫)هزارافسانه‬.
.
• The core of the Nights is thought to
have been translated, perhaps
orally, into Arabic at the caliphate
court in Baghdad, reputedly by the
storyteller Abu abd-Allah
Muhammed el-Gahshigar in the
9th century
• It circulated widely, particularly in
Syria and Egypt, from which the
two distinct branches of the
manuscript emerged.
• Stories were added from
various sources,
including European ones.
• Thus, the original
character of the Nights
was lost.
• The tales vary widely;
they include historical
tales, love stories,
tragedies, comedies,
poems, burlesques and
Muslim religious
legends.
The Stories
• Some of the famous stories Shahrazad spins in
many western translations are Aladdin's Lamp,
Sindbad the Sailor, and the tale of Ali Baba
and the Forty Thieves;
• However some scholars think that Aladdin and
Ali Baba were in fact inserted only in the 18th
century by Antoine Galland, a French
orientalist, who had heard them in oral form
from a Maronite story-teller from Aleppo in
Syria.
• Numerous stories depict djinns, magicians, and
legendary places, which are often intermingled
with real people and geography; the historical
caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common
protagonist.
• Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale
will begin telling other characters a story of his
own, and that story may have another one told
within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative
texture.
• By the 20th century, Western scholars agreed that the
Nights is a composite work consisting of popular
stories originally transmitted orally and developed
during several centuries, with material added
somewhat haphazardly at different periods and
places.
• Several layers in the work, including one originating
in Baghdad and one larger and later, written in Egypt,
were distinguished in 1887 by August Müller.
• By the mid-20th century six successive forms had
been identified:
• The forms are the 8th-century Arabic
translations of the Persian Hazar Isfana, called
Alf khurafah and Alf laylah; a 9th-century
version based on Alf laylah but including other
stories then current; the 10th-century work by
Ibn 'Abdus; a 12th-century collection,
including Egyptian tales; and the final version,
extending to the 16th century and consisting of
the earlier material with the addition of stories
of the Islamic counter-crusades and Oriental
tales brought to the Middle East by the
Mongols.
Sites Cited
• Islamic Literature and Civilization
http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/courses/Re
lComL262_04.htm 15 Nov. 2005.
• WW. Norton Review
<http://www.wwnorton.com/nawol/s9_overvie
w.htm> 15 Nov. 2005.
• Islam Unveiled With Rational Thinking
http://www.humanists.net/alisina/ This site
clearly has an agenda. 15 Nov. 2005.