illiterate^16 —was born in Mecca, the village that already was a center of
religious observation. Today, it is the focal point toward which Muslims
face during daily prayers.
At the time of Muhammad’s birth, in 570 C.E., Mecca was already a
place of religious pilgrimage owing to the presence of the Black Stone,
said to be a meteorite brought by Abraham. Prior to Muhammad’s
leadership, an annual truce was declared so that the warring tribes could
gather together in Mecca to worship their pagan gods. Importantly,
because Mecca was already a point of destination at the time of
Muhammad’s birth, the commercialization of the annual pilgrimage had
already been developed.
Muhammad exhibited exceptional leadership skills and preternatural
genius in unifying his region’s tribes and clans, and in convincing them to
abandon their pagan gods. He succeeded in creating the nucleus of the first
Islamic society.^17 What seems like small-town intrigue centered around a
dreamer in the desert would result in a religion and culture that would
preserve Greek learning and foster new scientific discovery for centuries.
Islam scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr has said, “In the same way that the
aroma of the frankincense of this land reached the Roman Empire and
medieval Europe, the spiritual fragrance of Arabia, holy to Islam, is
sensed by Muslims near and far.”^18 To further extend the analogy, Islam
also infused the world with a curiosity about antiquity, preserved and
translated the writings of the ancients, and helped erect the bridge to the
Renaissance. The “millennium intervening between the fall of Rome and
the scientific revolution was not an intellectual desert. The achievements
of Greek science were preserved and in some cases improved in the
institutions of Islam and then in the universities of Europe.”^19 Another
sobriquet for the Arab Peninsula was Arabia Odorifera, and in keeping
with the historical use of fragrances to cover up the stench of rotting
carrion, the intellectual perfume that emanated from Islamic writers
provided some of the only “fresh air” during the Middle Ages.
At the time of Muhammed’s death in 632 C.E., most of Arabia had been
organized under his Islamic theocracy. After a few decades of tumult, in
which the Sunni and Shia branches were established, the first dynasty—the
Sunni Umayyad caliphate—was established in Damascus in 661 C.E. The
Umayyads held power for almost a century, and during this time expanded
across Northern Africa, Spain, and much of Central Asia. “From the