No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

16 No god but God Muhammad and his childhood friend Ibn Haritha were returning home from Ta’if, where they had slaughtered and r ...

The Sanctuary in the Desert 17 Muhammad deeply involved in the religious customs of Mecca: cir- cumambulating the Ka‘ba, making ...

�� 18 No god but God ing to reach. Because whatever else Muhammad may have been, he was without question a man of his time, even ...

The Sanctuary in the Desert 19 As is the case with most prophets, Muhammad’s birth was accom- panied by signs and portents. Al-T ...

20 No god but God again shuttled off to another relative, this time to the house of his powerful uncle, Abu Talib. Taking pity o ...

The Sanctuary in the Desert 21 monk gave him a brief examination, and declared to everyone present that this was “the Messenger ...

22 No god but God trips throughout the region and would have encountered Christian, Zoroastrian, and Jewish tribes, all of whom ...

������ 2. The Keeper of the Keys MUHAMMAD IN MECCA W ITH THE ARRIVAL of the pilgrimage season—the last two months and the first ...

�� 24 No god but God The ancient city of Mecca radiates concentrically from the sanc- tuary at its heart, its narrow dirt street ...

The Keeper of the Keys 25 essence, what Qusayy had managed to do was unite those clans who were nominally bound to each other th ...

26 No god but God enter the sacred city. As Keeper of the Keys, Qusayy also maintained a monopoly over the buying and selling of ...

The Keeper of the Keys 27 Recently, however, a number of scholars have questioned this view, primarily because not a single non- ...

28 No god but God seventh-century Arabia, is a complete fabrication created by Arab sto- rytellers in the eighth and ninth centu ...

The Keeper of the Keys 29 ity. After all, if this system had made a loose confederation of clans like the Quraysh rich, it could ...

30 No god but God responsibility was to maintain order within and between the tribes by assuring the protection of every member ...

The Keeper of the Keys 31 in the dispute. After collecting a security from both sides to ensure that all parties would abide by ...

�� 32 No god but God political or economic but also religious. Consider that the Hanifs, whom the traditions present as severely ...

The Keeper of the Keys 33 century, Muhammad was a twenty-five-year-old man, still unmarried, with no capital and no business of ...

34 No god but God to the cult of the Ka‘ba. On the other hand, he seemed to be acutely aware of his complicity in Mecca’s religi ...

The Keeper of the Keys 35 Muslims believe in the continual self-revelation of God from Adam down to all the prophets who have ev ...