Chapter 1
BIRTH OF ISLAM: ISLAMIC
EXPANSION AND MUHAMMAD AS
BATTLEFIELD COMMANDER
Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but
it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and
it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah
knoweth, ye know not.
Koran, Surah II, 216Muhammad was born, it is thought, in the yearA.D. 571, at Mecca. The
name given him by his mother is lost to history, but not the name given
him by his peers—Muhammad. His father, Abdullah, died before his birth,
and his mother, Aminah, a member of the Yathrib tribe of Medina, lived
only until he was six. The honor of raising Muhammad fell to his grand-
father, Abd-al-Muttalib, and when he died it fell to his uncle, abu-Talib.
Legend relates that at the age of twelve Muhammad accompanied his
uncle on a caravan journey to Syria and that during the course of this trip
Muhammad met a Christian monk that legend identifies as Bahira. From
this encounter he may have learned some of the tenets of the Christian
faith. Little else is known about Muhammad’s youth except that some
years after the trip he went into the service of a wealthy Meccan widow
named Kadijah. So faithfully did the young man transact her business,
and so excellent was his demeanor, that she married her young agent. The
marriage proved a happy one, even though she was fifteen years older
than he. Throughout the twenty-six years of their life together, he re-