2 ISLAM AT WAR
mained devoted to her. Even after her death, when he had taken many
wives, he continued to speak of her with the greatest love and reverence.
This marriage, however, was pivotal in Muhammad’s rise to power. It
gave him wealth, position, and status within the ranks of notables of
Mecca. These men gave him the title Al-Amin, the “trustworthy” a tribute
to his honesty and ability.
Having gained a position of wealth, Muhammad had leisure, and in that
leisure time he pursued his own inclinations. He took to secluding himself
and meditating in a small cave on the hill outside of Mecca called “Hira.”
While meditating in this cave Muhammad heard a voice commanding,
“Read!” He responded, “I cannot read.” Again the voice commanded him
to read and he responded he could not. A third time, and more terribly,
the voice commanded, “Read!” Muhammad said, “What can I read?” The
voice responded, “Read thou in the name of thy Lord, who created man
from a clot and it is thy Lord the Most Bountiful who teacheth by the pen,
teacheth man that which he knew not.”^1 When his trance broke, Muham-
mad stepped out of the cave and heard a voice say, “Oh Muhammad!
Thou art Allah’s messenger, and I am Gabriel.” Before him stood, in
likeness of a man, an angel. This was the first of many revelations; Mu-
hammad had received the call of Allah. Highly distressed and filled with
emotion, he rushed home in alarm. Kadijah convinced him that Allah
would not send a harmful spirit to him.
Inspired, Muhammad became as prophetic as any of the Hebrew no-
tables of the Old Testament, preaching initially only to his family and
closest circle. At first his message was God is one. He is all-powerful. He
is the creator of the universe. There will be a day of judgment. Splendid
rewards await in paradise those who follow God’s commandments. Those
who do not, face terrible punishment in hell.
As his convictions grew stronger, Muhammad went out among his fel-
low Meccans with his revelation, initially to be met with derision and
scorn. His message changed to one of dire warnings, and he became a
prophet of doom, alternating between stories of the pleasures of paradise
and the torments of hell. Muhammad’s wife and her cousin Waraqh ibn-
Nawfl were among the first of his followers. However, the aristocratic and
influential Ymayyad branch of Quraysh^2 stood against him. They believed
his heresy would damage their commercial interests because it attacked
the pantheon of deities that stood at the center of the pan-Arabian pil-
grimage upon which their commerce rested. This was the KaÛbah, the holy
place to which all Arabia made pilgrimages, and Mecca was the node of
this sacred place.