THE ARAB CONQUEST 145medieval standards, deplorable. As a result, the detailed working of
certain crucial developments cannot be seen, and features of the
utmost importance can only be described in the haziest of terms.
Although the standard account of the early history of Islam and the
rise of the Arab Empire given in the Islamic sources has been sub-
jected to severe and critical scrutiny, and is probably deficient in
several respects, it cannot be jettisoned, not least as there is all too
little to put in its place. Attempts by some of the critics to construct
alternative versions have failed to attract majority support, in part due
to the inadequacies of the non-Arabic sources, around which any
other interpretation would have to be built. A brief survey of the
traditional account is necessary here, to put the conquest of Spain
into the context of the wider developments affecting the whole Medi-
terranean and the Near East.
Thought to have been born around the year 570, Mul)ammad, a
minor member of one of the leading families of the Quraysh, the
dominant tribe of the town of Mecca in the Hijaz in western Arabia,
began around 610 to receive revelations from God via the archangel
Gabriel, requiring him to preach monotheism to his fellow Arabs. In
addition, particularly as his mission developed, certain ethical doc-
trines were revealed to him, as were various practical injunctions
relating to social behaviour, law and punishments that should be
observed within the community of believers, or Muslims ('those who
have surrendered' - i.e. to God and his Prophet). At the heart of the
revpbtions lay the five 'Pillars of Islam': the theological affirmation
that 'there is no God but God', to which was added acceptance of the
validity of Mul)ammad's message in the form of the statement 'and
Mul)ammad is his Prophet'. The other four 'Pillars' consist of the
requirement to pray five times a day at stipulated times, to fast during
the hours of daylight in the month of Ramadan, to make pilgrimage
to Mecca and Medina, and to distribute a proportion of personal
income by way of alms to the poor. These commands and various
supplementary doctrines and injunctions were revealed or elaborated
upon in stages during the last twenty years of the Prophet's life.^6
Because his religious message threatened the unity and social
cohesion of the tribesmen of Mecca, opposition developed once he
began to attract followers. For one thing the town, which controlled
the caravan trade between the Yemen and the Byzantine provinces of
Egypt, Palestine and Syria, was a centre of religious pilgrimage, hous-
ing the shrine of a divinity called Hucbal -probably a meteorite cult