40 No god but God
worthy of gratitude and worship. “How many favors from your Lord
will you deny?” Muhammad asked his kinsmen.
Noticeably absent in these early verses about the power and good-
ness of God is either an authoritative declaration of monotheism or
a definitive critique of polytheism. In the beginning, Muhammad
seemed more concerned with revealing what kind of god Allah was,
not how many gods there were. Perhaps this is because, as previously
mentioned, Muhammad was addressing a community that already
possessed some measure of monotheistic—or at the very least, heno-
theistic—tendencies. The Quraysh did not need to be told there was
only one god; they’d heard that message many times before from the
Jews, the Christians, and the Hanifs, and they did not necessarily dis-
agree. At this point in his ministry, Muhammad had a far more urgent
message.
That message—the second theme informing the bulk of Muham-
mad’s earliest recitations—dealt almost exclusively with the demise of
the tribal ethic in Mecca. In the strongest terms, Muhammad decried
the mistreatment and exploitation of the weak and unprotected. He
called for an end to false contracts and the practice of usury that had
made slaves of the poor. He spoke of the rights of the underprivileged
and the oppressed, and made the astonishing claim that it was the duty
of the rich and powerful to take care of them. “Do not oppress the
orphan,” the Quran commands, “and do not drive away the beggar”
(93:9–10).
This was not friendly advice; it was a warning. God had seen the
greed and wickedness of the Quraysh, and would tolerate it no longer.
Woe to every slanderer and backbiter
Who amasses wealth, hoarding it to himself.
Does he really think his wealth will make him immortal?
By no means! He will be cast into...
The fire kindled by God. (104:1–6)More than anything else, Muhammad considered himself a
warner carrying a message for those in his community who continued
to abuse the orphan, who did not induce others to feed the needy, who