44 No god but God
have enraged the Quraysh far more than his monotheistic beliefs.
First, unlike Luqman and the Hanifs, Muhammad did not speak from
his own authority. Nor were his recitations mediated by the Jinn, as
was the case with the Kahins. On the contrary, what made Muham-
mad unique was his claim to be “the Messenger of God.” He even
went so far as to identify himself repeatedly with the Jewish and
Christian prophets and messengers who had come before him, partic-
ularly with Abraham, whom all Meccans—pagan or otherwise—
regarded as a divinely inspired prophet. In short, the difference
between Muhammad and the Hanifs was that Muhammad was not
just preaching “the religion of Abraham,” Muhammad was the new
Abraham (6:83–86; 21:51–93). And it was precisely this self-image
that so greatly disturbed the Quraysh. For by proclaiming himself
“the Messenger of God,” Muhammad was blatantly transgressing the
traditional Arab process through which power was granted. This was
not authority that had been given to Muhammad as “the first among
equals.” Muhammad had no equals.
Second, as mentioned, the Hanif preachers may have attacked the
polytheism and greed of their fellow Meccans, but they maintained a
deep veneration for the Ka‘ba and those in the community who acted
as Keepers of the Keys. That would explain why the Hanifs appear to
have been tolerated, for the most part, in Mecca, and why they never
converted in great numbers to Muhammad’s movement. But as a busi-
nessman and a merchant himself, Muhammad understood what the
Hanifs could not: the only way to bring about radical social and eco-
nomic reform in Mecca was to overturn the religio-economic system
on which the city was built; and the only way to do that was to attack
the very source of the Quraysh’s wealth and prestige—the Ka‘ba.
“There is no god but God” was, for Muhammad, far more than a
profession of faith. This statement was a conscious and deliberate
attack on both the Ka‘ba and the sacred right of the Quraysh to man-
age it. And because the religious and economic life of Mecca were
inextricably linked, any attack on one was necessarily an attack on the
other.
Certainly the shahadah contained an important theological inno-
vation, but that innovation was not monotheism. With this simple
profession of faith, Muhammad was declaring to Mecca that the God