The Islamic Revolution Part 3: The New Paradigm

This is the third and final installment in a three-part series analyzing the geopolitical and martial backdrop leading up to and during the rise of Islam and its context versus claims and narratives of extremists and critics. Read the first part here , and the second here .

In the previous two articles, I covered the protracted warfare between Rome and Persia (that began centuries before Islam) motivated by state-sponsored notions of religious supremacy, the intolerance and persecutions it spawned and its impact on Arabia. In this piece, I will cover the rise of Islam in the 7th century that would ultimately break up the Roman-Persian geopolitical order and bring about a much needed religious and social correction that led Bernard Lewis , Peter Frankopan, William Montgomery and other historians to term the event a revolution.

When Muhammad began proselytizing Islam in Mecca, he faced opposition and persecution from Meccan authorities who hosted a lucrative socio-economic platform based on idolatry and pilgrimage. Over a period of thirteen years, the persecution intensified and Muslims were ultimately compelled to migrate. Muhammad had received an invitation to serve as chief arbitrator of the feuding city of Medina and its multiple Jewish and polytheist tribes. He had no military experience at the time and had never advocated a militant rebellion against his persecutors. Muhammad was a believer in the Biblical prophets and monotheistic (like the Jews in Medina) yet he was raised in a polytheist society making him well acquainted with the various tribes and communities in Medina, and thus ideal for the leadership position. Given the trust and privilege placed in him, Muhammads immediate task at Medina was to forge a cohesive set of agreements and accords that would bring the citys feuding tribes onto a common and functional platform of governance.

After three major battles between Muslims and the Meccans, a short-lived peace treaty, and the subsequent conquest of Mecca by the Muslims, followed a period of rapid Muslim expansion that tore into the Roman-Persian geopolitical order. As Peter Frankopan notes: central to this new identity was a strong idea about unity. Muhammad actively sought to fuse the many tribes of southern Arabia into a single block. The Romans and Persians had long manipulated local rivalries and played leaders off each other. In the constitution of Medina , the term ummah is applied to a community of believers to include Muslims, Jews, Christians and others who shared the common values enshrined in the constitution and vowed to defend it.

As a matter of historical academia, Peter Frankopan states: although the material for the early Islamic history is complicated, an unmistakable and striking theme can be consistently teased from the literature of this period. Muhammad and his followers went to great lengths to assuage the fears of Jews and Christians.

This can be easily established by surviving documents known as Covenants with the Christians , assuring the right to practice religion freely. It was as if the Muslims were keen to overturn the religious tyranny and oppression produced by the Roman-Persian wars and assure their new citizenry that victory by Muslims was not viewed as a matter of religious supremacy, but to battle oppression and intolerance.

Jonathan Conants historical review-- Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and Mediterranean-- outlines the fact that new churches were built in North Africa, Egypt and Palestine during this period suggesting the new rulers saw religious pluralism as the norm. Nile Green, in his book The Survival of Zoroastrianism in Yazd (Iran), echoes a similar social theme in the conquest of Persia. When the Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem, Heracliuss restrictions on Jews and Eastern Christians were abolished. The Caliph famously refused to pray at a Church in Jerusalem for fear that later Muslims might annex it unjustly.

According to Peter Frankopan, as Roman territory fell and conversions to Islam began to rise exponentially, there were some in the Christian clergy who, in a desperate bid to defend their theology (the status of Jesus in Islam vs Christianity) and membership, painted the Muslims in the worst possible light: the patriarch of Jerusalem called them as haters of God, plunderers, marauders, rapists torching villages and churches, committing evils against Christ.

However, the archaeological record disagrees. Many of the territorial gains by the Muslims came in negotiated settlements. The great city of Damascus, for example, surrendered quickly after terms were agreed between the local bishop and the Muslim commander: churches would remain open and Christians free to live and pray in peace. Essentially, all that changed was that tax payments would now go to the new imperial masters rather than Constantinople.

Such rearguard-action narratives by losing authorities and clerics may also explain the oft-raised allegation of execution of 700 members of the Jewish Banu Quraizah tribe after they were found to have been treasonous during the Battle of the Trench in 627 AD between Mecca and Medina. Capital punishment for treason, especially during a war, has always been the norm with most civilizations in history, and even today. However, history appears to suggest that the Banu Quraizah incident, which is probably exaggerated and sensationalized, was not seen as an act of anti-Jewish brutality but as a legitimate incident of treason. Furthermore, according to some sources, the penalty was prescribed by Jewish convert to Islam, Saad bin Maadah, according to Jewish law (Deuteronomy 20, 10:15) under the Medina constitution, Jews were adjudged by their own law.

In fact, Muhammad has been debated in Jewish writings as the messianic fulfillment of prophecy who delivered the Jewish people from the tyranny of Rome and restored the holy lands back to Abrahamic and monotheistic authority, as they were seeing unfold before their eyes they were saying that the prophet had appeared, coming with the Saracens (Arabs), and that he was proclaiming the advent of the anointed one, the Christ that was to come (Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islamtranslation by R Hoyland, Princeton 1997).

A remarkable text from the time reports on how Rabbi Shimon Ben Yohai, grief-stricken by Roman Emperor Heracliuss persecution of Jews, received a vision in which an angel reassures him: Fear not, for God is bringing about the kingdom of Arabs for the purpose of delivering you from the wickedness of Rome. Per Frankopan, recent research on Greek, Syriac and Arab sources provides corroborating evidence that Jews welcomed Muslim rule, which is unlikely if the Banu Quraizah incident was viewed as an act of aggression.

On the other hand, Christian fears were alleviated per Islamic beliefs about Jesus being a true Messiah and Mary a virgin at his birth. There was freedom of belief for Roman Christians as well as Eastern Christians despite their intense doctrinal clashes: cohabitation of faiths was an important hallmark of early Islamic expansion, and an important part of its success (The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan).

This emphasis on freedom of religion and conscience as a tenet of faith was echoed by French philosopher, Jean Bodin, almost a thousand years later: the great emperor of the Turks detests not the strange religion of others, but on the contrary permits every man to live according to their conscience.

Still, over the vicissitudes of time and power-politics, Muslim empires and kingdoms too would suffer the psychological plague of religious supremacy leading to intolerance of others, that has morphed into the quagmire of extremism that we see today. What appears to be clear from robust historical record is that the original Islamic development is far removed from the extremist narrative and attacks by certain media-commentators, who purport that ISIS and their ilk are inspired by original Islamic events. In fact, they are wholly antithetical to it.