JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY EQUIPPED THE PROPHET TO DESTROY PAGEN TEMPLES

THE PROPHET DESTROYS PAGAN TEMPLES

Judaism and Christianity had equipped the Prophet of Islam with an exclusive god and a sectarian scripture which declared war on pagan Gods and their places of worship. The Jews and Christians in Arabia, descended from immigrants or native converts, also provided practical demonstration of how to proceed vis-a-vis pagan temples, whenever and wherever these two sects acquired political power, howsoever shortlived.

We do not know what the Christianized Arabs on the borders of the Byzantine Empire did to pagan places of worship; the sources are silent on the subject. It is a safe bet that they must have followed in the footsteps of their mentors in the Empire. Some information, however, is available on what happened in Yemen, the southern province of Arabia. Some years before the birth of Muhammad, Tubba‘, the Himayrite king of Yemen, had converted to Judaism under the influence of two rabbis from Yathrib (Medina). He used state-power for converting his people to the new creed. “Now Ri’ãm,” reports Ibn Ishãq, “was one of the temples which they venerated and where they offered sacrifices and received oracles when they were polytheists. The two rabbis told Tubba‘ that it was merely a shayTãn which deceived them in this way and they asked to be allowed to deal with it. When the king agreed they commanded a black dog to come out of it and killed it-at least this is what the Yamanites say. Then they destroyed the temple and I am told that its ruins to this day show traces of the blood that was poured over it.”¹ The blood must have been that of the pagans who courted death in defence of the temple.

Around the same lime, some nobles of Najran, another principality in Yemen, were converted to Christianity by a missionary named Faymiyûn. “At this time,” reports Ibn Ishãq, “the people of Najrãn followed the religion of the Arabs worshipping a great palm-tree. Every year they had a festival when they hung on the tree any fine garment they could find and women’s jewels. Then they sallied out and devoted the day to it.” Faymiyûn reported to the nobles that the palm-tree “could neither help nor hurt” and that “if he were to curse the tree in the name of God, He would destroy it, for He was God Alone without companion.” The nobles agreed. Faymiyûn “invoked God against the tree and God sent a wind against it which tore it from its roots and cast it on the ground.” The miracle helped the people of Najran to adopt the “law of Îsã b. Maryam” in which Faymiyûn “instructed them.”² In plain language the story says that political power was used for forcing the people into the Christian fold and destroying their places of worship. Churches rose on the sites of sacred groves and pagan temples.

The Judaic regime in the neighbourhood of Najran, however, was militarily more powerful. As already related, the Himayrite king Dhû Nuwãs marched on Najran, slaughtered thousands of Christians, and forced the rest into the fold of Judaism. It is not recorded what this hero of Judaism did to the Christian churches which had come up. But one can be sure that they were demolished or converted into synagogues.

In turn, the victory of Judaism was short-lived. The Christian king of Abyssinia sent an army which overthrew the Judaic regime in Yemen and imposed Christianity on the whole province. Abraha, the Abyssinian governor, demolished the synagogues and erected churches on their sites. He built a grand cathedral at San‘ã’, the seat of his government, and informed his king that “I have erected a house and built a church so as to put an end to the circumambulation of the Ka’bah by pilgrims and visitors.”³ He was looking forward to destroying the pagan temple in Mecca.

The excuse for Christian egression was provided by an Arab from Mecca who “went forth until he came to the cathedral and defiled it” during the night. Abraha made enquiries. He “learned that the outrage had been committed by an Arab who came from the temple in Mecca where the Arabs went on pilgrimage, and that he had done this in anger at his threat to divert the Arabs’ pilgrimage to the cathedral, showing thereby that it was unworthy of reverence.” He felt “enraged and swore that he would go to the temple and destroy it.”⁴ A Christian army equipped with elephants marched on Mecca and encamped in the outskirts of the city which the Arabs were in no position to defend against a formidable foe. But an epidemic or some other disaster forced the invaders to beat a retreat.

The Arabs in Yemen had meanwhile invited help from Persia. “The films of Judaism and Christianity,” writes Margoliouth, “torn off the face of South Arabia, paganism it seems was restored: not indeed at Najran, where Christianity, remained, as in an island; but the rulers were pagans, and in league with the worst enemy of the Cross. Meanwhile the matters about which the sects were at variance were evoking interest in minds that had been alien from them.”⁵

Muhammad was born in the year in which the Christian invasion of Mecca took place. The pagan Arabs celebrated for long what they regarded as a victory of their Gods over the Christian godling. Years later, after he had floated the myth of Abraham as the latest builder of the Ka‘ba, Muhammad will pronounce that the defeat of the Christian army was brought about by the God of Abraham. But that was a big bluff prompted by the Jewish refusal to accept him as a prophet. “The connection of the Abraham-myth with the Ka’bah,” observes Margoliouth, “appears to have been the result of later speculation, and to have been fully developed only when a political need for it arose.”⁶ It was a case of ideological usurpation of the place before physical misappropriation occured.

It is difficult to say at what stage of his life Muhammad became a convinced monotheist. The evidence available suggests that his evolution towards this creed was a slow process. Dealing with the years after his marriage to Khadîjah and before he became a prophet, Margoliouth cites old Islamic sources and concludes that Muhammad was a polytheist for quite some time. “The names of some of the children show that their parents when they named them were idolaters. Nor is there anything to indicate that Mohammed was at this time of a monothestic or religious turn of mind. He with Khadijah performed some domestic rite in honour of one of the goddesses each night before retiring. At the wedding of his cousin, Abu Lahab’s daughter, he is represented as clamouring for sport… He confessed to having at one time sacrified a grey sheep to Al-‘Uzza-and probably did so more than once… A story which may be true shows us Mohammed with his stepson inviting the Meccan monotheist Zaid, son of ‘Amr, to eat with them-of meat offered to idols: the old man refused…”⁷

Islamic hagiography, however, tells us that the Prophet was an uncompromising monotheist and a determined iconoclast from the moment he was conceived in the womb of his mother.  “It is related that on the morning of conception the idols in all the inhabited quarters of the earth were overturned…”⁸ Mightier events took place on the night of his birth. A lake dried up, a river overflowed and the palace of the Persian monarch “so trembled that fourteen of its pinnacles fell to the ground.” More significantly “news arrived from Estakhan that the fire of the chief temple of Persia, which had burned for a thousand years, had become extinguished.”⁹ Nearer home, the Pagans in Mecca witnessed a scene which left them distressed. “Another event of the night of the nativity took place when the Qoraish were holding a festival in honour of one of their idols, in whose temple they had at that time assembled, and were engaged in eating and drinking. They found, however, that their god had fallen to the ground, and set him up again; but as he was, a short time afterwards, again found prostrate on his face, the idolaters were much dismayed and erected him again. When they had done so the third time, a voice was heard from the cavity of the idol saying:

All the regions of the earth, in the east and west,
Respond to the nativity, whom its light strikes;
And idolatry decreases, and the hearts of all
The kings of the earth tremble with fear.”¹⁰

As a baby, Muhammad was suckled by a desert woman, Halîma. One day she came to Mecca to see the ‘Ukãz fair, carrying Muhammad with her. An astrologer saw the baby and shouted, “Come here, O people of Hudayl, come here, O Arabs.” People gathered round him, Halîma among them. He pointed towards the baby and said, “He will slaughter people of your religion and smash your idols.” Halîma took fright and ran away with the baby.¹¹

Muhammad was more than three years old when Halîma took him to Mecca with the intention of returning him to his family. But the child got lost when they arrived in the city. Halîma was searching frantically for him when she met an old man who heard her story and wanted to help. “The foolish man,” says the biographer, “went to Hobal, and after praising him as is the fashion of idolaters, he continued: ‘This woman of the Bani Sa‘ad says that she lost Muhammad the son of A’bd-ul-Muttalib; restore him to her if it so pleaseth thee’… As soon as that misguided individual had pronounced these words Hobal fell prostrate on his face, and from the cavity of his statute the words were heard: ‘What have I to do with Muhammad who will be the cause of our destruction?… Tell the idolaters that he is the great sacrifice; that is to say, he will kill all, except those who will be so fortunate as to follow him.’”¹²

Muhammad was a young boy when he was invited by his uncles and aunts to join a celebration in honour of Buãna, a God to whom the Quraysh were much devoted. He was reluctant but yielded under pressure from the family. But when he came back, he was terribly frightened and looked depressed. His aunts asked what had happened to him. He said, “Whenever I went near an idol, I saw a man, white and tall, calling out to me, ‘O Muhammad! get back, do not touch it.’”¹³ He never joined a pagan celebration again.

Some time later, his people were sacrificing to Buãna. A voice came out of the idol’s belly, “A strange thing has happened. We are being burnt in fire. Abeyance of wahy (revelation) has come to an end. A prophet has taken birth in Mecca. His name is Ahmad. He will migrate to Yathrib.”¹⁴

His uncle, Abû Tãlib, had taken Muhammad with a caravan going to Syria. The caravan halted near a monastery at Bostra where Bahira, a Christian monk, felt drawn towards Muhamad and made enquiries about him from the other Arabs. “When the people had finished eating,” reports Ibn Ishãq, “and gone away Bahira got up and said to him, ‘Boy, I ask you by al-Lãt and al-‘Uzza to answer my questions.’ Now Bahira said this only because he had heard his people swearing by these gods. They allege that the apostle of God said to him, ‘Do not ask me by al-Lãt and al-‘Uzzã, for by Allah nothing is more hateful for me than these two gods’”¹⁵

A similar event is reported to have happened in his youth when he was employed by Khadîjah and travelled to Egypt with her merchandise. The caravan came across another Christian monk named NasTTur who also fell for Mohammad. “NasTTur… descended from the roof of his hermitage, and said to the apostle of Allah: ‘I adjure thee by Lãt and U’zza to tell me what thy name is.’ His holy and prophetic lordship replied: ‘May thy mother be childless!  Begone from me; for the Arabs have not uttered any words more disagreeable to me than thine.’”¹⁶ At a latter stage in the same journey Muhammad had a dispute with a Jew on account of some business transaction. The Jew said; “I adjure you by Lãt and U’zza.” Muhammad replied: “Whenever I pass by Lãt and U’zza, I turn away my face from them.”¹⁷

Now, it is well-known that hagiography everywhere projects future events into the past. We have quoted from the hagiography of the Prophet not to decry it but to make the point that Islamic lore has always looked at Muhammad as a born iconoclast. This was not necessary because only his practices as a prophet provide the pious precedents. But hagiography hates to leave any loopholes, even if it has to invent events.

Hagiography yields place to history as we move into the period of Muhammad’s prophethood. While initiating ‘Alî b. Abû Tãlib into Islam, Muhammad said: “I call you to God, the One without associate, to worship him and to disavow al-Lãt and al-‘Uzza.” ‘Alî was surprised as he had never heard such a thing before, and offered to consult his father, Abû Tãlib. But Muhammad told him, “If you do not accept Islam, then conceal the matter.” Next morning, ‘Alî came and requested Muhammad to initiate him. He had made up his mind after a night’s reflection. Muhammad said to him, “Bear witness that there is no god but Allah alone without associate, and disavow al-Lãt and al-‘Uzzã.” ‘Alî became a Muslim but “concealed his Islam and did not let it be seen.”¹⁸ Islam at this time was a secret society.

Ibn Hanbal cites another tradition from ‘Ali about what the Prophet attempted while Islam was being kept concealed. ‘Alî said: “I and the Prophet walked till we came to the Ka‘ba. Then the Prophet of Allãh said to me, ‘Sit down.’ Then he stood on my shoulders and I arose. But when he saw that I could not support him, he came down, sat down and said, ‘Stand on my shoulders.’ Then I climbed on his shoulders and he stood up and it seemed to me as if I could have touched the sky, had I wished. Then I climbed on the roof of the Ka‘ba on which there was an image of copper and iron. Then I began to loosen it at its right and left side, in front and behind until it was in my power. Then the Prophet of Allãh called to me: ‘Throw it down.’ Then I threw it down so that it broke into pieces like a bottle. I then climbed down from the Ka‘ba and hurried away with the Prophet, till we hid ourselves in the houses for fear some one might meet us.”¹⁹ Shi‘ah theologians have transferred this adventure to the time when the Prophet reached Ka‘ba after the conquest of Mecca.²⁰ But that is no more than a sectarian exercise. The language of the tradition connects the event to the time when Islam was still a secret society. Moreover, ‘Alî is shown as a boy rather than a stalwart which he had become by the time Mecca was conquered.

Another incident relates to the time after Islam had come out into the open. It was reported to Hamzah, the Prophet’s uncle, that Abû’l Hakãm, a Meccan chief whom the Muslims called Abû Jãhl, had insulted Muhammad. Hamzah was still a pagan and, therefore, cared for kinship ties. He went to Muhammad who was sitting in the precincts of the Ka‘ba, and said, “Thy uncle hast come to take vengeance on thy enemy.” Muhammad asked him to leave alone the man “who has no uncle, neither father nor mother, no man of business, nor wazir,” meaning himself. “But Hamzah swore by Lãt and U’zza saying, ‘I have come only to aid and protect thee.’” The Prophet felt annoyed at his uncle’s mention of the pagan Goddesses, and said, “I swear by that God who has sent me in truth, that if thou fightest long enough against infidels to be drowned in their blood, thou will only be removed further and further from the Lord of unity, until thou sayest, ‘I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the apostle of Allah.’”²¹

On the whole, however, the situation in Mecca was unfavourable to the Prophet. The pagans were in a strong position and he could not touch their idols or places of worship, howsoever keen he might have been to desecrate or destroy them. His attempt to invite another Abyssinian invasion of Mecca for taking over the Ka‘ba and turning it into a place of monotheistic worship, was also a failure. The Christian king was very kind to the Muslims whom Muhammad had sent to his court. His domestic situation, however, did not permit a foreign adventure. The Prophet’s attempt to raise Tã’if against Mecca also ended in failure. He found himself utterly helpless against the pagan stronghold. He could only curse the idolaters and invoke Allãh’s wrath against them.

It was in Medina that his followers started doing something concrete vis-a-vis the idols, after they had entered into a pact with him at al-‘Aqaba for moving his headquarters to their city. Ibn Ishãq reports, “When they came to Medina they openly professed Islam there. Now some of the shykhs still kept to their old idolatry, among whom was ‘Amr b. al-Jamûh… whose son Mu‘ãdh had been present at al-‘Aqaba and done homage to the apostle there. ‘Amr was one of the tribal nobles and leaders and had set up in his house a wooden idol called Manãt as the nobles used to do, making it a god to reverence and keeping it clean.  When the young men of B. Salama… and his own son Mu‘ãdh adopted Islam with the other men who had been at al-‘Aqaba they used to creep in at night to this idol of ‘Amr’s and carry it away and throw it on its face into a cesspit. When the morning came ‘Amr cried, ‘Woe to you! Who has been at our gods this night?’ Then he went in search of the idol and when he found it he washed it and cleaned it and perfumed it saying, ‘By God, if I knew who had done this I would treat him shamefully.’ When night came and he was fast asleep they did the same again and he restored the idol in the morning… This happened several times…”²²

‘Alî found a Muslim stealing idols in the night and getting them burnt, when he stayed for a few days in Qubã’ after the Prophet had migrated from Mecca. Ibn Ishãq proceeds, “He used to say that in Qubã’ there was an unmarried Muslim woman and he noticed that a man used to come to her in the middle of the night and knock on her door; she would come out and he would give her something. He felt very suspicious of him and asked her what was the meaning of this nightly performance as she was a Muslim woman without a husband. She told him that he was Sahl b. Hunayf b. Wãhib who knew that she was all alone and he used to break up the idols of his tribe at night and bring her the pieces to use as fuel…”²³

The Prophet had also stayed at Qubã’ in the course of his flight from Mecca. This was a place three miles outside Medina. A mosque was built here during the Prophet’s stay. It was the first mosque in the history of Islam. The details of die site on which it was built are not available in the sources. But we are told something about the second and the major mosque built by the Prophet in Medina, soon after his arrival in that city. The site was a garden which he purchased. According to a tradition from Anas b. Mãlik, “There were graves of the idolaters, dilapidated buildings and date trees [in the garden]. The Prophet gave the order and the graves of the idolaters were dug out, the dilapidated buildings levelled [with the ground], and the date trees cut down.”²⁴ Most probably the site was a sacred grove and the building that stood there were places of pagan worship, neglected or abandoned due to the rising tide of monotheism in Medina. This much at least is certain that the Prophet showed contempt for the graves of the idolaters. Cutting down of date trees was also a sacrilege according to pagan ethics. In days to come, Muslims will show veneration for graves in which their own brothers in faith are buried.

The available sources provide no evidence of the Prophet or his followers in Medina desecrating or destroying any pagan shrines or breaking idols, during the many expeditions they mounted on tribal settlements, far and near. It is unlikely that the biographers of the Prophet or other Muslim annalists suppressed the facts on this score, for acts of iconoclasm were a matter of pride for them and an essential element in their glorification of Islam. Most probably the Muslims did not get proper opportunities for this, their favourite pastime, because most of the expeditions were surprise raids aimed at plunder. It is also probable that the Prophet did not want to show his hand before the right time and thus provoke more than normal resistance to his acts of aggression. Or, perhaps, it was the Prophet's strategy to break the morale of the pagans by slaughter and rapine before he moved on to their places of worship. Whatever the reason, all available evidence suggests that the Prophet was busy throughout this period in amassing booty and ransom for financing his military machine.

The Muslim army that finally moved on Mecca in the year AH 8 (AD 630) was a formidable force by Arabian standards of that time. Abbas b. Mirdãs al-Sulamî, the Muslim, poet sang:

With us on the day Muhammad entered Mecca
Were a thousand marked men-the valley flowed with them.
They had helped the apostle and been present at his battles,
Their marks on the day of battle being to the fore.
In a strait place their feet were firm.
They split the enemies’ heads like colocynths.
Their hooves had travelled Najd beforehand
Till at last black Hijãz became subject to them.
God gave him the mastery of it.
The judgment of the sword and victorious fortune subdued it to us…²⁵

Small wonder that Mecca surrendered without a fight. The pagan leader, Abû Sufyãn, had developed cold feet as soon as he saw the marshalled ranks, and gone over to Islam. Very soon, he will be breaking the idols for which he had fought for long. “Abû Sufyãn recited the following verses in which he excused himself for what had gone before:

By the life when I carried a banner
To give al-Lãt’s cavalry the victory over Muhammad
I was like the one going astray in the darkness of the night,
But now I am led on the right track…²⁶

The conquest of Mecca by Muhammad was the most significant event in the history of Islam. The success of the enterprise settled the character of Islam for all time to come. The lessons drawn from the success constitute the core of Islamic theology as taught ever since in the sprawling seminaries. The principal lessons are two. The first is that Muslims should continue resorting to violence on any and every pretext till they triumph; setbacks are temporary. The second lesson is that Islam should refuse to coexist or compromise with every other religion and culture, and use the first favourable opportunity to wipe out the others completely so that it alone may prevail. Our present context is concerned with the second lesson.