Last time I spoke on Mohammad when he visited Damascus with his uncle and met the Christian monk Bahira. That journey influenced Mohammad to think about changing the societies of all the tribes in the Arabian Peninsula. He was not pleased with their practices in worship and social life.
Paganism in the peninsula was the most widespread of worship. The most famous of their deities were al-Lat in Taif, al-Uzza in Macca and Manat in al-Madinah. In al-Kaabah there were many idols, the greatest of them being Hubal.
In Macca, Mohammad the boy was controlling his thinking and suppressing his anger and his questions in the depth of his soul. He mocked the pagans, even his relatives; he was psychologically distressed because they worshiped gods who had no spirit and no meaning in the comfort of the human creature’s soul.
He faced a very dangerous confrontation with the tribes in proclaiming his new religious doctrine, especially with the Quraysh tribe, the largest and most powerful tribe then in the Arabian Peninsula and its surroundings. The Quraysh held sway over general trade, worship, social movements, and governance. Also, the polytheists are pagans who worship many diverse gods from different tribes and are the opponents of Mohammad.
Mohammad was a Qurayshi and he was thinking how to move carefully and achieve his dream. At any time he proclaims his new worship, he will be mercilessly killed by the Quraysh or others.
Mohammad Wanted to Declare Mohammadiah
Because of Mohammad’s great yearning and attachment to the Creator, ‘God,’ the worship of idols in his surrounding society narrowed in his chest. He thought with himself and the imagination roamed him far, repeating himself:
- The Jews have the authority-resort of the Torah, the Messenger Moses, the rest of the prophets, their laws, the synagogue and the ‘Rabbi’ to manage their religious affairs.
- The Christians have the authority-resort of the Gospel, the apostles, the saints, the church and its supreme head, Christ and his vicar, the Bishop, according to his priestly level, to manage their religious affairs.
- As for the peoples of the pagan Arab tribes in the peninsula, they have no reference for their religious affairs or a doctrinal book to unify them and they do not worship God.
Mohammad devised a strategic plan to announce his Mohammadiah belief in Macca openly and with careful caution. The Qurayash tribe, as we said, was strong and had the upper hand in Macca. He knew that he would face great danger, persecution and even murder from it.
From the strategy of his movement and publishing his call to proclaim himself ‘messenger,’ he decided to create a book to record his thoughts so that in the future they would be verses that he claimed, along with his companions, came to him from god; ‘and what god?’ Reason, at the beginning of declaring the definition of his belief, the polytheists opposed him from the Quraysh and asked him to give them a book to read. Read, in Qur’an, Surat al-Israa, Verse 93.
In order for his followers to believe the verses and believe in them, the book was the first and last reference for uniting the tribes in all managing their life affairs under the Mohammadiah creed. The person who managed their affairs at that time was a ‘caliph’ and today an ‘Imam and they meet and perform their prayers in a building whose name is ‘Jameh’ Mosque.
Mohammad Was an Illiterate Messenger
Mohammad had money from his wife, Khadija, but his problem was illiteracy. Hear what he says about himself in Surat al-A’raf, Verse 158:
‘…Then believe in god and his messenger, the illiterate prophet who believes in god and his words, and follow him, so that you may be guided.’
That is, he could not read and write well at the level of an educated poet or average person, because knowledge in that era was not compulsory nor school available to society as it is today in our modern era; it was also due to his social status and his upbringing as an orphan.
But Mohammad was good-natured and possessed in the depth of his soul the serenity and the fusion of the factors of contemplation, vision and belief in the Creator according to the ability of his thoughts and the ambition to spread his vocation and declare himself a messenger. In the vicinity of the limited pagan society of the peninsula, there was no precedent for him or someone like him to know the Creator as he recognized and learned about Him from his friend, the monk Bahira.
He had an opportunity to take advantage of the time and rise in revolt to announce the idea of his vocation. He proceeded to approach and bring the poets close to him to help him in eloquence, translation and arranging his words in the form of verses. Why the poets, and why were most of them pagans, indifferent to religion and God?
The Poets
The Lebanese poet Fawzi al-Maalouf said in his poem ‘On Basat al-Reeh,’ ‘wind carpet,’ from the second song ‘The Poet’s Soul,’ as he adjured the poets’ soul and asked about it:
‘You, their soul, are particles of light that have lit up in the universe in his world. It connects the Earth and Sky with a river the beauty and affection overwhelm its banks.
And the young man of poetry descends inspiration a statement the eternity bowed to it.
The flames driven on a horizon’s book lines illuminating in its sides.’
This beauty and wonderful expression of the description of poets and the truth of their souls, which are the light illuminating the universe, in the world of thought and knowledge!
You see the spirit of the poet Fawzi is among the souls of those great poets, the many who have passed through the world of existence and left behind the treasures of their immortal souls before and after Mohammad. And see how the poet has the credit for enlightening society and the ability of thought for science!
The Rank of the Poet
The poets or a poet is in today’s sense the teacher or writer/journalist who possesses the talent and intellectual ability to create his idea, articulate his words and their meaning, range them, refine them and eloquence them. It thrills the psyche of the thinker, the reader and listener and increases the wealth of literature articulation and the elevation of society. A talented poet does not want anyone to elevate him and promote his knowledge and ingenuity in society. It is his spiritual-intellectual product that takes precedence over history and leaves a clear picture of his era hanging on the wall of the eternal abode. The future generations emerging after him, with the ability of their intellectual brilliance, learn from him and develop society’s literature and their products are inspired by the product of his ideas.
Poetry becomes or transforms into sacredness, a sublime moral grandeur that an elevated sane person does not ignore and a strong attractive love in which the thinker’s soul is attached, because it is the spirit of the eternal life’s thought. The poet is the leader in the march of peoples and the renewal of a nation’s advancement, even if he is in the world of death. He is one of the gods of thought and the advancement of life, but rather he is the voice of liberty and the creation of a civilized moral life!
Here I want to mention the beginning words of Abu al-Quasim al-Shabi, who was born in the early twentieth century. He was a Tunisian poet and the immortal Arab world in his wonderful poem:
‘If the people one day wanted life, inevitably the fate must respond,
And inevitably the night must pass, and inevitably the chains must be broken.’
Just as the messenger or the prophet talks about God and His beauty, so does the poet speak about love, hate, heroism, war, death, peace, beauty, liberty, justice, persecution, slavery…And everything that affected him by things around him in life!
NEXT TIME I will continue, Who Were the Poets of the Messenger Mohammad?
These excerpts are from the book of: “Is God a Lie or Are We? Certainly We Are!”
Author: Jamil Elias Kabalan
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