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Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
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Dr. John Tolan
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
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Matt Lewis
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Dr. John Tolan
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Dr. John Tolan
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Matt Lewis
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Dr. John Tolan
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Matt Lewis
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Henry Meds Advertiser
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Dr. John Tolan
Since I joined four months ago, I've lost £25 and it has changed my life.
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- [01:25]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval. From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. In the seventh century, a leader emerged who would establish a new empire, but who would also begin a new religion. The prophet Muhammad changed the religious landscape of the near east in ways that have emanated around the world and have endured to this day. So who was he? What do we know about his life? And just what did Muhammad believe he was doing when he began to preach his revelations from God? To help answer these questions and more, I'm joined by John Tolan, whose new book, A New History From Muhammad to the Present, chronicles the emergence and development of the Islamic faith. Welcome to God Medieval. John, it's fantastic to have you with us.
- [02:56]
Dr. John Tolan
Thank you, Matt.
- [02:57]
Matt Lewis
I'm very much looking forward to getting into this topic. When we think about Prophet Muhammad and trying to tell his story, what are the main source materials that we have to look at his early story.
- [03:10]
Dr. John Tolan
The main source materials we have are two. One, there's the Hadith, or the oral traditions, which were transmitted orally for the first couple centuries in Islamic and were put down in writing mostly in the Abbasid period. So in the early 9th century for us, so about two centuries after the death of Muhammad. And these were closely related with another source also composed of orally transmitted material. And that's the Sira, or life of Muhammad. We have a version composed first by Ibn is Haqq at the end of the 8th century, but we don't have his version. We have a version reworked by Ibn Hisham in the Abbasid period. So again, about 200 years after the death of Muhammad. And what Ibn Hisham has done is compile all sorts of traditions about Muhammad and some of them are even contradictory. But he's said, well, he prefers to record them all and give them to posterity. So that is the main source for the life of Muhammad, which of course is problematic because it's orally transmitted. Some of it is quite clearly legendary, some of it is quite clearly inspired by rivalry with Christians or Jews, et cetera. And in that way it's a little similar to material about Jesus. I mean, what we have is the Gospels, which were written probably 40 to 70 years after Jesus's death and are very partisan documents. So besides this material, the Hadith and the Sira, which are derived from the Hadith, we have, of course, the Quran, which is the earliest written document of Islam and which was compiled again, the specialists don't all agree, but probably within about a generation after Muhammad's death. And it no doubt reflects at least in part, the revelations that Muhammad preached to the people around him. But unlike the Gospels, the Quran does not give a biography of Muhammad. The Gospels, of course, tell the story of Jesus life, whereas the Quran was revealed by Muhammad to the people around him. So there was no need to give a narrative of Muhammad's life, but there are little bits and pieces of Muhammad's biography that can be gleaned from the Quran.
- [05:37]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I guess that makes it quite frustrating to try and piece together because you've got that earlier sort of source material in the Quran which doesn't give you as much detail as you would want. And then you've got detail, but that spent a couple of centuries as an oral tradition and may well have morphed and changed. And as you say, some of it's contradictory. That must create problems for trying to piece together what we think is the kind of True story of Muhammad's life.
- [06:02]
Dr. John Tolan
Absolutely. And we know very little about the basic facts of his life. There is even some disagreement about the date of his death, which is traditionally dated to 632. But some sources suggest that he was alive a few years after that. So there's a lot we don't know. And some historians have said that it's really impossible to give a reliable biography of Muhammad.
- [06:29]
Matt Lewis
Okay, well, we're going to try. We're going to see how close we can get to some of this. I'm going to see if I can drag some of this out of you. How close can we get then to understanding about his background and upbringing? Do we know, for example, kind of when and where Muhammad is born?
- [06:43]
Dr. John Tolan
So again, we have to rely on the Hadith. Traditional sources say that it's about 570 in Mecca and that he was, again, the traditions say that he had been orphaned quite early on. His father died actually before he was born. There are stories about how his mother then later died. And he was brought up by his uncle Abu Talib, who was part of the Quraysh, who were the tribe that were sort of the elite of the city of Mecca. He would have been a merchant alongside his uncle, helping out his uncle. Other sources suggest that he had been a sheep herder or goatherder. The two are both possible and not incompatible. And the legend has it that he then, when he was about 25, he was working for a widow named Khadija and she then proposed marriage to him. So he became married at 25 to Khadija, who is a rich, independent woman who is 40 years old and lived with her until her death. And it's around between the years 619 and 621 that Khadija dies and that also his uncle Abu Talib dies. Now, one of the things we also have is a tradition of, of exegesis of interpretation of the Quran, which, starting again in the Abbasid period, so two centuries after Muhammad's death, has divided the Quran into revelations, Meccan and Medinan revelations. Because of course, the big event that marks the first year of the Muslim calendar is the Hijra or Hijira, when literally flight, when Muhammad and his companions left Mecca to go to Medina to go the town of Yathrib, which later became Medinat al Nabi, literally the city of the Prophet, now we know as Medina. So as I said, the Quran has been divided by a specialist since the Abbasid period into two different periods of revelation, the Meccan period between roughly 610 and 622 and the Medinan period, roughly 622 to 632. And if we look at the Meccan period, what we see is that Muhammad is a preacher who is revealing what he affirms are messages from God that later tradition attributes to Gabriel, the Archangel. Gabriel in Muslim tradition reveals these surahs to Muhammad or chapters of the Quran to Muhammad, who then transmits them to those around him. And if you look at the Meccan surahs, the message is very coherent. It's all about monotheism. You should worship only God and you shouldn't worship anyone or anything next to God. That means not worshiping human representatives of God, not worshiping statues, not worshiping idols. The other message that we see in these Meccansuras is that the end is coming and you need to repent, you need to worship the only God. You need to show solidarity and sympathy, particularly with the weak and the poor. And to get into heaven, one needs to recognize God and follow his law. And there are a lot of echoes in these surahs to earlier prophets because the Quran doesn't affirm that Muhammad is bringing a new religion, but on the contrary, that he's a prophet in the tradition of earlier prophets, from Adam to Noah to David and Solomon to Jesus. All of these are prophets who all according to the Quran, had the same message that Muhammad has, one of monotheism, worshiping only God, one of submission to God's will, which is what Islam means. And this was popular with some of Muhammad's contemporaries, but also provoked the hostility of the elite, the Quraysh elite in Mecca, because it was an implicit criticism of their wealth, of their power, of their traditional religion. So he faced criticism and persecution and so did his followers. So some of his followers, according to tradition, went to Ethiopia where they were received by the Christian king of Ethiopia, Ethiopian king in of Aksum, and then in 622. So between the 619 and 621, his uncle Abu Talib, who also was sort of his protector, died. His wife Khadijah died. There were rumors that the Quraysh wanted to kill Muhammad. So he left. And some of the sources suggested he had been expelled from Mecca, others that he fled, fearing violence. But at any rate, he went to Yathrib or Medina, and there he had negotiated with the rulers of Medina to become the ruler. There had been two rival factions in the city of Medina. They both agreed to submit to Muhammad's rule. So now we get a very different situation. Obviously for Muhammad and his followers, where he's no longer part of a persecuted minority, but he's the leader of this new community.
- [12:39]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. Just before we get into kind of Muhammad's career sort of as a prophet or life as a prophet, I wonder if we could just talk a little bit about. I'm curious, and maybe this is showing my ignorance, but I'm curious about what religion Muhammad might have considered himself to have been raised in. You know, he seems very aware, or the Quran seems very aware of Jewish and Christian teaching. Talks about Jews and Christians being people of the book. What would Muhammad have considered his religion to be before he became a prophet?
- [13:11]
Dr. John Tolan
That's an interesting question. It's hard to answer clearly at this point in the Quran you find the word Islam literally submission or accepting God's will. But there's no sense in which this word Islam corresponds to a religion per se. He sees himself. And one word that appears much more often than the word Islam or Muslim is the word believer. And this is the historian Fred Donner at the University of Chicago has a book, Muhammad and the Believers, where he sees Muhammad as basically in continuity, as the Quran again presents him as in continuity with the earlier messengers who we consider Jewish and Christian. And he sees himself as a believer. So I don't think he would have said I'm Jewish or I'm Christian. Certainly he wouldn't have said I'm Muslim either. But he saw himself as a true believer and as a messenger from God. And as you said, the Quran is striking not only how much the Quran integrates of stories from the Bible, both from the Torah and from the Christian, the Gospels. What is also interesting is how the Quran often alludes to these stories of the prophets, whether it's Noah or Abraham. And there's no passage in the Quran that narrates the whole story of Noah or of Abraham. But the Quran alludes to these figures as if the people listening to Muhammad were, were already familiar with these stories. There's no need to tell the whole story of Noah but to allude to it in order to say, look, Noah's people rejected him. What happened? They got the flood. Now Muhammad's people are rejecting him. Watch out, because God is going to punish them too. So there's a lot of this brief allusion to the stories of the prophets of past, the stories from the Bible. So clearly the people that Muhammad is talking to were familiar with these stories.
- [15:24]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it's interesting the knowledge that they're assuming, they're assuming that people already know all of these things. So you only have to mention Noah and people already know the story, which implies that they're very familiar with those teachings of the Jewish tradition.
- [15:35]
Dr. John Tolan
That's right. Which calls into question because often, according to Muslim traditional sources, the Arabs in Mecca at the time of Muhammad were pagans who worshiped pagan idols. But there is little archaeological evidence of that. And there's also this familiarity with the Bible will suggest not necessarily that everyone is Jewish or Christian, but at least that they're imbued with this knowledge of these traditions.
- [16:06]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. And so, kind of when does Muhammad begin to receive the word of God? How does this take place?
- [16:15]
Dr. John Tolan
So again, here we have to look to the Hadith and the Sira for this. And the story is that it's around the year 610. He's about 40 years old, he's been a successful merchant, he's been married to khadija for about 15 years. And he starts to take these sort of spiritual retreats where he goes to this cave called Hira near Mecca, and he meditates and he prays. And it's at this point that he receives a visit from the archangel Gabriel. And the story is that Gabriel puts his arm around him and squeezes him and says, ikra, recite, which can be translated as recite or read. And he says, I don't know how to read. And Gabriel then squeezes him again and tighter so he thinks he's going to die. And he says, read. And then finally he says, read. You know, this gives the first revelation, which is now in Surah 97, I think, and it's the first revelation is then so given by Gabriel in this cave. Muhammad is confused, he's sweating, he doesn't know what to do. He goes back home. His wife Khadija puts a blanket around him. He says, you know, I had this experience. I don't know what to think. I don't know if it's the devil or if it's a message from God. And she convinces, you're a good man, you give honor to people, you're generous to the poor. God would not fool you. So this must be a message from God. And so she convinces him that this is a real message, so she becomes the first Muslim according to tradition. So this is how it starts. And then there are a series of revelations throughout this Meccan period, and then, as I said, into the Medinan period.
- [18:08]
Matt Lewis
And how does Muhammad respond to those? Presumably he begins to preach his revelations to people. He begins to share his revelations with people.
- [18:17]
Dr. John Tolan
Yes, yes. And the story is that he first shares it with Khadijah and other close members of his family and then gets revelations, you know, telling him that he has to, you know, he's sort of afraid to go public with these. And then he gets a revelation. Yeah, he has to go public with this and he has to preach to a wider audience. So he preaches. And again, the stories are that he gets a bigger following, but he also provokes hostility of some of the Meccan elites.
- [18:50]
Matt Lewis
And do we get a sense at this early stage of what Muhammad perhaps believed he was doing? It sounds like he didn't necessarily think he was starting a new religion. You know, hindsight will tell us he's creating a new religion ultimately, but it sounds like he would have believed himself to be continuing the work of others around reinforcing monotheism in the region.
- [19:09]
Dr. John Tolan
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. There's no sense that he thought of himself as creating a new religion. And when you look at the difference, you know, as I mentioned, there's the Meccan and the Medinan revelations. If you look at the Medinan revelations, you have continuity with the Meccan ones because there's still this spiritual message, the idea that you need to be generous to the poor, that you need to worship only God and so forth. But there's a new element because now, as I said, Muhammad is the leader of this city, of this community. And so there are legislative elements, there are rules about marriage, about divorce, about inheritance, about how to treat slaves, about battle and booty and so forth. So these Medina revolutions show how this community around Muhammad and Medina is organizing.
- [20:09]
Matt Lewis
It sounds very much like he becomes a political and a military and a religious leader sort of all at once. Is it fair to see him wearing those three different roles?
- [20:19]
Dr. John Tolan
Yes, yes. So, yeah, he's. He's very much in the, you know, the Muslim tradition sees no contradiction between these. These roles, which are seen as complementary.
- [20:30]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And I guess, you know, that plays in with Older Testament prophets and things like that, who tended to be political leaders as well, but is slightly in contrast with Jesus, who very much sets himself aside from the political military leadership role, whereas Muhammad is willing to step into that.
- [20:45]
Dr. John Tolan
That's right. That's right. And this is a point of criticism of many Christians, you know, from the earliest times until today, is that there's such a difference between the two. And Jesus rejection of the political role and the sort of rejection of the world, very different from Muhammad. But, you know, one of the things. And to get back to, you know, how he thought his Relations between, you know, with Christians and Jews. There are a number of passages of the Quran that deal with Jews and Christians. And there's some ambiguity, let's say, I mean, in some points, you know, he's presenting Jews and Christians as models for the Meccans. You should do what they do. You should worship only God. He presents the great figures of Judaism and Christianity as prophets. And very much as I said, he's in continuity with these prophets. But there are other passages in which he criticizes Jews for not believing their prophets, for killing their prophets. He criticizes Christians for worshiping Jesus, who for the Quran is only a prophet and only wholly human, born miraculously from the Virgin Mary, but not the Son of God. Not God. And so Christians are wrong to preach the Trinity. They're wrong to worship Jesus as if he were God. So there are criticisms of Judaism and Christianity at the same time. An acknowledgment of the essential truths as the Quran says it of Judaism and Christianity. But the idea is that Muhammad is in continuity with these traditions. And one of the figures who's most frequently mentioned in the Quran is Abraham. And the Quran affirms that Abraham was not Christian, he was not Jewish. He was what's called a Hanif, a pure monotheist. And both the Jews and the Christians tried to claim Abraham, but he was neither a Jew nor a Christian according to the Quran.
- [23:04]
Matt Lewis
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- [24:32]
Dan Snow
History has made this world of ours. I'd like to tell you about my show, Dan Snow's History Hit. That really explains everything that's ever happened. The origin stories of the cities we inhabit or of what's in our kitchen cupboards. Why we've always been drawn to dictators. The greatest discoveries, inventions and mistakes ever made. For curious stories, check out Dan Snow's History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:16]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And how does Muhammad's kind of military career take off? Because he gets involved in quite a few battles, doesn't he, during this period?
- [25:25]
Dr. John Tolan
That's right. The city of Medina is attacked by Mecca on several occasions and the Medinas attack. Now Medina is north of Mecca. So when caravans went from Mecca north into Syria, they were easy targets for Medinas to go and raid and attack. So there are a series of battles between the Meccans and Medinans, one of which the Medinans lose and the others of which they win. So there he quickly becomes a war leader. There are expeditions against other towns and other tribes in Arabia. And by the year 630, so eight years after the Hijra, Muhammad has become the dominant power in the Arabian peninsula. And that's when they march towards Mecca and Mecca surrenders and Muhammad and his army can enter into Mecca and take control of the city. And according to legends, that's when they destroy the idols at the Kaaba and return the Kaaba to monotheism.
- [26:33]
Matt Lewis
And I guess that that kind of military and political success must have helped to reinforce Muhammad's preaching as well. You know, he's not just a preacher with a voice, he's also a serious political leader and a major military leader in the region too. That must have helped to embed his religious teachings as well.
- [26:52]
Dr. John Tolan
That's right, because we see in the Quran and we see in other early Muslim writings the idea that the victories are signs that God is on the Muslim side. And so his role as successful military and political leader reinforces his status as prophet.
- [27:12]
Matt Lewis
And where is Muhammad at as we get closer to the time of his death? What kind of a political and military force is he in the region? And how far are we progressing towards something that we might recognize as Islam today? By the early 630s, by the early.
- [27:29]
Dr. John Tolan
630S, he dominates much of the Arabian peninsula. There are conflicting stories saying that during Muhammad's lifetime he may have already started raiding north into Syria, but probably that only took place after his death. But one of the things that's interesting is there's no sense that Muhammad actually sought to imagine further conquests beyond the Arabian peninsula. And indeed there's no sense that he had clearly thought about the future beyond his life. And one of the hypotheses that a certain number of historians have have put forward is that Muhammad was a prophet of the last times. In other words, you see in the Quran a lot of references to the end of the world, which is coming soon. And this is both a hope and a threat. A threat for those who are on the wrong side of history, so to speak, who don't follow Muhammad and don't follow the, don't embrace monotheism, but a hope for those who do follow Muhammad that a better world is upon us. And so the same hypothesis had been made about Jesus too, that Jesus predicted the end was near. And again, there are a number of passages in the gospels and in other parts of the New Testament where the feeling is the end of time is near and it's, it's probably going to happen during this generation. And of course then it doesn't happen. So what do you do you reinterpret. And you know, one of the reasons that people think that this may be true about Muhammad is one, he doesn't seem to have planned his succession after his death, which created conflict. Now again, there are conflicting traditions. Some say, and particularly the Shiites affirm that it was Ali who is both his cousin and his son in law, who was supposed to become leader after Muhammad's death. And that Ali was pushed aside by Abu Bakr who became the first caliph, and by Umar who became caliph after him. And the story is, one of the stories you find in the hadith is that when Muhammad died, people were consternated and Umar, the future caliph, refused to believe that Muhammad had died. He said, no, that's not possible. And if any one of you says that Muhammad has died, I'll run you through with my sword. And then Abu Bakr retorted, saying, no, Muhammad has died, Muhammad is dead, but God whom he preached, is still alive. So we need to follow God. If Umar and others wouldn't believe that Muhammad had died, it's perhaps because they expected, and perhaps Muhammad himself expected that the world would come to an end while he was still alive. And that may be true for Jesus and his followers as well. And then of Course, one readjusts when that doesn't happen.
- [30:43]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. What do we know about the circumstances of Muhammad's death? You mentioned earlier that there's a little bit of doubt about precisely when he dies. Some sources suggesting he was alive after the traditional date that's given for his death. But do we know? So presumably by this point, he's around about 60. Do we know the circumstances of his death?
- [31:01]
Dr. John Tolan
Yeah, the Traditional date is 632. So he would have been about 60, 62. He becomes ill. It's not clear what the illness is, but he realizes he is going to die. He's in the house of his wife, Aisha, and he dies with his head on her lap. And what's curious is that he's not buried right away. It's a few days. His body is left in Aisha's room on Aisha's bed for several days while there's an argument over who succeeds him. And then finally, several days later, he's buried, and there's an argument about how and where to bury him. And Abu Bakr affirms that the tradition is that prophets should be buried on the spot where they die. So they move aside Aisha's bed and they dig a grave right there where her bed had been. And that's where he is buried until this day.
- [32:03]
Matt Lewis
Fascinating. I thought when you said he was left there for several days, that this was going to be out of concern that he might not really be dead or that he might return in a similar way that Jesus had. But maybe it's not that.
- [32:13]
Dr. John Tolan
It could be that there are some. Again, these hadith or oral traditions are varied and contradictory. And there are several that suggested that some people thought he wasn't dead or that he was dead and he would resurrect the way Jesus had. And those sources suggest that it was because they realized after three days that he was not going to rise, that they then buried him.
- [32:40]
Matt Lewis
And so I guess at this point, Mohammed's death is significant in a number of ways because he is the leading political figure on the Arabian Peninsula. He's a significant military figure, and he is also considered to be a prophet. So kind of all of those things disappearing at once must have created political instability in the region. And it sounds like there was a bit of squabbling over what should come next. What does that mean for early Islam, that kind of fight over who should.
- [33:05]
Dr. John Tolan
Succeed Muhammad in the immediate case, Ali finally accepted. Some of Ali's followers were very unhappy about this, but Ali finally accepted to recognize Abu Bakr. As caliph because he didn't want to divide the Muslims. There were rebellions because some of the Arab tribes who had allied themselves with Muhammad considered that at his death there was no need to continue their allegiance. So Abu Bakr, according to tradition, had several expeditions to force people back into allegiance. And then it's during the caliphate of Abu Bakr, which is very short, 632 to 634 and then particular under the leadership of Omar, who becomes caliph after him, that there's an expansion into north, into parts of what's now, what at the time is the Roman Byzantine Empire, particularly in what's now Syria, and also into the Persian Empire. And suddenly within 10, 20 years after the death of the Prophet, his successors are governing a huge empire.
- [34:36]
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- [34:42]
Dr. John Tolan
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- [34:48]
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- [35:07]
Dan Snow
History has made this world of ours. I'd like to tell you about my show, Dan Snow's History Hit that really explains everything that's ever happened. The origin stories of the cities we inhabit or of what's in our kitchen cupboards. Why we've always been drawn to dictators. The greatest discoveries, inventions and mistakes ever made. For curious stories, check out Dan Snow's History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:52]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And when do we see the. The development of the the Sunni, Shia split in Islam. How does that come about?
- [35:59]
Dr. John Tolan
So that comes about in the so we have this tremendous expansion under Umar and then under his successor, the third caliph, Uthman. There's division among the Muslims. Uthman is unpopular. He promotes his members of his own family and clan to important positions. And there's a revolt of soldiers, particularly in Egypt, who then come to Medina and kill Uthman. And then there's a After Uthman's death, there's a council that meets and elects Ali as his successor. But not everyone accepts Ali because some suspect him of having been behind Uthman's death and behind this rebellion. So there's a civil war, what Muslim tradition is called the first fitna. And it pitches Ali against other members of the elite, in particular against Aisha, one of Muhammad's wives, who leads the opponents of Ali into battle, defeated at what's called the Battle of the Camel. So this creates a split, which you can't yet at this point talk about Shi' ism as a distinct form of Islam. But that's the sort of the beginning and the basis of the split, because after Ali's defeat and death, so Ali becomes caliph, is originally victorious, and then he is assassinated. And after his death there's a new civil war that brings the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty, where Mu', Awiya, who was a cousin of the former Caliph Uthman and had been governor of Damascus, wins against the successors of Ali and establishes the Umayyad dynasty. This Umayyad dynasty, based in Syria, the capital of Damascus, was never recognized by the followers of Ali, who put forward two of Ali's sons and then affirmed that only a descendant of Ali and Fatima, Ali was married to Muhammad's daughter Fatima. Only descendants of Ali and Fatima could be legitimately imams or caliphs. So this eventually created this split based on political difference, but one also based on traumatic events in this series of civil wars. And in particular when Ali's and Fatima's son Hussein was slain by the Umayyads in the battle of Karbala in 680, Hussein was considered a martyr. And his tomb at Karbala is still considered by many the holiest site of Shiism.
- [39:06]
Matt Lewis
Throughout all of these kind of civil wars, political struggles that are going on, dynastic concerns, empire building. Still, how does Islam develop? How does it become a separate religion? Given that Muhammad, it sounds like he hadn't intended it to become something of its own religion. It was meant to be a continuation of monotheism. How does it break away and become something separate?
- [39:29]
Dr. John Tolan
So it's really during the Umayyad period that Islam becomes a separate religion per se and in a way an imperial religion. Because of course, we have to remember when we talk about the world of Islam in this period, the Umayyad period and then the Abbasid period, Muslims are a small ruling minority amongst a majority of Christians, Zoroastrians, in the former Persian Empire of Jews and others. Islam becomes way to justify the superiority of Islam over other religions, becomes a justification for the rule of this elite minority of Muslims over this huge empire. So we see this notably during the reign of Abd al Malik, who's caliph, nomayyad caliph, between 685 and 715. He is among Other things, he issues new coinage. Earlier caliphs had reissued traditional Byzantine and Persian coins, often with the images of Byzantine or Persian emperors. He reissued coins that had no images but only text that affirm that there was only one God and that Muhammad was a prophet of God. We see also he's the one who had the Dome of the Rock built in Jerusalem. And in the Dome of the Rock which is on the site of the former Jewish temple. So it's a real statement that we the Muslims are now the inheritors of this whole Jewish tradition of the Jewish kings. And it's also in the inscriptions on the interior of the Dome of the Rock there are passages from the Quran and particularly the anti Christian passages that I mentioned earlier where Jesus affirms that he never claimed to be God or the Son of God and there are passages against the Trinity. So this is a way of symbolically saying that we Muslims are the real successors to the Jewish kings and to Jesus and the Christians and the Jews don't really follow them. So the Christians and the Jews at the same time, Muslim law is developing and there's this idea of a distinct legal status where Jews and Christians are dhimiz, literally protected, which means that they are free to practice their religion, to have their synagogues and churches, to have a certain legal autonomy, but they are inferior legally and socially to Muslims. So all of this emerges during the Umayyad period. So gradually we see emerge what we now recognize as traits of a Muslim society and Muslim religion.
- [42:24]
Matt Lewis
And so it sounds like that separation of Islam from the other monotheistic religions is almost more of a political move rather than a religious one at that point.
- [42:35]
Dr. John Tolan
Yes, yes. The two are very intertwined for Muslims at the time as they had been for Christians. Of course, the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire was closely associated with Christianity so it was normal to use religion as a justification for empire.
- [42:55]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And I wondered if you could just talk us through a little bit about how kind of perceptions of Muhammad have changed over the centuries since his life. Do we think about him differently today than he was thought about in the 7th, 8th, 9th centuries?
- [43:10]
Dr. John Tolan
Yes, certainly. And when we say we think of him, it depends upon who, who do we concerned is. Obviously for Muslims the Quran is very clear that Muhammad is only a man. He's human with his weaknesses. But over the centuries there develops a sort of a cult of Muhammad who is seen as a perfect model, that one should model one's own behavior and even one's dress and so forth on what Muhammad had done. So there are all sorts of traditions and legends about, you know, how Muhammad brushed his teeth, how he prayed, how he slept, etc. And some people consider him a model. And other Muslims have criticized what they see as almost a worshiping of the prophet alongside God, which of course exactly what Muhammad preached against. If you look at how non Muslims perceived Muhammad, that also develops over time. Early on, many of the Christians, for example, had differing views about Muhammad. Some saw him as a reformer and the prophet of the Arabs and were quite respectful towards him, particularly the Christians who had been persecuted under Byzantine rule. The non orthodox Christians, in other words, people who didn't have the same doctrines concerning Jesus, concerning the Trinity as did the Byzantine emperors and who had been persecuted under the Byzantine Church, saw the arrival of Islam as a sort of a liberation and a just punishment of the Byzantine oppressors. So they had a more positive image of Muhammad at least beginning then, as you know, as I said, in the early centuries, throughout the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, so really into the 12th or 13th centuries, for most of that time, Christians were much more numerous than Muslims. But little by little more Christians converted to Islam. And this of course worried church leaders. So then some of them started writing polemics against Islam for their parishioners saying no, no, no, you don't want to convert to this religion. And in order to convince them, they would paint a negative image of Islam and a negative image of the Prophet Muhammad. And so this negative image of Muhammad as a false reformer, false prophet, sometimes as a heretic was transmitted throughout these Christian communities under Islam and then became popular in Europe during the Middle Ages where Islam was seen as a dangerous rival and was denounced as a heresy.
- [46:06]
Matt Lewis
I mean, it's been fascinating to try, I mean, try to get a little bit closer to who the Prophet Muhammad was. But it sounds like, you know, we don't know all that much about him because the stories that we have are more about his, his revelations from God than they are about him. And maybe we shouldn't expect anything different from, from someone in that position. But it's interesting to consider, I think, what he might have thought he was doing during his lifetime and, and what has actually happened subsequently. Because it sounds like he wasn't trying to set up this whole new separate religion that would further divide monotheism. He was trying to draw it even closer together. But in some ways what's happened is, is a new separate form of monotheism that sort of divided the monotheistic faiths.
- [46:51]
Dr. John Tolan
Well, that's right. And of course if you look at the three monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they have a lot in common. You know, people sometimes talk about the Abrahamic faiths because they all trace their ancestry back to Abraham. But one of the things they have in common is paradoxically, their divisions and the divisions among Jews. And there are different groups among Jews throughout history and of course, the divisions among Christians that, you know, I just mentioned. And then in Islam, there are divisions between Sunnites and Shiites, and then within each of those branches there are also conflicts and divisions. There's a certain unity of monotheism, but there are also divisions as part of that tradition.
- [47:38]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us, John. It's been fascinating to try and understand Muhammad's life a little bit better and I guess frustrating that we don't know a little bit more about him. But it's been wonderful to to try and understand exactly what we do know and to look at the impact that he's had over the centuries since his life. So thank you very much for joining us.
- [47:57]
Dr. John Tolan
Thank you, Matt.
- [47:59]
Matt Lewis
Thank you, John. John's new book, A New History From Muhammad to the Present, is out now. If you'd like to explore this topic further, there are new installments of God Medieval every Tuesday and Friday. So please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free. Head over to historyhit.com subscribe. Go on, you know you want to. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history Hits.
- [49:04]
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