The Emergence and Legacy of the Prophet Muhammad

THE EMERGENCE AND LEGACY OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD future.” His dignified and impressive personality grew with age. ‘Ali8 once commented, “Those who saw him for the first time were filled with awe, and those who came close to him grew to love him.” The Prophet’s noble character was undisputed, yet people’s attitude to him changed when he announced his prophetic mission in his fortieth year. They poured scorn on his claim to prophethood. “Look at this village boy who reckons he’s in contact with the heavens,” they would say. His preaching mission extended over a mere twenty-three years. During this short time, he brought about a revolution among the Arab tribes, the like of which the world had never seen. Within one hundred years, this revolution had vanquished both the Sassanian and the Byzantine Empires. With the fall of these two great empires, Islam annexed the territory extending from Iran and Iraq to Bukhara in the east, while in the west, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and then the whole of North Africa also fell to Islam. And the torrent did not halt there. In A.D. 711, Islam surged across the Straits of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula. In 732, a Frankish prince, Charles Martel, arrested the advance of Islam at Tours. Then followed the Crusades, stretching over two centuries, and after the Crusades, the horrific onslaughts of the Tartar tribes. But despite these attacks from the outside, the Islamic Empire held its own until the 15th century, when Spain was lost due to infighting among the Muslims. It was then the turn of the Turks and the Mughals to be aroused by the spirit of Islam. In 1453 the Turks conquered