The Origin of Islam as a Social Movement

Ahmed Afzaal

This paper attempts to demonstrate that the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula during the life of Prophet Muhammad (570-632 CE) can be fruitfully analyzed and interpreted as a social movement. In addition, it seeks to show that systematic study of the career of Prophet Muhammad¹, when approached holistically from a social movement perspective and interpreted in dialogue with modern social theories, can lead to the development of general principles with potential relevance for any social movement. Finally, this paper attempts to use sociological insights to shed light on some dynamics of the rise of Islam in its historical context.²

What Lies Beneath

The use of only a single case study to draw general conclusions about social movements may appear methodologically flawed; however, this approach is based on my desire to develop a sociological framework of inquiry into the policies and strategies of Prophet Muhammad that can be used to assess contemporary Islamic movements. While the latter project will not be attempted here, it does provide a key motive for the present undertaking.

The biography of Prophet Muhammad is used by Muslim leaders and ideologues not only to learn how to proceed in their own variegated campaigns, but also—and perhaps more importantly—to legitimize their preferred policies, strategies, and goals. These movements span the full spectrum of political positions, all the way from the conservative Tablīghī Jamā^cah to the ultra-violent Al-Qā^cidah. Despite this diversity of political positions, all arguments supporting particular methodologies must somehow be shown to receive their authority and authenticity from the life and career of Prophet Muhammad. This is because the experience of the earliest community of believers under Prophet Muhammad has been largely accepted by subsequent generations of Muslims as the ultimate paradigm of legitimacy. It is no surprise, therefore, that the interpretation of the historical and textual data on Prophet Muhammad’s life and career has become one of the central areas of contention and dispute among Islamic activists today.³

The Nature of Prophetic Vocation

What lends support to the viability of the present endeavor is the fact that, based on the available sources, the struggle of Prophet Muhammad appears to be more or less consciously aimed at bringing about certain key changes in the religio-ethical and socio-political spheres of the Arabian society. Contemporary sociological research often distinguishes between religious movements and social movements, but it is not possible to adequately capture the life and career of Prophet Muhammad in terms of only one of these frameworks. The question may be asked, however, as to whether religious or social aspects took priority and precedence in his case? It seems to me that the socio-political aims of Prophet Muhammad’s struggle were the necessary and inevitable—yet mostly implicit and tacit—consequences of his religio-ethical vision. Even though the focus of his call seems to be on religious and ethical issues, its natural consequences and implications for the social and political structures of his milieu were far-reaching. In other words, the kind of religio-ethical reforms that Prophet Muhammad ultimately implemented in his society were of such a nature and scope that they would not have been possible without active engagement with socio-political structures and processes. Alternatively, of course, it can be argued that Prophet Muhammad’s mission was actually a manifestation of the largely unrecognized socio-political unrest prevalent in the Arabian society, and that his religio-ethical message was merely the form within which this secular and mundane unrest came to be expressed, religion being an effective vehicle for socio-political transformation.

These two ways of characterizing Prophet Muhammad’s struggle may not be mutually exclusive, particularly if it is argued that the very division between “religio-ethical” and “socio-political” spheres is an artificial and heuristic one. Describing the relationship between these spheres, Fazlur Rahman (1986:154) contends that the social aspects of Islam are the natural and logical outcome of its religious vision, as epitomized in the career of Prophet Muhammad:

It is not the case that “religion” and “state” were sisters; nor can it be said that they “cooperated” with one another. The state is nothing at all by itself; it is a reflex of those moral and spiritual values and principles called Islam. The state is not an “extension” of religion; it is an instrument of Islam, a transparent instrument which vanishes when one tries to regard it per se. The Prophet never claimed to be Prophet and ruler; he never even claimed to be a ruler whose rule was under this Prophethood; he only claimed to be a Prophet. His rule was the way in which he performed his Prophetic office. The adage is fairly well known by now that “in Islam there is no separation between religion and state.” The actual case is much stronger: ideally, the state per se cannot exist in Islam where it is only a reflex or a transparent instrument of “religion.” Religion (Islam), therefore, is that which directly permeates and directs all spheres of human life.

This intimate intertwining in the career of Prophet Muhammad of what is today recognized as more or less separate social domains of “religion” and “state” is of immense significance for grasping his mission as a meaningful whole, and for avoiding a fragmentary reading of his career. This intertwining also reflects the dual nature of the task that confronts all social movements, for moral and intellectual transformations remain seriously limited or even impossible without simultaneous and comparable socio-political transformations; the reverse, of course, is also true.

A well-known statement by Karl Marx can be employed to elucidate the nature of the prophetic vocation. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx (1978:145) argued: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Paraphrasing Marx, Maduro (1975:310) says that “…there is no true theoretical problem which is not also a practical problem and… consequently a solution will only be true if it becomes practical….” In other words, many philosophical contradictions cannot be fully resolved through debates, but they call for addressing the concrete social, political, and economic conditions that have given rise to such contradictions in the first place. Yet, changing the world in a concrete sense is hardly possible without reinterpreting it in fresh ways, and therefore the difference between “interpreting the world” and “changing the world” can be seen as only a matter of emphasis.

In light of this, Prophet Muhammad’s involvement in socio-political activism can be seen as a natural consequence of the internal logic of his religio-ethical vision; at the same time, it can also be seen as the inevitable impact over his social and material milieu of the powerful forces that were generated within him as a result of his encounter with the Sacred. The prophetic vocation cannot limit itself merely to interpreting the world in a fresh way; in order to remain true to itself, it must also attempt to transform its milieu in accordance with that interpretation.

Reliability of Historical Sources

One of the fundamental questions to be addressed at the outset concerns the reliability of sources. There are two distinct sets of images of Prophet Muhammad available to scholars—images found in the traditional Islamic sources (primarily the Qur’ān, but also Maghāzī, Sīrah, Hadīth, and Tārīkh literature) through which the complex and multifaceted understanding of Prophet Muhammad are woven in Muslim religious imagination; and the images found in the works of modern academics and historians of Islam, who have often approached the traditional sources with some degree of objective distanciation, but sometimes also with great skepticism. Between faithful credulity and blind veneration on one extreme and distrust or even dismissal of all Islamic sources on the other, there is a wide spectrum of opinions about Prophet Muhammad, making it impossible to construct an account of his life that would be acceptable to everyone.⁴

While even Muslim scholars since classical times have not received the Islamic oral tradition without criticism, the Orientalist scholarship has shown much more caution and even skepticism. Ignaz Godziher (1889-90) and Joseph Schacht (1950) are recognized as the pioneers of the skeptical approach. More recently, scholars of the so-called “revisionist school” have taken this skepticism to its logical extreme; John Wansbrough (1977, 1978), Patricia Crone (1980, 1987), and Michael Cook (with Crone, 1977) have tended towards rejecting the totality of Islamic sources as having very little value in terms of historical fact. Whatever the merits of their critical methodology (Koren and Nevo, 1991), the reconstructions of early Islamic history, including a new interpretation of the history of the Qur’ān, as carried out by these scholars is based on tentative and provisional foundations and has come under serious and sometimes fatal criticisms (Rahman, 1980 & 1984; Robinson, 1996; Motzki, 2001). In contrast, most historians of Islam have argued that the problems in traditional Islamic sources are not insurmountable, and that a fairly good picture of historical fact can be distilled after a thorough source criticism. This, for instance, is the position of W. Montgomery Watt, who believes that Schacht’s criticism of hadith may apply to juridical traditions but not to historical accounts; he notes that “…there is a solid core of fact” in the “…undisputed or purely historical section of the traditional historical material.” (1956:336-338). While Watt is viewed as too gullible, there is growing evidence that Islamic sources originated much earlier than what was believed in Western scholarship until recently (Motzki, 2001).

Berg (2000) has shown that the apparently irresolvable differences between skeptics and non-skeptics concerning the reliability of Islamic sources stem from different sets of assumptions on which the two groups of scholars base their research, neither of which can be definitively proved. Making certain subjective assumptions is therefore inevitable. Indeed, the present paper could not have been written without assuming at least limited and conditional reliability of Islamic sources. Even though later embellishments, legend formation, political reshaping of received tradition and other forms of distortions can never be ruled out, the present paper is based on the assumption that it is still possible to extract sociologically significant data from the classical Islamic sources, particularly when they are read in dialogue with the Qur’ān.

The Inevitability of Story Construction

Some epistemological caution, however, is in order. The question can be raised as to whether it is possible to know, with even relative certainty, as to “what really happened” in the life and times of Prophet Muhammad? It has to be acknowledged in any study of this kind that human beings have no access to pure and unmediated historical truth, and that all “facts” are presented to the human mind as already packaged according to a given perspective; it is possible to challenge that perspective, but only to impose a new one. Paul Ricoeur (1981:274-296) has pointed out that both history and fiction use “emplotment” to esthetically relate apparently isolated happenings in a narrative whole that appears meaningful from a certain perspective. Paraphrasing Ricoeur, Mark Wallace explains the inevitability of story construction in historical writings (in Ricoeur, 1995:11-12):

Insofar as history is a form of writing that seeks coherence in the chaos of real events, and not simply a disconnected recounting of these events, history, like fiction, is governed by a wide variety of different aesthetic strategies for organizing past events into a narrative whole…. Historical events are recounted in many different forms—from relatively objective annals and chronicles to full-fledged narratives and highly embellished stories—all of which, by definition, emplot what is recounted according to a certain viewpoint as to the proper configuration, or “meaning,” of the events in question.

This implies that the narrative whole of Prophet Muhammad’s life, whether recounted from the theologian’s perspective or the historian’s, is incapable of providing an account of the objective, absolute, and unmediated “truth” of the matter regarding what really happened. Irrespective of the methodology employed, there will always be an element of emplotment which will impose its own structure on to the data in order to make them coherent and credible from a certain perspective and for a certain audience. Even those who reject classical Islamic sources are not immune from proposing their own plot; only they strive to bring up a different set of data through which to establish the reliability of their plot and the validity of their perspective.

The recognition of the inevitability of emplotment demands that one maintains a sense of tentativeness in drawing sociological conclusions from historical narratives. In this paper, I do not attempt to invent a new plot or to pretend that I can look at historical events in full light of “scientific objectivity” by transcending all humanly constructed plots. Instead, I seek to work more modestly within the classically established plot of Prophet Muhammad’s biography, while taking advantage of contemporary analytical and interpretive tools to bring out some of its sociological significance.

The Central Importance of the Qur’ān

It is important to recognize the extraordinary importance of the Qur’ān as a guide to Prophet Muhammad’s life and career. While scholars differ even here, there is some degree of agreement that the Qur’ān is not only better preserved than other historical and textual sources but it also belongs to a much earlier period than other sources, most probably going to the time of Prophet Muhammad himself (Burton, 1977; Robinson, 1996). However, it is very difficult to read the Qur’ān historically without at least some help from extra-Qur’ānic sources. Hodgson (1974:160) notes:

In the case of Muhammad, though we must use a large amount of conjecture, we can base it on reasonably objective scholarly principles. We can rely on the text of the Qur’ān itself as direct evidence—though that text is habitually ambiguous in any concrete reference it makes. To interpret the Qur’ān, we are forced to resort to reports collected several generation later; but even among these, we are not entirely at a loss: we can probably rely on those reports which can be shown not to grind the axe of any particular later party, provided such reports fit reasonably well into a coherent picture that emerges from them all as a body. And most important, we can often rely on the background detail which the reports take for granted as known to all.

Despite these difficulties, it is nevertheless possible to construct a general working model of the life of Prophet Muhammad that relies primarily on the Qur’ān and uses other sources sparingly and with caution. Consequently, if the Qur’ān is studied in careful dialogue with the most essential and reliable of the extra-Qur’ānic data on Prophet Muhammad and his milieu, it can be seen that the Qur’ān provides comments, criticisms, and step-by-step instructions that were directly related to the progress of Prophet Muhammad’s movement.⁵ Such a historical reading of the Qur’ān offers insights into the nature of events whose authenticity may otherwise be in question. In this context, the suggestion by Daniel Madigan (1995) that the Qur’ān should be read as a commentary on the events and situations that surrounded its revelation should be taken seriously. While sympathetic to the revisionist school, Madigan (1995:352-353) argues for the value of the Qur’ān as a historical document:

One could see it [the Qur’ān] as a kind of “running commentary” on the situation—social, religious, political and sometimes even domestic—in which Muhammad found himself. This is to regard the seventh century Hijāz as a “text”… which is being “read” and commented upon by Muhammad (or by God). We do not have that “text” before us and we would have to agree with [Andrew] Rippin that it is all but unrecoverable; reconstruction, whether traditional or modern, are at best speculative. However, we do have the “commentary” and it is a legitimate object of study.

Alford Welch (1983) had earlier attempted to reconstruct the biography of Prophet Muhammad and the history of the rise of Islam based solely on the Qur’ān. Introducing his reconstruction, Welch (1983:15-16) notes that the Qur’ān can be a highly reliable source for historical data:

On the extent of the reliability of the Sira and Hadith accounts as historical sources I am not yet prepared to render a final judgment. I can, however, speak with some confidence about the Koran as our primary historical source for the life of the Prophet and the origins of the Muslim community and Islamic faith and practice. I am confident that the contents, although not the final arrangement, of the Koran date from the time of Muhammad, and that the Koran is utterly reliable as a historical source, if it is properly interpreted.

He further notes that even though the Qur’ān does not record historical data for the purpose of preserving information, it can nevertheless be used to grasp the self-understanding of Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. Indeed, starting from the actor’s viewpoint is a time-honored Weberian approach; to the extent that the Qur’ān reflects the mind of Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslim community, its narratives, references, allusions, exhortations, and criticisms can be seen as a treasure of sociologically significant data. The Qur’ān may not record historical details, but it does give a vantage point for examining other data. Defending his approach, Welch (1983:15-16) notes:

The Koran is an unusual historical source. It is a contemporary and authentic record that responds constantly to Muhammad’s situation, and yet it contains no historical narrative or description, and it does not have as its purpose the recording of history or biography.… Regardless of what view may be taken as to the authorship of the Koran, that is, whether God or Muhammad is regarded as its author, all would agree that as the Prophet and recipient of the revelation Muhammad must have known what the Koran says and must have agreed with the views it espouses. In other words, even if the traditional Islamic view of revelation is accepted, that is, that God is the author and speaker of the Koran, still it must be admitted that the revelation also reflects the views of the Prophet through whom it was imparted to [people].

Despite the usefulness of the above approach, Welch’s qualification that the Qur’ān is a reliable historical source only “if it is properly interpreted” still leaves room for different versions of the rise of Islam based on different hermeneutical frameworks. Consequently, the Qur’ān can hardly be read as a commentary on contemporary events without paying some attention to extra-Qur’ānic reports of those events. Robinson (1996:44-45) argues this position as follows:

The earliest extant biographies of the Prophet were compiled at a time when Islam had become the ideology of a vast empire. Their historical value as a source of information about the earliest days of Islam is therefore questionable…. Yet if we leave the Islamic sources tradition to one side, and approach the Qur’ān without any presuppositions, the picture which emerges is extremely sketchy… If we wish to fill in this sketch and sharpen its focus, our only option is to draw on the early biographies. … despite their relatively late date and their obvious ideological bias, these biographies [are] nonetheless likely to contain accurate information, particularly about Muhammad’s raiding campaigns.

In reconstructing the rise of Islam and particularly Prophet Muhammad’s self-understanding concerning of his mission, I will therefore mainly rely on the Qur’ān with minimal help from other Islamic sources. In interpreting the Qur’ān, my methodological assumption will be the inner coherence and unity of the scripture which allows it to be read inter-textually.

An Interpretation of the Rise of Islam

I suggest that Max Weber’s key insight into the motivational dynamics of human actions can be fruitfully used to present a plausible view of the rise of Islam for the purpose of this study. In a famous passage, Weber (1946:280) notes:

Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern [people’s] conduct. Yet very frequently the “world images” that have been created by “ideas” have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamics of interest.

Weber, apparently in conversation with the “ghost of Marx,” was trying to incorporate the role of ideas in the materialist model of social change. He did this by introducing the notion of “world images.” These images are produced by ideas, and, in turn, influence the way in which material and ideal interests play themselves out in socio-historical reality. In the rise of Islam under Prophet Muhammad, it can be seen that ideas as a sources of “world images” as well as the influence of these “world images” on shaping the configuration and actual operation of material and ideal interests played significant roles. The Qur’ān, when studied in the background of the socio-political environment of its revelation, provides interesting clues as to the nature of these ideal and material interests; this is partly so because the Qur’ān itself was the source of the ideas that shaped the “world images” in the minds of those who came to accept it as Divine revelation, reshaping and redirecting their ideal and material interest in specific ways.

As discussed in the previous section, the Qur’ān is not just a theological text but also a document that can be read as a reflection of certain contemporaneous psychological states and historical events. I suggest that jihād in its original sense—struggle—is the key Qur’ānic concept that must be carefully unpacked in order to gain an understanding of the socio-historical dynamics of the rise of Islam. As the subsequent discussion will attempt to show, the obligation of jihād was presented by the Qur’ān as a religious endeavor necessary for salvation in the hereafter, in which capacity it acted as the integrating element of ideal interests; at the same time, jihād was also presented by the Qur’ān as a worldly endeavor necessary for the achievement of social justice in the here-and-now, in which capacity it acted as the integrating element of material interests. Consequently, it was this dual nature of jihād that seemed to have created the “world images” that contributed to the convergence of the ideal and material interests of certain segments of Arabian society at a common point, and it was this convergence that significantly contributed to the rise of Islam as a social movement.⁶

In the Qur’ān, the word jihād mostly appears in the sense of a struggle that expresses, and is necessitated by, faithfulness to God. In this sense, jihād is often but not always qualified by the phrase fī sabīl Allah—in the way of God. The “way of God” or the “straight path” is a Qur’ānic metaphor describing a set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices that lead to individual and collective salvation in this world and in the hereafter. While salvation ultimately depends on Divine Grace, a minimum standard of right belief and righteous action has to be met in order to deserve that Grace. Traveling on the “way of God” or on the “straight path” is by definition an arduous undertaking, requiring a struggle or jihād to overcome the many resistances that one is likely to encounter. While the Qur’ān uses this term for a wide variety of righteous struggles—including an individual’s struggle for self-reform, as well as to convey a truth to others that one has accepted for oneself—the most important Qur’ānic usage of this term relates to a collective struggle directed towards the achievement of individual salvation on the one hand and the establishment of social justice on the other.

Before dealing with the issue of social justice, it is important to show how the notion of jihād might have created the “world images” through which certain ideal and material interests converged and contributed toward the rise of Islam. The Qur’ān makes it abundantly clear that salvation in the hereafter is as much a matter of having faith as fulfilling the obligation of jihād. Several āyāt may be cited in this regard:

Do you think you will go to Paradise while God has not yet seen who among you struggle and persevere? (3:142)

Do you think you will get away before God sees who among you would struggle…? (9:16)

We shall guide those who struggle in Our cause to the paths leading to Us…. (29:69)

O believers! May I offer you a bargain which will save you from a painful punishment? Have faith in God and His messenger, and struggle in the way of God, with your wealth and souls. This is better for you if you can understand. (61:10-11)

They alone are believers who come to have faith in God and His messenger, then do not fall into doubt, and struggle with their wealth and their souls in the way of God. They are the truthful and sincere. (49:15)

It is clear from these quotations that the Qur’ān views jihād as an indispensable part of the requirements for an individual’s ultimate salvation; to the extent that salvation was seen by the associates of Prophet Muhammad as the central element of their ideal interests, jihād must have appeared to them as the inevitable prerequisite for securing that interest. Even though jihād was a collective endeavor in this sense, its benefits were perceived as individually relevant: “The one who strives, does so for his [her] own sake…” (29:6).

On the other hand, the Qur’ānic articulation of material interests seems to revolve around the notion of social justice. The following Qur’ānic passage, for instance, is quite clear in establishing the relationship between jihād and the prophetic mission:

Struggle in the way of God as you ought to struggle! He has chosen you [for this service] and laid no hardship on you in the way of religion—the faith of your father Abraham—He named you Muslim earlier as well as in this [Qur’ān], in order that the messenger be witness against you and you be witness against humanity; so be firm in worship, pay the charity, and hold on firmly to God; He is your friend. How excellent a friend is He, how excellent a helper! (22:78)

This passage announces the inception of the Muslim community by declaring jihād as its primary obligation and raison d’être. The notion that God chooses certain people to fulfill God’s purpose is also mentioned elsewhere in the Qur’ān (2:143 & 3:110). There is a clear emphasis that this new community is being formed in order to collectively struggle “in the way of God.”

Several Qur’ānic āyāt may be cited to show the relationship between social justice and the prophetic mission. For instance, the Qur’ān presents the purpose of the advent of Prophet Muhammad—his mission statement—in the following words:

[God] is the one who has sent His messenger with the guidance and the true way of life, so that he make it prevail over all aspects of living... (9:33; 48:28; & 61:9).

The fact that these words appears thrice in the Qur’ān is an indication of its importance for grasping Prophet Muhammad’s self-understanding. Using the exegetical tool of inter-textual reading, the following āyah explicates the significance of the one quoted above, the two having very similar constructions:

We have surely sent our messengers with clear signs, and sent with them the Book and the Balance, so that people may stand by justice… (57:25).

The first āyah describes the mission statement for one particular messenger (Muhammad) while the second āyah provides the general mission statement for all messengers. According to the first āyah, God sent Muhammad with the “guidance” and the “true way of life,” while according to the second God sent messengers with the “book” and the “balance,” in addition to “clear signs.” If the two verses are superimposed, the word “guidance” can be interpreted as “book” (or scripture) and “true way of life” can be interpreted as “balance” (a set of just ethical norms), both interpretations being in conformity with general Qur’ānic usage. Furthermore, “clear signs” can easily apply to the Qur’ān, since the latter presents itself as a miracle. More importantly, the meaning of the statement that the “true way of life” ought to “…prevail over all aspects of living” can be interpreted through the phrase “…so that people may stand by justice.”

These two āyāt provide interesting clues about what Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers might have believed they were trying to accomplish through their jihād. It seems that in their understanding, the triumph of Islam was virtually identical with the establishment of social justice. This view brings out the Qur’ānic basis of the intimate intertwining of the religio-ethical and the socio-political spheres in the life of Prophet Muhammad, as already noted. It can be further supported through another pair of āyāt, as follows: “O believers! Stand up for justice, as witnesses for God…” (4:135) and “O believers! Stand up for God, as witnesses for justice…” (5:8). This highly suggestive parallel construction and the virtual equation of “God” with “justice” provide evidence for the position that the struggle in the way of God was very closely associated with struggle for the sake of justice; in fact, it is likely that the two were not clearly differentiated at all. A number of insightful students of the Islamic scripture have reached the same conclusion. For instance, Fazlur Rahman (1980:62) contends that, according to the Qur’ān, the main purpose for the creation of a Muslim community and for the imperative of jihād was none other than the establishment of social justice:

There is no doubt that the Qur’ān wanted Muslims to establish a political order on earth for the sake of creating an egalitarian and just moral-social order. Such an order should, by definition, eliminate “corruption on the earth” and “reform the earth.” To fulfill this task, to which every people whose vision is neither truncated nor inverted pays at least a lip-service, the Qur’ān created the instrument of jihād…. [Emphasis in the original.]

To the extent that the Qur’ānic discourse can be seen as a reflection of the self-understanding of Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers, the āyat quoted above provide strong evidence of the role played by the impulse towards social justice in the rise of Islam.

In accounting for the material interests involved in the emergence of Islam, Max Weber has emphasized the role played by the Bedouin warriors’ propensity for power and booty. As is well known, Weber could not carry out the systematic study of Islam that he had planned. His comments on Islam are restricted to a number of scattered references. Weber believed that although the rise of Islam was based on the charisma of Prophet Muhammad, the latter had to link his charisma to the material interests of a Bedouin “warrior class” that subsequently became the “carrier” of his message, changing it substantially in the process (1993:51-52, 87-88). This interpretation has been duly criticized by Turner (1974:34-35) as being a one-sided analysis based on flawed assumptions. According to Turner (1974:36), Weber did not take the Qur’ānic account seriously, which would have shown him that the followers of Prophet Muhammad included a group of opportunists or free-riders that consisted of some urban dwellers of Medina as well as of Bedouin tribes (Qur’ān, 9:101). These individuals were never considered among Prophet Muhammad’s close and trusted associates, and the Qur’ān repeatedly condemns them in the harshest terms, calling them munafiqūn or hypocrites. In general, the religious sincerity of the Bedouins was always a matter of suspicion; as nomads, the Bedouins were usually more interested in the problem of surviving in the desert and were less inclined towards supernatural or purely ethical matters. It has been noted that the Bedouin “…were never particularly zealous in the practice of Islam…” (Henninger, 1959/1981:8), a fact reported by the Qur’ān (9:97-98), although it does exempt some of them from the charge of hypocrisy and disbelief (9:99). The wave of apostasy among the Bedouin tribes immediately after Prophet Muhammad’s death is a case in point. Turner notes, “By lumping together a number of different types of commitment to Islam, Weber seemed to imply either that all Muslims were opportunists or that Muhammad was prepared to accept a redefinition of the core of religion in militaristic terms” (Ibid.).

It may be added that the very notion of a Bedouin “warrior class” is more of a nineteenth century European fantasy about blood-thirsty Arabs than an accurate description of historical reality. While pre-Islamic Arab poetry is full of self-praise regarding the valor and military exploits of the poet’s tribe, this “evidence” should be treated with caution. The Qur’ān suggests that while raiding and looting was part of the Bedouin economy, these tribes were not eager to fight in a situation where they could lose their lives for an ideal transcending mundane existence. The frequent Qur’ānic exhortations in the Medinan period to take up arms and fight (2:216; 4:77; 8:65; 47:20 etc.), instead of showing the militant nature of early Muslims, actually demonstrates the unwillingness of many among Prophet Muhammad’s followers to risk their lives.

Sulayman Bashir (1978), on the other hand, views the material interests of the commercial aristocracy of Mecca—the elite of the tribe of Quraysh—to be at the heart of the rise of Islam. In other words, he argues that the movement under Muhammad was a means through which existing class relations were reproduced and consolidated in a unified Islamic state, which became an instrument for the class interests of the wealthy merchants of Quraysh. A similar view was presented earlier by Eric Wolf (1951), who argued that “…Mohammed accomplished for the Meccan traders that which they could not accomplish themselves: the organization of state power” (353). The numerous flaws and deficiencies of this interpretation have been discussed in detail by Asad (1980), who concludes that “…the origin and development of ‘the Islamic state’ cannot be explained in terms of the Engels thesis which Bashir adopts—because ‘the Islamic state’ was neither a response to the specific needs of a particular class prior to the Prophet, nor an unambiguous instrument of the ruling class after his death” (466).

In contrast to the views of Weber, Bashir, and Wolf, perhaps the most fruitful theory explaining the rise of Islam is still that of W. Montgomery Watt. Despite its problems and limitations (Cf., Crone, 1987; Peters, 1994), Watt’s perspective does pay attention to the relatively deprived and marginalized socio-economic status of the majority of Prophet Muhammad’s followers in Mecca. This is important in figuring out the role of material interests in the rise of Islam. Becoming Muslim in Mecca was not an immediately advantageous undertaking, for this often resulted in social rejections, boycotts, and persecution; it may therefore be fruitful to think in terms of the converts’ long-term interests. If it was in the long-term material interest of the Prophet Muhammad’s followers to be part of his movement—even if it brought short-term disadvantages—then it would be reasonable to argue that they must have come from relatively deprived or marginalized sections of society, and that for this reason they had everything to gain and very little to lose by joining the new religion. If this was the case, then it is also reasonable to argue that they must have readily embraced the idea of social justice as the worldly goal of their religious mission.

According to Watt (1953, 1961), the Meccan society in early seventh century was in a state of transition from dependence on nomadic pastoralism to urban commercial life, and this had created a crisis of values particularly in terms of gross socio-economic disparity—a situation that disturbed many sensitive individuals, including Muhammad. The rise of Islam can be interpreted as a response to this socio-economic unrest. According to Watt, the majority of Prophet Muhammad’s early followers belonged either to weak clans, or were younger members of more powerful clans; some of them may be well off economically, but they were relatively peripheral in the social hierarchy because they lacked effective clan protection (1961:12).

While there were some slaves among the early converts, it is obvious from Watt’s description that Islam cannot be characterized as a class movement. It had attracted not only the marginalized but also some moderately prosperous and relatively powerful individuals of Mecca. This is in accordance with Weber’s observation that the followers of charismatic prophecy are not restricted to any particular class (1993:101).

Having said this, however, it needs to be acknowledged that the top elite of Quraysh were the main opponents of this new religion till the very end. Even though Islam was not a class movement, a more or less clear division across class and status lines can be observed in the Meccan period. In addition to Watt, this conclusion has been reached more recently by Muranyi (1998), who contends that “…after approximately six years of activity as Prophet, both in public and in secrete, Muhammad had only a weak and socially unimportant following that could not stand up to the opposition in Mecca” (104). In other words, the majority of the early converts to Islam consisted of the relatively deprived and marginalized that can be characterized as belonging to the lower middle class, while the main opponents of his movement were the chiefs of different clans and/or powerful merchants who had developed a monopoly in the Meccan trade. This indicates that the primary carriers of Islam belonged not to the center but to periphery of the socio-economic and political hierarchy of Mecca.

This fact is of vital importance in demonstrating the role of jihād as the integrating element of material interests in the rise of Islam. The material interests of the most wealthy and powerful typically lie in maintaining rather than changing the status quo, and the desire or motivation for social change typically comes from the disadvantaged sections. In addition, as Weber has shown, wealthy merchants are not likely to be attracted to an ethical religion of salvation. “Everywhere,” Weber (1993:92) notes, “skepticism or indifference to religion are and have been the widely diffused attitudes of large-scale traders and financiers.”

This observation can be confirmed from the Qur’ān. In recounting the stories of the past, the purpose of the Qur’ān is never to provide historical records but to show how those stories are relevant to the present. Consequently, it is possible to read the situation of Prophet Muhammad’s time in the Qur’ānic stories of Hebrew and Arab prophets of the past. These stories often indicate the division of a nation across class and status lines, with the weak and oppressed invariably taking the side of the messenger of God against the elite of their nation; this narrative pattern indicates that an identical or very similar situation must have prevailed in the case of Prophet Muhammad himself (7:75, 76, 88, 90, 109, 127; 11:27, 38; 23:24; 26:111). Other related themes of the Qur’ān include the manner in which people are misled by their leaders (14:21; 33:67; 34:31-33; 40:47-48), and the Divine imperative for Prophet Muhammad to take good care of his followers and not to ignore them at the cost of giving too much attention to the Meccan elite (15:88; 18:28; 26:215; 80:1-12). Finally, the fact that the Qur’ānic theodicy seeks to explain political power, social status, and material fortune as transient and ultimately inconsequential (3:196-197; 18:32-44 etc.) indicates that the origins of the Qur’ānic ethics lies among the relatively deprived and marginalized. As is well known, Prophet Muhammad himself belonged to a relatively weak clan, the Banū Hāshim, and his social status was rather precarious since he was orphaned in childhood, despite his subsequent prosperity due to marriage and success in business.

A word may be added here regarding the interconnection between ideal and material interests in the rise of Islam. The revelations of the Qur’ān from the early Meccan period, particularly the short surahs found in the last section of the scripture, emphatically critique the undesirable state of socio-economic disparity in Meccan society. Because of the prominence of this theme in early revelations, it can be argued that this was one of the key issues in the rise of Islam, and that this must have been one of the questions that Prophet Muhammad sought to resolve in his frequent mountain retreats before the beginning of revelation. Through its emphasis on the struggle for social justice, the Qur’ān brings down the problem of socio-economic disparity from the realm of ideas and grounds it in concrete and social reality. While gross injustice in the world appears initially as a theological issue—how could God allow this to happen?—it can be only partially resolved through religious insights. Sooner or later, the crisis of meaning caused by a sensitive person’s encounter with the brutal fact of injustice has to be resolved through an active engagement with social and material reality. While one’s ideal interest lies in developing an appropriate theodicy and a hope for salvation in the hereafter, the problem of injustice can be adequately addressed only by pursuing the fulfillment of the material interest of the weak, poor, and the marginalized. The Qur’ānic discourse about theodicy and salvation are therefore to be read only in conjunction with the imperative for this-worldly pursuit of social justice through the obligation of jihād; in the absence of the latter, the Qur’ānic solution to the problem of meaninglessness in the face of injustice would have been nothing more than an “ideology” in the Marxian sense.

Human Agency and Social Change

Qur’ānic ethics is founded on the Divine promise of rewards and punishments in the Hereafter, and therefore on the notion of human freedom. The Qur’ān emphasizes that human beings have a measure of freedom that, while limited and conditional, is significant enough to make them morally responsible for their choices and therefore accountable before God. This Qur’ānic emphasis on human freedom is important in the present context, for one of the tasks before Prophet Muhammad must have been to convince his followers that personal and social transformation was not only desirable but also that it was possible. Perhaps the most significant Qur’ānic statement on this issue is the following: “…Verily God does not change the condition of a people unless they change what is in themselves…” (13:11). Translated into sociological language, this means that social change starts from individual transformation, and that human beings have the freedom to take such initiatives.

I will briefly describe Peter Berger’s synthesis of modern sociological theories regarding the creation of culture and society, and will use his synthesis as a springboard to propose a possible mechanism through which these can be transformed through conscious and deliberate human efforts—beginning with individual transformation. Berger (1967:3) argues that human beings create, and are being created by, society. He describes this process as follows (1967:4):

The fundamental dialectical process of society consists of three moments, or steps. These are externalization, objectivation, and internalization. Only if these three moments are understood together can an empirically adequate view of society be maintained. Externalization is the ongoing outpouring of human being into the world, both in the physical and the mental activity of [human beings]. Objectivation is the attainment by the product of this activity (again both physical and mental) of a reality that confronts its original producers as a facticity external to and to and other than themselves. Internalization is the reappropriation by [human beings] of this same reality, transforming it once again from structures of the objective world into structures of the subjective consciousness. It is through externalization that society is a human product. It is through objectivation that society becomes a reality sui generis. It is through internalization that [the human being] is a product of society.

Even though society “…has no other being except that which is bestowed upon it by human activity and consciousness,” (1967:3) it is neither simple nor easy to change society in any substantial way through conscious human efforts. There are at least two reasons for this difficulty. First, Berger (1967:7) notes that “…the world-building activity of [human beings] is always and inevitably a collective enterprise.” In other words, while the society is created by human beings, it is never created by a single person in any deliberate way but always comes into being as a result of a collective process that includes both physical and mental activities of countless generations; most of these activities are likely to have been performed by unsuspecting individuals going about their daily business. Second, Berger (1967:9) points out that “The humanly produced world… consists of objects, both material and non-material, that are capable of resisting the desires of their producers… this world cannot simply be wished away.” In other words, once a society comes into being, it becomes relatively free of the control of its creators; the society as well as its various constituents follow their own logic that may very well go against the desires and expectations of the human beings who have originally given rise to them. What role, then, for conscious human agency?

The key lies in two related facts pointed out by Berger. The first is that a society is collectively produced; the second is that it is ongoingly produced. Since a society is collectively produced, it can only be collectively changed. That is to say, a single individual, no matter how powerful, is not going to be able to single-handedly change society or any of its structures in any significant manner; however, a substantial number of individuals, working together, represent a qualitatively different force that can exploit the same mechanism that originally gave rise to society. Moreover, the fact that a society, once produced, cannot maintain its objective reality on its own but must be continuously supported and maintained by ongoing human physical and mental activity, indicates that human beings indeed have a measure of control over it. The internalization of social reality back into subjective consciousness as if it were a reality sui generis poses a limitation to the possibility of change; yet, as Berger (1967:15) notes, “…total socialization is empirically non-existent and theoretically impossible.” Since the process of internalization is always incomplete, human subjectivity and agency enjoy a degree of freedom over and against the coercive facticity of social reality.

Working within this free space, human beings can think and act in ways that are contrary to the ways in which they have previously functioned, leading to changes in the objectivated social reality. Once that objectivated reality begins to change, initially in small ways but increasingly in more significant ways, the nature of what is internalized begins to change as well, with changes in the objectivated reality leading to corresponding changes in subjective consciousness. As the subjective consciousness begins to change in increasingly significant ways, the nature of what is externalized also begins to change, with human beings pouring out physical and mental stuff into the world that is increasingly different from what they had been pouring out previously. Just as the creation of a society takes place through a positive feedback loop, so does the process of its change, the crucial point of intervention being the transformation of individuals. To wit, small but persistent changes in subjective consciousness gradually lead to increasingly significant changes in the stuff of externalization, and therefore in the objective facticity of society itself, the process becoming increasingly effective in each succeeding cycle.

There are two significant points in this framework that are worth emphasizing. First, the process of deliberate social change must start from individual human beings; this is not to underestimate the power of objectivated social reality or impersonal social structures, but to point out that the starting point of any social change has to be a change of subjective consciousness in the small area of freedom from socialization that all human beings enjoy. Second, while the initial change of subjective consciousness does not have to be a very substantial one, it must be represented in the physical and mental stuff that is externalized into the world and that shapes the character of the objectivated reality. This means that it is not enough for some people to simply think or feel in different ways, but they must externalize these subjective changes through what they do and what they say, and that they must do this externalization in a collective—as opposed to isolated—manner. It can be seen that the recognition of the human role in constructing and maintaining reality is the key empowering element for social movements. While religion mostly serves to maintain social reality, it occasionally empowers human beings to change that reality as well.

Religion as a Source of Human Empowerment

Traditional Marxist approaches failed to take religion’s revolutionary role seriously, falling into a unilateral view according to which religion was always ideological, always alienating, always “opium of the people.” As Maduro (1975:312) notes, “…Marx and Engels wanted to shy away from conceptions defending the absolute autonomy and efficacy (independent of the social structures) of religious institutions.” This emphasis resulted in an unjustifiably one-sided view of religion and culture among their early followers. Again, as Maduro (1975:313) has pointed out, while it is true that the ideas of the ruling classes tend to be dominant in any society, there are always other ideas that challenge the dominant ones in various ways. Just as socialization is always incomplete, the superstructure is never a monolithic entity, providing another window of opportunity through which social change may be initiated. Commenting on the revolutionary potential of religion, Maduro (1975:314) notes:

This unilateral emphasis, at least with regard to religion, can already be ascribed, not only to their successors, but also to Marx and Engels themselves. By taking the proletariat to be the final class, and the one which would consequently reject all religion, our authors blocked the path to understanding that exploited classes frequently find themselves related to a particular religion in such a way that, instead of finding it an obstacle to their emancipation, they can find original, unexpected and fruitful perspectives in it for their revolutionary struggle.

In a similar vein, Berger (1967:95) explains the double role of religion in causing both alienation and de-alienation. Since religion is the supreme defense against anomie, it normally obfuscates the human origins of social reality. However, under certain conditions, religion ceases to be alienating and acquires an empowering and liberating character by exposing the human hand behind what is commonly taken as the objective facticity of society. Berger (1967:96) notes:

[W]hile religion has an intrinsic (and theoretically very understandable) tendency to legitimate alienation, there is also the possibility that de-alienation may be religiously legitimated in specific historic cases.

Religion played both alienating and de-alienating roles in the rise of Islam. The economic domination of the tribe of Quraysh was dependent on its control of the ancient shrine of Kā^cbah, which in turn was related to the Arab belief in a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The pagan Arab religion played an alienating role not only by bestowing reality upon these “nonexistent” deities but also by giving legitimacy to the closely related economic arrangements in which the trade caravans of Quraysh enjoyed unrivaled protection throughout Arabia because of their control of the sacred shrine and their ability to manipulate sacred months (Peters, 1994:74-75, & 252), leading to its virtual monopoly in the Arabian trade. The monotheistic message preached by Prophet Muhammad had a strong de-alienating quality in this context, for it sought to demonstrate the human construction of pagan deities as well as of the economic organization that was dependent on the reality of those deities. Attacking polytheism was not simply a theological matter but had serious political and economic implications.

The Qur’ān stressed that all deities other than the one God are human inventions—merely “names” without a corresponding ontological status (7:71; 12:39-40; 53:19-23.). The Qur’ān also condemned many Arab rituals and religious practices on the grounds that these have not been explicitly commanded by God, and are, therefore, merely human fabrications (5:103; 6:138-139, 143-144; 9:36-37). The implications of this wholesale de-sacralization of what was considered most inviolable stemmed partly from the fact that, by proclaiming such ideas, Prophet Muhammad was threatening the system of religious legitimation that had so far supported the social, political, and economic status quo. At the same time, of course, he was also claiming a transcendent—“charismatic”—authority for himself that clearly went above and beyond the tribal system of loyalties. Indeed, such de-sacralization and de-alienation of the status quo is in the very nature of prophetic charisma, and is also at the heart of social change.

The Limitations of Human Agency

Despite the reality of human freedom, even collective human effort eventually meets certain objective limitations. Far from being a cause for despair, this only means that the need for utopian visions must be balanced by a cool and detached acceptance of the concrete reality within which human actors must struggle. While human imagination knows no limits, social movements must be cognizant of the limits that history imposes on them. Some of the limitations of human agency are clearly visible in the case of Prophet Muhammad. In contrast to the interpretation of the rise of Islam that I have adopted in this paper, Hamid Dabashi (1989:17) argues that the emergence of Islam cannot be described in terms of a movement for social justice, since a number of unjust practices remained even after Prophet Muhammad’s death:

[M]any Islamicists have argued explicitly or implicitly that the “corruption” of Arab society gave rise to a religious movement that offered a more “just” alternative—a particularly untenable argument because of the continuity of such practices as slavery from the pre- to post-Islamic periods. Considering the Muhammadan movement as a social rebellion against an “unjust” system is an anachronistic reading of the phenomenon.

The point that has been missed here is that the continuation of slavery or other unjust practices from pre-Islamic to Islamic times does not necessarily show that the rise of Islam was not a social rebellion against injustice. It is more fruitful to argue that while social unrest and discontent did provide a substantial part of the motivation among marginalized elements for joining the new religion, certain objective conditions prevented the full flowering of the Islamic ideal of social justice during Prophet Muhammad’s own life-time, and even during subsequent centuries. Among others, this viewpoint has been presented by Robert Bellah. In his paper “Islamic Tradition and the Problems of Modernization,” Bellah (1970:150-151) comments on the remarkable modernity of early Islam:

There is no question but that under Muhammad, Arabian society made a remarkable leap forward in social complexity and political capacity. When the structure that took shape under the prophet was extended by the early caliphs to provide the organizing principle for a world empire, the result is something that for its time and place is remarkably modern. It is modern in the high degree of commitment, involvement, and participation expected from the rank-and-file members of the community. It is modern in the openness of its leadership positions to ability judged on universalistic grounds and symbolized in the attempt to institutionalize a nonhereditary top leadership.

In the larger flow of human history, the emergence of such ideals in the tribal society of Arabia in the seventh century represented an anomaly, an untimely innovation that required institutional support for its full manifestation. Bellah (1960:151) argues:

In a way the failure of the early community, the relapse into pre-Islamic principles of social organization, is an added proof of the modernity of the early experiment. It was too modern to succeed. The necessary social infrastructure did not yet exist to sustain it.

There are several realms in which the validity of this statement can be ascertained. In the political realm, the inability of the early Islamic community to evolve institutions that would guarantee the implementation of meritocracy and democracy has already been noted. Bellah (1970:151) contends:

When dissatisfactions and demands from important parts of the community built up under the third caliph, the institutional structure was too fragile to contain and meet them. Instead a chain of political disturbances was set off that resulted in the establishment of hereditary kingship, mulk, under the Ummayyads. …the traditional Muslim suspicion of them…is another indication that something precious was lost with the collapse of the early experiment, something that would continue to exercise the pressure of an ideal through subsequent centuries.

After only a few decades of relatively democratic and egalitarian rule, a series of civil wars ensued that eventually led to the degeneration of the Islamic government into a clan-supported monarchy, the same imperial pattern of governance that Islam had initially sought to replace. In this regard, Gibb (1962:34-46) notes that since civil institutions did not evolve in early Islamic history, power became concentrated in the hands of the sole contender, the government. Regarding the “political tragedy” of early Islamic history, Gibb (1962:39) notes:

During the first century or so of its existence, the new ideology had not yet embodied itself in any social institutions other than that of government. Consequently there was no other institution to dispute the monopoly of power enjoyed by the institution of government. The alternative did not lie between the government’s monopoly of power and its abdication of some of its power to some other institution. There was no other institution, and in any case power cannot be transferred. The only alternative lay between a monopoly of power—whether that was exercised by the Umayyads or by some other group—and anarchy. [emphasis added]

A similar case can be made with regard to slavery. The historical circumstances prevailing in the seventh century did not allow the elimination of slavery by means of a single legislative decree, even though its very existence represented a serious contradiction for the Islamic ethic of egalitarianism and social justice. The Qur’ān restricted the practice of enslavement to the prisoners of war, while suggesting ways to change the social circumstances and cultural attitudes that supported this institution. Fazlur Rahman (1980:47-48) observes that “…since it was impossible to legislate it away at one stroke, [the Qur’ān]… strongly recommended and encouraged emancipation of slaves (90:13; 8:89: 58:3), and, in fact, asked Muslims to allow slaves to purchase their freedom by paying an agreed sum in installments (24:33)….” Indeed, if the acceptance of slavery by the Qur’ān is taken as a permanent part of its ethical and normative teachings, then it is impossible to defend; on the other hand, it is possible to explain it as a necessary consequence of the limitations imposed by objective conditions.

It would therefore be erroneous to argue that if Islam were really a movement for social justice then it would have achieved full democracy as well as elimination of slavery within the life-span of Prophet Muhammad. Such a view would be based on an exaggeration of the power of human agency and a relative disregard for objective conditions that invariably restrict the actual achievement of any ethical vision that is sufficiently ahead of its time. Since Prophet Muhammad had to struggle within a particular historical context, it is worth remembering that that context had put specific limitations on the extent of socio-political changes that he could have brought (as well as the methods and strategies that he could have adopted).

The Balance of Continuity and Change

The Qur’ān contends that when God sends a messenger to a nation, the messenger always speaks the language of his audience: “We never sent a messenger who did not speak the language of his people, that he may explain to them distinctly…” (14:4). In several other passages, the Qur’ān emphasizes that it has been revealed in Arabic, e.g., “We have sent it down as an Arabic recitation so that you may understand” (12:2), emphasizing that a scripture in a language other than Arabic, no matter how eloquent, would not have fulfilled the requirements of clear communication to an Arab audience. Taking the word “language” mentioned in the Qur’ān (14:4) in its broad sense of common cultural symbols, it can be argued that a social movement must employ and exploit the symbolic universe of the very society that it wants to change.

Indeed, one of the central problems facing a social movement is how to present a set of fresh solutions to the intellectual, social, political, or economic problems without culturally alienating its audience. This point is the first of many articulated by Rodney Stark (1987) in his attempt to describe a Rational Choice model of successful religious movements. Among other important factors, Stark (1987:13) identifies the retention of “…cultural continuity with the conventional faiths of the societies in which they appear or originate” as an important element that determines the success of a new religious movement. This acute observation can be extended to the case of a social movement, which must couch its articulation of the targeted problem and its envisioned solution in a language that is familiar to its audience, by using the configuration of symbols already available and understood in society. Describing the ways in which Islam maintained its cultural continuity, Stark (1987:14) observes:

[I]slam presented itself as the final unfolding of a prophetic tradition embracing both Old and New Testaments, thus maintaining continuity with Judeo-Christian culture (indeed, Mohammed expected acceptance from neighboring Christian and Jewish communities)…. Of course, Muhammed’s own Arab people were pagans. Yet, Islam achieved an extraordinary degree of continuity with this religious culture too. Thus, while the Arabs worshipped many gods, their pantheon included a superior deity called Allah (albeit his functions were obscure). Therefore, in asserting the existence of one, all-powerful god called Allah, Mohammed was not introducing an unknown deity. Moreover, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca to perform rites during a holy month had been a prominent part of Arab religion since long before Muhammad’s time. Hence, here too Mohammed built upon the familiar. Finally, Mohammed maintained that he was a Hanif. Although little is known about this group. We do know that they were Arabs and that they claimed spiritual descent from Abraham. Clearly, they enjoyed special spiritual standing among Arabs…. In claiming that the new revelations the preached were a continuation of Hanifi teachings, Mohammed again laid claim to and utilized familiar culture.

While Stark’s observations are on the mark, it is important to remember that what Prophet Muhammad offered his audience was a set of fresh and innovative ideas, even though they were expressed in familiar language and expressions. While the Qur’ān claimed continuity with the Judeo-Christian tradition, it also took both communities to task for their faults; similarly, while the Qur’ān embraced certain pre-Islamic rituals and beliefs, it also sharply criticized the vast majority of them. While the Qur’ān argued in the language of the people it was initially addressing, in both the narrow and the broad meanings of the word, it also changed that language in the process by setting new standards of expression and introducing new concepts. The language of the Qur’ān is deeply rooted in the religious and cultural traditions of seventh century Hijāz, yet it developed its distinctive style and concepts out of the raw material that was already in vogue in its cultural milieu, as noted by Endress (1988:25-26):

[Muhammad] brought the Arabs the Revealed Message in their own language; he drew for that message on the language of the tribal poets who had already transcended the limits of the different dialects; but it was he who really created a common literary language for the Arabs. The form of his speech is related to the language of the ancient Arabian seer (kāhin), as in the form of rhyming prose (saj^c), which joins the verses of a sura or a shorter group of verses through common end-rhymes…. Apart from these ancient and traditional elements we can observe in the Arabic of the Koran an unprecedented richness of religious language and of literary expression in general.

In addition to the points of cultural and religious continuity with Judeo-Christian and pagan traditions of Arabia, the rise of Islam also represents adaptation and extensive modification of pre-Islamic Arabian ethical values. The semantic study of the ethical terms of the Qur’ān by Izutsu (1959/2002) remains the most useful guide to this subject. Under “The Islamization of Old Arab Virtues” Izutsu (1959/2002:74) notes:

It is true that in many important respects Islam broke completely with the old paganism; but is, we should not forget, no less true that, in spite of the bitter attacks on the pagans and their idolatrous customs, the Qur’ān adopted and revived, in a new form suited to the needs of monotheism, many of the outstanding virtues of paganism. There is a certain respect in which we might perhaps speak of the moral aspect of Islam even as a restoration of some of the old Arab ideals and nomadic virtues which had degenerate in the hands of the wealthy merchants of Mecca before the rise of this religion.

The restoration of old ideals, however, was not a simple matter of their revival; instead, the rise of Islam represents a thorough re-working and modification of those ideals according to a fresh ethical vision. Izutsu (1959/2002:74) notes:

…Islam did not revive or restore these nomadic virtues as it found them among the Bedouin. In adopting and assimilating them into its system of moral teachings, Islam purified and freshened them, making their energy flow into certain channels which it had prepared.

The way in which available cultural resources were revived, adapted, assimilated, modified, and channeled by the Qur’ān represents a worthwhile subject of study for social movements.

Three Areas of Social Change

Drawing upon the life and career of Prophet Muhammad, it is possible to identify at least three more or less distinct, yet interdependent, areas in which basic transformative activity must take place for a social movement to proceed optimally. They include: 1) the inner transformation of a group of human beings, who act as catalysts for the envisioned social change; 2) the intellectual engagement of the movement with its hostile or indifferent environment; and 3) the execution of organized political struggle to bring about structural changes. These three areas, while conceptually separate, influence each other in fundamental ways.

The first area is based on the notion, already discussed, that any change at the collective level must involve a prior change in at least some individuals. This area, in other words, involves the creation and maintenance of a cognitive minority that is able to experience reality in ways that are consistent with the envisioned goal of the movement, yet are different from the ways in which reality is normally and normatively experienced in that society. This area also includes the requirement of psychological development, for certain traits of personality must be cultivated in order to help this cognitive minority remain perseverant in the face of opposition and social pressure, as well as provocation and persecution. Such a transformation, while individual, can only take place within the context of a formal or informal group or movement.

The second area is related to the observation that all social, political, and economic structures generate their own legitimations that are often couched in sophisticated philosophical or theological language. These legitimizing beliefs constitute an intellectual impediment for a social movement aiming at changing the practices that such beliefs serve to justify, support, and validate; consequently, any social movement must involve itself in an intellectual engagement with its milieu. The aim of such an engagement is to reinterpret reality in a fresh way by employing existing cultural resources, and to articulate innovative or radical solutions to commonly experienced unrest or discontent.

The third area has to do with the insight that the common perception of truth or falsehood of ideas, or of rightness and wrongness of practices, is closely related to the political power of the people who advocate and embody them. Moreover, the transformation of practices requires changes in institutional structures, which remain impossible without some sort of power struggle. Any set of established institutional structures provides various forms of advantages to specific groups or classes of people who, in turn, must defend and preserve those structures with which they also closely identify, thereby necessitating the political component.

Heinz Kohut and Inner Transformation

In the life and struggle of Prophet Muhammad, the first area—inner transformation—manifested itself as religious and moral conversion of individuals, a transformation that involved not only a different way of knowing and experiencing reality but substantial development of character and personality along a particular trajectory. Based on a number of Qur’ānic allusions, it can be argued that the Qur’ānic revelations themselves played a significant role in bringing about this inner transformation (e.g., 25:32). Among modern psycho-analytical theories, the self-psychology of Heinz Kohut (1971, 1977, 1984, & 1985) provides powerful analytical tools that can be used to illuminate the transformative role of the Qur’ānic revelations at an individual level, particularly for the early converts.

In describing the process of the development of self, Kohut argued that the grandiose-exhibitionist self and the idealized parent imago are two unconscious configurations that constitute the core of the narcissistic sector of human psyche. In case of normal psychological development, the child’s need to be admired, accepted, and appreciated (“I am perfect”) is fulfilled by the significant others in his or her life through what Kohut called “mirroring transference.” At the same time, the child’s need to idealize, and feel part of, a perfect parental figure (“You are perfect, but I am part of you”) is fulfilled when the father and mother allow themselves to be idealized by the child through what Kohut called “idealizing transference.” If growth proceeds normally, the archaic unconscious configurations of the grandiose-exhibitionistic self and the idealized parental imago become modified and integrated into the mature personality as healthy ambitions and ideals, respectively. According to Kohut, this happens through one’s encounters with “selfobjects.” Kohut distinguishes between a “true object” which is psychologically experienced as separate and distinct from the self (1971:51) and a “selfobject” which is psychologically experienced as part of the self; the latter experiences may be provided by other individuals as well as cultural entities (1984:52). The need for selfobjects is a life-long requirement for the maintenance of a healthy self, although there is a difference between the pathological and unlimited need for selfobjects as found in narcissistic disorders and the healthy and limited need for selfobjects as found in individuals with cohesive selves. Selfobject experiences can be seen as spiritual nourishment; just as one’s body never outgrows the need to eat, one’s psyche or soul never outgrows the need for selfobject experiences.

In a thought-provoking paper, Hedayat-Diba (1997) has convincingly argued that the Qur’ān acts as a Kohutian selfobject in Muslim piety, stimulating and nourishing the development of a healthy and cohesive self by providing mirroring and idealizing transferences. Her paper, however, does not directly deal with how the Qur’ānic revelations served this function for the earliest followers of Prophet Muhammad in Mecca, particularly in the context of maintaining cognitive dissonance in the face of considerable social pressure to conform.

Since the ritual structure of Islam was not fully developed in Mecca, the primary act of ritual piety among the early converts during the initial years was limited to a night vigil with recitation of the Qur’ān as its central feature (73:1-8 & 20). The Qur’ānic command to continuously recite these revelations (e.g., 18:17; 29:45), particularly in conjunction with the exhortation for remaining steadfast in the face of persecution or temptation, links the ritual of recitation to the requirements of the social movement. The role of this recitation in the lives of early Muslims cannot be fully appreciated without due attention to the primarily oral-aural nature of the Qur’ān and its physical and sensual effects (Graham, 1987; Sells, 1991), particularly in the poetic context of pre-Islamic Arabia. The encounter with Qur’ānic revelations, perceived as messages from the Almighty, also served as a defense against despair and frustration. Prophet Muhammad was personally at risk (18:6; 26:3), and, as a charismatic leader, his personal despair would have seriously affected the fortunes of the movement. The Qur’ān repeatedly encouraged him with supportive and soothing words, exhorting him not to give up and to remain patient and steadfast (11:114-117; 30:60; 40:55-57; 74:7; 68:48 etc.). The fact that the Qur’ānic revelations provided step-by-step encouragement as well as timely feedback points to its role in sustaining the psychological strength of the movement through mirroring transference. At the same time, the frequent and intimate experiences of the early converts with these revelations also involved their internalization of what they perceived as divine speech (cf., 29:49), allowing them to merge with a reality that they experienced as perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient; this contributed to the psychological strength of the movement through idealizing transference.

Gramsci and Social Change

Some of the ideas developed by Antonio Gramsci can illuminate the second and third areas discussed above. Although Gramsci was primarily concerned with the future of the socialist movement in the industrialized Western Europe, some of his ideas have a broader relevance, particularly his distinction between “coercion” and “hegemony.” Coercion is domination by force while hegemony is popular consent. These may be characterized as the two mutually supportive ways in which any status quo is maintained, and, consequently, the two fronts at which a social movement must focus its endeavors. Gramsci argued that the institutions of civil society generate conformism among the masses by convincing them that the existing distribution of power and resources represents the natural order of life. The majority of masses give their consent either actively (when they embrace the common values and worldview) or passively (when they are not fully convinced but see no better alternative). However, there is always a potential threat of discontent and rebellion, and the state must maintain a coercive mechanism to preclude such a threat or suppress it in case it materializes (Gramsci, 1971; Femia, 1975, 1981). The area of intellectual engagement suggested above is closely related to Gramsci’s notion of counter-hegemony, the general aim of both being a transformation of subjective consciousness; the assumption here is that at least a partial cultural change precedes, and is a prerequisite for, concrete and structural transformations (Cf., Femia, 1981:156).

A significant part of Prophet Muhammad’s activities during the Meccan period can now be interpreted more precisely. On the one hand, he was engaged in the effort to educate, train, and mentor the early converts; from a social movement perspective, this activity may be interpreted as the deliberate creation of a cognitive minority through inner transformation. On the other hand, he was engaged in the effort to challenge, critique, de-legitimize, and de-sacralize the pagan worldview and related social, political, and economic arrangements; from a social movement perspective, this can be interpreted as an intellectual engagement with, or counter-hegemony against, the dominant ideology. The latter manifested itself in wide-ranging debates and arguments on various religious, moral, and social issues, the gist of which finds extensive reflections in the Qur’ānic discourse. This intellectual engagement resulted in a certain shaking of the theoretical foundations underlying the Meccan status quo.

Both of these activities were necessary but not sufficient. The Meccan status quo was maintained not only on the basis of hegemony but also coercion, i.e., the ability of the Quraysh to mobilize various tribes against any threat to its ascendancy, necessitating a political struggle. Prophet Muhammad’s effort for the transformation of subjective consciousness went on for about a decade, until it became obvious that no further gains are likely to be achieved and a migration to Medina became necessary. The area of political struggle came to the fore at this point, manifesting itself in various alliances and treaties as well as raids and armed encounters with the Quraysh and its allies, culminating in Prophet Muhammad’s triumphant return to Mecca. In this context, Gramsci’s recognition of the role of hegemony and coercion provides yet another way of conceptualizing the intimate relationship between the religio-ethical and socio-political spheres of activity in the career of Prophet Muhammad.

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¹ Throughout this paper, the use of the word “Prophet” as a descriptive term for the historical figure of Muhammad implies a sociological, as opposed to a confessional or theological, significance.

² Due to the elements of doubt and uncertainty regarding the reliability of even the best possible historical reports, the findings of this paper can only be presented as tentative and provisional, rather than definitive. It is also granted that the present attempt in some ways imposes one set of theoretical biases over selected historical and textual data, and that the same or other—equally important—data can be legitimately and meaningfully interpreted in numerous other ways as well, perhaps with substantial gains in quality and sophistication. Finally, the limitations of scope and space do not allow the analysis of the life and career of Prophet Muhammad in terms of all or even most of the variables that can affect the fortunes of a social movement; instead, only some of the most salient ones will be considered in the following pages.

³ The diversity of methodologies, policies, and strategies that are supposedly derived from, and justified by, the same historical and textual sources indicates that a verity of very different hermeneutical frameworks are being employed by Muslim leaders and ideologues. For the most part, however, there is very little awareness of the existence of these frameworks; often, the historical and textual reports relating to Prophet Muhammad are seen as if they are applicable to all times and cultures in a simple and unmediated way. In writing this paper, I do not claim an infallible epistemological status for my own hermeneutical framework, nor do I suggest that it is possible to be completely neutral in pursing a subject that is as controversial and contested as the life of Prophet Muhammad. However, I do attempt to avoid some of the problems that I have found in other approaches.

⁴ This paper takes a historian’s perspective rather than that of a theologian’s; it brackets the issue of the veracity and ultimate source of Prophet Muhammad’s revelatory experience, and ignores all references to supernatural events as may be found in some Islamic sources. It brings to the fore only those aspects of Prophet Muhammad’s life that are historically plausible and that allow themselves to be studied through the tools of social sciences.

⁵ Skeptics reject this position, arguing that extra-Qur’ānic narrations are either later exegetical expansions or developed without any relation to the Qur’ān and later projected onto it (Rubin, 1995).

⁶ Semantically, the word jihād is a verbal noun of the Arabic verb jāhada, which means “he endeavored” or “he strove.” The related verbal noun juhd means “to strive for.” Jihād, on the other hand, means “to struggle against.” Specifically, this meaning implies one’s involvement in a substantial struggle against some opposition or resistance in order to achieve a given aim; no religious connotations or value judgments are present at the level of this original lexical definition. It may be noted that the Qur’ān generally uses the word qitāl to denote warfare, but also sometimes treat the latter as a subcategory of jihād, even though the two are not synonymous.