 A Brief History of the Middle East by Dr. Yaron Brooke. Good morning everybody. This is the history of the Middle East. Today's first class is the rise of Islam. End of World War II, the world was in shambles. Japan had just been devastated by the Allied forces, as was Germany, Europe lay in ruins. One part of the world which had actually survived World War II relatively in good shape was the Middle East. And indeed there were a lot of high hopes during the 1940s and early 1950s for what lay in the Middle East's future. Here was an area again that had survived World War II that had plentiful oil reserves that had a plentiful natural resource. So their economic survival seemed to be guaranteed. They were going to get lots of dollars in their future. Colonialism was ending. There was a lot of optimism about Arab nationalism, the establishment of new countries in the Middle East. There was clearly a strong Western influence on these countries. They were adopting what people believed to be Western ideas. So if we look back just 60 years, there is this view of the Middle East as going through its own little renaissance. Yet of course 60 years later, Japan, Germany, the Far East, all these devastated countries are in fantastic shape relative to where they were 60 years ago certainly. They are thriving economically, they are free politically. And yet the Middle East is in horrific shape. In spite of receiving billions upon billions of dollars from oil revenue, from Western investment in those oil resources, in refineries and pipelines, in spite of receiving government grants from Western countries, loans, subsidized goods and services from Western companies, from private and public money, free expertise, these countries have gone nowhere and have indeed slid backwards from where they were 60 years ago, both politically and economically. The region is devastated by war. In the context of what goes on in the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli problem is not that big of a problem. For example, the war between Iran and Iraq that lasted eight years, one of the longest wars of the 20th century, and in which at least a million people died. So war has been ravaging this area. Its population is amongst the poorest in the world. Its economy is growing at the lowest GDP growth of any region other than sub-Saharan Africa in the world. It is a violent culture and a violent place, ruled by horrific despots, Saddam Hussein just being one among many. There is no freedom, no freedom of speech, no private property, no freedom of movement. GDP, the average per capita GDP of Arab countries is $3,700. Compare this to Israel's GDP of $18,000 per capita. Since in spite of all this oil revenue, in spite of all the investment, in spite of the billions of dollars the U.S. pours into that region, this region is among the poorest in the world, with a population of close to 300 million, with 60% of that population under the age of 19, with 75% of all Egyptians who leave high school cannot find a job, and a per capita income on average of below $500 a year. So what we've seen is an area that the West at least had high hopes for just 60 years ago in complete devastation. We've also seen over the last 50 years a significant increase in the activities and power of militant Islam, of a fundamentalist Islamic view of the world, and a systematic decline of the influence of Western ideas on the region. This power of militant Islam probably peaked with Ayatollah Khomeini's takeover of Iran, and of course became most evident to the West on September 11th. So what happened? What happened over the last 50 years, 60 years to bring this region to the state it's in today? What happened in the last 60 years to make September 11th possible? But more, what happened, what has happened to this culture? If we travel farther back, if we go back a thousand years, we find that in the same geographic area, in the Middle East, the same religion, we find a thriving culture. A culture in relative terms, a thousand years ago, a culture with science, with philosophy, with respect to logic. So what happened? What happened since the 1950s? What happened a thousand years ago? A lot is going on in this part of the world. And this is what we're going to be talking about in the next five hours, spread over five days, not all at once. Now of course I think the motivation for finding out what happened is clear. It's in the terrorist activity targeted against us. It's in our dependence, or supposed dependence on the oil of the Middle East. And it's in the headlines, the daily headlines, about the Israeli-Palestinian-Israeli-Arab conflict. So hopefully at the end of this course you'll have a much better understanding, and after my lecture on Friday, a much better understanding of why we face this terrorist threat, what we can and cannot do about this part of the world, and what Israel is really going through, and why. Now please feel free to raise a hand if you have questions while I'm going. I'll try to leave time at the end, but I don't promise that I'll have the time at the end too late. Okay. Now what you've got there is a pretty anemic map, anemic I guess, of the Middle East. And this is pre-Islam, but it's the best I could find. This is kind of the division between the Arab tribes of pre-Islam. So let us begin. The Middle East before Islam. I'm not going to talk a lot about this, but we need to consider the fact that this region is the birthplace of civilization. All the ancient civilizations started here from the Babylonians and Assyrians that are in what is today modern Iraq, to the Egyptian civilization, to the ancient Hebrew-Israeli civilization, and of course the Greeks are way back here. And indeed, from very early on this whole area is ravaged by wars. This is really the area geographically that bridges Europe, Asia and Africa. And if you look at that tiny sliver of land called Israel, it is really on the pathway between all three continents. Israel of course is also the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity. Now the people who lived in this region survived, particularly in the desert, survived primarily off of the trade routes that exist between Asia, India, China and the rest of Asia, Africa and Europe. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on Cricut. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month, data speed usage and other restrictions applied, coverage not available everywhere, see store for details. I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay. Yes, I find myself in an LA long distance thing. Yes, who helped make it work? AT&T. I bought one phone, got another one on them, and romance is alive on the 101. Come into an AT&T store, buy a smartphone and get one on us. More for your thing, that's our thing. Limited time in areas, select devices. Each requires up to $900 on installment agreement. Requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service. Three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills. If cancel service, device balance is due. $30 activation, additional fees, taxes and restrictions apply. See your local AT&T store for details. Now, with the spread of Christianity and the conversion of the emperor, Constantine, two Christians, they need about 311. He lived between 311 and 337, a world between 311 and 337. The Romans established an Eastern Empire with the capital of Constantinople. That's what today took him. So one empire is set up on the east, on the west, which is the Byzantine Empire, basically the Eastern Roman Empire. In the east, you have an Iranian Empire, a Zoroastrian Empire. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Iranians. It was a kind of monotheism. Although it had dual entities of a god and a satan struggling. There's a very strong tradition there of this battle of good and evil that I think as we'll see Islam picks up on, on this idea that there are two deities out there that are struggling for control, that there's good and evil as metaphysical existence in reality, that are continuously in battle. Now the Arabs inhabit the Arabian Peninsula. That is where modern-day Saudi Arabia is. This whole area all the way down through what today is Yemen and Oman. And this is inhabited, this is all desert. It's inhabited by Arabian tribes, no man's for the most part. Very few cities or towns, they live off of trade, they live off of trading caravans bridging again the east and the west. They thrive particularly when the Persians and Byzantines are at war. Because when the Persians and Byzantines are at war, the only trade route, the only way to get around the battlefield is through Arabia. And that's when they do particularly well. It's a very tribal culture. The only real cultural achievement, if one can call this, and I have no way of evaluating whether this is true or not. But according to the books, the only real cultural achievement is poetry. They are known as poets of the desert. And in this world of tribalism, in this world of these nomadic tribes, we get the rise and the birth of Islam. Now Muhammad is born in Mecca. Now Mecca is on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the most prosperous city and a pagan sanctuary. It is a backward city as compared to the cities of Byzantine and Persia. But again, relative to this region, this desert, it is a center of trading. It is an oasis. The regions surrounding it are all inhabited by these nomadic tribes who across through Mecca on their way to the west with these caravans of goods from the east. Now during the time Muhammad was born, probably around 571, the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire were at war. And Mecca was relatively thriving. They were doing well. This was a backward little place. Within 50 years, it becomes the center of a new world. Now Mecca is also a pagan sanctuary, as I said. This is where the pagan gods, the holy places of the pagan gods, they reside. And we'll see how that plays out. So the main deity of Mecca at the time was called Allah. And that's where Muhammad gets Allah as a terminology for his god. And indeed the holy place was this rock, the Kaaba. And of course that later becomes an Islamic holy place. Now Muhammad is born around 571 to a noble but not very prosperous branch of Mecca's leading trading family. He's raised by an uncle, Abu Talib, who teaches him caravan trade. He becomes a commercial agent for a rich widow who is 15 years his senior. When he's 25, she asks him to marry him. She bore him four children, all daughters, no sons. And while she was alive, she was the only wife he had. Now let me note about Muhammad's biography, just as an aside, that we don't really know anything about Muhammad's life. Muhammad's biography was written about 125 years later after his death. It was all of history put into writing. Details of his life have been questioned by both Islamic and Western scholars. Just like Jesus' life and any of these prophets' life, there are speculations that range from the guy never existed to every word that describes his biography as the Word of God and therefore is true. I take the view that what's really important is what people think Muhammad's life was like because that is the model they use, that is the ideal that they project. So what I'm giving you is kind of the standard story on Muhammad. At age 40, he receives a revelation, a prophetic revelation. Now according to some, at first this distresses him. He doesn't know what's going on. An angel appears, starts talking to him. But his wife, who is his first convert and closest companion, persuades him that this is God speaking to him and that the visitor is none other than the angel, Gabriel. Now Gabriel's first words to Muhammad are, quote, Recite, you are the messenger of God. Now Muhammad receives these revelations from Gabriel and starts telling people about them. And as you'd expect, people think the guy's crazy. And a vast majority of mechens, you know, laugh at him. They think he's just insane and they reject him completely. Now they tolerate him as long as he doesn't interfere with business. And business here is trade, but it's also pilgrimages to the holy sites of the pagan gods. So, you know, the concern that they have is if Muhammad is now going to spout that these pagan gods don't exist and there's only one god, they're going to lose business from the people who are coming to worship these deities. The business generated by these pilgrimages to the Kaaba, which is a cubic building the size of a small house in whose exterior wall there is this black stone, probably a meteorite. And that is what is worshipped by these pagans. Now what saves Muhammad is protection by his uncle, who is relatively powerful, a powerful merchant and is highly respected. Now what's interesting is that early on, in order to kind of get along and to survive in this environment, Muhammad actually sanctions the worship of other mech and gods. Then a few days later he comes back and he reverses this, saying that it was a message from the devil, not God, and that there is only one god that should be worshipped. Now the reason I bring this up is because these revelations, the revelations that there are many gods, that it's okay to worship many gods, are actually called by Muhammad later, the Satanic verses. This is of course the name of Solomon Rushdie's book, Fourteen Centuries Later, because they were supposedly inspired by Satan. So as a result of now he's sticking to this monotheism, he's upsetting the mechants, they're not happy. They start humiliating him, they start throwing rocks at him, he's slowly starting to build a group of followers that peaks at about a hundred, they're being abused and their life is being threatened. And after his uncle, his protector dies and his wife dies in 619, he decides to leave Mecca, to leave it with his followers, who as I said about a hundred. He travels to Medina, which is a little oasis 280 miles north of Mecca. Medina at the time is inhabited by warring tribes and they invite Muhammad to come to Medina to be the arbiter of local disputes, to be the local judge. And the leading tribes are willing to accept his new religion in order to gain some peace, in order to resolve, to help resolve some of these tribal disputes. Indeed the Muslim calendar starts year one, is this year of exile, the year he leaves Mecca for Medina. This trip is called the Hijara. Muhammad in Medina begins his career as a political leader, as a spiritual guide, as a supreme lawmaker and as commander in chief. One of the unique things about Muhammad and as a consequence about Islam is that the leader is the leader of everything. He's not just a spiritual leader, he's not just a political leader, but the spiritual leader is the political leader, is the military leader. This is also the beginning of a community, a community with political power, with a military force. Islam during this period increases dramatically in numbers as these tribes in Medina become, convert to this new religion. And Muhammad grows in confidence. Now many of the authoritarian principles that are embedded in Islam come from this period of time, come from this experience in Medina. As I said, all executive, judicial, legislative and religious authority rests with Muhammad, rests with the Prophet. Now ultimately, according to Islam, they all rest with God. That is, everything Muhammad does is told to him by God to the nitty-gritty details of day-to-day life. So all these authorities are God's authorities. There is no realm in which human beings can function without being told what to do by God. There is no leave unto Caesar what is Caesar. There is no separation of the spiritual and temporal authority. Government is the government of God, of God's word. This is the purest form of theocracy, if you will. Now Muhammad during his stay here, as I said, is the absolute ruler. And everything, all his legislation, all his pronouncements, are phrased in terms of prophecies, are phrased in terms of this is what God told me to tell you. This is God's law. Now during this period, Muhammad has no formal police force. But he relies on a group of young zealots who enforce the Prophet's word. And again, I bring this up because if you look today at the Arab world, particularly at fundamentalist Islam, you note that many of these countries have these small, young, these groups. They usually function in small groups of small gangs who go around enforcing the word of God. You see this in Saudi Arabia, you see this in Iran, you see this in Egypt. Where the responsibility for enforcing religious law is left in a sense to the mob. And this goes back to Muhammad's time. Muhammad also has no standing army. There's no bureaucracy, there are no government institutions at all. There's Muhammad calling the troops to arms, leading them into battle. There's Muhammad who is the law giver. There's Muhammad who is the leader in every aspect of day-to-day life. Muhammad also establishes the way in which Muslims are going throughout their history later on to treat their enemies. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit. And ooh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on Cricut. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month, data speed usage, and other restrictions applied. Coverage not available everywhere, see store for details. I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay. Yes, I find myself in an LA long distance thing. Guess who helped make it work, AT&T. I bought one phone, got another one on them, and romance is alive on the 101. Come into an AT&T store, buy a smartphone, and get one on us. More for your thing, that's our thing. Limited time in areas, select devices. Each requires up to $900 on installment agreement. Requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service. Three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills. If cancel service, device balance is due. $30 activation, additional fees, taxes, and restrictions apply. See your local AT&T store for details. He often forgives his enemies. He often tries to bridge the gaps as long as they all are willing to become or are good Muslims. He tries to do away with the tribal blood feuds that exist between the tribes. But at the same time, one of the things he hates the most and resents the most are intellectuals that rise up against him. And intellectuals in the context of Medina of the 7th century are primarily poets. He hates being mocked in verse or song. And indeed, soon after raid on a tribe, on one of these nomadic tribes in which there is a particularly irksome critic of Muhammad, Muhammad sanctions the murder of this critic. In a sense, this is Islam's first politically sanctioned murder of an intellectual opponent. This is a female poet. Now, he does this by asking the question, as the Shakespeare uses later, who will rid me of this daughter of Mahwan? And of course, somebody obliges that very evening. A few months later, he is bolder, ordering the death of a second critic a poet and this time accompanying the assassin and blessing him just before he commits the crime. Which sets the precedent of these fatwas that where the suicide bombers go to religious spiritual leader just before they set off on this journey and are blessed. Indeed, these are the first examples in Islam of terrorism, of the attempt to terrorize any kind of opponent, intellectual opponent of Muhammad. This period in Medina is also the beginnings of the tension between the Muslims, the new Muslims and the Jews. Now originally, Muhammad decrees that as long as the Jews and even pagans fight alongside the Muslims against Mecca, who are his enemy now because these are the people who kicked him out or any other external force and they were afraid from doing any wrong doing to the Muslims or helping the enemies, they would be treated with sincere friendship, exchange of goods, good counsel, fair conduct and no treachery between them. So he establishes the idea of freedom of religion. As long as you don't betray me, you can worship wherever you want. And originally, in order to appease the Jews, in order for him to be liked by the Jews, he actually has the Muslims, when they pray, pray towards Jerusalem. So when they bow down and pray, they originally pray towards the Jewish. But the Jews actually marked Muhammad. It was clear to them that what Muhammad was doing in formulating this new religion was taking a little bit of Judaism and a little bit of Christianity and mixing up a little bit of tribalism from Arabia. And they kind of thought this was pretty funny. Here he was misappropriating stuff from their holy text. And they gave him a hard time. As a consequence, Muhammad bans the praying towards Jerusalem and shifts it to praying towards Mecca and ultimately Mecca's Kaaba. As later on, this is also an attempt to appease the Meccans. And keeping Kaaba as a holy site does what? It guarantees that there will be pilgrimages to Mecca until the end of time. As long as they're Muslims, people still travel by the hundreds of thousands to Kaaba to worship the stone. A tradition that was a pagan tradition. He then expels one of the Jewish tribes in Medina, a member of which supposedly tried to assassinate Muhammad. Another Jewish tribe flees and one tribe is left in Medina. In 1627, after surviving a siege in Medina by 10,000 Meccans, Muhammad breaks the siege, defeats the Meccans and he accuses the last Jewish tribe in Medina of treason, of supporting the Meccans. The story is that he finds one of his dying soldiers and asks this dying soldier, how can I avenge your death? What should I do to these Jews who have betrayed us? And this dying soldier says, basically, kill them all. And indeed, Muhammad refuses to let them leave Medina and as a punishment. He beheads at least 600 Jewish men in one day and he makes the women and children slaves and of course, all their property is seized. Now, in the tribal world of Arabia, beheading 600 people in one day gains you a lot of respect. Force is admired and willingness to do something as brutal as that is admired. And indeed, it's a huge political success. Jews do not rise up against Muhammad again at least for another 600 years against Muslims. The Jewish tribes become subservient to the Muslims. They get the message. The tribes of Arabia start flocking to Muhammad. Here is a leader. Here's a leader who is winning. Here's a leader who is willing to act. As a consequence of his gain and confidence, he's now ruling over the city. He's now got, you know, he's a law giver. People show him all the respect and admiration. He is ready to challenge Mecca and he starts attacking their trading caravans. He starts defeating their armies and after the Meccan siege over Medina fails, Muhammad signs a treaty with the leading tribe in Mecca. The treaty is a peace agreement for 10 years but over the next two years, Muhammad gains strength. He gets more tribes to convert to Islam, more tribes to accept him as their leader. And in 630, he uses a relatively small infraction of this treaty by the Meccans as a reason to declare war. While the Meccans tried to dissuade him, at this point he is too powerful. And indeed Mecca surrenders and he enters the city. He triumphs at the city that kicked him out. He enters as its new ruler. Now this issue with the treaty is just interesting. Again, bringing us to come an event. Yasser Arafat in 1994, in a private meeting in South Africa, is claimed to have said, this is 1994, so it's a year after he signed the Oslo Treaty. It is said that he said, I see this agreement being no more than the agreement signed between the Prophet and the Quresh, which is the leading tribe in Mecca. So from that point, Islam, when signing these types of peace treaties, and they sign many of these treaties later on in their wars with the Europeans, view these as conveniences, tactical instruments to give them time to gain more strength. They don't view these as binding documents. I'm in Glendale and found love in the South Bay. Yes, I find myself in an LA long distance thing. Guests who help make it work, AT&T. I bought one phone, got another one on them, and my pants is alive on the 101. Come into an AT&T store, buy a smart phone, and get one on us. More for your thing, that's our thing. Limited time in areas, select devices. Each requires up to $900 on installment agreement, requires one new line of minimum $75 per month service, three after credits over 30 months starting within three bills. If cancel service, device balances due, $30 activation, additional fees, taxes and restrictions apply. See your local AT&T store for details. So Muhammad enters Mecca and establishes the Islamic faith in place of the pagan beliefs. He is relatively, let's say, he's not as brutal with the Meccans as he was with the Jews in Medina. He kills only 10 people on his entrance, and these again, the people who are most vocal in their opposition to Muhammad. They are the intellectuals, if you will, to the extent that you can call them that, of the time, the intellectual opposition. Once he returns to Mecca, he turns his attention to other Arab tribes in the region. He defeats them one after the other and becomes the most powerful military presence in the Arabian Peninsula. In 630, right after he's arrived in Mecca, he leads an expedition towards Syria, Syria is up here, leading 30,000 men, which is a huge army in the context of that time. Many, perhaps most of the nomadic tribes of Arabia are now either adopted to faith or allied with him. Now, Muhammad's condition, the way Muhammad approaches these tribes and the way Islam approaches these tribes at least over the first century or so, is that the tribes either convert to Islam or they are put to the sword. Of course, you get massive conversions when you are the most powerful military presence in the region. And Islam goes dramatically during this period. Now, Muhammad dies in 632. According to Islam, his prophetic mission is complete. His purpose had been to restore monotheism, which had been taught by all these earlier prophets and had been abandoned according to Muhammad and distorted. His goal was to abolish paganism and to bring God's final revelation, embodying the true faith and the holy law. According to Muhammad, he was the last of a whole string of prophets. He recognized the Jewish prophets. He recognized Jesus. He just thought that the Jews and the Christians got it wrong or at least have been corrupted over time. That he was resurrecting the same basic faith. Muhammad, when he died, left no instructions about succession. He was the last prophet according to Islam, which is, of course, very convenient. But we'll see that this lack of succession leads to significant recurring conflicts in the history of Islam. Indeed, the disputes within Islam are not about theology. They're not about interpretation of the holy texts. The disputes in Islam are political. They're about who should rule, who should be the successor to the prophet. The inner circle of Muhammad's followers meet These are now men of Mecca, which is another split that occurs within the Islamic community. They're men of Mecca who originally rejected Muhammad and then accepted him. And his original followers who went with him to Medina who accepted his teachings in Medina. There's a political initial political split. But they're men of Mecca who are wealthier, who are more successful, install Abu Bakr as Muhammad's successor, as a caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate, which is the supreme sovereign, the supreme sovereign office of the Islamic world. Now, before we go on with more history, what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about Islam itself. Some of its basic tenets. Now, as I said, Muhammad, according to Islam, is a prophet. He is God's messenger. He is not like Jesus or as the Christians view Jesus. He is not a divine actor. He is not the Son of God. Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms the Muslims have of Christianity is that they raise Jesus to this view of the Son of God and the Holy Trinity and they accuse Christianity of not being monotheistic because they have many gods. Jesus has another deity, another God. Muhammad is more like Moses, like the Jewish prophet. The words spoken to Muhammad become the Koran, the holy text. A word, the Koran, combines the word reading and recitation. And indeed, Muslims learn the Koran by heart. They recite it from memory. Muslims believe that every word in the Koran was told to Muhammad by Gabriel, so by God basically. And the Koran was supposedly recorded during his lifetime on little scraps, on leather scraps, on flat camel bones, whatever available material they had that they could write on. And all these scraps were preserved until they were later combined into the Koran. But it is not Muhammad that combined them. These are just, the Koran is basically the sayings of Muhammad. The verse constitutes, according to scholars, I have no way to evaluate it. Supposedly the verse of the Koran constitutes the first and according to many the finest example of Arabic rhymed prose. It's supposedly beautifully written and inspiring. To Muslims the words written in the Koran are divine and eternal. They were always there. So the Koran, and there's this big theological debate of whether the Koran was written down or whether the Koran is eternal. Because the words of the Koran had existed even before God created the earth. And you can really get into interesting debates. According to the Muslims, the alphabet existed before the existence of, before God created the universe, the alphabet somehow existed. And indeed the Jews, if you read the Kabbalah, the Jews believe this as well. And it gives letters and words in Hebrew and Arabic metaphysical power, supposedly. They have metaphysical significance because of the origins within God. Now the Koran has two voices. In Mecca, when he receives his first revelations, it is the voice of a rebel. In Medina, it is the voice of a statesman, of a head of state. In Mecca, you find it particularly concentrated on religious dogma. In Medina, you get detailed day-to-day instructions of how to live, of, you know, day-to-day activities. And of course laws, military conduct, all of that is during the Medina period. Now again, supposedly the Koran is unchanged. Although, you know, there's no historical evidence that it hasn't been tinkered with and who knows where it even came from in terms of its original origins. Now in addition to the Koran, the Muslims have the Sunnah. The Sunnah are sayings and actions of Muhammad that are not necessarily revelations from God. And again, this was all put together after his death. The Holy Law, the Islamic Holy Law, the Sharia as they call it, was only again systematized after Muhammad's death. And indeed until the ninth century, Muslim scholars believed that you could reason and by analogy and personal judgment, you could interpret what Muhammad said and that's how they created this body of law. During the ninth century, they decided that it was all over, that they had decided all the important questions and interpretation was finished. There was no more interpretation of Islamic law, supposedly, from the ninth century onward. Now what does Islam, what does the religions say? Well, what does Islam mean, the word? Islam the world means submission, submission to God. Islam is the submission of one's actions and thoughts completely to God. It refers to the ritualistic rules that each Muslim must obey. These rules are symbols of the Muslim submission. They pray on their knees five times a day in complete sublimation as part of this ritual of submission. Now I've heard people say that Islam means peace and you hear that a lot. It only means peace in the sense that for the Muslims submission is peace. When you submit yourself completely, you gain this peace with God, with other people, but you are peace as a slave, peace as a non-entity. It does not mean peace in the sense of peaceful relationships among individuals or among countries. Islam is a relatively simple doctrine that does not demand much of people other than giving themselves up completely. But once they do, the rules are pretty simple and laid out. Remember this was a religion adopted by relatively primitive, simple, tribal societies. To gain entrance into heaven, Muslims must believe in and pray to one God and share their wealth with the poor. Those are two basic things. They have to say every morning that God is one and they have the commandment of spreading their wealth. The five duties, the pillars of the faith of the first and most important one is professing that there is one God and that Muhammad is his messenger. The primary responsibility of humanity, according to Islam, is to remember that there is only one God in all one's thoughts, actions and words. Again, remember the context, this is a tribal pagan society, that they are trying to force into this notion of mono-theism. The second pillar is praying five times a day, facing Mecca on your knees, face to the ground. The third is the Ramadan, fasting from dawn to sunset for one month a year. The fourth is paying alms, donations to charity. And the fifth is pilgrimage. Notice how convenient for the Meccans. To be a good Muslim, you have to make every effort during your lifetime to visit Mecca, to visit the holy rock, the Kaaba. It's a great way to appease the Meccans and guarantee them that income flow. Now, an unofficial pillar of Islam, not one of the five, is the duty of Jihad, the duty of holy war. Dying to spread the faith cancels out all sins and leads straight to paradise. Now, according to modern interpretations, according to interpretations of the last few hundred years, Jihad is primarily concerned with the preservation of one's own belief. It's an internal struggle between good and evil. And you are spreading Islam, I guess, by keeping yourself a good Muslim. But Jihad actually means, and at least according to the fundamentalist what Jihad means, is spreading Islam, the vision of Islam. The ideal for the Muslims is one world ruled by the Muslim faith. And any way in which you can achieve that is Jihad. So if for the moderate Muslim, if living by example, that is living as a Muslim, showing the world how happy and content and successful you are, turns other people into Muslims and spreads the word, that's Jihad. If it's by going out there and setting up mosques all over the western world and slowly converting people and turning them into Muslims, that's Jihad. If it's conquering them and slaughtering anybody who doesn't want to become a Muslim, that's also Jihad. But the notion that the whole world needs to become Muslim is common to all interpretations, ultimately all I think legitimate interpretation of what Jihad means. Islam takes seriously the idea of spreading their religion, of converting the whole world. This is God's message. This is God's gift that they are giving to mankind. And this is, the Muslims don't invent this. I mean this is a theme in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's the responsibility of the Jews to be an example to all people. So all people will ultimately see the light and become and recognize God's glory. Now the Jews are not commanded to turn everybody into Jews, quite the contrary. They are supposed to remain as an example. But the Christians certainly are encouraged to go and convert everybody into Christianity. Okay. Now as with all religions, Islam is creationalist. There's a huge debate within Islam about free will. Like in every religion, it's a contradiction. They believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell are very real in Islam. Much more like Christianity than Judaism. Now Islam is also very collectivistic. It is very concerned about the community. It has an egalitarian spirit to it. What is important is one's commitment to the faith. Now one's wealth, now one's tribe, now one's ethical, ethnical, ethnic origins. In that sense, Islam is a universal religion. It's not an Arab religion. At least there are more non-Arab Muslims today in the world than there are Arab Muslims. The emphasis is on material welfare for everyone in the community. The entire community is responsible for the welfare of every one of its members, anywhere in the world. And you see the enormous funds flowing into these Muslim charities, whether ultimately they go to terrorists or not. The enormous amounts of money going to these charities with this notion of trying to spread this wealth so that because every Muslim is responsible for every other Muslim within this Islamic community that spans now over a billion people. There's also no real authority in Islam other than the Word of God. In a sense, there's no orthodoxy. There's no church. There's no pope. Again, far more similar to Judaism than Christianity. There are spiritual leaders, but they don't belong to some hierarchy within a church organization. The term heresy does not exist within Islam. There is a negative term thought of as innovation. Innovation is bad. Quran sets it down and that's it. The true belief is the original belief. That's it. There's very little, except for a very short period, about three, four hundred years, there's very little emphasis on any kind of intellectual aspect of religion. Theology, as we understand it as applies to Christianity. The study of the religion is, again, in Islam only for about three hundred years. We'll see that period, kind of the golden age of Islam. But it disappears after the 13th century. There is no really theological studies. There's the study of the one religion, but that is it. One other topic that is addressed by the Quran that I want to briefly mention, because it's made the news, and that's the treatment of women by Islam and slaves. The Quran explicitly sanctions slavery and it explicitly sanctions the inferior status of women. Although it softens and improves both the slaves' condition and women's condition relative to their conditions under tribal society. Muhammad was a politician and he accepted many of the tribal rules and customs that existed. And some of the, some of what's in the Quran in terms of dealing with women and slaves are barbaric, even in the context of the time. For example, a husband is allowed according to the Quran to beat his wife. To physically abuse his wife. But others, again, in the context of the time, are more progressive. Like you cannot inherit a wife. In tribal society, a wife was property that was moved around and when the husband died, a brother usually inherited the wife. The wife in Islam actually inherits part of their state of the husband when he dies. Far better, for example, than what was going on in Christianity at about the same time. They inherit half of what any male is inherited, but they inherit something. And indeed, in early Islamic times, some of the wealthiest people were women, widows. Remember that Muhammad's first wife and first convert was a very successful businesswoman. Muhammad also limits the number of wives a man can have to four. Now, that sounds funny, but Judaism doesn't limit it at all. According to Judaism, you can have as many wives as you want. There's nothing in the Old Testament that is monogamous and indeed there's nothing in any, in the Talmud or Mishnah or anything, that prohibits having as many wives as you want. Other than the one wife you do have that prohibits the rest of the wealth. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and ooh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on Cricut. Meet your newborn nephew and go to the Cricut Wireless. You can use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. So much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit. And ooh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn nephew and stays until his first birthday party, switch to Cricut Wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. one in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month. Data, speed, usage, and other restrictions apply. Coverage not available everywhere. See store for details. So the veil, for example, the veil was introduced in Medina. And it was introduced by Muhammad as a consequence of the fact that he didn't like other men looking at his wives. He tended to marry the prettiest, the youngest, of the women in Medina. And in order to feel more comfortable about learning of whose wives roam around the marketplace, he introduced the veil as one of the commandments. One of the stories about Muhammad is at some point he married a nine-year-old girl. Aisha was her name. Indeed, her son becomes a significant figure for the Shiites, for the Shiite Muslim, although the marriage was not consummated until she was 12. That makes you feel better. But again, this is tribal practice of the time. This is regular now. Just to give you again an example of how Muhammad used this position effectively, at some point there was a rumor that one of his wife was committing adultery. And Muhammad, who didn't want to believe this, obviously, because this was one of the wives he liked, got a revelation from God saying that in order to prove adultery, you had to have two witnesses who were actually saw it happening. And of course, she was exonerated. But that is an Islamic law. There's a whole body of law on how to prove adultery. OK, so we at the point where Islam as a faith has been established. We'll talk a little bit about some of the difference between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity next time. Muhammad has died. His successor is starting out. And we are at the threshold of really the incredible success of Islam in the world, primarily militarily, but as we'll see also culturally and politically. So thank you. I'll see you tomorrow. This course continues with lecture two. Oh, so much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and, oh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn and you're planning to stay for a month, then you'll have to wait for your first birthday party to arrive in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month, data speed usage, and other restrictions applied, coverage not available everywhere, see store for details. Oh, so much here for a newborn. We need to start planning his baptism and his holiday outfit and, oh, his birthday party. Sure, but how long are you planning to stay? If you're one of those who goes to meet your newborn and stays until his first birthday party, switch to cricket wireless. Use your phone as many days as you want in Mexico without extra cost. Smile, you're on cricket. Requires eligible plan, minimum $55 per month, data speed usage, and other restrictions applied, coverage not available everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details. Everywhere, see store for details.