Status Updates From No god but God: The Origins...

After Muhammad’s death, it was chaos deciding who & what comes next to continue. It’s like a drama w/ murder (plots), hostile takeovers, family feuds, wars, & bloodshed. I appreciate the breakdown of groups like Sunni and Shia being politically motivated. Such an interesting lineage of Caliphs & their successes, failures, and ultimate disintegration. History and context are so important.

Great explanation of Islam being aligned with Judaism & Christianity and holding people accountable for being & leading others astray from the true path and message of God. Medinan Jews who died in battle weren’t really actual Jews, just followers w/ scattered knowledge & no real practices. Muhammad lost a ton of soldiers but could eventually take Mecca w/ sheer numbers, destroy Ka`ba idols, & establish a new home.

I really love the end of this chapter discussing the hijab and women’s rights in Islam. The Hadith system is polluted w/ hearsay & I like the 2 paths brackets many lies fall into. Obvious abuse of power & unfortunate that such falsehoods could have “merit” for centuries uncontested. Same for all religions obvi as context surrounding revelations is most important. This book is excellent so far!

Muhammad is protected in Yathrib and he starts to reform the laws towards Islamic socioreligious values. Women gain more power too.

The first Revelation comes & the feelings are indescribable. Abu Bakr was wealthy, bought & freed slaves til he was almost poor. Khadijah was won over based on his business acumen. Muhammad had to be literate to have success in trading. He didn’t want to seem like a Kahin with poetic couplets as revelations. He slowly gained followers but after uncle Abu Talib died, all protection was lost. Khadijah’s death awful

The Quraysh come into power through old families and marriage. Even with tribal disputes being settled autonomously, if the rival tribe was more powerful, there couldn’t be true justice. I can’t believe the founder of this system built his literal house attached to the Ka’ba so people had to literally go through him to see idols, also circumambulate in worship. Mecca as a trading hub grossly overstated.

I really enjoyed Zealot a few years ago and with my growing interest in Islam, this book is so far as good as expected. I like how the origin stories match other religions and that they can’t be discounted because they’re not wholly factual, just speak to the divinity of the prophets. Hanifism seems like the most likely predecessor to modern faith thus far, but Christianity and Judaism are of course included too.