Islam means “submission” or “surrender”. That is Muhammad’s message that the faith full must submit to Allah. Allah is all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing one must submit to Allah and accept him as the one true and only God. Where have we seen this before? I believe we have heard it all over the known world by now. Muhammad also claimed that the Archangel Gabriel commanded him to declare himself the “Seal of the Prophets” or the last of the prophets in a long line of Abrahamic Prophets from Adam to Jesus.
Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570 CE to a prominent family that could trace their roots all the way back to Abraham. Once again the divine authority of a man is somehow dependent on lineage. Remember also Jesus can trace his ancestry all the way back to King David. Orphaned at age six he was raised by an Uncle in the business of trading. So Muhammad must have been exposed to a great number of people from a great number of cultures, Jews and Christians alike. In fact one story related to the Prophet is that he met on the road a monk who fore told of his greatness.
Muhammad married a wealthy widow and she owned a flourishing caravan firm which he took over control of. In 610 CE he here the voice of Gabriel telling him to as the story goes “Recite” and he had to ask what. Well what he recited over the next twenty two years was the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book. This reciting was not that uncommon in the Arabic world as their poetry was recited and the Qur’an is a book of poetry.
Muhammad was also a skilled politician the story of him placing the Black Stone in the Kaaba is a masterful form of political maneuvering. By allowing the heads of all the tribes in Mecca to participate in the laying of this most sacred stone in side, he