Jerusalem. The Biography

on the ground, sweat poured down his face; he was engulfed by humming sounds and visions – and then he would recite his poetical, divine revelations. Initially he was terrified by this, but Khadija believed in his vocation and he started to preach.
    In this rough military society where every boy and man bore arms, the literary tradition was not written but consisted of a rich spoken poetry that celebrated the deeds of honourable warriors, passionate lovers, fearless hunters. The Prophet was to harness this poetical tradition: his 114
sura –
chapters – were initially recited before they were collated into the Koran, ‘The Recitation’, a compendium of exquisite poetry, sacred obscurity, clear instruction and bewildering contradiction.
    Muhammad was an inspirational visionary who preached submission – Islam – to the one God in return for universal salvation, the values of equality and justice, and the virtues of pure living, with easily learned rituals and rules for life and death. He welcomed converts. He revered the Bible, and regarded David and Solomon, Moses and Jesus as prophets, but his revelation superseded the earlier ones. Importantly for the fate of Jerusalem, the Prophet stressed the coming of the Apocalypse that he called the Judgement, the Last Day or just the Hour, and this urgency inspired the dynamism of early Islam. ‘The knowledge of it is only with God,’ says the Koran, ‘but what will make you realize the Hour is near?’ All the Judaeo-Christian scriptures stressed that this could take place only in Jerusalem.
    One night, his followers believed that, as he slept beside the Kaaba, Muhammad had a vision. The Archangel Gabriel awoke him and together they embarked on a Night Journey mounted on Buraq, a winged steed with a human face, to the unnamed ‘Furthest Sanctuary’. There Muhammad met his ‘fathers’ (Adam and Abraham) and his ‘brothers’ Moses, Joseph and Jesus, before ascending by a ladder to heaven. Unlike Jesus, he just called himself the Messenger or Apostle of God, claiming no magical powers. Indeed the Isra
–
Night Journey – and the Miraj – Ascension – were his only miraculous exploits. Jerusalem and the Temple are never actually mentioned but Muslims came to believe that the Furthest Sanctuary was the Temple Mount.
    When his wife and uncle died, Muhammad was exposed to the disapproval of the richer families of Mecca, who depended on the Kaaba stone for their livelihoods. The Meccans tried to kill him. But he was contacted by a group from Yathrib, a date-palm oasis to the north founded by Jewish tribes but also the home of pagan artisans and farmers. They asked him to make peace between its feuding clans. He and his inner circle of believers departed on the Migration – Hijra – to Yathrib, whichbecame Madinat un-Nabi, the city of the Prophet – Medina. There he fused his first devotees, the Emigrants, and new followers, the Helpers, and their Jewish allies, into a new community, the
umma
. It was 622, the beginning of the Islamic calendar.
    Muhammad was a skilled conciliator of men and co-opter of ideas. Now in Medina, with its Jewish clans, he created the first mosque, * adopting the Jerusalem Temple as the first
qibla
, the direction of prayer. He prayed at Friday sundown – the Jewish Sabbath – fasted on the Day of Atonement, banned pork and practised circumcision. The oneness of Muhammad’s God rejected the Christian Trinity but other rituals – the prostration on prayer mats – owed much to Christian monasteries; his minarets were perhaps inspired by the pillars of the stylites; the festival of Ramadan resembled Lent. Yet Islam was very much his own.
    Muhammad created a small state with its own laws, but he faced resistance from Medina and his old home Mecca. His new state needed to defend itself and to conquer: jihad
–
struggle – was both internal mastery of self and holy war of conquest. The Koran promoted not only the destruction of infidels but also tolerance if they submitted. This was relevant because the Jewish tribes resisted Muhammad’s revelations and his control. Hence he changed the
qibla
to Mecca and rejected the Jewish way: God had destroyed the Jewish Temple because the Jews had sinned so ‘they will not follow your
qibla
, Jerusalem’.
    When he fought the Meccans, he could not afford disloyalty in Medina so he expelled the Jews and made an example of one Jewish clan: its 700 men were beheaded, its women and children