The PROPHET MUḤAMMAD
A ROLE MODEL
for MUSLIM MINORITIES
Muhammad Yasin Mazhar Siddiqi
Translated by
Abdur Raheem Kidwai
THE ISLAMIC FOUNDATION
Published by
The Islamic Foundation
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Siddiqi, Muhammad Yasin Mazhar The Prophet Muhammad: A role model for Muslim minorities 1. Muhammad, Prophet, d.632 – Influence – 2. Muslims – Non-Muslim countries 3. Muslims – Religious life I.Title II.Islamic Foundation (Great Britain) 297’.09176
ISBN 0 86037 530 7 hb
ISBN 0 86037 535 8 pb
eISBN: 9780860376774
CONTENTS
1. Pluralistic Society of Makkah
2. Evolution of the Muslim Minority in Makkah
3. The Muslim Community of Abyssinia
4. Formation of the Muslim Ummah in the Makkan Period
5. The Defence System and the Right to Defend
6. Defence Agreement
7. Muslim Minorities After the Formation of the Islamic State
Conclusion
Bibliography
Notes
Index
Arabic Consonants
Initial, unexpressed medial and final:
Vowels, diphthongs, etc.
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DEDICATION
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds and peace and blessings be upon the leader of the Messengers and upon his family and his Companions and all those who follow them in an excellent way until the Day of Reckoning.
In the past eras spanning a few centuries ʿulamā’ have been projecting Islam as a ruling faith. Islamic fiqh underlines only the aspects of Islamic state. It is generally held that Islamic teachings can be implemented and bear fruits only when Islam is the state religion. As a result, the establishment of an Islamic State and gaining power have somehow become the basic goals. Granted that Islam urges its followers to achieve dominance and directs them to somehow not put up with subjugation. However, the notion that Islam must always be dominant and in all circumstances has caused much trouble. Apart from ʿulamā’, fiqh scholars and thinkers, even the general public seem wedded strongly to the above notion. Little wonder then that rulership has become part of the Muslim psyche.
By the quirks of developments in history, Islam came to be known as a state religion, dictating man’s way of life. The Prophet’s Islamic state had developed beyond the Arabian Peninsula and during the Muslim Caliphate it had grown into a world-wide Islamic state. Most of the communities, cultures and civilizations and their religions in the Middle Ages pledged their subservience to Islam. It was during this heyday of the rule and domination of Islam that many branches of learning attained progress and were codified. Naturally all the discussion related to these disciplines is in the context of Islam being the state religion.
It must be however, stated that in the same period Muslims led their lives as a minority in many countries. They were under the domination of the adherents of other faiths. After only one and a half centuries of the Abbasid rule, decline and disintegration had set in the Muslim polity. The regions far away from the seat of the Caliphate were constantly exposed to incursion and even defeat. At the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Andalusia in the fifth/eleventh century Muslims had lost their dominant position at large. They stood divided and sub-divided and as a subjugated people. By the middle of the thirteenth century CE most of the Muslim
