Muhammad asked of his companions, "Do you love your creator and do you serve your fellow man first?" A likely response would have been the quoting of the following verses of the Quran, "And they give food, out of love for Him, to the poor and the orphan and the captive. We feed you, for Allah's pleasure only – We desire from you neither reward nor thanks." Surah 76 Al-Insan: The Man, Ayas 8 and 9. In short: Love God for humanity, love humanity for God - humanity being friend and foe alike.
Having mentioned foes brings the following Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) to mind, "If you kill one person unjustly, it is as if you killed the whole of humanity, and if you saved one person, it as if you saved the whole of humanity." Peace was always better than war in the eyes of Muhammad. Than if war was needed it was because war was better than allowing unhindered persecution. Defense from such could only be made in kind - an eye for an eye, 'lex talionis' – if one attacked you with words you could only engage in debate not bloodletting. It is good to turn the cheek only when they who would strike you don't intend to cut you through from cheek to cheek. Only fight in self-defense and protection of those not able to protect their selves. Never be the aggressor only the defender.
So strongly Muhammad believed this specific belief that he would rather lose a follower in the practice of Islam in its entirety than keep them in lax enforcement of that one component belief. Case in point a citizen of a lower secular economic class (a "mere" slave or servant) once slapped one a member of a higher secular economic class (a Meccan Aristocrat). The richer of the two demanded the right in accordance to Arabic cultural law of the time to be able to kill the "lesser" man (the rich were seen as more human than the poor and as such the poor were not afforded the same rights - Law of Retribution, lex talionis be damn). Muhammad acting as a 'hakam' – a tribal mediator/judge – told the 'richer' man NO, that he could only slap the man back, that he was of no greater value than he who slapped him, and that it would be better to forgive the man; for mercy is greater than justice. The richer man in wealth ultimately proved to be the poorer man as a whole despite not escalating the conflict between the two to violence first when he left Islam for not being able to kill the other man for merely slapping him.
Muhammad having been an orphan fairly early in life and being a member of the Quraysh clan – Keepers of the Keys of the Kaaba in Mecca - very well could see both men's position being in between them – of both neither and both. Which was also true of Muhammad in regards to both peace and war for Muhammad didn't have the luxury of just being a Prophet like Isa – Jesus – as circumstances push the role of statesman upon him as well making him not only the central Prophet of Muslims but the leader of the whole city of Medina, a secular leader of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
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My Islamic Primer for You - Some Answers for My Friends
Non-FictionMy Islamic primer from my religious studies course on Islam. Had to write a 5 to 7 pages primer on Islam for someone not familiar with Islam in double space 12 point Times News Roman font.
