"Muhammad, prophet of rectitude, peace and tolerance" by Amadou Ba Ba

Mahomet (570-632), Prophet of an Islam of peace, tolerance and rectitude.

"Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a worship without images, founder of twenty earthly empires and of a spiritual empire, that is Mahomet. On all the scales on which human greatness is measured, what man was greater? writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE, in his remarkable biography on "the life of Muhammad". Some of the great Western writers including Victor HUGO (1802-1885), George Bernard SHAW and J. W GOETHE did not consider Islam to be a violent religion or intolerant. "Mahomet appears to us as a gentle, sensitive, faithful man, free from hatred. His affections were sincere; his character, in general, inclined to benevolence. Neither the thoughts of ambition, nor religious exaltation had not dried up individual feelings in him" wrote Ernest RENAN (1823-1892). The public life of Muhammad "testifies: proven will, moderation and prudence, gentleness and finesse, patience and foresight, all the maneuvering qualities of a warlord and head of state, disciplined by a deep faith” writes Louis MASSIGNON (1883-1962). Alighieri DANTE (1265-1321), in his “Divine comedy”, as shown by Miguel ASIN PALACIOS (1871-1944), was fundamentally influenced by the “Celestial Voyage” of Muhammad, in his description of the seven heavens, Paradise and Hell. “Mahomet is a great man; if there was a time when it was bold to say so, the paradox would be today. Saint-Hilaire does not hesitate to make him one of the greats, even one of the best" writes Charles de REMUSAT, in "Mahomet et le Mahométisme".

Mahomet, prophet of a revealed religion, is the heir of various sages or envoys of God who have succeeded one another over time, seeking, in the face of the anguish of death and the wonder of creation, to find meaning in their lives here and in the hereafter. In India, there was the revelation of the Vedas, the great Buddha or "the enlightened one", in China Confucius, in Iran the Zend Avesta, the Sumerian Assyro-Babylonian religion, the Jewish people with their rich past (Abraham, Enoch , Noah, Moses, Samuel, David and Jesus). Man, since ancient times, has always been aware of a Supreme Being and creator of all. Mahomet does not claim, for him, the monopoly of Prophet. He only claims the function of restorer of the eternal Truth, of revivifying what the previous messengers of God have taught, but whose message has been altered over time. "Anyone who meditates seriously on the life of Muhammad will arrive at this consoling truth that nowhere is there any real and lasting power, nor any possible benefit, outside of the creative, eternal and regulating power of all things, power from which everything emanates and from which everything must return” writes Narcisse-Honoré CELLIER-DUFAYEL.

Descendant of Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian, Muhammad, an Ismaili, hailing from Mecca with family roots from Medina, while incorporating the heritages of Judaism and Christianity, fought idolatry , is the continuator and renovator of monotheism. “We Europeans with all our concepts have not yet been able to achieve what Muhammad has achieved and no one can surpass him. I searched the history of humanity for a man who is the ideal example and I found him in the person of the Prophet Muhammad. And so must reveal the truth and rise as Muhammad succeeded in subjugating the whole world through monotheism» wrote Johann W. Von GOETHE (1749-1832). Indeed, Muhammad managed to recover the religion of his ancestors through the Ka'ba, the first sanctuary of elevated Man, built by Adam, rebuilt by Abraham and Ismail, and ancestor of the Arabs (Koran, Suras 3, 96- 97, 22 and 25-27). The "Oumah", community of believers, based on faith, replaced the tribal solidarities of Koraïchites, and it raised the image of the family. With regard to Jews and Christians, Muhammad is the continuator of the history of the People of the Book. Indeed, Islam, submission to God, is the "right path", a "light for the lost" to guide them to the sovereign Good, a religion achieving perfection (Suras 3 verses 86, 5-15, 4 -176, 35-24). Muhammad presents himself as the last prophet and the one who completes, historically, all monotheistic religions. Three religions, one God, and there begins misunderstandings or discord, “The Fitnah”. Also, some praise becomes nuanced: “Mahomet was a contradictory man. He loved pleasure and devoted himself to asceticism, he was compassionate and sometimes cruel. He was a believer devoured by love and fear for his God and a politician ready for any compromise. He was calm and nervous, courageous and fearful, forgetful of offenses and atrociously vindictive, proud and modest, but there was a force in him which, with the help of circumstances, was to make him one of the few men who turned the world upside down. writes Maxime RONDINSON.

In France, at the beginning of the 20th century, Islam, stripped of all prejudice, like the other great monotheistic religions, was perceived as the soul of spirituality and mysticism: "Reasonable people live in the thought of the Arab Prophet. His name fills the newspapers and disciples come, even in the heart of Paris, to contribute to build a mosque” wrote, in 1904, I. L GONDAL. From the 19th century, the idea of ​​a mosque in Paris was launched by the Caliph of Constantinople, Sultan Abdul Hamid (1842-1918), who had visited the Emperor Napoleon III, but the funding could not be found. In 1924, the construction of the mosque of Paris was the testimony of the Republic for the sacrifice of the French Muslims, their presence at the battle of Verdun having been decisive. Marshal Hubert LYAUTEY (1854-1934) considers that the Muslims of France should have a place that resembles them. “When the minaret that you are going to build is erected, it will rise towards the beautiful sky of the Ile de France, only one more prayer of which the Catholic towers of Notre-Dame will not be jealous. France intends to make fun of nothing, to disturb nothing, to erase nothing from the human soul of what could have helped to comfort it, to elevate it, to ennoble it,” said Marshal LYAUTEY. "If war has sealed Franco-Muslim fraternity on the battlefields and if more than 100,000 of our subjects and proteges have died in the service of a now common homeland, this homeland must be honored to mark as soon as possible, and by actions, his recognition and his memory,” added Edouard HERRIOT (1872-1957). Today, despite profound demographic changes, all building permits for Muslim places of worship are systematically challenged in court, and suspended.

Ultimately, Western authors, until recently, and under the influence of various factors or doctrines, were admiring and amazed at the Revolution accomplished by Muhammad. If we contemplate the number of Muslims throughout the world, converted by peaceful means, we can say that Muhammad succeeded in his Revolution. Islam is a major fact of the 21st century: "Finally, never has a man accomplished such an immense and lasting Revolution in the world in less time" writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE (1790-1869).< /b> Indeed, Islam, a planetary religion, has become the second religion in the world by the number of followers, estimated at 1.3 billion, after Christianity (1.8 billion). Contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are found neither in Arab countries nor in Europe, but in Asia, with two-thirds of the faithful (Indonesia 210 million, Pakistan 135 million, Bangladesh 120 million, 37 million in Afghanistan, 6 million in China). Arab countries represent 20% of Muslims. France, with its heavy colonial past, so repressed, as well as a very strong far-right party, sparing the Jewish community, but having penalized a good part of the spirits, has the particularity of welcoming the first Muslim community in Europe, with more than 4 million Muslims, far ahead of Germany (2.5 million) and Great Britain (1.6 million). Islam is present in almost all African countries, Eastern countries, and even in Oceania. This religion had conquered Andalusia as well as Romania. “Just like in Muhammad's achievement, the truth must reveal itself and spread in all directions. And it is an immense work that Muhammad accomplished. By the single concept of God the One, he subjugated the entire universe. No one is able to take a step further than that of Muhammad. We Europeans with all our concepts have not yet been able to achieve what Mohammad has achieved and there is no doubt that no one will be able to surpass him. I searched the history of humanity for a man who is the ideal example and I found him in the person of the Prophet Muhammad. And so must reveal the truth and rise as Muhammad succeeded in subjugating the whole world by monotheism” writes J. W. GOETHE.

If he was praised and admired in the past, Muhammad is now violently attacked in our time, caricatured, insulted or slandered. "The reason of the strongest is always the best" said Jean de LA FONTAINE (1621-1695). In this Islamophobia for political purposes, under the noble pretext of popularization, certain publications, often misleading, contain, in fact, slander, serious vulgarity, and even pornography: < b>"Yes, but... Draw it, why draw it?" Because it is unacceptable that lives are threatened because a feather, somewhere on earth, sketches the turban of the prophet. Because the cartoonist who has made irreverence a priesthood must push back the limits of censorship where they strangle his freedom”. Should we endorse the moral obligation, demanded by the most fanatical of his followers, to respect Muhammad? No more than one should conform to that of respecting Jesus or Moses" writes Zineb El RHAZOUI, in the foreword to "the life of Mahomet" published by “Charlie Hebdo”. In reality, all freedom of expression must be used in a spirit of responsibility, tolerance and respect for others “Anything that can hurt the beliefs of others, especially religious beliefs, should be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility. If freedom of expression is one of the foundations of the Republic, it is also based on the values ​​of tolerance and respect for all beliefs. I condemn all overt provocations, likely to dangerously stir up passions,” said Jacques CHIRAC, in the Council of Ministers, on the caricatures of Muhammad by “Charlie Hebdo”. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has already ruled on this point, freedom of expression should “not create riots”. During a conference, in October and November 2009, "on basic information about Islam", Elisabeth SABADITSCH-WOLFF, an Austrian citizen, of the extreme right, had claimed that the marriage between the Prophet Muhammad and Aisha , would have been consumed when the latter was 9 years old (in fact between 13 and 14 years old), thus qualifying Muhammad as a “pedophile”. Comments likely to provoke "justified indignation and threaten religious peace", to incite religious intolerance, are incompatible with Article 9 of the ECHR (freedom of thought, conscience and religion). Consequently, certain statements defamatory or demeaning the Prophet Muhammad exceed the limits of freedom of expression, ECHR, request 38450/12, judgment of October 25, 2018. Islam, the Koran puts an important limit: Private justice, formally prohibited, should be proportionate to the damage caused: "When someone attacks you, use reciprocity in proportion to the damage caused", Koran, Sura 2, Verse 194 Consequently, and let us say it firmly, no verbal or written offense, insult or caricature, can justify the call for violence, in particular murder. Islam, a world religion of peace, has been able to adapt to different cultures and times, has spread through peaceful means. Islam is clear: he who kills must be killed. Assassination is even equated with a crime against humanity: "Whoever kills an innocent person is as if he had killed all of humanity. And whoever gives life to him, it is as if he were giving life to all men” says Sura 5, verse 32 of the Koran, known as “the served tray”. Of an important moral rigor, fighting hypocrisy and ostentatious demonstrations, Islam, a religion only between God and his disciple, recommends to purify oneself not only in acts, but also by the heart. A religion of peace, rectitude and great moral rigor, Islam is a permanent exhortation to move away from Evil and to do Good, in order to be in harmony with God: "Even though He kills me, I will have faith in Him. Islam means, in its own way, self-denial, self-annihilation, which is the highest form of wisdom Heaven has revealed to us mortals who live on Earth. A man is only just, invincible, virtuous, he is only on the way to a sure conquest of spiritual goods if he associates himself with the profound law of the universe” writes Thomas CARLYLE (1795- 1881), in “Heroes”. “Assalamou Aleykum”, peace be with you following the Muslim greeting. Actions are only as good as their intentions. Each will receive the reward he deserves only according to what he has heard done.

At the beginning of the 21st century, with the rise of racism and nationalism, Muhammad was instrumentalized for political and electoral purposes. Viktor ORBAN, Hungarian Prime Minister, opponent of multiculturalism, a Christian crusader against Islam, believes that: “Europe will have been invaded by Islam”. The Muslim has become, in the eyes of certain Westerners necessarily Salafist, violent, potential delinquent, stupid devotee, fanatic and obscurantist. Since the end of the Cold War, and under pressure from populist movements, Islam, Donald TRUMP, President of the United States (2016 to 2020) and patron of the so-called "free" world, hastened to ban Muslims from his country. The European Union refuses to admit Muslim Turkey, despite being a member of the Council of Europe and NATO. “Turkey is a country close to Europe, an important country, which has a real elite, but it is not a European country. Its capital is not in Europe, it has 95% of its population outside Europe,” said Valéry GISCARD d’ESTAING. In France, of our time, Islam, yet France's second religion, under the combined effect of several factors, faces a harsh and intolerant conception of secularism. In the past, for the colonial party, the only good Muslims were those who accepted and supported the colonial order, assimilation. The extreme right-wing political debate in France has associated immigration and terrorism with a kind of war of religions. Indeed, atat the heart of the political debate and the prevailing Islamophobia is the colonial spirit, in its ambition to assimilate and hierarchy of cultures. Formerly, the priest had often accompanied the settler, in his alleged mission of civilization, to convert lost spirits to Catholicism. The priest often accompanied the settler in his hierarchy of cultures. “A mysterious fermentation agitates the vast black continent. The real conqueror is Islam, which is spreading irresistibly there. This simple, sensual and warlike religion is made for these primitive populations. It transforms the man, of whom it has taken hold; she doubtless rises again, increasing her health, her morality, her energy; but it monopolizes it forever and makes it rebel against any other civilizing enterprise”, writes Marcel SAINT-GERNAI, in the preface to the work of Gustave-Louis BINGER, “The Islamic Peril”. The Muslims of France, reduced to the rank of natives of the Republic, like the Protestants and the Jews of old, live in a so-called universalist, but in fact ethnic democracy. Indeed, in France, the Republic proclaims the freedom to believe or not to believe, as well as the equal protection of all religions. In practice, some are more equal than Muslims, ostracized and discriminated against, often for political reasons. The massive presence, since the 1960s, of African immigration, solicited by France after the 2^th world war, from 1983 onwards, meant that the Muslims of France, refusing to take part in the civic life, have become scapegoats for political issues beyond them. “There really is hatred in France against Muslims as people. It is an attitude of defiance, hostility and detestation towards them. It is urgent to have a body that would absorb the emotion of discriminated Muslims and channel their anger. A body that would take charge of the suffering of Muslims, in a republican framework,” says Ghaleb BENCHEIKH, president of the Fondation de l’Islam de France. France refuses to come to terms with its colonial and slavery past; this permanent denial is at the root of the prevailing Islamophobia. Indeed, in the extension of the "national identity" of Nicolas SARKOZY, President Emmanuel MACRON ostensibly claims this Islamophobic political orientation: "Without being drawn into the trap of amalgam tended by the polemists and by the extremes which would consist in stigmatizing all Muslims. The problem is Islamist separatism,” said October 2, 2020, at Les Mureaux. For the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip ERDOGAN, these measures by President Emmanuel MACRON are “provocation. All that can be said of a head of state who treats millions of members of different religious communities in this way is: Go first for mental health examinations”. Finally, the real separatists are those who maintain the confusion, the instrumentalization for electoral purposes of Islam. "We must accept differences, and therefore fight together all those who are against our common values, who feed on hatred and hegemonic discourse,to justify their crime, using religion. Islam is the first victim of this intolerance. Killing people in a mosque or a church cannot be called Islam. Islam, the one we know in Senegal, is that of tolerance. We need tolerance with regard to tolerant Islam, fight terrorism well, while respecting the difference” says President Macky SALL, who was in Paris, at the demonstration in January 2015, against the attack targeting “ Charlie Hebdo”.

François-Marie AROUET dit Voltaire (1694-1778), in his theatrical play, "Mahomet", particularly hostile to Islam, had described Muhammad as fanatic, cruel, deceitful and the shame of men. "I don't like this piece, it's a caricature" wrote Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE. This clear-cut attitude of Voltaire was criticized by Napoleon BONAPARTE, an orientalist: “Voltaire had failed here in history and in the human heart. He prostituted the great character of Mahomet by the lowest intrigues. He made a great man who had changed the face of the world act like the vilest scoundrel, worthy of the gallows at most. He was no less unsuitably disguising the great character of Omar, of which he made nothing but a cutthroat of melodrama, and a real lack. For the work of Mahomet to be truly worthy of the French scene, it must be able to be read without indignation in the eyes of the enlightened men of Constantinople as of Paris. Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier: with a handful of people he triumphed in battle; great captain, eloquent, great statesman, he regenerated his fatherland, and created in the midst of the deserts of Arabia a new people and a new power", he wrote in his "Memorial of Sainte-Hélène".Voltaire will rectify his errors: "All his laws which, apart from polygamy, are so austere, and his doctrine which is so simple, soon attracted his religion respect and trust. The dogma above all of the unity of a God, presented without mystery, and proportioned to human intelligence, ranged under its law a multitude of nations, and even Negroes in Africa, and islanders in the Indian Ocean. writes Voltaire in “Essay on the customs and spirit of Nations”. In Voltaire ended up considering that Islam is a natural religion, the only true one: “Mohammedanism was undoubtedly more sensible than Christianity. They did not adore a Jew while abhorring the Jews; they did not call a Jewess the mother of God; they did not fall into the extravagant blasphemy of saying that three gods make one god; in short, they did not eat there this god whom they adored, and they did not return to the saddle its creator. To believe in one all-powerful God was the only dogma; and if it had not been added that Mahomet is its prophet, it would have been a religion as pure, as beautiful as that of the Chinese scholars. It was simple theism, natural religion, and therefore the only true” writes Voltaire, “Complete Works” volume VI, page 210.

I – Muhammad, a poor and persecuted orphan who became the Paraclete

It was Imam Ali, fifty years after the death of the Prophet, who initiated the first testimonies on the life of Muhammad. After a long process of maturation and rigorous verifications, his biography, the "Sîra", considered authentic, was only established 150 years after his disappearance, on the faith of tradition and reliable transmitters: "Of all the legislators and of all the conquerors, there is none whose life has been written with more authenticity and in the greatest detail by his contemporaries than that of Mahomet” writes Voltaire. Ibn ISHAQ undertakes the “Sîra Rasul Allah”. He died in 768, but this reference work is continued by IBN HICHAM who lightens the long genealogy, while remaining faithful to the initial text. On his death in 828, AL-TABARI (829-923), took over the Sîra; Salama AL-FADL AL-ANSARI finalizes the Sîra it will be resumed, in 1760, by volume XV of "Universal History". It was Gustav WEIL (1808-1889) who translated the “Sîra” into German in 1864. A GUILLAUME translated this text, in 1955, into English. For France, it was in 2003 that Wahid ATALLAH had the “Sîra” translated into French, by Fayard.

A - Muhammad in Mecca, (570 to 622): Revelation, a Prophet in adversity

1 – Muhammad: Birth in a tribal and polytheistic society

The Qur'an, the revealed religion, only cites the Prophet 5 times as "Ahmet" or "Muhammad" (Peace be upon Him), or the "praised" or the "glorified". "The child who has just been born will be glorified by God in Heaven and by men on our earth," said Abd Mouttalib, his grandfather. Mahomet, the spelling of the French language that I have adopted, was born on September 1^st, 570, in a district near the sanctuary of the Ka'ba, in Mecca (Western Arabia), "the dazzling", the "noble", the "mother of cities". The biographies, or the "Sîra", disagree on the exact date of the Prophet's birth, calculated, approximately, from his 40 years, the beginning of the revelation of the Koran. At the very least, the Quran holds that Muhammad was born in "the year of the elephant." Indeed, in 570, on Monday of the 12^th day of the month of Rabia, Abraha, viceroy of the Negus of Abyssinia, occupying Yemen, attacked the pagan and commercial Mecca with the aim of converting its inhabitants to Christianity. The Koran mentions a squadron of swallows, each carrying three small pebbles, having rerouted the attack of the army of Abyssinia accompanied by an elephant called "Mahmoud". Abd Al-Mouttalib, Muhammad's grandfather, victoriously opposed this expedition. The elephant miraculously refused to march on Mecca, and the army of the Negus was defeated: “Do you not know how God dealt with the elephant invaders? Did he not turn their perfidy to ruin? God sent flocks of birds against them, fluttering over their heads. They threw stones at them with the names of the culprits, engraved with heavenly vengeance. The treacherous were reduced, like the leaves of the cut harvest”, Sura 105, known as “Al-Fil” or the elephant. Consequently, Mahomet is a contemporary of Heraclius (575-641), emperor of Byzantium, of the Persian king, Chosroês II, Sassanid emperor from 591 to 628, and of the Merovingian kings of France (Sigebert 1st to Clotaire II). kings of England starting only with the house of Wessex in the year 971. The peoples who ruled elsewhere were the Khazars and Scythians.

Mohammed was born in Mecca, a polytheistic religious city with a long and rich history. According to Muslim tradition, after eating the forbidden fruit, at the instigation of Iblis, the demon, Adam (Adama) was sent to India and Eve (Hawa) is in Arabia. Adam came to Arabia with a stone brought from Paradise and built the Ka'ba sanctuary. During a pilgrimage to Mecca, Adam and Eve find themselves, by a miracle and after more than a century, on the Arafa mountain (Ta’ Arafa): “they recognized each other”. Adam, feeling the Flood coming, hid the black stone on Mount Hira, where Muhammad will have the revelations of the Koran. Noah, with his Ark, made the "Tawaf", seven around the Ka'ba, and kissed this stone which was white, but became black, because of the sins of men; it will come back white on Judgment Day. The biographers of Mahomet, and in particular Ibn ISHAQ believe that Mahomet would descend from Ismaïl, in the 21^th generation. Hagar, mother of Ismail and servant of Abraham, lost in the Arabian desert, in need of water in the desert, desperate, implore the sky between the hills of Safa and Marwa, not far from Mecca. The Angel Gabriel dug a hole and made water gush out, these famous sources of "Zem Zem". The Muslim faithful, on pilgrimage to Mecca, must redo this route. In 605, the Ka'ba sanctuary had caught fire and had to be rebuilt, next to the old location. But how to move the black stone? Muhammad, who has political sense, proposes that a tent be spread, rolled around the black stone thus moved, without sacrilege. The Meccans, polytheists, worship "Allah", or "the Lord of this house", the Ka'ba; this appellation of God will be kept by Muhammad.

The Koran says that the birth of the Prophet, an intercessor, was already announced previously, by Jesus Christ or Issa: “I am the apostle of God, repeated Jesus, son of Mary. I come to confirm the truth of the Pentateuch, which preceded me, and to announce to you the coming of the prophet who will follow me. Ahmed is his name” Sura 61, verse 6, says the order. This text refers to the Gospel of Saint John saying to Christ "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you your Paraclete who will always be with you" verse 16 of chapter 14. Muhammad, successor of the other monotheistic religions, was awaited and considered the last prophet. During her pregnancy, Amina did not feel the weight of her pregnancy and at the birth of Muhammad a blinding light floods the world. According to tradition, the moment he came into the world, a brilliant light enlightened the world; the palace of Chosroes (531-579), then king of Persia, shook, its four of its towers collapsed, the sacred fire of Zoroaster, lit for more than a thousand years, went out and the lakes dried up. The genies of Evil rushed down from the top of the stars, and the idols of Mecca, in the temple of the Ka'ba, were overthrown and fell from the front, Al-TABARI specifies. Muhammad was born circumcised, the cord cut and clean as a crystal. On the day of his baptism his head is shaved, and according to custom, he is entrusted to a nurse, Tuwaibah, a slave of Abou Lahad, uncle of Muhammad, or to Massou'h of the tribe of Bani-Sa'd, according to Al-TABARI. But this nurse having been not very benevolent, Muhammad will be entrusted to another nurse, Halima Bint Abu Dhuyab, in order to escape the pestilential air of Mecca. Initially, Halima, a poor family, did not want to take the baby Muhammad: “I am fed up with my own poverty. I don’t need to bring an orphaned child there,” she said. Halima had goats and a camel which gave little milk. But when she took Mahomet by default, she met with prosperity, her animals giving milk in abundance. It is during this stay, it is said, two angels open the body of Muhammad, remove a black clot from his heart, and wash it to purify his body. Fearing that Muhammad has something demonic, the couple consults a diviner who will say: “Arabs, this is your enemy and the enemy of your religion; he will change your religion and overthrow your idols,” he said.

Although born in Mecca, Muhammad also has roots from Yatrib or Medina; one of these ancestors, Abd-Manaf, a Hashim, originated. His grandfather's mother, Salma, is from Medina. His father, Abdallah or "slave of the Lord" and his mother, Amina Bint-Wahab, who remained pagans until their death, and himself are buried there. Abdallah, on his death, a few weeks before the birth of Mahomet, leaves his widow only five camels and a slave. At the age of six, Amina went with her son to Medina, the city of her parents, fell ill in Al-Abwa (Rabigh region), and died there in 576. Abd Al-Mouttalib, also disappeared, and Mahomet is then entrusted to his uncle Abd-Manaf or Abou Talib. But the new tutor of Muhammad, a good man with a large family load, spendthrift and in debt. Muhammad, an orphan and very poor, must then work to earn his living, and help his uncle. Muhammad tends the flocks of some of his neighbors, helping in a shop in Mecca. At the age of 9, he accompanied Abu Talib on a caravan to Syria. It is on occasion that he meets Christian monks; a Nestorian monk initiates him to the Old Testament. This monk will say to his uncle “This is the best of all the men on earth; he is the prophet of God. I am now 70 years old, I have been waiting for his coming as a prophet for a long time,” he said. The monk tells Muhammad that a prophet with a mission to have a pure heart can be an Arab, and that there is no chosen people or chosen race. “It is a shame for everyone to listen to the accusations that Islam is a lie and that Muhammad is an impostor and a falsifier. He was distinguished throughout his life with unshakable principles, sincere determination, benevolent, generous, compassionate, pious, virtuous, worthy of praise, free, humanist, very serious, sincere. And with all these qualities, he had the sweetest character, the most easy-going temperament, good humor, commendable and pleasant company, the more pleasant and witty he was. He was just, sincere, clairvoyant, magnanimous, pure and present of mind. Her face was radiant as if it had lights within it illuminating any dark night. He was a great man by nature, he was not educated by a school or a teacher and he did not need all that” wrote Thomas CARLYLE in “The Heroes”.

Throughout his adolescence, Muhammad showed a mature spirit and stayed away from places where people have fun. He prefers meditation, speech being the gold of the Arabs. “He was sober with futile speeches, and his taste led him to keep silence. His face announced benevolence; his temper was gentle and his character even; relatives or strangers, weak or powerful, found in him equal justice. He loved the humble, did not despise the poor because of their poverty, just as he did not honor the rich because of their wealth. He listened with great patience to whoever came to sit next to him,” says Ali, his son-in-law and faithful companion. In his qualities, we often cite patience, courage and selflessness, as well as a thirst for justice. Because of his benevolence and sincerity, he is nicknamed "El-Amin", the truthful. Dreamy, taciturn, tenacious in his resolutions and patient, Muhammad, of great simplicity, is an ascetic, living simply and refusing superfluous pleasures, like the great Talmudic patriarchs like Abraham, Jacob and Noah. "Work for this world, as if you were always to live in it, and for the other as if you were to die tomorrow," said Muhammad. A man of peace and attached to harmony, Muhammad said that "the true wealth of a man in this world is measured by the good he has done around him". In the eyes of the British writer, George Bernard SHAW, Muhammad appears as a savior of Humanity: “What the world needs most is a man who has the spirit of Muhammad. Religious men in the Middle Ages, out of ignorance and fanaticism, propagated an obscure image of the religion of Muhammad whom they considered the enemy of Christianity. But after knowing the story of this man, I found him to be an exceptional prodigy and concluded that he is not the enemy of Christianity but the savior of mankind. In my opinion, if he were to take charge of the affairs of this present world, he would solve all our problems and ensure the peace and happiness that the whole world hopes for. Victor HUGO dedicated laudatory poems to Muhammad, because of his important moral qualities: “He seemed to have seen Eden, the age of love, earlier times, the immemorial era. He had a high forehead, an imperial cheek, A bald eyebrow, a deep and diligent eye, A neck like the neck of a silver amphora, the air of a Noah who knows the secret of the deluge. If men came to consult him, this judge, leaving one to affirm, the other to laugh and deny, listened in silence and spoke the last. His mouth was still praying; He ate little, clutching a stone to his stomach; He busied himself milking his sheep; He sat on the ground and sewed his clothes. He fasted longer than others on fast days, although he lost his strength and was no longer young” written in a poem “Year 9 of the Hegira”. In his great simplicity, Muhammad eats only dates, barley bread, milk and honey. He has a big obsession with cleanliness which is “half the cult” he says.

Due to a period of scarcity, the young Muhammad at the age of 25, found a job as a caravan driver, with a wealthy 40-year-old widow from Mecca, Khadija Khuwalid, nicknamed "Tajirah", woman business or "Tadinah", the honest, from a cultured family. “Mahomet is a handsome man, with beautiful eyes, large, black and intelligent. His sight is so sharp that he can count the twelve stars of the constellation Pleiades” writes IBN SA’AD. Muhammad is known for his honesty and uprightness (Al-Amin), as well as his great probity. Of medium height, he is neither tall nor short, his complexion is white, his forehead is high, his nose aquiline, his voice soft and clear. Due to this marriage, in 595, Muhammad emerged from poverty. Islam condemns ingratitude. Also, Muhammad will remain grateful to all his benefactors, especially Khadija: “By the rising day and by the night that it covers everything, your Lord has neither abandoned you nor hated you. Didn't he find the orphan? And he gave you shelter. And he found you wandering and gave you a guide. And he found you poor, and he made you rich. As for the orphan, then do not mistreat him. As for the plaintiff does not reject him. As for the blessing of your Lord, proclaim it!” Quran, Sura 93, “The Rising Day”. Khadija, her boys having died young, gave Muhammad four daughters: Zainab, Rukuya, Umm Kultum and Fatima. She asks Muhammad to adopt Ali, in order to relieve the family burdens of her uncle, Abu-Talib, and her uncle, Abbas, raised Djaffar.

In the year 605, and at the age of 35, the four great polytheist families in disagreement about the reconstruction of the Ka'ba ravaged by torrents of water, appeal to Muhammad . Each family, for its prestige, wanting to have the honor of moving the famous black one, Mahomet took off his boubou, placed the stone in the middle of his garment, and asked each of the parties to seize a corner of his coat and raise it at the height of the temple wall. Muhammad then took the stone, to place it where it should be in the wall. Everyone was satisfied with this trick.

2 – Muhammad, the peaceful and persecuted preacher

Mahomet, a meditative and inspired man of very high moral qualities, is “totally reliable, fraternal, authentic. His character was serious, sincere, at the same time friendly, sociable and even cheerful. He knew how to laugh, unlike many people whose laughter is as artificial as all the rest of their nature” writes Thomas CARLYLE. However, after a banal and quiet existence, he will only meet God, "Allah", at the age of 40, in 610: "It is at this age that reason and intelligence come together hour development» writes Al-TABARI. Muhammad while he was sleeping, a creature smothers him and orders him to recite "Ikra". Mahomet answers "I do not know how to read". Muhammad asks “What should be read?”, in front of the increasing pressure of the angel: “Read, by the name of your Lord who created, who created man from a clot of blood. Read ! for your Lord, the Most Noble, it is He who taught by the pen. He taught man what he did not know." Sura 96, verses 1-9, known as "Ikra" or "The blood clot". The angel Gabriel announces to Muhammad that he has been chosen as messenger of God. Muhammad kept the message engraved in his memory; the original Quran was not written, but recited. The opponents of Islam deduce that Muhammad, who cannot read or write, would therefore be an impostor, his prophecies being only delusions. Indeed, when Muhammad received the revelation that spanned 23 years, he remained stunned, as if hypnotized, congested, he was moaning. Himself, he believed at the beginning that the voice of the angel Gabriel would be that of the devil and his wife, Khadija, by getting naked, the angel being modest and disappeared, that he convinced him of his divine mission. In fact, this Surah "Ikra", in its allegorical sense, is "a praise of the pen as an instrument of human science, even of the civilization and culture of man" writes Muhammad HAMIDULLAH. His wife, Khadija, immediately understood the difficulties of Muhammad, the elected Prophet: "no man has ever brought what you bring without being treated as an enemy," she told him.

In his dark but easy life, Muhammad made a spiritual retreat every year on Mount Hira, “Mount Nour” or “The Mountain of Lights” facing the Ka’ba. This custom of meditation, fasting, penance and prayer is inherited from his grandfather, Abd Al-Muttalib, a polytheist, during one of the 30 days of the month of "Ramadan", probably the 27^th night, seeking the beneficial effects of a single night, called "Kadir", where everything is possible. It was during one of these nights that Muhammad had a revelation: “Who will tell you what the Night of Determination is? The Night of Determination is better than a thousand months. During it descend the angels as well as the Spirit, by the permission of the Lord. At each command, a peace; this until the breaking of dawn” Koran, Sura 97, Verses 1-5, “The Determination”. Muhammad always refused, like his ancestors to worship idols "It is God who created me, who preserves me and gives me my sustenance" he says.

For three years, the first followers of Islam were Khadija, Abu Bakr, Zaid and Bilal, in total 39 people were secretly Islamized. Abu-Talib, Muhammad's uncle and guardian, while protecting him, refused to renounce polytheism "If God has ordered you to do your work, do it! I will protect you, and no one can molest you,” he said. The news spread quickly in Mecca that Muhammad had become the preacher of a new religion: “If I hear that someone has believed in him; and if I see Muhammad coming to the mosque and worshiping any other object than Hobal (idol), I will throw a stone at him and cause his brain to spring up”, says Abu-Jahl (572-624). In 613, the angel Gabriel ordered Muhammad, who had become "Rassoul" or sent from God or the "Nabi", a prophet, to preach in public: "Messenger, communicate what has been sent down to you from your Lord. If you do not do it, if you have not communicated his message, and God will not protect you from people” Sura 5, Verse 71. Also, Muhammad, despite the severe persecutions he suffered, c It was by peaceful means that he began his preaching. Meccans who have known Muhammad, an ordinary man, for 40 years are dubious. “No one is a prophet at home” goes a saying. He does not know how to perform miracles like Moses, a magician, or Jesus with his miraculous healings or his ability to resurrect the dead. He is asked, in turn, to split the moon, to raise the dead, to build houses of gold, to remove the mountains from Mecca, to build a staircase to heaven or to bring down an angel visible on earth. For Muhammad, the miracle is the Koran: “God is Almighty and He is capable of doing everything, but I did not come to perform miracles; my mission is to guide you and warn you of those who divert you from the commandment of God,” he replies to the jeers.

Muhammad first begins to try to convince those around him. “Islam especially attacks idolaters; there is no other god but God, and Mahomet is his prophet; this is the foundation of the Muslim religion; this was the most essential point: to consecrate the great truth announced by Moses and confirmed by Jesus. (…) There is no other god but God and Muhammad is his prophet. (…) I am a unitary Muslim and I glorify the Prophet (…) I hope that the time will not be long when I can bring together all the wise and educated men of the country, and establish a uniform regime, based on the principles of Al Coran which are the only true ones and which alone can make men happy" writes Napoleon BONAPARTE. When Muhammad invites his whole clan over for a meal to talk about Islam. After the meal, Abu-Lahad told her “You invited us today to show us your magic” he told her. “I am the apostle of God, sent to all men in general, and to you in particular” replies. Abu-Lahad gets up and leaves, with insolent words: "Was it only for this stupid announcement that you disturbed us and wasted our time?" he said. Curiously, Muhammad will meet the worst difficulties from some members of his family. His grandfather and protector, Abu-Muttalib remained a polytheist until his death. His uncle, Abou-Lahab, as well as his wife, Djamila, a poetess with venomous satire, will prove to be the fiercest adversaries of Muhammad and will persecute him seriously. The two daughters of Mahomet, married to the sons of Abou-Lahab will be repudiated. Mahomet will continue his apostolate: "You and the idols that you adore, beside God, you will be the prey of Hell" Sura 21, Verse 98 says “The Prophets”. The Meccans expelled him from the sanctuary.

In his great forbearance, Muhammad is undeterred, and invites all the inhabitants of Mecca to a public meeting on Mount Safa. As soon as he begins his sermon, his uncle Abou-Lahab answers him “You, Mahomet, you want to call us to a religion, curse you and religion. Go to hell ! This Muhammad is a madman!” and the crowd dispersed. Mahomet tolerates raillery and hurtful words; he is even comforted and encouraged by the Angel Gabriel to persevere “Announce what you have been commanded, and turn away from polytheists. Our assistance is sufficient for you against those who mock you and religion” Quran, Sura 15, verses 94-95, known as “Al-Hijr” (a region of northern Arabia). The Meccans believe that Muhammad insulted the religion of their ancestors. If he continues to attack and insult the polytheists, he will be molested and expelled from the city. The Meccans believe that they would already be tolerant of accepting that Muhammad teaches his new religion freely, but on condition of not insulting their gods. Muhammad's tears flowed "It is God who orders me also, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand, and if they burn me with fire, I will not withdraw a letter of what God commands me» replies the Prophet. Muhammad will continue his preaching in indifference. But the verses of the Koran recommend patience to Muhammad, the Prophets before him had suffered martyrdom. However, Abu-Lahad and his wife begin throwing stones at Muhammad's window. When they are caught in the act, they hire minions to continue this dirty work. Djamila throws thorns on Muhammad's path which will prick the soles of his feet. After the offenses and hurtful words, the polytheists decide to kill the Prophet. So while Muhammad, kneeling and praying at the Ka'ba, Abou-Jahl, comes from behind and puts on his head a camel's stomach filled with blood and excrement. Muhammad who was suffocating will be released, in extremis, by his daughter Rokhaya. The next day Muhammad returns to pray at the Ka'ba, Abu Mu'Aït comes from behind, wraps him in his coat and beats him. Muhammad manages to free himself, but seriously injured, he is covered in blood. “Abu-Lahad will descend into the fires of hell. His wife will follow him, carrying wood. At his heart will be tied a palm bark rope” Koran, Sura 111, verses 3, 4 and 5 called “The fibers”.

In 614, Muhammad still had few followers. But soon, the oppressed and excluded as blacks, foreigners, outlaws, the poor; women and slaves are tempted by Islam, an emancipatory religion. “The Negro represents the natural man in all his barbarism and lack of discipline. Nothing can be found in his character that accords with the human” wrote George W. F. HEGEL in “Reason in History”. The Muslim religion advocates equality between its followers, the criterion of distinction between men being based exclusively on piety: “There is no difference between an Arab and a non-Arab nor between a White and a Black except by piety” said Muhammad. Humanist and messenger of Justice, Muhammad spoke to all men on earth. Because in this religion, all Muslims form a single community, whose ties are no longer tribal, but based solely the faith. Bilal Ben Rabah (580-640), a black slave from Abyssinia, who did not want to renounce Islam, stripped of his clothes, chained and crucified at the gates of Mecca, will be redeemed by Abu Bakr. Bilal is the first Muezzin, the one calling to prayer. For this call, the muezzin says “the Adhan”: “Allahou akbar, allahou akbar! (God is great! God is great!).. God is great! God is big ! I testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger. Come pray! Come pray! Come to salvation! Come to salvation! God is big! God is big! There is no god but God”. This process, Islam coming out of hiding and confidentiality, gives courage to other people who were afraid to convert. Bilal will kill his former master at the famous battle of Badr.

Omar will sell slaves to Abu Bakr, including two women, Zinnîrah and Lubaïnah who will convert to Islam. But Abou-Jahl, animated by an immeasurable hatred against Mahomet, refuses his slave, Sumayah, who wanted to convert, and kills her. From now on the clan of the enemies of Mahomet prohibits the sale of the slaves, in Mecca, wanting to join Mahomet. At that time, Abu Bakr had managed to redeem six slaves: 2 men and 4 women, now Muslims. It was during this difficult period that Othman or Ousmane, future caliph and son-in-law of the Prophet, became a Muslim.

Muslims denied access to Mecca, go to pray in a ravine, on the edge of Mecca. The pagans believe that Muhammad would have no merit in becoming their Prophet and that they do not have to abandon religion, a source of profit for the merchants of Mecca, especially during the Truce of God. Muhammad, a man of good, forbidding evil, is accused of being just a vulgar poet. During this difficult period, Muhammad managed to Islamize a great wrestler, Rukanah, as well as Hamzah, his uncle, a knight and sports giant. Hamza engages in religion to save the honor of his clan and defend Muhammad. However, the Muslims, persecuted more than ever, took refuge in the hill of Safa, in the house of Arqam. In this year, 614 Omar, a strong and courageous man, is charged by the polytheists, to go and kill Muhammad. Arriving at the house of Arqam, Omar finds members of his family converted to Islam, without his knowledge, including his sister. So he wants to read the Koran and form an opinion. "It's splendid, it's extraordinary and sublime!" says Omar from the Koran. Muhammad is neither an enlightened nor an impostor "he is sent by Him who created the earth and the heavens" Sura 20, Verse 3. "If this is so, the idolatry we practice is absurd, and our gods are nothing» says Omar Al-Khattab (584-644) who wants to convert to Islam. From now on, he undertakes to protect and defend Muhammad, with whom he toured the Ka'ba.

An incident will cause a spark in an atmosphere already heavy with threats. Thus, a certain Said, a Muslim praying on Mount Hira, was beaten throughout his prayer. He then seized a camel bone and broke it on the skull of the infidel who had just attacked him, unjustly. The disbelievers then began to threaten Muhammad with death. After the insults there will be the spitting in the face. The Muslims asked Muhammad for permission to defend themselves and fight; he asked them to be patient: "Wait like the resolute men among the Apostles" says Sura 46, Verse 34. Islam growing timidly and peacefully in Mecca, the polytheists sent an emissary to Abu-Talib -619), with a view to exchanging young people for the life of Muhammad. This one refuses to deliver his nephew. But the tension a “Fitnah”, or discord, is so great, that Mahomet thinks of protecting the Moslems. In 615, a group (75 men, 9 women and 25 foreigners) was sent to take refuge in Abyssinia. Muhammad addresses a letter to the Negus, Nedjashi (560-631), a Christian: “I certify that Jesus, son of Mary, is the spirit of God and of his word. I send to you a small number of Muslims. As soon as they arrive, receive them with hospitality”. A few years after the death of the Negus, Muhammad will celebrate a Muslim funeral service for the repose of his soul. Abu-Bakr, the financier of the exile in Abyssinia, remained in Mecca with Muhammad. He has a beautiful voice when he recites the Quran. It draws the crowd. The Koraichites send a delegation to Abyssinia to demand the extradition of the Muslim refugees, but the Negus refused in these terms: “I believe that Muhammad is the character referred to in the Gospel. Couldn't we believe in him and bring him to our country, before his religion conquers the whole world?" he said.

Mohammed, while he was praying, Oqba, a polytheist, threw a rope around his neck, and dragged him out of the mosque; he was about to suffocate when Abu-Bakr came in time to deliver him. Another day, on Mount Safa, Abu-Jahl heaped insults on him, and threw a stone at him, wounding him in the head. Hamza, a son of Abou-Mouttalib, having learned of this serious attack, went to find Abou-Jahl at the mosque, insulted him, hit him, then converted to Islam. Abdallah will go and read a verse from the Koran, “Er-Rahman” during this time, he is beaten up and covered with insults: “In the name of God, the Most Merciful, He taught the Koran. He created man. He taught her to express herself. As for the sky, he has raised it very high. And He set the scales that you wouldn't rebel against the scales; establish the weight with justice, and do not make the balance, and as for the earth, He laid it for mankind” Sura 55, Verses 1-10, “Er-Rahman” or “The Merciful”. The disbelievers tried to deceive Muhammad by offering a fool's bargain: “If you want us to worship your God, worship our deities too. If our worship is true, you will have the benefit, and if yours is true, we will have the benefit of it,” they say. Then the Lord sent down, successively, three verses of the Koran: "Will you recommend me to adore anyone other than God, O ignorant people!", Sura 39, Verse 64. "I do not adore what you worship”, Sura 109, Verse 1, “The disbelievers”; "The groups" ; “Keep your religion, I will keep mine. They came very close to turning you away from what We have revealed to you”, Sura 17, Verse 75. “Iblis” or Satan, came by night, and put in the mouth of the Prophet these satanic verses: “These idols are illustrious Gharâniqs (stars or pagan deities in Taif and Mecca), whose intercession is to be hoped for”. Then the pagans rejoiced believing that Mahomet, while making the prayer, would have reached point of view, while prostrating in front of these stars. Muhammad will repent "We have not sent, before you, any apostle, without Satan having cast some error in his thought" Sura 22, Verse 22, "The Pilgrimage". According to Al-TABARI this error was corrected by Sura 53, Verses 21-22, "the Star".

In the year 620, Muhammad without the protection of his family appealed to the Angel Gabriel. The Prophet is invited to Heaven on the 27th of the month of Rajab (7^th Muslim month, Rajab), one of the four sacred months of Islam (Koran, Suras 9-36 and 2-217) . During this period, war is prohibited; it is now a time of truce suspending conflicts of any kind. It is recommended to fast and give alms, according to AL-BUKHARI. Therefore, it is the famous Terrestrial Journey or “Isra” that goes from Mecca to Jerusalem, the ancient temple of Solomon, housing the “Al-Aqsa” mosque, a holy place common to Judaism and Islam. That night, the Prophet was at home, and after the prayer, he went to sleep: “I was in Mecca, the angel split my chest and washed it with the water of Zem Zem. Then he brought a golden ewer filled with Kikma, meaning wisdom and faith, and poured them into my chest,” he said. For this land journey, a mythical mount, Al-Buraq, is driven between horse and mule, with a woman's head, and moving at the speed of lightning. Following Oum Hani, the daughter of Abu Talib, before Jerusalem, Muhammad stops first at Sinai on the mountain, where God had spoken to Moses, then at Bethlehem where Jesus was born, finally at Hebron, at the tomb of Abraham , then to Bethlehem. According to tradition, Gabriel accompanied Muhammad to Jerusalem, where he met Abraham, Moses and Jesus; he prayed with them in the temple of Solomon: "Purity to Him who, one night, made his Slave travel from the Holy Mosque to the very Distant Mosque in order to show him some of our signs", Quran Surah 17-1, known as "the Night Journey". Before leaving Jerusalem, he leaves, like Abraham, the imprint of his foot in Jerusalem at Masdjid Aqsa (distant Mosque). “I was transported to Jerusalem). There, I attached it to the ring intended for the use of the prophets. I entered the mosque where I prayed two Rak'as. When I left, the angel Djibril offered me two containers: one containing wine, the other milk. I choose milk, and Djibril then told me that I had chosen the primordial path (al-Fitra). Then, carried by him, I rose to the celestial regions” says the Prophet. It is at this moment that begins the night of the ascension "Layla Al-Mi'raj" or the Celestial Journey, from Jerusalem to the 7^th Heaven. Dante will be inspired by this trip, in his "Divine Comedy". In the lower heaven, Muhammad is welcomed by the angel Ishmael. The angel, Malik, guardian of Hell, who did not smile, showed him around his kingdom. He meets Adam, the father of mankind. On the Day of Retribution, those on the left line will go to Hell, and on the right to Paradise.

In the second heaven, Muhammad meets Jesus and John, son of Zechariah, in the third Joseph, son of Jacob, in the fourth Idriss, in the fifth Aaron, in the sixth Moses and in the seventh Abraham. He is transported "to the Jujube of the limit", to the right of the invisible throne of God. Muhammad did not see God, but to converse with Him, he needs the angel Gabriel. God recommended to Muhammad patience and kindness towards men. Muhammad receives 12 commandments, Moses had 10: worship only one God; to love and respect his father and his mother; love those close to you and give them what is due to them; protect the weak, travelers and strangers; not to be prodigal; not to be stingy; not to commit adultery; do not kill; not to touch the property of others, and especially the property of orphans; do not falsify measurements; do not do foolish things and do not be proud. “If you do good, you do good to your souls; and if you do Evil, well, it is for them. The Qur'an guides that which is more upright, and it gives glad tidings to believers who do good deeds, that there is for them, verily, great reward" thus summarizes Sura 17 verses 7, 9 and 10, the whole essence of this Nocturne Journey.

The Lord recommends to Muhammad, as to Moses, the exodus. He must gather his followers and leave Mecca. Mahomet speaks of his Nocturnal Journey to Oum Hani which dissuades him from talking about it; he would risk exposing himself to ridicule; it takes a month for a caravan to go from Mecca to Syria, and another to return. Yet the next day when Muhammad recounts his terrestrial and celestial journeys, but no one believes him except Abu-Bakr, nicknamed "Siddiq", the Truthful. “The great prophet of Islam ascended to the throne of the Great Creator and met Him. I firmly believe in his ascension with all my heart” writes Féodor DOSTOIEVSKI. IBN ARABI (1165-1240), a writer from Andalusia, in his “Book of the Ascension”, now available in French, faithfully retraced this marvelous journey of the Prophet.

In 616, the pagans of Mecca decreed a Fatwa of ostracism against Muslims: prohibition of mixed marriages, of speaking to them. In a tribal society solidarity is vital. The Muslims then expelled from the territory of Mecca, took refuge in a Chi'b, a cleft in the rock, at the gates of the city; it is a grim and desolate place, reserved for outcasts, such as blacks, slaves and fugitives. It is forbidden to trade with these banished, to buy or sell them anything. It is the abjuration of Islam or death. “To desire death is to shorten life. To despise death is to prolong life” goes an Arab saying. Muslims therefore preferred to endure hunger, suffering and humiliation. It was in 619, the year of the end of exile, Khadija, wife, first Muslim woman, adviser, confessor, treasurer and director of conscience of the Prophet, ruined and weakened, died after suffering. Khadija had given the Prophet three boys who died young: Al Qacim, at-Tâhir and at-Tayyib. They had four daughters: Rukaya, Zainab, Umm Kultum and Fatima. Two days after this disappearance, Muhammad's uncle and guardian, Abu-Talib, also died. Although a pagan, he endured persecution and never gave in. According to Al-TABARI, it was first Abbass, two years older than Muhammad, who became the leader of the Hashemites. But he is an indolent and weak man, unable to protect Muhammad effectively. Abu-Lahat, brother of the deceased, and worst enemy of Islam, gained ascendancy in the clan of Muhammad. But the prophet continues to say that the pagans when they die will go to Hell. Abu-Lahat considers that Muhammad, who attacked the ancestors, should be excluded from the family, and no longer benefit from its protection. Feeling threatened, he leaves for the oasis of Taif, a city of ramparts, 65 kilometers from Mecca, but he is driven out by the inhabitants, unwilling to get angry with the Meccan traders . Back in Mecca, he took the opportunity to remarry and put an end to his previous monogamy. During Khadija's lifetime, Muhammad remained monogamous. In 620, he married on the one hand a widow named Saïda, on the other hand the very young daughter of his disciple Abou-Bakr. Her name is Aïcha who is between 13 and 14 years old. He will also marry Sauda Bint-Zam'ah, divorced from a Muslim who emigrated to Abyssinia, and who became a Christian.

During the Oumrah, a short pilgrimage to Mecca, in Mina, Muhammad met, in the greatest secrecy, six inhabitants of Medina, from the Khazraj and Aus clans, they heard the Jews speak of the imminent arrival of a Messiah, a Paraclete. They convert to Islam. In 621, Muhammad, in the defile between Mecca and Mina, met twelve pilgrims from Medina, a city torn by incessant internal quarrels, wishing to have an external arbiter. They want to grant protection to Muhammad and swear fidelity and protection to him. In the parade of 622, Muhammad sees again the Medinans, the "Ansars" or supporters of Islam who are now 73 men and 2 women. They swear protection and obedience to Muhammad and will fight for him. Muhammad, like the 12 Apostles, appoints 12 representatives in Medina and therefore embarks on the path of exile, with the Muslims of Mecca, the "Muhajiruns", the future exiles or companions of the Prophet. Muhammad undertakes not to abandon the people of Medina. For a long time, the house of the Prophet, who had become a real threat to paganism, had been surrounded; his life is seriously threatened. A plan is set in motion to assassinate the Prophet; each of the 10 tribes of Mecca must designate a representative for this disastrous project. Rukaya, an aunt to Muhammad warns him of grave danger. Muhammad therefore chose exile, or "Hijra" on Medina. The day before the flight, Ali, to deceive the enemy, dressed in his clothes, sleeps in Muhammad's bed. The Prophet leaves for Medina, accompanied by Abu-Bakr. On the way, they take refuge in a cave, infested with snakes, Mahomet sucks the blood of the bite of which Abu-Bakr is victim. During the night, the angel Gabriel sends spiders to hastily weave a web at the entrance, in order to deceive the vigilance of the minions pursuing them. In front of the cave a bird is making its nest and stones blocked the entrance. On the way, a barren goat gives them enough milk, and a caravan from Syria gives them new clothes and food. These miracles strengthen their determination to continue the path to Medina.

B - Muhammad in Medina, (622 to 632): the politician and the warlord

1 – Muhammad: a new era, the politician and founder of the Umah,

The exile of Muhammad to Quba, in the suburbs of Medina, in 622, is called “Hedjira” or the Hegira, emigration, flight, it is a new era, Year 1 for the "Oumah", of the Muslim community. The Muslim calendar starts on Monday July 15, 622. Medina or Yatrib, endowed with an oasis, was called Tabab Taïbah, or pleasant city. But the climate being humid, the men of the desert who stayed there caught malaria, like Abu-Bakr. "Medina" means "the city" without any other qualifier. It is a city with 72 castles, including 59 for the Jews of Medina (Banu Qurayza, Nadir, Dakhum, Zawra and Masika) and 13 for the Arabs, the Aws and Khazraj tribes have Jewish ancestry. The Khazraji and Aus Arab clans are in perpetual conflict around land wars, with no winners or losers. The Jewish tribes, probably coming from Syria from Jerusalem, fleeing the persecutions of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (605-662), in charge of trade, crafts, goldsmithing and the cultivation of date palms, often conclude alliances with the Arabs, guaranteeing the balance of forces, often in tension. There is no lasting truce, justice or prison in Medina.

The relationship between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina, "the people or people of the book", is a succession of seduction, mistrust, and then finally open war. The Jewish community at the start had not been reluctant to the arrival of Muhammad in Medina as an arbiter. They hoped that Muhammad, a supporter of monotheism, would become a true Jew. Also, and initially, Muhammad in the seduction, multiplies the gestures of appeasement of the Jewish community. He orders the midday prayer, which the Jews call “Zohr”, and accepts the fasting of the Jews of “Ashura” in homage to the day when Moses triumphed over the Pharaoh, proclaims food prohibitions relating to pork and adopts a lunar calendar. Muhammad who built his first mosque, on a Judaic ablution ground, in Quba, it is oriented towards Jerusalem. Muhammad wants to seduce both the Christians and the Jews of Medina. But right from the start, if the Jewish community is enthusiastic; they have long awaited a Savior anointed by the Lord, a Messiah. However, the rabbis remained suspicious, for them, an Arab could not be a Prophet. Only a Jew, representative of the chosen people, can be, in accordance with the Old Testament, the Torah and the Talmud. Five days after his arrival, Muhammad celebrates the Friday service. The rabbis therefore begin to fight it. So, in February 624, Muhammad changed the direction of prayer, “Qibla”, which would henceforth be the “Ka’ba” in Mecca. Because of this, this place of worship is called “Mosque with 2 Qiblas”. It was in Medina that Muhammad married Aisha, the “Mother of the Believers”.

Mahomet builds a new mosque and attacks, in his capacity as arbiter, the organization of the community of Medina, confronted with anarchy. Before Muhammad, “The Arabs were not a people, they were a collection of tribes, tribes, families. The state did not exist. The family multiplied by the tribe existed alone” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE. In 623, as a reformer and legislator, Muhammad wrote, and this was a first in this tribal Arabia, without a state, a Constitution or Pact, of 52 articles, for this city-state: “There is no doubt that the Prophet Muhammad is one of the greatest reformers of mankind. He is to be praised for leading humanity to true light, to justice and peace. He prevented the shedding of innocent blood, and at the same time opened the way to progress and prosperity for the world. Apart from this man, no one in the world has been able to achieve such a great work, which is why he is worthy of respect, admiration and consideration. Muhammad is the Prophet of Islam. He invited his people to worship only Allah” writes Leon TOLSTOI. The Constitution of Medina isbased on multiculturalism, tolerance and mutual respect: “The Jews constitute a community living with the Believers. To the Jews their religion and to the Muslims theirs. To each of the two communities its lords and its individuals. Jews to take care of their expenses and Muslims to take care of theirs. Jews and Muslims must act with one accord against anyone who attacks the signatories of the pact. Muslims now constitute an "Umah", a community transcending ethnic, religious, gender or tribal criteria, but based exclusively on religious faith: "Muslims constitute a single community in the of Men”, 1^st principle. Differences of class or caste are abolished. Protection is granted "to the humblest of believers" who are all brothers, according to article 15. Islam having been born in an Arab society without a State, and where the individual is nothing without his community, substituted tribal solidarity for religious mutual aid, based on benevolence and solidarity: “The believers will not leave any of their people under the burden of heavy obligations. The individual, although abandoned by the clan, is not alone” says article 1^er. Jews adhering to this Covenant will be entitled to the same aid, assistance, protection, friendship and fraternity as Muslims (articles 16, 43 and 44). However, this solidarity is not without limits and in no way excludes the responsibility of each, in the face of reprehensible acts “Believers must put themselves against those who have committed violence or have desired injustice. And the hands of all will be raised against that one, even if he is the son of one of them” article 13. “Murder is punished by the law of retaliation No one has the right to grant protection to a murderer » section 15.

Each tribe, pagan, Jewish or Muslim, will be governed by the laws of its community. Muhammad introduced a guarantee of security and protection based on responsibility, by prohibiting all forms of discrimination. The Koran refers to the Covenant of Medina: “Children of Israel, remember my blessing which I have bestowed upon you. And fulfill my pact, I will fulfill your pact”, Koran, Sura 2, verse 38. Everyone retains their freedom of religion and conscience, provided they do not encroach on that of others (8^th principle) , a secularism that does not say its name. “Those of the Jews who join us in the faith, must be rescued, assisted. We must neither offend them nor gang up on them”. Muhammad remained respectful to Christians and Jews: "Those who believed and those who became Judaized, and Nazarenes and Sabeans, whoever believed in God and in the Day of Judgment and did good works, and for those who there, their reward is with their Lord”, Koran, Sura 2, Verse 59, known as “The Cow”.

All Arabs were not, at the time, Muslims, they were called "Munafiquns", lukewarm, neutral or hypocritical; they are those who “oscillating between two, never belonging either to these or to those” Quran, Sura 4, Verses 136-142. For Islam, neutrality is man's greatest sin. They will ally with a part of the Jewish community and the Meccans, to fight Muhammad and his nascent, and still fragile Islam. The Jews, encouraged in this by the rabbis, did not believe in Muhammad, because he is an Arab, so it is not the Prophet they were waiting for "And when there came to them from God a book confirming what they had already, whereas before they sought Victory over the disbelievers, they disbelieved. Well, curse of God on the disbelievers!”, Sura 2, verse 83, known as “The cow”.

2 – Muhammad, the warlord

The view that Westerners have of Muhammad, sometimes tinged with great bias, is that of the propagator of a religion that conquered by violence, by the sword. In reality, Muhammad has been engaged since 610, a peaceful struggle in his capacity as propagator of Islam. When he arrived in Medina in 622, he had ten years left to live, but it was forced and forced that he had to resort to armed struggle. “Great ideas must be able to fight for their survival. It is essential to make oneself known by preaching, proselytizing, and sometimes fighting” writes Thomas CARLYLE. Jihad means, not the holy war against the disbelievers, it is a Jihad of the heart, an inner war within oneself, war against our passions and the temptation of Evil, which lives in us or awaits us permanently. Muhammad had guessed the future betrayals of his heritage: “One day Islam will be the foreigner it began to be. (...) Then everything will be lawful for men. They will claim false things about my life. They will draw the portrait of another man whom they will name Mohammad and whom they will wave according to the circumstances. They will thus justify their turpitudes and conceal their weaknesses. They will be outside the sphere of God,” he confided to his wife Aïcha. Indeed, Islam, from ancient times, has formulated a prohibition against killing; killing is a crime against humanity.

It was the Meccans, under the leadership of Abou-Soufyan, who initiated hostilities. They issue, without success, an ultimatum to the Muslims, then to the "lukewarm" people of Medina to deliver Muhammad. Controlling all the caravan routes in the desert, they will end up decreeing a blockade against Medina. Muhammad did not seek war, but cornered, he must defend himself, with few means and he is obliged to fight with few means: "If the greatness of the design, the smallness of the means, the immensity of the result are the three measures of human genius, who will dare compare humanly a great man of modern history to Mohammad? The most famous have moved only arms, laws, empires; they only founded (when they founded something) material powers that often collapsed before them” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Muhammad informs the Meccans that the territories he controls are henceforth forbidden to them. During one of the patrols, a Meccans is killed during the month of Rajab, period of ancestral truce and small pilgrimage. The pagans are irritated and the Jews of Medina launch satires against Muhammad, a prophet who was the first to violate the holy month. When it comes to choosing between God and God's truce of the pagans, Muhammad naturally chose God. When it comes to God, ancestral taboos must disappear. Muhammad received from the Koran the authorization, in certain circumstances, to wage holy war, Sura 9, Verse 74.

The mythical battle of Badr will take place on the 17th of the month of Ramadan, about twenty kilometers from Medina. The forces are disproportionate: 313 Muslims against 950 men of Abou-Soufyan. No one must flee, the attack of the Muslims, in the greatest discipline, will be done in close rank: “God sent you the sleep of safety. He sent down water from heaven and delivered you from the abomination of Satan, to bind your hearts by faith and strengthen your courage” Sura 8, Verse 11, called “the spoils”, in reference to the spoils of war. Muhammad promised the martyrs Paradise. Muhammad takes sand and the enemy fighters are blinded. From heaven descend five thousand angels and at their head Gabriel. “Without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed income; if ever a man had the right to say that he ruled by divine right, it would be Mohammed, because he held all the power without his instruments and without supporters” writes R. Bosworth SMITH (1839-1908). The Muslims who emerged victorious, miraculously from this first battle, lost only 14 men “It was not you who killed them. They fell under the sword of the Almighty. It is not you, Mahomet who assailed them; it is God in order to give the faithful a mark of his protection. God knows everything and God hears everything. It was his arm that protected you. The victory demonstrated the fairness of our cause” Sura 8, Verses 17-19. This battle, in its symbolism, announces other great victories for the nascent Muslim community. “Never did a man undertake, with such meager means, a work so disproportionate to human forces, since he had, in the conception and execution of such a grand design, no other instrument than himself. -even and other auxiliaries than a handful of barbarians in a corner of the desert” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE.

However, this victory of Muhammad is overshadowed by two important events. It is on the one hand the death of his daughter, Rukaya who had married a son of Abou-Lahab (549-624) and had remarried in Othman. Of legendary beauty, Rukaya of all her sisters, was the closest to Muhammad. During the Battle of Badr, Muhammad ordered Othman to stay in Medina to treat Rukaya, who was already ill. In addition, another daughter of Muhammad, Zainab, had had a boy, but while trying to reach Medina, pursued by pagans, she fell from a camel, her baby died. From this fall, Zainab will remain crippled all her life. Muhammad will therefore only have male descendants from Fatima, and his grandsons, Al-Hassan, and Al-Hussein will later be murdered. On the other hand, shortly after the Battle of Badr, an incident ignited the powder. One or more Muslim women are molested at the market by Jews from the Banu-Kainuka tribe. Skirmishes, murders on both sides. The chief of the tribe in question refuses to pay the regulatory fine to the relatives of the Muslim victims. The tribe is besieged by the Prophet and his disciples and, after two weeks, forced to hand over their immense possessions to them and to emigrate.

Some of the Jews decide, more than ever, to join forces with the pagans of Mecca, with whom they trade, to kill Muhammad, who escapes a knife attack. But it was also during this time that Abou-Lahab, an uncle and one of Muhammad's worst enemies, died in Mecca following an illness; he had not been able to participate in the battle of Badr. In Mecca, his wife, Umm Djamil, had thrown thorns on the path of Muhammad, thus bloodying his feet: “Perish the two hands of Abu-Lahab and let him himself perish. His fortune does not set him off in anything, nor what he acquires. He will soon be thrown into a Fire full of flames, so will his wood-carrying wife. At his neck, a rope of fibers” Sura 111, Verses 1-5 called “The fibers”. From now on, Abou-Soufyan has become the main enemy of Mahomet; he concluded a secret agreement with a part of the Jews, the chief of the Nadir clan, owner of a plantation of date palms. But the plan having failed, Abou-Soufyan set fire to and looted Arab farms, and in his flight he threw sacks of barley flour. The Muslims subsequently managed to intercept a caravan of silverware in the desert of Najd. In Medina, part of the Arabs and at their head Abou-Afak, allied with the Jews, use satire, the pamphlet to slander, ridicule and outrage Muhammad, through poetry. In tribal Arab society speech is a deadly weapon, and Muhammad suffers from it. But one of the qualities of a Prophet is resilience "patient endurance" Sura 103, Verse 3, called "time". Faced with his critics, Muhammad decides to go to the Jews and invites them to dialogue, to live in harmony and peace, respecting the Pact of Medina that they signed, in its article 45. It is forbidden the tribes of Medina to pact or plot with the enemies of Mecca. However, a news item will have serious consequences. A young Arab girl enters the Jewish quarter of the Qainuqa tribe. Young people accost her, try to tear off her veil; she defends herself; a goldsmith attaches the dress of the girl to the wall with a nail, who when she tries to escape finds herself completely naked. A Muslim who tries to take his defense hits the goldsmith, and this Arab is killed by young Jews. The 700 goldsmiths refuse to pay blood money, in accordance with the Medina Pact. The Qainuqa Jews, hoping for the imminent arrival of the Meccans, to put an end to Islam, choose to resist. But the Meccans are slow to come. Muhammad demanded that these Qainuqa Jews surrender their weapons and leave Medina.

Finally, on March 11, 625, the Meccans sent an army of 3000 men against 1000 men of Muhammad. Part of the Jews and due to the tension that has arisen recently with the Qainuqa tribe, decide to openly support the Meccans, others leave the city. Both the Meccans and the Medinans are accompanied by women. The battle will take place in Ohod, 3 km from Medina. Hamza, the wrestler will be killed there; Hint, wife of Abou-Soufyan, tears his stomach, removes the liver and eats it; she cuts off the ears, the nose, the tongue and her sex, and makes a necklace of them. Wounded Muhammad is cared for by his two daughters, Fatima and Umm Kultum acting as war nurses. The Muslims are defeated: 25 dead on the Mecca side and 70 from the Medina camp. Since Muslims were not disciplined at the battle of Ohod, Muhammad believes that defeat is a means by which God tests the strength of faith in believers: "God loves the patient" Sura 3, Verse 140, known as "the Amram's family. This battle delighted the "lukewarm" Arabs and in particular the Jewish tribe of the Banu-Nadir, for whom Muhammad would not be a prophet, but an impostor. "Since the beginning of the world, we have never seen a defeated Prophet", they say. To calm things down, Muhammad tries to enter into discussion with the Banu-Nadir tribe, the planters and the goldsmiths, but they refuse any exchange and count on an imminent victory for the Meccans who are opponents of Islam. This Jewish tribe of the Banu-Nadir is, consequently, expelled from Medina. At the battle of Ohod, Khunaïs, the husband of Hapsah, a daughter of Omar from another woman who is not Fatima, died. Hapsah, a 20-year-old girl, beautiful and educated, is inconsolable. Othman refuses to marry her, but it is Muhammad who will take her back. In this defeat of Ohod, Muhammad, a man in love, finds another compensation, when entering the house of his adopted son, Zaïd, he inadvertently sees his wife, Zaïnab, aged 38, unveiled and almost naked. Mahomet confesses to his adopted son and Zaïd repudiates his wife, for "disappointing", whom Mahomet marries immediately. This marriage provoked intense slander against Muhammad in Medina.

In Mecca, the pagans offer a bounty for every Muslim killed. The prisoners delivered to the inhabitants of Mecca are tortured and killed in atrocious conditions. The Meccans surrounded in April 626 Medina, a fortified city, but this siege failed. Muhammad reaffirms his doctrine of Islam those who believe in one God, avoid evil and do good. When you have faith, despair, doubt and pessimism are out of place. One should have "the Tawakul", an unshakeable faith in God. In his intelligence system, Muhammad learns that the Banu-Mustaliq Jewish tribes are arming themselves for a concerted attack with the Meccans of Medina, he takes the lead in December 627 and launches a victorious expedition against them. Many of the slaves converted to Islam. Muhammad marries Juwaïrariyah, who has become a slave as a result of this fight. But this victory is quickly eclipsed by a scandal of the necklace of Aisha, the favorite wife of Muhammad, accused of adultery by the enemies of the Prophet. Indeed, Aisha had traveled with Muhammad on the back of a camel, in a closed palanquin. Quickly descending in search of the palanquin, to search for her lost necklace, the caravan set off again, without her. After a while, a young latecomer brings her back to Medina. This is when the colibets start. Muhammad sends Aisha back to her father, Abu-Bakr, but the angel Gabriel convinces him of his wife's innocence. Ali's clan will continue to hate Aisha, one of the causes of discord within the Muslim community, even after the death of the Prophet.

In this tumultuous life for the Muslim community, it was in March 627 that the Meccans, allied with the Jewish Khaïbar tribe, decided, with 10,000 men, to attack Medina. It will be the war of Khandaq, known as "Ahzab" or "war of the Ditches" or trenches. This war was also nicknamed by the Koran, the battle of the "coalized", a part of the Jews expelled from Medina, and installed in Khaybar, having sent 20 delegates to the Meccans for a convergence of the struggles against Muhammad. “And when the believers saw the allies, they said, “This is what Allah and His Messenger had promised us; and Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth". And this only increased their faith and their submission" Sura 33, Verse 12 called "The allies", Sura 33, Verse 22, known as "The allies As a strategist and warlord, Muhammad harvested the oases, in order to avoid the supply of the enemies and had a ditch dug, and positioned the Muslim army between this ditch and Medina, a city surrounded by valleys, mountains and of palm groves, with the exception of the North. The Meccans made the mistake of attacking on a Saturday, a Sabbath day, and will therefore have no support from the Jewish community of Medina who are favorable to them. However, an Arab, "hypocrite" or "lukewarm" sided, with his clan, openly on the side of the Meccans: "And when the hypocrites, and who have disease (doubt) in their hearts" Sura 33, Verse 12 known as "The Allies". Moreover, during this long siege, a sandstorm arose, tearing down the tents of the Meccans, superstitious and hungry. Abu-Soufyan (560-652), faced with this disaster, decided to lift the siege of Medina. The Meccans had 8 dead and the Muslims, 6 victims. This battle will have particularly dramatic consequences for the Jewish community in Medina, at least what remained of it. Muhammad decides to finish with the Jews of the third and last tribe of Medina, the Banu-Kuraiza, whom he accuses, what is established, of having supported the attackers. After a 25-day siege, the Jews were forced to surrender. Muhammad entrusts one of his companions, a member of the Aws tribe, with the task of judging them. The latter recommends putting men to death according to ancient Hebrew law.

However, Medina was still the subject of a severe blockade and to break this lock, he decided, in May 628, to attack Khaibar, a city with 18 fortified castles and exclusively composed of Jews . They have catapults, a modern army at the time. After a long siege the city will eventually fall. Muhammad, in a process of appeasement, marries two Jewish women: Rihanna and Safia. However, Zaïnab, a Jewess, wanted to poison him with a dish of roast lamb which he spat out. "I thought that if you were truly a prophet, you would easily see poison, and if you were not, we would be delivered from your tyranny," she said, and converted to Islam.

Muhammad won almost all of his battles, but since 622 did not return to Mecca, a city plotting against him. In February 628, with 2000 faithful, Muhammad decided during the Truce to go to Mecca for a pilgrimage, but he stopped at the gates of the holy city. He engages in talks with the Meccans and wishes a reconciliation with them. In these years, Mecca faces a severe drought and part of its inhabitants begin to believe in him. As a gesture of appeasement, Mohamed marries Umm Habiba, one of the daughters of Abou-Soufyan, who has become a widow and still emigrated to Abyssinia, with other Muslims. In 629, Muhammad also married Maimounah Bint Al-Harith, a relative of Khalid Ibn Al-Walid, the Meccan general who had defeated the Muslim army at the Battle of Ohod, near Medina. He summons the Meccans to his wedding. Through these political marriages, Muhammad, without going to war, won the hearts of the inhabitants of Mecca. At the end of 630, Muhammad returned with a strong army to Mecca. There will be some brief clashes (2 Muslims and 13 pagans killed). Muhammad after the prayer at the Ka'ba, Muhammad orders the destruction of the 360 ​​idols placed in this sanctuary for generations. “This avenging patriotism of the profanations of heaven was the virtue of the children of Mohammad; the conquest of a third of the earth to his dogma was his miracle, or rather it was not the miracle of a man, it was that of reason. The idea of ​​the unity of God, proclaimed in the lassitude of fabulous theogonies, had in itself such virtue, that by exploding on its lips it set fire to all the old temples of idols and kindled with its gleams a third of the world" writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE. Muhammad keeps an image of the Virgin Mary. Bilal (580-640), the first black muezzin whose name means "water" or "refreshment", goes up to the terrace of the sanctuary, and calls for prayer. The slaves are freed. Muhammad grants forgiveness to his former and fierce enemies, including Hint, the wife of Abou-Soufyan. On January 27, 631 Muhammad left the idols of the surrounding towns, including the statue of Al-Ozza.

II – Muhammad and his religion revealed through the Koran

A – Islam, its monotheism and its tolerance

1 – The meaning of Islam and its essence

The Koran, "Al Quran", the uncreated reading or word of the Lord, is the holy book of Muslims, revealed to Muhammad, an envoy of God. “It is We who sent down the Koran and who are its preservers” Sura 15, Verse 9. “The Koran, as the word of God is uncreated; this text is the miracle par excellence; he is endowed with the mysterious privilege of incomparability (Ijaz), since all creation is moved by the creative word; where every believer undoubtedly recognizes the essence of the Truth” writes Louis MASSIGNON in the introduction to the Koran exposed by HAMIDULLAH. Since Muhammad, in his great sincerity, far from being a visionary, an impostor or an ambitious man, "the hero is no longer regarded as a god by other humans, but as inspired by God, a Prophet" adds Thomas CARLYE. The Koran, made up of 114 chapters, divided into 114 "Suras" or chapters, each with a title, and 6219 "Ayates" verses or sections, was not codified in the time of Muhammad. It was the Caliph, Abou-Bakr, worried about the gradual disappearance of the faithful of the first hour, who had him transcribe the hour who codified this text and gave a copy to Hapsa, daughter of Omar El Khattab. In 652, the Caliph Othman or Ousmane brought together a commission of grammarians to perfect this text written in literary Arabic. Endowed with a mysterious privilege of incomparability, the Koran is a book written in literary Arabic, full of meaning, poetic and recited in a particularly moving way: “the major part of the text is rhythmic: a kind of wild chant. No doubt this is an important point, this character inevitably escapes us in translation” writes Thomas CARLYLE. “The Arabic language had to be perfected a long time ago; it was fixed before Muhammad, and has not changed since then” writes Voltaire. Muslims still continue today to recite, in a moving way, the Koran which has been faithfully translated into all languages, especially French.

What does the Quran contain?

The God of Muhammad is characterized by his uniqueness, but also by his perfect "indivisibility". “He never begat, nor was he begotten. And no one is equal to Him,” says Sura 112, 1-4. He is a transcendent God, independent of all human perception, but he is closer to man than his jugular vein “We created man and We know that his soul suggests to him. We are, however, closer to him than his jugular vein", Sura 50, Verse 16. Islam appears to be a religion of monotheism par excellence "We send down from the Koran what is healing and mercy to believers", Coran Surat 17-84, called the “Night Voyage”. The God dwells very high in Heaven, above men. "Never did man voluntarily or involuntarily propose a more sublime goal, since this goal was superhuman: to undermine the superstitions interposed between the creature and the Creator, to restore God to man and man to God , to restore the rational and holy idea of ​​​​the Divinity in this chaos of material and disfigured gods of idolatry” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE.

The five pillars of Islam are:

The "Chahâda" is the Arabic term for the ritual formula of adherence to Islam: "There is no god except God Himself, and Muhammad is the Messenger Envoy of God".

The "Salat" or prayer, five times a day, was ordered during the "Mi'râj" or ascension into heaven of the Prophet. Beforehand, one should purify oneself (Tasbîh) by performing ablutions in particular. The prayer results in inclinations, the “Rakas”.

Fasting, i.e. abstaining from food and drink from dawn to sunset, during the month of Ramadan, known as “Aïd El-Fitr”.

Alms or “Zakhat” to be given to the poor.

The pilgrimage to Mecca or "Hajj", if you have the means, a tradition of Abraham. During this period, the Muslim must put himself in absolute purity: fast and practice sexual abstinence, shave his head and dress in "Iram", formed of a one-piece suit. He must also go around the Ka'ba or "Tawaf" seven times, go to the Safa and Marwa mountains, as well as to Medina. The visit to Jerusalem, a holy place, is now suspended due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Koran is not limited to regulating the devotion and worship of God, it is above all a world of life based on compassion, great moral rigor and rectitude, without ignore life after death. Also, alcoholic beverages, gambling and loans with interest are prohibited by Islamic tradition. The Koran, leading to the Truth, hostile to images, does not, however, confine the individual to dogma, intellectual curiosity is recommended. The individual is constantly called to meditation, reflection, and reasoning on the existence of God: "Among men, only the learned fear Allah" Sura 35, Verse 28. "We send you this Book to that you explain to Men what has been revealed. Perhaps they will reflect? Sura 16, Verse 44. The Koran, a book of good faith and peace, invites submission to God, humility, sincerity, renunciation and self-annihilation. The Koran has one goal: to make men better, by obeying the divine laws. Therefore, the only valid Jihad is that of the heart, the pursuit of the Common Good, and righteousness, "submission" to the fundamental principles laid down in the Quran. Contrary to cleverly maintained propaganda, nothing justifies Jihad or holy war these days. The Koran is clear: "No compulsion in religion" says the Koran. Islam is a religion of peace, par excellence, attaching great importance to the sanctity of the human person "We have given nobility to the children of Adam” Koran, Surah 17-72. Islam strictly forbids murder, Sura 17-36. The real Jihad is a permanent "effort" or "zeal" on oneself, to constantly fight one's inner demons, it is the war to realize towards the Good and to deviate from the Evil < b>. The Koran asks to deviate from immorality, recommends kindness, purity of soul, and therefore condemns hypocrisy. Man is body and spirit, he must constantly, in his morality, work for the well-being here below and for the well-being of the hereafter. Life is a viaticum for the great journey of Tomorrow. "Those who have done the right things, Allah prepares for them Gardens under which streams flow, so that they will dwell there forever" Sura 9, Verses 89 and 90, known as "disavowal". Abou Abdullah AL-BUKHARY (816-878), by a verified chain of transmission, has gathered the words and actions of Muhammad and his companions, on which believers can draw inspiration; it is a book of "Souna", (what has been done and tolerated) or "Hadiths" (the word) of 9082 previous, rigorously verified.

The Koran, sometimes written in a hermetic or sibylline language, was supplemented by various Muslim schools, sometimes in divergent ways. What interpretation therefore should be given to the Koran nowadays? Should we favor the positive, allegorical meaning, the letter or the spirit?

The Qur'an encourages seeking the enlightenment of scholars "Ask the scholars of the Book, if you do not know" says Sura 21, Verse 7. Various schools and rites, based on the Sunna and the Hadith, have been competing for 14 centuries to interpret and fill the gaps in the Koran. The majority of Muslims are Sunnis, who are divided into four non-homogeneous schools; it is a unity in sometimes important divergences, and Messaoud BOUDJENOUN exposed them with clarity. The Hanafites of Abou HANNIFA (699-767), a liberal and enlightened school, leaving great latitude to Reason and free will (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia). The Malikites of Malik IBN ANAS (715-795), a conservative, fixed and rigid school, based on the customary law of Medina, at the time of Muhammad (North Africa, part of West Africa, Mauritania, Sudan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates). The Chafiites, by Mohamed IBN IDRISS ACH-CHAFI (767-820) who clarified certain legal principles (Indonesia, Malaysia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Comoros). The Hanbalites of Ahmed IBN HANBAL (780-855), a fundamentalist school, based on rigorous piety, without any compromise (Saudi Arabia, part of Syria, Qatar and Iraq). In particular, in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the emergence of Wahhabism at the end of the 19th century particularly reinforced this ultra-conservative dimension of the conservative interpretation of the Koran. After his death, his doctrine gave birth to a legal school: Hanbalism, present especially in Saudi Arabia today, a main country propagating fundamentalism. The birthplace of Khadija (556-619), "Oum Al-Mouamine", the Prophet's first wife, has been replaced by public toilets. The house of Abu Bakr, companion of the Prophet, the first Caliph of Islam, has been supplanted by a Hilton hotel.

2 – The relationship of Islam with the other 2 major religions

Islam is one of the three great monotheistic religions of the world like Judaism and Catholicism, and integrates the religious culture of its predecessors, while going beyond them. Muhammad had the intelligence to take up the concept of unity of the Superior Being, creator and preserver, a religious cultural fund common to several civilizations, notably Jewish, Christian, Chinese, Indian and Persian. The concepts of angel are known from the Persians, the Resurrection, the pilgrimage and the Paradise from the Talmud and from the Christians. Fasting was known to Indians, Jews and Christians, but Muhammad through the month of Ramadan made it severe. Abraham practiced it, and all the prophets after him, says the Koran. In this fight, Muhammad made the uniqueness of God triumph, in a tribal and polytheistic nation. “This dogma was twofold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; one saying what God is, the other saying what he is not; one staggering with the saber of the lying gods, the other inaugurating an idea with the word!” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE.

Mohammed neither hunted nor massacred Jews and Christians. In reality, Islam recognizes holiness in Christ, Jesus and Muhammad being “brothers in faith”, as a Hadith puts it. “Christ is one of the most eminent figures that the Koran offers to the faith of believers. But apart from Muhammad, it is with Jesus and Abraham that the lights of Revelation are concentrated. These three names essentially carry the message of the pre-Koranic writings. In the eyes of Muslims, the figure of Christ is undoubtedly the most fascinating in the Koran” writes Ali MERAD, in an article “Christ according to the Koran”. In the Koran, which quotes the name of Christ 37 times, he is designated as a "Nabi", a Prophet (Verses XIX, Sura 30), a "Rassoul" or an envoy of God to the sons of Israel (Sura IV, Verse 171). Muhammad considers that Jesus was born of Mary, whose virginity he does not dispute, Issa (Jesus), being the son of Maryam (Mary), Sura 19. However, the Koran refutes the divinity of Christ who is not the son of God. “Those were impious who said “God is Christ, son of Mary” says Sura 76. Moreover, for the Koran, Christ did not die a human death; he did not expire on the Cross, since, by an exceptional act of His Goodness, God rescued him from his executioners, to raise him to Himself (Sura 3, verse 5 and Sura 4, verses 157 and 158) .

Designated as the "Ahl Al-Kitâb" or the "People of the Book", the Jews have a considerable place in the Koran: “Those who believe^, and the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians, in a word, whoever believes in God and in the last day, and who has done good, these will be exempt from all fear and shall not be afflicted” says Sura 2, Verse 62 “Al Baqara” or “The cow”. Indeed, one of the important sources of the Koran are the biblical stories, attesting that God constantly sent the proofs of his existence, by his various envoys. Sura 21, called "Al-Anibya" ( The Prophets), lists all the Jewish prophets (Moses, Aaron, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, David, Solomon, Job, Jonah, Zechariah). They announced the existence of God and warned of punishments for the disbelievers. The Jews, chosen people, did not recognize Muhammad as the last envoy of God and some of their envoys were even persecuted or killed. According to the Koran, the revealed books of the Jews, Christians and Muslims have the same value. Also, Muhammad integrated and took over the New and Old Testaments. Following the tradition of Judaism recounted abundantly in the Koran, the founding text, that of the Torah revealed to Moses, in the presence of the assembled people (Exodus) then the Ten Commandments in ten words, requires obedience to ethical rules and the abandonment of the old sacrifices, a basis of the relationship with God and of living together. Moses, called in the Koran, "Moussa", is loved and respected, both as a prophet and as a messenger. the Koran, Moses, quoted 120 times, who called on the Jews to worship only God, fixed for them the divine laws: "Certainly, We have revealed the Torah, in which there is guide and light. It is on its basis that the prophets who submitted themselves to God judged the affairs of the Jews. Likewise, the rabbis and the doctors of the law (also judged the affairs of the Jews) on the basis of this scripture of God as they had been commanded; and they are witnesses”, Quran, Sura 5, Verse 44, known as “Al-Maidah” or “the Table served”. “Pharaohism” is characterized by a desire to reduce “the foreigner” to the status of a slave who is martyred and exploited without any respect for human dignity and life. The Quran vehemently denounces the persecutions suffered by the people of Israel.

The relationship between Muhammad, Abraham and Ishmael deserves to be highlighted. According to the Old Testament, Abraham, the biblical patriarch, saw his name changed. He became the God of the Jews, Yahweh (Genesis 17-5). Originally from Ur, in Chaldea (Iraq), Abraham decided to settle in Canaan (Palestine). Father of Ishmael who descended from an Egyptian woman, Abraham receives the divine blessing, and accepts circumcision, a custom transmitted to the Arabs. His first wife, Sarah, gave him two children: Hagar and Isaac. The Koran considers Abraham or Ibrahim, as the first messenger of God, who intervened after the flood of Noah, the founder of monotheism: “His people disputed with him; but he: “Are you going to argue with me about Allah, when he has guided me? I'm not afraid of the associates you give Him. I only fear what my Lord wills. My Lord embraces everything in his science” Abraham replies to the disbelievers who threatened to burn him, Koran Surah 6 verses 80 to 83. Ishmael, whose mother is Hagar, is considered the ancestor of the Arabs. Ishmael installs in Mecca, a house, called "the Kaaba", to the glory of the Lord, "My house for those who turn around, so that they stand there, and those who bow and prostrate themselves there" says the Sourate 22, Verse 26. The sacrifice of Abraham, concerning his son Isaac says Genesis, or Ishmael says the Koran (Sura 37, verses 99 to 111), was institutionalized within the Muslim community, through the feast of " Aïd El-Kébir” or “Id Al-Adha”, sheep festival.

However, Muhammad, the Arab Prophet, while all his predecessors were Jews, proclaimed that he was completing their missions and that he had become the last envoy of God. Indeed, the Koran inscribes the Muslim in a sacred geography oriented towards the Ka'ba, in Mecca, and no longer towards Jerusalem. This competition between monotheistic religions was transformed by the colonial party into a fratricidal ideological war : “Mohammed is the masterpiece of Evil . It cannot be asserted, boldly, that the religious world is indebted to Muhammad neither for an idea, nor for a feeling, nor for a practice. What the Prophet teaches, recommends, pursues, others before him, and better than him, have taught, prescribed and recommended: the theocratic observation that he gave to his people is only the clumsy counterfeit of the Divine Constitution of the Jewish People. The dogmas he proclaimed, monotheism and prophetism, had long been taught to his compatriots by Jews and Christians” writes I. L GONDAL. Muhammad, born in Arabia, broke with this millennial pattern. We therefore better understand the disagreements and controversies: “Believers and laymen agree on at least one fact: Muhammad was a man. Seal of the prophets or impostor, pacifist or warrior, mystic or thirsty for power, charitable soul or tyrant, ascetic or lover of women, the personality of al-Amîn, the Honest, the ultimate messenger of Allah, raises many questions and nourishes all fantasies" writes Zineb El RHAZOUI, in the foreword to "the life of Muhammad" published by "Charlie Hebdo". Was Muhammad an impostor?: “Imposture is the hypocrisy of conviction. Hypocrisy does not have the power of conviction, just as a lie never has the power of truth. But his life, his contemplation, his heroic blasphemies against the superstitions of his country, his audacity to confront the furies of idolaters, his constancy in enduring them for fifteen years in Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scandal and almost victim among his compatriots, his flight finally, his incessant preaching, his unequal wars, his confidence in successes, his superhuman security in reverses, his long-suffering in victory, his ambition entirely of ideas, not at all of empire, his endless prayer, his mystical conversation with God, his death and his triumph after the tomb attest more than an imposture, a conviction» writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE.

B – The Koran and the Woman

Unlike Jesus, a chaste prophet, Muhammad is a human and loving prophet, with his strengths and weaknesses. After proving his fidelity and seriousness to a woman older than him, Muhammad marries Khadija, and will remain monogamous during his lifetime. Khadija is the first to convert to Islam and to believe in Muhammad. The Prophet had great admiration for Mary or Mariame, mother of Jesus “Many of men have reached perfection; but of the women, there was only Mary, daughter of Imram, and Asiya, the wife of the Pharaoh,” said Muhammad. Indeed, Assia or Asiya, had said to the Lord "Build me with You a house in paradise and save me from Pharaoh and what he does and save me from the people of the unjust", Sura 66, Verse 11. “Likewise Mary, a daughter of Imram, had protected his body; Then We breathed Our spirit into it; And she had dealt with the true words of her Lord, as well as her books: she was among the devoted”, Surah 66, Verse 12.

Islam has been a great progress. In feudal and tribal civil life, before Islam, women were subject to many norms of segregation and restriction. "For the Arabs, the coming of Muhammad was a birth, an upsurge of light, and it was through him that Arabia began to come alive" writes Thomas CARLYLE. Islam has limited the maximum number of wives to four: "If you are afraid of not being just, then only one", Sura 4, Verse 3. The Koran has reserved, essentially and specifically, Sura 4, for women . Muhammad will have a total of thirteen wives, including two Jews who will convert, a Coptic who refused to renounce her religion, and Aïcha, the favorite, who was only 9 and 10 years old. These are often political marriages in order to enlarge the nascent Muslim community and reduce tension with certain tribes. Moreover, in a patriarchal and tribal society, Muhammad had no male descendants, his three boys from Khadija having died very young. Probably through this polygamy, Muhammad had a desire to find a successor "We gave them wives and fatherhood" Sura 13, Verse 38. Children are a form of "continuation of life on earth", Sura 18 , Verse 44. Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah, had two sons by Ali, but who were murdered. In addition, Muhammad, whose house was accessible to all, and to protect his privacy, had asked his wives to wear a veil so as not to arouse male lust and are deprived of the right to remarry after him. Also, it is under the pretext of defending the rights of women that Islamophobes have chosen, hypocritically, to attack Muhammad. Thus, Henri LAMMENS, who nevertheless carried out serious studies on Islam, said that he is "possessed by a holy hatred of Islam, of its impostor and libidinous Prophet". Then, arises a sneaky and violent attack of our time against Islam, the Muslim woman, in principle, oppressed by Islam, and not by a patriarchal society, should be liberated. Indeed, it is a widely held idea in the West that the Prophet Muhammad oppressed and subjugated Women, flouted her rights, took her as an object of pleasure, behaved towards her like a master with his servant by not listening to her, nor involving her in public affairs, without consulting her or asking her opinion, but that he ordered her and that she had to obey.

Woman had no rights before Islam, but the Arab, in his nature, hated girls, whom he considered a dishonor. This went so far that some pre-Islamic Arabs were known to bury little girls alive: Before Islam, if a woman should lose her husband, she was given as an inheritance to her children and relatives, if at least they wanted to. They had a free choice to remarry her with one of them (incest), otherwise they could refuse her any remarriage and locked her up until she died.The Koran forbade, for the first time, these incestuous marriages and placed moral restrictions: "Do not take wives from among the wives your fathers married. You are forbidden your mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, daughters-in-law” Sura 4, Verses 26 and 27. Adultery is prohibited, Sura 4, Verses 19 and 20. The Koran recommends great kindness towards relatives , in particular of his wife, Sura 4, Verse 41. These various rules which constitute an undeniable progress did not appear in the Old and the New testament. The situation of women is no better in other parts of the world. In Ancient Greece, the woman was considered a miserable object to be sold and bought in the markets. She had no civic or financial rights. Her husband, after her father, had full rights over her, especially over her money; in no case could she use it without his prior agreement. In India, when the woman lost her husband, she no longer had a reason to live; her life ended with the death of her husband by self-immolation at the stake. The Catholic Church, which excluded women from the clergy, chose celibacy, a form of suspicion towards women of impurity. In Orthodox Jewish law, it is Judaism is a plural society (Orthodox, conservatives, liberals, reconstructionists), it is the prevalence of a patriarchal conception, the woman is relegated to an interior activity, of procreation. Married observant Jewish women hide their hair. Some even have the custom of shaving them, and wearing a wig, thus creating a cognitive distance with the outside world. In particular, divorce has remained, even in our time, one of the important points of friction. Indeed, according to Jewish law, the request for the dissolution of the marriage belongs to the husband. Civilly divorced women cannot remarry religiously until their former husband gives them the "Guet", a written document in which the man divorces his wife. In the absence of a "Get", civilly divorced spouses are still considered married according to Jewish tradition, even if they no longer live together. In this case, the woman will not be able to remarry religiously. Moreover, if she lives with another man, she could be accused of adultery and the children born of this union will be considered as bastards. Currently, Jewish law still cannot compel a husband to give the get. In France, the Civil Code of 1804, model par excellence of patriarchy, having created the inferiority of women, considered as minors; the latter was subject to the authority of the father and the husband: “The husband owes protection to his wife; the woman must obey her husband” enacts article 213 of the Civil Code which was repealed only in 1938. However, there still remained serious discriminations against the Woman who did not have the right to open a bank account or to practice a profession, without the authorization of her husband, until the intervention of the law of July 13, 1965, the joint management of assets assuming the consent of both spouses (law of December 23, 1987), divorce by mutual consent (Law of 1^st January 1975), paternal authority (4 June 1970), co-parenting and shared custody (Law of 4 March 2002), the right to contraception ( Law of June 28, 1967), the right to abortion (Law of January 17, 1975), reimbursement of abortion (Dec 31, 1982), the right to vote (April 21, 1944) while Turkish women have been voting since 1934 The principle of parity in elections in France has been long and chaotic (from 2000 to 2014). Today, violence against women remains a worrying subject, with regard to unpunished sexual predators. We are still waiting for a woman to become President of the French Republic. In the United States, and since 1776, this is the first time, in 2020, that a woman, Mrs. Kamala HARRIS, will become vice-president.

Islam rejected barbaric customs and violence against women. The Prophet affirmed, with force, that he loved the Woman, and in no case hated or devalued her. “It is a widespread prejudice among us (Westerners) that Mahometanism has made such great progress only because it favors voluptuous inclinations. We do not think that all the old religions, Muhammad reduced to four the unlimited number until then. It is said that David had 18 wives, and Solomon 700, with 300 concubines. It was therefore the Jewish religion that was more voluptuous, and that of Muhammad was severe” writes Voltaire. Indeed, in Islam, polygamy is authorized, but on condition of having the means and of treating, in an equal and fair manner, the co-wives; which is impossible: "It is permissible to marry two, three or four, among the women you like, but, if you fear not to be just with these, then only one, or slaves whom you own. This, in order not to do injustice, or in order not to aggravate your family burden” prescribes Sura 4, Verse 3, of the Koran. Muhammad respects women in a society that treats them like slaves: "The things in this world that most float my heart and my senses are women, children and perfumes, but I have never tasted complete bliss than in prayer,” said Muhammad. In the Koran, the two sexes are placed on a plane of equivalence before God: "A son wins Paradise at the feet of his mother" says the Koran. Guided by Revelation, the founder of Islam abolished the murder of girls at birth, granted women the right to property, to inherit, and to possess themselves in the marital community. Also, the Prophet laid down the principle of the human equality of women with men by saying: “Women are the sisters of men”. Indeed, all men come from a woman and a man, and women also; no one is therefore more deserving than the other except by faith and good works. Muhammad, whose male children died young, had only four daughters, one of whom lived a long time, Fatima ZAHRA. “To God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. He creates what he wants. He gives girls to whom he wants, and boys to whom he wants. Either it gives both boys and girls; and he renders sterile whoever he wishes,” said the Prophet.

Therefore, Muhammad encouraged the education of girls and good conduct towards them. "Whoever educates two girls until they reach the age of puberty, he and I will be resurrected on the day of Resurrection," he said. Far from cultivating obscurantism, the Prophet considered that religion should enlighten and liberate all believers through education, especially of women: "Researching science is an obligation for all Muslims," ​​he said. Far from inciting imprisonment, the Prophet exhorted the Woman to engage in all social activities, in particular to visit her relatives and friends, to visit the sick or to go to the mosque, saying: "Do not prevent not women to go to mosques," he said. Muhammad fought against psychological or physical violence against women; he ardently called for respect, tenderness, understanding and patience with regard to them : “Be kind to women. They were created from a rib and the most twisted rib is the upper one. If you tried to straighten it, you would break it, but if you left it like that, it would remain twisted, so I urge you to be good with women,” he said. The fair treatment of a woman is a sign of nobility of spirit and a virtuous attitude in man: "The best of you is the one who is the best with women” he said. It is therefore strictly forbidden to molest his wife: “Do not hit women” he says. The Prophet recommended protecting certain ethnic minorities, in particular the orphan and the wife: “O Lord! I will embarrass those who attack the rights of the two weaklings: the orphan and the woman,” he said. Islam punishes sexual abuse, even against his wife "Whoever performs the sexual act in a lawful way gets a reward," he says. The man must maintain a relationship of trust and loyalty with his wife, avoiding suspicion. It is forbidden "for the traveler to return to his wife at night by surprise in order to catch her on the fait accompli and to aspire to see a false step" says the Prophet. Muhammad behaved towards his wives with gentleness and thoughtfulness, helping them in particular with household chores. After Muhammad, women were engaged, like the Amazons of ancient times, in Muslim armies "Women were warriors and fought in the armies of Aboubacry and Ousmane" writes Voltaire.

III – The successors of Muhammad

A – The Death of Muhammad

In February 632, Muhammad returned to Mecca for the last time and pronounced, on Mount Arafat, a "Koutba" or his farewell sermon, summarizing a charter of the rights and duties of the Muslim: "We seek protection with God against the vices of our souls and against the evils of our actions. Did I accomplish my mission well? he shouts to the crowd. This day has become a major Muslim holiday, Aïd El-Kébir, or Aïd Al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice of the sheep. Fallen ill during his last visit to the Mosque of Medina, “Hate was neither of my nature nor of my doing. I would like the one of you all who will take back from me his right, if he has one, that he will release me from it. Then I will find myself in the presence of God, with a serene soul,” he told the faithful. A man to whom Muhammad owed three pieces of silver claims his due. Muhammad demands that this debt be settled immediately. The next day, dying, Mahomet entrusts the direction of the prayer to Abu-Bakr. “Let him to whom I have done violence and injustice appear, and I am ready to make reparation to him,” he said on his deathbed. Mahomet caught a fever, due according to him, to the poisoned piece of mutton which he had eaten in Khaibar, and which was going to prevail "Aisha sat down behind him, drew him to her and took the patient's head on her bosom. . It stayed like that for some time. Sometime between sunrise and noon, sweat trickled down his brow; he opened his mouth and closed it, and his soul flew away”, the Prophet died on Monday, June 8, 632, specifies AL-TABARI. In her memoirs, Aïcha recounts: “He died at my house, the day he dedicated to me; his head was against my chest and my chin, and Allah mixed his saliva against mine at the time of his death”.

Mahomet wanted to embody moral rigor and great probity; he ordered, by Islam, the suitable and prohibited the blameworthy, Sura 3, Verse 110. Victor HUGO, through his poem, "Year 9 of the Hegira" recounted the disappearance of this Prophet of Peace and of Rectitude: "The next morning, seeing dawn arrive: "Aboubakr, he said, I cannot get up, You are going to take the Book and say the prayer". And his wife Aisha was standing behind. He listened while Aboubakr read, and often, in a low voice, finished the verse. And we wept while he was praying like that. And the Angel of Death appeared towards the evening at the door, asking to be allowed to enter. “Let him come in! ". We then saw his eyes light up with the same clarity as on the day of his birth. And the Angel said to him: "God desires your presence". "Good," he said. A shiver ran through his temples, a breath opened his lip, and Muhammad died” writes Victor HUGO.

During his lifetime, Muhammad was severely persecuted and forced into exile. His death, June 8, 632, his work being only sketched out and dangers from all sides threatening Islam, resounded like a clap of thunder. "If Muhammad had been a Prophet, he would not have died" say the hypocrites. In Mecca, a man named Mussaila claimed to be the new prophet and to receive revelation from God. In Medina, the Ansars wanted to take over from Muhammad to the detriment of the Koreishites from Mecca, led by Sa'd, son of Obida, known as AL-TABARI. Ali, a close relative of Muhammad, believed for a moment that power was rightfully his. However, Omar Al-KHATTAB, skillfully, the candidacy of Abou-Bakr, faithful companion and son-in-law of Muhammad, for his great dignity and respectability. Ali rallied to this proposal, and the next day all the people of Medina took an oath of fidelity to Abu-Bakr. Aïcha and Fatima claimed their share of the inheritance but to which Abou-Bakr opposed an end of non-receipt “I heard the Prophet say “we other prophets we do not leave property to our heirs; what we leave is alms”.

Aisha (614-680), the favorite wife, in her memoirs recounted that Muslims were like “a flock without a shepherd on a rainy night”. The Jews and the Christians raised their heads and, among the Muslims, there were many people who recanted (Ridda). In Mecca, false prophets appear, momentarily. Ali was in denial, and had forbidden the announcement of the Prophet's death: "These hypocrites say that the Prophet is dead. He is not dead ! The Prophet went to visit God, and he will return. Let the tongue of those who say that the Prophet is dead be cut off! Let their hands and feet be cut off!” said Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet. “Muslims, Muhammad left this world. Those who worship Muhammad know that he is dead, but those who worship God know that God is alive and never dies. This death only strengthens Islam. Anyone who dares to doubt it will have his head cut off,” said Abou-Bakr firmly. Aisha was crying and slapping her face. God had however said to the Prophet: "You will die, and they too will die" Sura 39, Verse 31, known as "the groups". Indeed, our destiny, to all of us alive, will one day be to die, and preferably in faith: "We assign it to this final Dwelling, we assign it to those who do not want, on earth, either to be haughty, or make a mess. However the finale is to the pious”, Sura 28, Verse 83, “the narrative”. Muhammad, in Paraclete, undertook, in the next life, to plead for the Muslims "I will find you near the Pont du Cirât, which I will not cross before having interceded with God for my people" says the Prophet. The Meccans left their doubts and returned to Islam. It was the same year that Fatima Zahra (604-632), Muhammad's youngest daughter, died on August 28.

B -The four upright Caliphs

The Caliphate is not a regime of terror, but a mode of succession from Muhammad. Succession wars will occur thereafter after the disappearance of the Prophet who had predicted the tragedies to come “after me, the Caliphate will last only thirty years; it will then be the devastating reign” he had said. The wisdom and fairness of the former were recognized by all. It is agreed that the four Caliphs who succeeded Muhammad were virtuous and fair. They are Abou Bakr As-Siddiq (573-634) caliph from June 8, 632 to August 23, 634, Oumar Ibn AL-KHATTAB (584-644) caliph from August 23, 634 to November 7, 644, Ousmane IBN AFFAN (579 -656) caliph from April 7, 634 to July 17, 656 and Ali IBN ABI TALIB (598-661) whose reign from July 17, 656 to June 28, 661. this world ; it was in conformity with the usages of the prophets; his morals were those of the prophets, his conduct that of the saints, his conquests those of great kings; his morals were roughness in life, modesty in food and dress" writes Muhammad Ibn ALI AL-TIQTAQA, an Iraqi historian (1262-1310), in his "Al-Fakhri", a biography of the Caliphs of 632 to 1258.

The Prophet not having designated his successor, the transmission of power in Islam is therefore not in principle hereditary: it must be done by acclamation (Mubâya'a). Abu-Bakr had led the prayer when Muhammad fell seriously ill and was about to die; he was therefore named the 1^st caliph, and made this declaration “Here I am charged with the care of governing you; if I do well, help me; if I hurt straighten me out; telling the truth to the holder of power is an act of zeal and devotion; hiding it from him is treason; before me the weak man and the powerful man are equal; I want to render impartial justice to all; if I ever deviate from the laws of God and his prophet, I will cease to have the right to your obedience,” he said. Abou-Bakr, an esteemed, honest and wise man, reigned from 632 to 634. All the early companions of Mahomet remained simple, of great probity and integrity; they preserved simple and austere morals, without any ostentation "The government of the first four caliphs resembled in all things a religious, spiritual dignity, only a temporal dignity" writes AL-FAKHIR.

At his death, Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, left only the habit he wore, a camel and a slave. Abu-Bakr, during his relatively brief caliphate, had the merit of stabilizing Islam and fighting the emerging revolts. Thus, the false prophet, Musaila, was killed during an expedition. He sent an army of 46,000, under the leadership of Walid, to conquer Syria. Although he died naturally, Abu-Bakr is believed to have succumbed to the venom of a snake in 622, in a cave on the way to Medina.

Omar AL-KHATTAB (584-644), is the Second Caliph, from 634 to 644, wore a patched boubou and slept with the poor. Omar, very skilful and fair and in Syria where the army was bogged down, he dismissed Walid in favor of Abu Obeida, and Damascus was conquered in 635. It was in Syria, a country that had escaped the rivalries of the Persians and the Romans, that the Muslim conquest was rapid. In contrast to the Crusaders, Islam was able to create an ideal for peoples who had none. The Arabs combined skill and the art of war, respecting local customs and imposing only weak tribes. Before going to war, they sent emissaries to negotiate the adoption of the Muslim religion. The Caliph Omar, in Jerusalem, having entered the city with a small number of warriors, visited it with the patriarch, and declared to the inhabitants that they were in safety and that the Mussulmans would not pray in their churches. In contrast, Amun's conduct in Egypt was accompanied by heavier taxes. Contrary to the Barbarians who had no ideal of life, the Muslims proposed a new civilization which has been perpetuated until our days. Spain, emerging from the Muslim world, went through a long period of decadence.

Persia was still resisting, but Iraq will be conquered. Since the death of the Prophet, a good number of Muslims had refused to pay taxes. Omar had introduced a land tax, which was contested by a slave who beat him violently while he was praying. A crowd stoned and killed Omar's murderer, who had survived his wounds for three days. Before dying, Omar had recommended that the future Caliphs be approached by a council of 6 people, and confirmed by an assembly of Muslims.

The designation of Othman Ibn AFFAN (574-645), as 3^th Caliph, did not raise any difficulty; shy and elderly man, he was over 70 years old, one of the first disciplines of the Prophet, nicknamed "the man of two lights", he had married two of his daughters (Rukaya divorced from Utba Ibn Abou-Lahab and Oum Kultum). A generous man, he had bought a well and food for the needy. It was under the longest caliphate of Othman, 12 years, that the Koran was definitively codified, and the dazzling conquests of Islam, particularly in the Middle East, Persia and North Africa. The fights are worn in India, Spain, Rhodes, Crete and Armenia. However, Othman is a weak man; he has been accused of a certain nepotism, and this has been confirmed by numerous biographers of the Prophet. The main leaders of the opposition are Amr ibn al-Aç, the conqueror of Egypt, deposed from his post of governor. Sometimes Othman denied the accusations brought against him, sometimes he justified his conduct. Some biographers would believe that the Hashemite clan, Ali and his wife Fatima, and to some extent Aisha, who at the time was on a pilgrimage to Mecca, plotted for the assassination. In any case, in this Islam in full expansion, lusts of power and jealousies appearing, the Hashemite clan, rebelling against the "greed" of the Umayyads. In Egypt, where Muhammad ibn Abi Hudhaifa seized power following a coup, then in Basra and Kufa, control of the province escaped the governor. Each of these three rebel groups wants Othman to be deposed: the Egyptians support Ali, while Koufa is in favor of al-ZOUBAIR and Basra is in favor of Tallah. A thousand men are then dispatched to Medina with orders to assassinate Othman, and besiege his house for forty days; the caliph, meanwhile, refuses the fight and calls on his relatives not to take up arms. On June 17, 656, a mob murdered Othman in his home reading the Koran, one of them struck him with his sword, but his wife Naila protected him with her body and the fingers of his hand were cut off. The assassination of the Caliph Othman, at 82, from the Umayyad tribe, is at the origin of a great "Fitnah" or discord.

In any case, Ali Ibn Abi TALIB (599-661) became the next day the 4^th Caliph on June 7, 656, and Moa'wiya still in Syria, a cousin of Othman, had demanded, without success, that the assassins be judged. This is the beginning of a particularly troubled and tragic period for Islam. Ali, a Shiite, advocating, abandons Medina, and sets his capital at Koufa, in Iraq. He claims that from now on the successions of the caliphs be made for the benefit of the direct descendants of the family of the Prophet, from which he comes. Moa'awiya refusing to take the oath to Ali, the Caliph to move with a strong army into Syria. The confrontation turns to Ali's advantage, but Moa'wiaya, of great skill and patience, will have the stroke of genius to demand arbitration, invoking two verses of the Koran, placed at the end of the spears of his soldiers: "Whoever is killed unjustly, we have given power to his loved one to claim Justice" (Sura 17-33) and "If two believers fight each other, restore harmony between them, if one of them rebels, fight him , until he conforms to the order of God” (Sura 49-9). In July 657, Ali having accepted an arbitration which will take place in Adhruh, in Syria, near Petra. Indeed, apparently Moa'wiya would not dispute the legitimacy of Ali, but calls for the application of retaliation, namely the judgment of the assassins of Othman. Moa'wiya will win this arbitration.Ali has not been able to establish his authority well and will be assassinated. Indeed, on January 29, 661, Ali was leaving his house, in Koufa, to call for morning prayer, when Ibn MOULDJAN, struck him with his sword: "The arbitration belongs to Allah, and not to you Ali" says him his assassin, a Kharéjite who refused this arbitration requested by Moa'wiaya. Ali's assassin will be killed by Al-Hassan who burned him. Al-Hassan will himself be assassinated (624-670) in Medina, as well as Imam Al-Hussein (626-680), in Kerbala, Iraq. The Cherifian dynasty of Morocco is a descendant of Imam Ali.

C - The reign of two dynasties: the descendants of Abu-Sufyan and the Hashemites

a – The Umayyad dynasty – (660-749)

It was the beginning in 660 of the Umayyad dynasty which transferred the capital to Damascus. The Muslims launched expeditions in Sicily to Samarkand, and as far as China. In 712, they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered Spain. Islam had managed to gain access to the gates of Vienna: "If the Arabs won, it was because the world they were attacking was ready to fall to ruins writes Louis HALPHEN, in the “Barbarians, from the great invasions to the Turkish conquests”. By the extent of their conquests, through culture, science and the arts, for centuries the Muslim dynasties eclipsed the glory of other nations. The wise caliphs were succeeded by two great Muslim dynasties: the Umayyads and the Abbasids. At that time, the Eastern Roman Empire of Constantinople dominated southern Europe, Asia Anterior, and northern Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. The empire of the Persians, a colossus undermined by dissension, still extended far and wide, as far as Asia. The Europeans were prey to the Barbarians, lived in anarchy.

The Umayyad dynasty, from Damascus, took power from 661 to 750. They take their name from Omeyya B Abdi Shems, a great uncle of Muhammad, a Banu Omeyya, opposed to the Banu Hashim clan, from which Muhammad came. The first three Umayyad caliphs, Moa'awiya and Yazid are descendants of Abu-Sufyan; the same one who had attacked the Prophet in 625 and will end up rallying to Islam. Hint, the wife of Abou-Soufyan, had eaten the liver of Hamza, an uncle of Muhammad, who died in the war. In 630, the Prophet will grant grace to Abu-Sufyan and his children. These tribal intestine wars and family hatreds will cause in 750 the fall of Umayyads. Moa'wiya (602 to 680), the first Umayyad caliph from 661 to 680, is considered an organizer of empires, a skilful governor and a great administrator. He created the escort of the Caliphs, a close guard after the assassination of Ali, the postal services, and the office of the seals, to authenticate the acts of the commander of the Muslims. He is also the founder of a dynastic regime, the power is ceded to his son, Yazid (647-683), caliph from 680 to 683. The one who is the instigator of the assassination of Al-Hussein, son of Ali. Part of the reign of the Umayyads is therefore marked by massacres of the Hashemites. Yazid is also known for his impiety and his dissolute life. At his death, he is replaced by his son, Moa'wiya II, a weak man who will be assassinated, and replaced by Marwan, grandson of Abd Manaf. He himself will be succeeded by his son, Abd Al-Malik from 685 to 705, a caliph considered "sensible, intelligent, educated, inspiring awe, energetic in his politics, skilful in the administration of temporal affairs" writes AL-TIQTAQA . Before dying, Abd Al-Malik (646-705), full of finesse and eminent qualities, made this recommendation to his successor: "Relax your face, show yourself easy to deal with, give preference to gentleness in the settlement of your affairs; because it will make you, more surely, reach your goal. If you encounter any difficulties, try to overcome them by asking for advice, because such a consultation is a closed letter,” he says.

The Umayyad dynasty observed great tolerance towards Greeks and Christians, who were employed massively in the administration, particularly in art and architecture. A State divided into governorates is created; religious and judicial authority is headed by Cadis, judges. Abd Al-Malik, with his stable reign (685-705), Arabized the Muslim state by appealing to the Persians. In Jerusalem, Walid I^st (705-15) built the Al-Aqsa mosque and in Medina, the mosque of Mahomet was fitted out and enlarged. Many cities are founded including Kairouan, Basra and Kufa. The Muslims will found an empire larger than those of Alexander and ancient Rome combined. This empire goes from the Atlantic to the Indus, from the Aral Sea, to the deserts of the Sahara and Libya, Africa, Spain, and part of China. The Kahina revolt is broken in 701. Hassan Ben NU'MAN chases the Byzantines from Carthage. Moussa Ibn NOCAIR, governor of Ifriqiya, in 705, completes the Islamization of the Maghreb. In 711, Tarik Ibn ZYAD seized Visigothic Spain, notably Cordoba, Seville and Toledo.

At his death, Abd Al-Malik was succeeded by his son Walid, from 705 to 715, who loved good food and copulation, and he had an approximate knowledge of Arabic: "he who speaks well, the language of the Arabs alone can govern them,” his father told him. The various caliphs (Souleymane, Omar, Yazid II, Hisham, Walid II, Yazid III, Marwan II) were particularly mediocre. The authority of the Umayyads was seriously shaken and serious disturbances appeared, in particular 747 under the aegis of Abu Muslim. It was at this time that Abdullah Abou-El-Abass, known as "Saffa", the bloodthirsty, a Hashemite (family of Mahomet), proclaimed himself caliph on October 30, 749, in Kufa, Iraq, against Marwan II, still in exercise. Abdullah Abou-el-Abbas seizes Damascus, on June 25, 750, the entire family of the Umayyad caliph is massacred. A prince, only one, escapes the slaughter. He fled to Spain where he founded the dissident Umayyad emirate of Cordoba. Saffa went to fight Marwan II "the donkey" (688-750), the last Umayyad caliph, who fled, but was killed in Mosul on August 5, 750. All the descendants of the Umayyads who could aspire to power were methodically assassinated .

b – The Abbasid dynasty (750 to 1258)

The second dynasty, the Abbasids, spanned five centuries, from 750 to 1258, when Baghdad was taken by the Mongols. This dynasty takes its name from Al-Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. "The Abbasid dynasty was fertile in wiles, deceptions and betrayals, skill and treachery had a greater part in the reign than vigor and energy, abandoning the strength that energy and firmness give, they took their reliance on cunning and perfidy” writes AL-TIQTAQA. However, it was a dynasty haloed with fine achievements, things of the spirit flourished, the splendours of religion magnificently celebrated, the sacred respected and the borders fortified. But above all the tyranny of authority vanishes. Abdullah Aboul-Abbas SAFFAH nicknamed "the bloodthirsty" first Abbasid caliph, will be replaced in particular by the caliph Al-Mansour (754-775), establishes the capital in Baghdad (Gift of God). “He is one of the smartest, most enlightened, most wise and most inspired. He was serious, full of dignity, of a good character in the intimacy, in public, he became a formidable man” writes AL-TIQTAQA. Al-Mansour strengthens the bases of the empire and its operating principles. To the credit of the Abbasids, due to a vast Muslim empire, is the creation of the office of Vizier, an intermediary between the caliph and the population, in matters of time. When Al-Mansour died in Mecca, it was hidden from the population, until his replacement by Abu Mahdi, reign from 774 to 785, "an energetic, awake, generous, but terrible prince" writes AT-TIQTAQA. He will be replaced by son, Moussa Hadi (caliphate of 785-786), strongly contested by Al-Hussein, son of Ali.

There will be 37 Abbasid caliphs, the last being Al-Mustasim, killed in 1258 by the Mongols of Hulagou KHAN. Haroun Al-Rachid (786-809), and Al-Mamun (813-833), were the protectors of arts and letters. In particular, the reign of Haroun AL-RACHID is a contemporary of Charlemagne (742-814). The caliphate of Haroun AL-RACHID, associated with the tale of the "Thousand and One Nights", was marked by an extraordinary development of sciences, arts and letters. “He is counted among the caliphs who have distinguished themselves the most by their merit, their eloquence, their generosity. He made war on the infidels, prayed a hundred “Rakas” a day, loved poetry, poets and people of religion” writes AL-TIQTAQA. Throughout the empire and its allies or dependencies (Cordoba, Morocco), a prosperous craft industry developed, the memory of which is preserved in the vocabulary: "cobbler" comes from Cordoba, "muslin" from Mosul, "damascened" products (goldsmithery in the gold leaf) from Damascus, "leather goods" from Morocco. Many Arabic words enter the French language. The Arabs restore and improve the old irrigation networks around the Mediterranean. Because of their links with Persia, the Far East and South Asia, they introduce new crops in the West: rice, beans, hemp, sugar cane, mulberry, apricot, asparagus, artichoke, etc. Haroun Al-Rachid will be replaced, Mouhammad Al-Amin , from 809 to 813, but he is a weak man with a dissolute life. He will be killed by Abd Alla Mamoun from 813 to 883 who fixes the capital in Damascus, and he is supported by Hanbal, a rigorous jurist. The various caliphs (Mosutasim, Djaffar and Abou Billah) careless and unrigorous plunged the Abbasids into decadence, and their fall on February 3, 1258.

If the Umayyad dynasty, an imperial power, was blamed, they extended the Muslim empire considerably, a Revolution that has become planetary today. Islam far from representing obscurantism, the dynasty of the Abbasids having advanced science, the arts and letters "When the Arabs became the masters of the world, they cultivated letters and sciences at a time when they were completely neglected in Europe” writes FAVROT. While Europe was plunged into darkness, the black night of great spiritual misery, from the 7th century onwards, Muslims translated works from Greek and Latin, such as those of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Archimedes. The Koran therefore did not stifle philosophy, the Abbasids considering ignorance as rudeness. Inventor of the Almanac, and of mathematics, Arabic numerals having supplanted those of the Romans, Abou Ali Alhousseyni dit Avicenne (980-1036) was an eminent Persian philosopher and doctor. Abdoul Walid Ben Rochd or Averroes (1126-1198), a doctor, astrologer, specialist in Aristotle and separating reason from liver, was a great precursor of the Enlightenment: "The marvelous activity of the spirits extends to all branches of the human spirit" writes Louis-Anne SEDILLOT.

In the end, what is Muhammad's legacy?

The Prophet Muhammad, having left a deep and lasting influence, is ranked number one on the list of the most influential in history, ahead of Isaac NEWTON, the Christ and Buddha in particular: "The reason why I chose the Prophet Muhammad as being the greatest among the greats is that he is the only man in history to have been as successful in his prophetic mission as in his social mission. Human morality has never known a religion as perfect as Islam, both philosophically and legally. Islam continued to grow even after the death of Prophet Muhammad in both the West and the East. Even today, there are many people who run to Islam with their hearts and minds. However, the religion preached by the Prophet Muhammad was born fourteen centuries ago in a region far from civilization and cultural capitals and started in its very difficult conditions. Despite this, Islam has found its way around the world. And I am convinced that a man as perfect, on all levels, as the Prophet Muhammad will never come again” writes Michael HART in “The 100. A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History”. Mahatma K. GANDHI, a supporter of non-violence, in his struggle for independence, remained in solidarity with the Muslims; he was assassinated by a Hindu fundamentalist mainly because of the exceptional qualities of the Prophet Muhammad : “I wanted to know better the life of the man who today undoubtedly holds the hearts of millions of human beings. I am now more convinced than ever that it was not the sword that created a place for Islam in the hearts of those who were looking for direction in their lives. It was this great humility, this altruism of the prophet, the scrupulous regard for his commitments, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his fearlessness, his courage, his absolute confidence in God and in his own mission. These facts, and not the sword, brought him so much success and allowed him to overcome the problems” writes Mohandas K. GANDHI in “Young India” of September 11, 1924. “That one stirred armies, legislations, empires, peoples, dynasties, millions of men over a third of the inhabited globe; but it has also moved altars, gods, religions, ideas, beliefs, souls; he founded, on a book of which each letter has become law, a spiritual nationality which includes peoples of every language and of every race, and he imprinted, as the indelible character of this Muslim nationality, the hatred of false gods, and the passion of the one and immaterial God” writes Alphonse de LAMARTINE.

Glory to the Lord of the Universe and to his Prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him)!

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