VII. VICTORY
In 630, the Meccans, unable to conquer Medina
and crippled by the severing of their trade routes, finally submitted peacefully to Muhammad, who
treated the city generously, declaring a general amnesty. Tribal delegations arrived from throughout
Arabia, and their tribes were soon converted to Islam. Muhammad, now the most powerful leader in
Arabia, enforced the principles of Islam and established the foundation of the Islamic empire. He
ordered the destruction of the idols in the Kaaba, the traditional place of pilgrimage in Mecca,
which then became the holiest shrine of Islam. He granted Jews and Christians religious autonomy
as "peoples of the Book," whose revelations anticipated his own. On his last visit to Mecca, at
the time of the annual pilgrimage, he gave a sermon in which he summarized his reforms, declared
the brotherhood of Muslims, and repudiated all distinctions of class, color, and race. He died
suddenly and unexpectedly in Medina about a year later, on June 8, 632.
VIII. DESCENDANTS
As long as Khadija lived, Muhammad took no
other wives. After her death in 619, when he was 50, he eventually married nine women, including
Aisha, the daughter of his kinsman and early follower Abu Bakr, who was to become the first caliph,
or successor to Muhammad. He also took a Christian Coptic slave as a concubine. Muhammad's sons all
died in infancy, and the only daughter to survive him was Fatima, who married Ali, the fourth
caliph.
IX. ROLE IN ISLAM
After Muhammad's death, his followers began to embellish the
story of his life with mythology, probably derived in part from accounts of the founders of other religions.
The story of Muhammad's ascension to heaven from Jerusalem, for instance, seems to have been modeled on the ascension
of Jesus. Muhammad's heart, his early followers asserted, was miraculously cleansed of all unworthy thoughts when he
was a boy of 12, and he was declared, as were the other prophets, immune from error and able to intercede on the behalf
of sinners. Although the Qur'an explicitly denies that Muhammad performed any miracles, his followers soon credited him
with many miraculous feats. Muslims, however, have always attributed their religion to God alone and repudiate any
suggestion of the prophet's divinity. Muhammad's remarkable abilities and personality are demonstrated by the
establishment and rapid expansion of Islam, which had to overcome the traditional idolatry and tribal jealousies
of the Arabs and the opposition of their most powerful leaders.
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