محمد (ص) .. كتاب المائة الأوائل

Muhammad (PBUH)

570 AD - 632 AD

The author's choice of Muhammad (PBUH) to be at the top of the list that includes people who had the greatest global influence in various fields, this choice may have surprised many readers to the extent that it may raise some questions, but in the author's belief that Muhammad (PBUH) was the man The only one in history who succeeded supremely and prominently on both the religious and secular levels. Muhammad (PBUH) founded and spread one of the greatest religions in the world, and became one of the world's great political leaders. In these days, nearly thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still strong and overwhelming. Most of the people that the reader will meet in this book had the superior advantages of being born and raised in civilized centers and brought up in the arms of nations with very important cultural, political and social characteristics. As for Muhammad (PBUH), he was born in the year 570 AD in the city of Mecca in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, which at that time was a remote area: far from the vital centers, whether commercial, artistic or scientific in the world. And when he had tasted the bitterness of being orphaned at the age of six, he lived in a humble environment and it was known that he was illiterate. His economic condition improved when, at the age of twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow.

Most of the Arabs at that time were pagans who believed in the plurality of gods, but Muhammad (PBUH) began to call for the existence of one omnipotent God who controls the entire universe. When he reached forty, a revelation came to him that told him that God had chosen him to spread the true religion.

For three years, Muhammad (PBUH) was calling his close friends to Islam, and around the year 613 AD he began to preach publicly.

As soon as his followers began to increase, the Quraish tribes felt the danger, and began to consider him a person threatening their influence, which forced him to migrate in the year 622 AD from Mecca to Medina (which is 200 miles north of Mecca), where he was welcomed by its people and gave him honor and support, and he became a good political influence .

The starting point for the life of Muhammad (pbuh), he had few followers in Mecca, but in Medina, his followers multiplied and he soon gained influence that made him the absolute ruler there (1), and during the next few years, while the authority of Muhammad (pbuh) was growing With increasing speed, a series of battles took place between Mecca and Medina that ended with the overwhelming victory of Muhammad (pbuh) and his conquest of Mecca and his return to it in the year 630 AD.

The two and a half years that remained for him while he was alive witnessed the entry of large numbers of Arab tribes into the new religion.

And when Muhammad (PBUH) died in 632 AD, he was the de facto ruler of all the southern Arabian Peninsula.

But their number was small and the Arab tribes on the island had a reputation for mastering martial arts and warfare, and they were afflicted with division and internecine tribal wars. Therefore, it was not easy for them to be equal to the massive armies that the kingdoms possessed in the stable agricultural areas in the north. However, when they united under the banner of Muhammad (PBUH) for the first time in history and sipped the teachings of the new religion, which increased their enthusiasm and belief in the One God, these small Arab armies made a series of conquests that are unparalleled in human history. On the borders of northern Arabia was the new Persian Sasanian Empire, and to the northwest lay the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital Constantinople. And if we consider the numerical value, the Arabs were in no way equal to their opponents, but these inspired Arabs were able, or quickly, to conquer all the region between the two rivers, Palestine and Syria. In the year 642 AD, they were able to wrest Egypt from the rule of the Byzantine Empire, while their armies crushed the Persian armies in decisive battles in Al-Qadisiyah and Nineveh in the year 642 AD. These huge victories that took place at the hands and under the leadership of the successors of Muhammad (PBUH) and his loyal companions, Abu Bakr and Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, these victories were not the end of the Arab tide. In the year 711 A.D., the Arab armies had completely invaded North Africa and reached the Atlantic Ocean, and there they headed north, and after they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, they overcame the Kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain.

For a while it seemed as if the Arabs were going to overrun all Christian Europe. However, in the year 732 A.D., and in the Battle of Tours, the Islamic army, which had advanced and reached central France, was defeated by the Frankish army. Despite that, in a scarce century of fighting, these Bedouin tribes, who were inspired by the words of the Messenger (PBUH), were able to win the establishment of an empire that extends from India's borders up to the Atlantic Ocean and is the greatest empire the world has seen up to that time. And wherever the conquests were, it was followed by the adoption of a large number of people to the new religion on the largest scale.

But not all of these conquests were to prove with time, because the Persians, although they remained loyal to the new religion, they regained their independence from the Arabs. As for Spain, seven and a half centuries ago in wars that ended with the restoration of Christians to all parts of the peninsula, but the Mesopotamia region and Egypt, which are the cradles of ancient civilization, remained Arab, just as the entire North African coast remained Arab, and the new religion continued to spread in the following centuries beyond the borders of the Islamic conquests. There are at present millions of converts to Islam in Central Asia and even more than them in Pakistan and northern India and Indonesia. scores of

In Indonesia, the new faith was a factor of unity. As for the Indian subcontinent, the ongoing conflict between Muslims and Hindus is one of dozens in the way of unity.

So how can we evaluate the overall impact of Muhammad (PBUH) on human history? Like all religions, Islam has tremendous influence on its followers and their lives.


For this reason, the reader will find the names of the founders of most religions in this book. Since there are twice as many Christians as Muslims in the world, it is natural that it seems strange to rank Muhammad (PBUH) in a higher rank than Jesus Christ. But there are two main reasons for that decision, the first of which is that Muhammad (PBUH) played a more important role in the development of Islam than the role that Christ played in the development of Christianity, although Christ was responsible for the moral and ethical principles of the Christian religion) in the aspects in which these principles differ from the religion Judaism) However, St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology and was the main guide to Christian beliefs and the author of a large part of the New Testament in the Torah. Second: Muhammad (PBUH) was responsible for the Islamic faith and its main moral and ethical principles. In addition, he played a leading role in the guidance of the new religion and the establishment of religious obligations in Islam, and he is the one to whom the Qur’an (the holy book of Islam) was revealed (a set of prescient verses that were directly revealed to him by God). Most of these sayings were written down and recorded during the life of Muhammad (PBUH), and then they were compiled in an authoritative form shortly after his death. Therefore, the Qur'an represents the ideas and teachings that God revealed to the Messenger (PBUH), but there is no trace left that resembles this. And since the Qur'an has an effect on Muslims similar to the effect of the Christian Bible on Christians, the influence of Muhammad (PBUH) through the Qur'an has become very huge and enormous. It is possible that the influence of Muhammad (PBUH) on Islam is much greater than the dual influence of Christ and Saint Paul on Christianity, and therefore, from a purely religious point of view, it seems that Muhammad (PBUH) had an influence on humanity throughout history as Christ had. Relics of Christ.

Moreover, Muhammad (PBUH) differs from Christ in that he was a worldly leader as well as a religious leader, and in fact if we take into account the driving forces behind the Islamic conquests, Muhammad (PBUH) becomes the greatest political leader of all generations.

There are many important historical events that one might say are inevitable and would have happened despite the absence of the leader who led them. For example, the American colonies in South America would have gained their independence even when Simon Bolivar did not live, but this does not apply to the Arab conquests. Because nothing similar to this happened before Muhammad (pbuh) and there is no reason for us to believe that it would have been achieved without him. Similar conquests in the history of mankind are the conquests of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were mainly the result of the personality of Genghis Khan, but these conquests. It was wider than the Arab conquests, but it was not as permanent and solid as those, and at present the areas occupied by the Mongols. Only those areas that they occupied before Genghis Khan.

Here, the situation is completely different from that of the Arab conquests. From Iraq to Marrakesh, a whole chain extends. The Arab nations are united not only by the Islamic religion but also by the Arabic language, common history and culture, and that the center of the Qur’an in the Islamic religion and its being written in the Arabic language had the greatest impact in preventing the fragmentation of the Arabic language into dialects that do not understand each other, which would have been very possible had it not been for the existence of the Qur’an. during the past thirteen centuries. And that there are differences and divisions between those Arab countries that exist and have their own considerations, but these partial divisions must mean the important elements of the unity that continued to exist over the years, for example, neither Iran nor Indonesia, both of which are oil-producing countries, and both of them are Islamic countries, have joined To the embargo that was imposed on oil in the winter of 1973 - - 1974, and it is not a coincidence that only the Arab countries and the Arab countries participated in seeing all of that embargo.

It is our opinion that the Arab conquests that took place in the seventh century continued to play an important role in the history of mankind until the present day, and that this unique and unparalleled union of religious and worldly influence together is what entitles Muhammad (PBUH) to be considered the greatest single personality with influence in the history of mankind. .