Muhammad for Beginners (Part II)

[Mehmed II]

A Historical life:
The very-detailed biography of the prophet, is called the Siret. All of his deeds and quotes have been put into books. Due to his illiteracy, a group of 45 scholars constantly wrote about him. The prophet himself demanded his past to be written. Only 300 of those documents have lasted to this day. Fortunately, they include everything from his political treaties to the names of his soldiers who have fought with him. Thanks to these documents, the prophet's life is known in every detail, such as his style of talking, sitting, sleeping, clothing and walking; his behaviours as a father, a husband or a nephew; his treatments of women, children and animals; the ideals he followed in his life as a merchant, as a warrior, as a political figure and more. 30 years after his death, the muslim community was able to read these sirets in books. One of the earliest and the most popular of those sirets, is Ibn Ishak's Siret-i Resullullah.

The Hadith:
Muhammad's every quote, from the day he saw Gabriel to his death, is called the hadith. The hadith, which means information in arabic, has to be seen as the tradition Muhammad has placed upon his people.
The Hadiths, by his followers, have been recorded to papyrus sheets, hurma leaves, bone tablets, animal skins, white stones and parchemains. Some people even memorized them. After the prophet's death, the muslims formed a special branch of science that would receive and evaluate these quotes. This branch of science was the basis of the Islamic civilization.
A kid named Anas, learned reading by the age of ten. His father, offered Muhammad to employ him as his personal writer. Muhammad accepted his offer. Anas, who began writing day and night, became one of the greatest hadith scientists in Islamic history. By reading all of his writings to Muhammad, he received his approvals of every one of his documents.

The Science Hadith:
The science of hadith gathering, evaluting and recording includes these elements:
1. The reading of the document
2. The determination of the reliability of the document's source
3. The determination of the exact date of the source.
4. The investigation of the theological and the geographical factors
5. The determination of how the document was passed on.

It is proven that all of these hadiths, by investigating the line of the people who passed them on, belong to Muhammad. The system, which advances from the quoters to the source is called isnad. The investigation of the reliability of the quoters is called ilim-i rical. Every hadith has a tree that looks like this: '' According to the so and so person, who heard it from so and so , who heard it from so and so.. Muhammad said this''

Lots of hadith scientists spent their lives on investigating these trees.

The first muslims, by using this complex system, investigated millions of hadiths. It is said that the famous hadith gatherer Imam Buhari gathered around 6 million of them. But he found only 7.275 of them as appropriate and unified them in his book Sahih-i Buhari. The Imam Muslem found 3 million hadiths and put only 9.200 of them in his book Sahih-i Muslem. There are only 6 ways of Hadith collecting that has been accepted by the community of Islam and all of them are recognized by the names of the six famous collectors: Tirmizi, Ibn-i Madjah, Ebu Davud and An Nisai

The Sunnah:
The term Sunna is found when the Siret and the Hadith gets together. The word Sunna means ''the way'' in Arabic. In the Islamic tradition, Sunnah, which means the deeds and the quotes of Muhammad, is an inseperable part of the message he brought upon the community of Islam. Muhammad's life is an ideal example for every muslim. Muslims learn the pillars of their belief from the Sunnah. Sunnah also acts as the guiding hand for the muslims in ethical and social issues. The only thing a muslim has to do in order to live a devout life, is to follow the example of the prophet. The Sunnah is the living style of a muslim.
Sunnah has it's permament and temporary aspects. The muslims have to distinguish these aspects. For example, just because of the pact that Muhammad wore a turban and rode camels, doesn't mean that every muslim should do the same. In contrast, Muhammad's insistence about the cleanliness of a muslim's clothes, how it should cover at least the private parts of the body or the good treatment of the animals, is considered as some of the main permament elements of the sunnah. However, there are groups who show unwavering loyalties to their traditions and think that Sunnah should be obeyed in extreme measures.

More hadiths of Muhammad:

The world is green and beautiful and God created you to be his faithful workers

The god is one, your ancestor is one. You all came from Adam and Adam belongs to Earth

All parts of the world has been created as a place of worship, clean and pure

The world compared to the space is like a drop of water compared to the ocean

The search for science is the most important duty of every muslim. Even if it's in China, go and find it

The less and enough is better than many and deceiving

Allah is merciful and loves mercy, wherever and whenever it is

Every religion has their own characteristics and one of the main characteristics of Islam is modesty

The modesty and faith are very connected. If one of them vanishes, so does the other

Beware of envy because envy swallows good work, just like the fire swallows the fuel

Do not be afraid of doubt, for doubt is a path of reason

Let the young one greet the old, let the walking one greet the sitting one, let the majority greet the minority

The greatest struggle, is the battle a person lives to conquer itself

The Qu'ran coming soon...

[Mehmed II]

The Qu'ran :
The word Qu'ran means, ''to read'' or '' the one that must be read'' in arabic. The Qu'ran is considered to be the word of god, sent to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel in pure arabic. The language of Quran is entirely different from the daily speaking of Muhammad. For example, it's impossible to mix it up with the Hadith. Qu'ran is the founding stone of Islam.

Qu'ran started to be sent to Muhammad in the year 610, he started receiving them when he was forty. These revelations, which continued for the next 23 years, ceased to happen 81 days after the prophet's death. The last one that came to him was: I completed your theological law today. I created you and gave you your religion so that you would submit to me(5:3)

The Islamic scholars know everything about these revelations . They know when they were sent, where they were sent and under which conditions they were sent. However, these revelations weren't arranged in a historical order. When a passage in Qu'ran was sent to Muhammad, Muhammad would always be aware of where it would be in the whole book. As he would expect a new revelation, he would occasionaly wait by reading other passages from the Qu'ran and sometimes from the Bible. Couple of months before his death, he finally read the whole Qu'ran in before dinner. When the prophet was dead, lots of people memorized Qu'ran already. The written form of the book was also there.

The First Qu'ran :
The process of unifying all the passages of the Qu'ran in a single book began shortly after the prophet's death. The first caliph Abu Bekir, ordered Muhammad's grand scholar Zeyd Bin Tabit to gather all the written pieces of the holy book. These pieces Abu Bekir saved was passed on to Caliph Umar when he was dead. Umar eventually entrusted these pieces to his daughter Hafsa. After Umar's death in 644, the third caliph Othman, gathered a council managed by Zeyd bin Tabit and ordered 6 copies of the Qu'ran to be written. When his order was completed, Othman gathered the family members and close friends of the prophet and received their approval by reading them the authentic Qu'ran. Later, he ordered the destruction of the rest of the other Qu'rans and sent copies of the first authentic Quran to the other parts of the Islamic world. The Qu'ran we have today, is the authentic Qu'ran of Othman.

What is Qu'ran :
The Qu'ran, does not look like other religious texts such as the Bible, Mahabharata, Ramayana or Torah. Because, although it includes some stories of the old tribes, it's not a telling of events that happened in the past. It doesn't follow a historical pattern, it doesn't have an ordinary start and it does not have an end. It's like an enormous symphony. It's formed of 114 suras and 6.236 verses. Every word in it connects in rhyme, meaning and rhytm. This structure of the Qu'ran guarantees it's purity. Even a slightest change demolishes it's whole discipline.