Paul and Muhammad Essay

Abstract

The comparative analysis of the rise of religious universalistic monotheism and the making of two world religions, by Khaldoun Samman (p.1). Is about the emergence of the imperial religion for two major world-empires in the first century in the Roman Empire and seventh century in the Arabian Peninsula. Samman asks why did this happen at such times, in these places, and what social factors account for it? He argues that there are strong sociological reasons for it. I describe and discuss the social conditions that contributed to the ways in which Paul and Muhammad's religions are similar and dissimilar.

Pauline Christianity, per Samman, is the result of a break between Judaism's strict interpretation of the Law that separated a small ethnic group who worshiped separately from the dominant culture or urban life in the Greek east along with Rome, and the Gentiles inability to worship the same God, "the God of Israel". (p. 2). At that time, the Israelites social environment was such that, for twelve centuries, they never ruled their own territory. Their "upside world" and exile after being dispossessed of their land so many times, resulted in the Jewish social and religious discourse, symbolized by the contract or covenant with One God, and the Promised Land. (p. 4). At the time of Paul, the Jews travelled long distances visited major Greco-Roman cities. As they travelled and became part of their culture, the worship rules no longer applied.

The message of his interpretation of the Torah was a universal message for humankind. He outlawed the practices of the time, with his message to the same people who called themselves the "chosen people", the Jews, from circumcision and dietary regulations to Sabbath observance. Paul's transformation vehicle of humanity is the Christ event. The resurrection of Jesus is his ideal of human unification, started with a group that already believed in a non-particularistic form of monotheism. (P.5). There was "no longer Jew or Greek" he said in cited from Galatians 3:26-28, nor "slave or free" or "male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (P. 6). The Hellenized Jews, looking to assimilate in a larger world that they were living in welcomed him, and with it assimilating to the Roman Empire, the message of Paul, applied to both. (P. 6). He was careful to stress that the Divine presence was not in only in the Holy Sanctuary of Jerusalem the place, but everywhere the Holy People or the Church existed.

Muhammad lived at a similar time as Paul, thought it happened at 570 C.E., the article points out, "when an important material change was taking place" (P. 8). Arabia experienced conflict between Persia and Byzantine empires. Mecca, his birth place, was undergoing a tremendous change. In this case it was the merchants, who were traveling in caravans. In this prophet's time the change marker was pre-trade and Islam's rise with trade. In pre-trade times, the social unit was a tribe. In this tribal system, each person belonged to "a kinship group claiming descent from a real or supposed ancestor" cited from Ruthven: 50, (P. 9). As such, this social organization could not survive in the new environment. Mecca's sacred stone the Ka'ba is in an area called the haram according to Ibrahim: 43 cited in the article. The tribe's existence in this area, like Jerusalem, did not survive the change that came with commerce. A new society emerged based on long-distance trade that gradually unraveled the structure of allegiance. (P. 10). "His mission was especially designed to break down the barriers between rival tribes", and to replace "the social unit with" a more "universal loyalty to the Islamic Umma" cited from Ruthven: 100 by Samman.

Muhammad was a merchant that travelled and experienced the conflicts of that environment. He was a negotiator. The clan system was not conducive for that. He was born into an environment ready for change (P.10). He saw the need and begins to establish what later would become Islam. One of the first things he did was establish new ways of tribal linkage. The salaat or prayer became one of his innovative practices that lead to such change. The old kinship group has established special gestures, for example, that would distinguish a membership to a tribe. The salaat became the link for the merchants to his tribe, per Ruthven's observations. (P. 12). "The institution of the salaat," was" able "to provide a new field of loyalty that would smooth the transition to a more universalistic consciousness." The Umma, "a supertribal entity whose loyalty was to Allah" cited from Ruthven: 83. (P. 12). The prophet also universalized God, "from