Islam, the Quran, and the Five Pillars: Crash Course World History #13

Hi there, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course: World History and today we’re going

to talk about Islam, which like Christianity and Judaism grew up on the east coast of the

Mediterranean but unlike Christianity and Judaism is not terribly well understood in

the West. For instance, you probably know what this is and what this is, you probably

don’t know what that is. Google it.

Mr. Green Mr. Green why do you think people know so little about Islamic history?

Did you just ask an interesting non-annoying question, me from the past? I think we don’t

know about early Islamic history because we don’t learn about it, me from the past,

because we don’t learn about it, because we’re taught that our history is the story

of Christianity in Europe, when in fact our history is the story of people on the planet,

so let’s try to learn something today.

[theme music]

So in less than 200 years Islam went from not existing to being the religious and political

organizing principal of one of the largest empires in the world.

And that story begins in the 7th century CE when the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad,

a 40-ish guy who made his living as a caravan trader and told him to begin reciting the word of God.

Initially, this freaked Muhammad out, as, you know, it would—but then his wife and

a couple of other people encouraged him and slowly he came to accept the mantle as prophet.

A few things to know about the world Islam entered: First, Muhammad’s society was intensely

tribal. He was a member of the Quraysh tribe, living in Mecca and tribal ties were extremely important.

Also, at the time, the Arabian peninsula was like this crazy religious melting pot. Like

most tribal Arabs worshipped gods very similar to the Mesopotamian gods you’ll remember from episode 3.

And by the time of Muhammad, cult statutes of many of those gods had been collected in

his hometown of Mecca in this temple-like structure called the Kaaba.

But Arabia was also a home for monotheisms like Christianity and Judaism, even a bit

of Zoroastrianism. So the message that there was only god wouldn’t have been like as

surprising to Muhammad as it was, for instance, to Abraham.

Also, and this will become very important, the northern part of Arabia was sandwiched

between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Sassanian Empire—and you’ll remember,

those guys were always fighting. They were like snowboarders and skiers, or like the

Westboro Baptist Church and everyone else.

At its core, Islam is what we call a radical reforming religion—just like Jesus and Moses

sought to restore Abrahamic monotheism after what they perceived as straying, so too did Muhammad.

Muslims believe that God sent Muhammad as the final prophet to bring people back to

the one true religion, which involves the worship of, and submission to, a single and all-powerful God.

The Quran also acknowledges Abraham and Moses and Jesus among others as prophets, but it’s

very different from the Hebrew and Christian bibles:

For one thing it’s much less narrative, but also its

the written record of the revelations Muhammad received—which means its not written from

the point of view of people, it is seen as the actual word of God.