The progres­sive face of Islam in Africa is now championed by a new generation of Western-educated South African Muslim scholars like Ebrahim Moosa and Farid Esack. Theistic voluntarists face several difficulties: moral language seems intelligible without having to be explained in terms of the Divine will. Opponents in Congress were able to delay the effort by falsely interpreting Truman’s language. Mormon critics view this 1838 account with skepticism, because Smith’s earliest accounts of the First Vision did not refer to the presence of two beings. After the first bloody battle, Mohammed also introduced a stricter form of patrilinear society in which women could not marry more than one man. Mohammed’s egalitarian society was based on redistribution of wealth. Whatever the cause, at some point Mohammed started preaching against the kahins and for restoring an egalitarian society. According to the legend, Mohammed married his wife in the year 595, had his revelation in the year 610, started preaching in 613, his wife and his uncle died in 619, and he fled to Medina in 622 (also the year when he married the nine-year old child Aisha).

But within a year Abu Bakr declared war to the Byzantine and Sassanid empires and managed to conquer Mesopotamia from the Sassanids and a piece of Syria from Byzanthium. He is the one who finished the job: he conquered the whole of Palestine, Syria and Egypt, as well as the whole of the Sassanid empire. It was in fact Khadija the first one who believed in Mohammed’s visions. The tribe of Ali claimed it because it was Mohammed’s tribe, and because Mohammed seemed to have named Ali as his successor although this was (and is) disputed. The Quraysh claimed the right, based on the fact that they still controlled Mecca (and probably a huge army and a huge wealth). There was much wealth in Arabia, although it was mostly traveling across it. At Mohammed’s death there was no Islam. The tale serves as an iconic reminder that winter is an inherently apocalyptic time, pitting the forces of order and life against darkness and death. Zayd ibn Thabit was the one asked by caliph Uthman to write the final version that was then sent to every Muslim city with the order to destroy any other version.

To make sure that his version of the facts would never be contested, Uthman had all other scriptures burned in Medina. Nonetheless, Mohammed married nine women in Medina (probably reflecting the old tradition that the power of a shaykh was proportional to his harem). This was followed in 628 by the massacre of Jews at Khaybar (again, all males were killed, all women and children taken as slaves). All the adult males were beheaded and all the children and women were sold as slaves. Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536, two years after the king removed the pope’s influence from England so their marriage would be legitimate. This was possibly a compromise reached by the two parties. Then there were the Zoroastrians of the Persian empire, and the Jews who had settled in the Arabian peninsula itself. Arabian trade routes to India became strategic to the Romans because of continuous warfare against the Sassanids. Interestingly, there is no one day of the week assigned for worship, unlike Christianity that upholds the belief that Sunday is the Lord’s day. In 1956 at the age of 11, Bob Marley moved with his family to Trench Town, one of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica.

At one point the Arabs were surrounded by Christians: Byzanthium in the north, Yemen in the south and Ethiopia to the east. From this point on there is no question that Mohammed’s creation was a militaristic religion. There is little historical question that this is precisely what Uthman and his dynasty (the Umayyads) did, but they won the confrontation against Ali’s followers. Uthman was so unpopular that there were revolts against his rule throughout the empire. The problem is that Mohammed died without naming a successor or a succession rule. Ali’s followers saw this succession as a coup by Mohammed’s enemies, who were basically undoing what Mohammed had preached and done. In 1908, the Jadids began in Orenburg to publish the magazine Shuro (شورا, “Council”), where Rizaitdin Fakhretdinov pursued the idea of succession Volga Bulgaria, Golden Horde and Kazan Khanate. The most spiritually alive people are the ones who never stop searching. Anyone who questioned the authenticity of Uthman’s Quran was persecuted and probably did not survive to tell his story. But in 1295, Ghazan persecuted Buddhists and destroyed their temples. As the jeans are really thorough, as far as torso fashion goes don’t forget that ‘less is more’.