Why Muhammad?

Abstract

God‘s reasoning is unfathomable. Nevertheless, not only orientalists
but Muslims are well-advised to ponder on occasion questions linked to
the Night of Destiny (laylut al qadr): Why, of all people, was Muhammad,
a person who lived in Arabia, of all places, and in the seventh century
C.E., chosen to deliver God‘s final message in Arabic, a heretofore
obscure language in the larger world of that time? In our quest for
answers to such questions, human reasoning may provide the following
answers:
1) Seventh-century Arabia could not be reached by the power projection
of the region’s two dominant hegemonical states. The Christian
(east) Roman empire of Heraclius I and the Iranian empire of the
Sasanian Shah Chosraw II Parwez were completely absorbed in an ongoing
struggle that would ultimately turn out to be fatal for both of them.
The dualist Persian religions of Mithraism and Manichaeism had been
consolidated into the official state religion of Zoroastrianism. Both
empires would not have tolerated a new religion that, like Islam, could
have shaken their very foundations. Only in the far distant and obscure
land of Arabia could a new ideological state-community arise and consolidate
itself before either of the two neighboring superpowers had a
chance to intervene.
2) Arabia enjoyed a central geostrategic position with regard to the
known world at that time, being at a similar distance from Morocco and
China as well as England and Japan. Muslim expansion was greatly
facilitated by the fact that in geographical terms, Islam was never marginal.
3) At that point in time, the languages of commerce and intellectual
discourse-Latin, Greek, Persian, and Hebrewhad become so
linked and interwoven as media for the transportation and interpretation
of previous divine relations that they were now unsuitable for the new
Islamic message. In order to bring about a theological revolution, particularly
in the Christianized world, the Qur’anic message required a
virginal language. We see how true this assessment is when we consult
a translation of the Qur’an made by Christian orientalists. Whenever
they encounter terms like al kulimut, al amr, or al ruh (al quddus) they ...