The Prophet Muhammad

Assignment to hand in:    Transparency Note Graphic Organizer

Overview: This visual activity will introduce you to the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the development of Islam in the seventh century Arabia. You will view six transparencies that depict life in Arabia before Muhammad, Muhammad's call to Prophethood, the Prophet's message, his migration to Madinah, his return to Makkah, and the foundations of the Islamic way of life. You will record notes on the Transparency Note Graphic Organizer based on the readings and transparencies.

Part 1: Arabia Before Muhammad - Download Reading (PDF)

This is an illustration of a traders' caravan outside Makkah. To the left is a Bedouin camel driver tying a water skin and the ivory tusks of an elephant on the back of his camel. At center, we see a trader bargaining with the Quraysh leader of the caravan, asking him to accept merchandise carried by the traders' donkeys.

Part 2: Muhammad's Call to Prophethood - Download Reading (PDF)

This is a manuscript illustration of the Angel Gabriel's appearance to the Prophet Muhammad. Geometric figures have been added to the transparency to cover the figures of the Angel Gabriel (on the right) and the Prophet Muhammad (on the left) out of respect for the Islamic tradition that considers the depiction of holy figures in human form as inaccurate and unacceptable.

Part 3: Muhammad Spreads the Word of Allah - Download Reading (PDF)

This is a miniature painting from the sixteenth century Darir Siyar-i-Nabi (Life of the Prophet) that depicts angry Makkans throwing stones at Abu Bakr and the Prophet Muhammad. In their early phase, Muhammad's teaching met with considerable resistance; feelings grew so strong that one day angry Makkans attempted to stone him.

Part 4: The Emigration to Madinah - Download Reading (PDF)

This is Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and other supporters of the Prophet arriving in Madinah after leaving Makkah. The Muslims of Madinah gathered outside the city every morning awaiting the Prophet's arrival. When he was finally sighted in the distance on camelback, a group of his supporters rode out to escort the Prophet into town.

Part 5: The Return to Makkah - Download Reading (PDF)

This is a painting of the prelude to the Battle at Badr in 624 C.E. from a Turkish sixteenth century Siyar-i-Nabi (Life of the Prophet). The scene shows the Prophet encamped with his men at the well of Badr awaiting the arrival of the Makkan army. The Prophet sits behind the well in a shelter built of palm branches. Opposite, (depicted in sixteenth century Ottoman armor), come the Makkans.

Part 6: Islam as a Way of Life - Download Reading (PDF)

These are Muslims on pilgrimage inside the Sacred Mosque in Makkah, which encloses the Kaaba, the focal point of the Muslim world. In the south-eastern exterior wall of the Kaaba - "the House of God" - is embedded, in a silver frame, a polished fragment of a black stone, the starting point for some of the pilgrims' rites. Today, the structure is draped with a black cloth on which verses from the Qur'an are embroidered in gold thread.

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