Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #28 - Muhammad's Revolution of God

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #28 - Muhammad's Revolution of God

Okay, good morning. So we are doing Muhammad in the rise of Islam today. Muhammad, as you know, is one of the most important and influential figures in human history. He is as important as Jesus. But ironically, we actually don't know that much about Muhammad. In fact, we probably know more about Jesus. We probably know more about Jesus than we know about Muhammad. With Jesus, at least we have a lot of his quotations, a lot of his sayings, which give us insight into his philosophy, his religion, his thinking.

But with Muhammad, we don't have that many quotations, we don't have that many written sources. In fact, the Quran, which is the holy book of the Islamic tradition, doesn't really mention him, even though in theory it is written by him. In fact, one of the earliest written documents about Muhammad is actually from a Christian bishop, written about 20, 30 years after Muhammad's death in 632 CE. So we know he exists, so we know that he was a real person and he was a found. of the Islamic tradition and this is what Sibyel says about Muhammad at that time a certain man from along those same sons of Ishmael whose name was

mammoth okay so mammoth is Mohammed in fact we don't even know what his real name is Mohammed just means blessed one in Arabic a merchant okay so it was a merchant as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher so he here's a prophet who rallied the Arabs to his cause. Abbeying their vain cults, they turned to the living God who had appeared to the Father Abraham. So Muhammad converted the polytheistic Arabs to the monifism of the Jews.

So, Mamet legislated for them not to carry on, not to drink wine, not to speak falsely, and not to engage in. fornication. He said, with an oath, God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him forever. And he brought about as he promised

during that time while he loved Ishmael. Okay? So what he's saying is the Arabs are the descendants of Abraham, just like the Jews and the Christians. But now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise of Abraham and his seat to you.

You have been, you have, God promised you the promised land. And now this land has been taken away from you. Jerusalem, Israel has been taken away from you. And now we will take it back by going to war. Jihad, holy war. Love sincerely only the God of Abraham and go and seize the land which God gave to your father, Abraham. No one will be able to resist you in battle because God is with you.

So this is actually very similar, the story of Moses in the Bible, right? The Jews were enslaved in Egypt and Moses appeared before them and promised to take them back to Israel. So this is clearly following an ancient tradition. And so Mohabit in many ways is like Moses. In fact, what's really strange is that in the Koran, the most quoted figure, the figure that is most mentioned, is Moses, not Mohammed or Jesus. So, let's try to figure out what's going on here. First of all, what Muhammad is saying is that Christians, Jews, and Arabs are all one big family. Why? Because in the Bible, it says that Abraham

made a covenant with Yahweh. Yahweh, Abraham swore allegiance to Yahweh. In return, Yahweh gave him the promised land. The promised land is not Israel. The promised land is all that territory going from the Nile

to the Tigris in modern-day Iraq. So especially the entire Middle East. That's what the promised land is. Now, this is important because Abraham had a wife, Sarah. Sarah for most of her life, was not able to give birth. And if you don't have descendants, if you don't have children, they don't get the promised land, right? So in desperation, Sarah gave Abraham her maid named Haggard.

And Abraham implanted Haggard. impregnant Hagar and Hagar gave birth to a son named Ishmael and then Ishmael went to the Arab desert and he is the father of the Arab people okay and that's where Mohammed comes from the Arabs Sarah by the miracle of God would eventually be able to give birth to the Israelites okay and as we know the Israelites will eventually become the Christians. So in other words, the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims, they have a common ancestor in Abraham. So this is what, so this is what this is saying. So even though we don't have that many written sources about Muhammad, we have something called the Hadith. The Hadith.

The Hadith is Arabic and it just means an oral tradition. So there are these stories about Muhammad that has been passed on orally from generation to generation, celebrating his life. And so let's go over what is traditionally understood about Muhammad. So Muhammad was born in the year 570 into an Arab tribe. And he's born in a place called Mecca in the Arabian desert. He became a trader, a merchant, because most people at that time were either nomads or merchants. And at a very young age, he married a very wealthy widow. And until the age of 40, his life was prosperous, but uneventful.

Then at age 40, he started to meditate in a cave. That's a very common thing to go to a cave and to meditate as a form of religious worship. And while he was at the cave, the angel Gabriel appeared before Muhammad. And he said to Muhammad, you and your family have lost away. You are the descendants of Ishmael who brought the religion of Yahweh to the desert. Back then you were monotheistic but then over time you became corrupted and became polytheistic and so you have a mission to tell your fellow Arabs the story of Yahweh the story of the Bible and return them to the

love of Yahweh return them to monotheism and so Gabriel in a series of visions would tell the story of the Bible, including Moses, his taking the people, the Trojan people, the Jews from Egypt back to the promised land. And this is considered a miracle and true because Muhammad was an illiterate merchant who had no exposure to the Bible. So this had to be true. And this shows that this is all. a miracle. So Muhammad is now inspired by the archangel Gabriel to preach the word of God. But at this time, Arabia is a polytheistic, primitive, and backward society. So the people of Mecca reject him. He spends 13 years in Mecca preaching the word, but they reject him.

So eventually he decides to move to Medina. And this move is very important. It's called the hijab. The immigration. He and his followers move from Mecca to Medina. And this starts the Islamic tradition. And this marks the year zero in the Islamic calendar, just as the birth of Jesus marks the year zero in the Christian calendar.

So he goes to Medina because the tribes there have invited him to be a judge. The tribes there, one of the tribes is actually Jewish. They're fighting amongst themselves. And they need someone to arbitrate their disputes. And so Muhammad goes, he creates something called the Constitutional Medina, which promises the freedom of religious expression to all people. There will be no religious prejudice in Medina. Eventually, over time, more and more followers are attracted to his message of monotheism, and

he starts to build a following, an army. But because he's preaching a faith that is counter the mainstreaming faith, he gets attacked by other Arab tribes. And there's some setbacks. But through the love of God, through the will of God, he triumphs over them. and he unites the Arabian Peninsula. Now at this point, they were a threat to the two major world empires at this time. The Byzantine Empire, who they here is the Roman Empire,

as well as the Sassanian Persian Empire. And they both attack him. Sorry, they both attack the Muslims. But again, through the miracle of God, the Muslims are able to defeat both empires. And in less than 100 years, they conquer most of the world. It is one of the greatest mysteries in world history how this happened. How was it possible for desert people?

These are desert nomads who are poor, primitive and backward, how they were able to defeat two world empires and conquer most of the world. Their empire at their height would stretch. from Spain in the West all the way to India and would include Egypt, the Lavant, Mesopotamia, and Iran. Okay? Very impressive. How do they do that?

And this mystery has never been solved. We will try in today's class to solve this mystery. In today's class, we'll try to answer three major questions. First of all, who was Muhammad really? Who was this person? What did he believe? What did he want? That's the first question.

Second question is, how was this new religion Islam able to triumph? And the third and last question is, why do we know so little about the early history of the Islamic tradition? the Islamic tradition. So given that, we know so little about the early history and given that there are few written sources about the early history, and very little archaeology has been done because Mecca Medina are the two holiest sites in the Islamic tradition. So we don't have that

much evidence. In this situation, we can only use historical analogs are there historical incidents that mirror or similar to what happened in the Arabian Peninsula fifteen hundred years ago and the answer is there are some there are actually many many similarities all right so I always look at three ones three I'll just look at three okay the first is from 1850 to 1864 in China there's something called the Taiping Rebellion. I'm not sure if you know the story, but what happened was there was this young man only in his 20 years, but his name is Homsio Trent. And he's trying to become a scholar official

by taking the examination. And he's failed three times already. After his third attempt, he runs into a Christian missionary who gives him a pamphlet. And he just peruses that pamphlet. and he learns about Jesus. Then he has a dream where he meets Jesus and Jesus tells him, you're my brother, you're my little brother. And after he fails the exam for the fourth time, he decides to abandon that scholar official route and embrace his destiny as the brother, as a Chinese brother of Jesus. And eventually, over the course of 10 years, he's able to build a following that eventually

conquers most of China. And he's almost able to overthrow the Qing Empire. But there are some other factors that work. For example, the Western Powers, mainly the British Empire, intervene on behalf of the Qing Dynasty. So a very similar situation with the Muslim conquest of the world, right? These are peasants who have this very strange new religion and somehow they're able to beat a major empire. And what the story of the Taiping rebellion tells us is a new religion that is revolutionary

in the right social, historical, economic circumstances can be very powerful. So what drove the Taiping soldiers in battle was both the idea of religious devotion, God is with us, and revolutionary zeal. We are making a new world. And when soldiers are infused with both religious devotion and revolutionary zeal, they're not afraid to die.

They will fight to the death. And that's why they were able to overwhelm the government soldiers. Okay? Same thing happened in something called the War of the Canudos, from 1896 to 1898 in Europe. The Canudos is a northern province in Brazil. And Brazil, for most of its history, was an extremely racist society where minorities were persecuted by the predominantly Spanish and white colonizers. And it was extremely unequal society where a few landlords controlled all the wealth.

So the Canoodles was a rebellion to overthrow these landlords and establish a kingdom of heaven. It was led by this preacher who preached the coming of the kingdom of heaven, just like Jesus. And he was surrounded by these peasants who overthrew the landlords. He was surrounded by bandits who were criminals, basically. They didn't have any guns. They didn't have any weapons. They didn't have any soldiers. The Brazilian army saw them as a threat.

And they sent three expeditions against these peasants. All three times the prison army was destroyed. They lost the battle. Why? Because again, when peasants have revolutionary zeal and religious devotion, they're not afraid to die. And so hand to hand, they were able to defeat the British soldiers who are well armed and well trained. So with the fourth expedition, the Brazilian army decided to send everyone. The entire Brazilian army was sent against this peasant uprising,

because they saw this as a threat to the social order. And what they did was, rather than engage the peasants in hand-in-hand combat directly, they surrounded the area with artillery, and they bombarded the peasants until they were all dead. They basically nuked the peasants. Because they could not defeat the peasants hand-to-hand or directly. And in both times, the Taiping Rebellion and the War of the Continuators, you're going to say it was a religious movement, but they were both revolutions.

They were trying to overthrow the established social order. So let's have one more example of this, which is the French Revolution. Now we're going to spend a lot of time on the French Revolution next semester, so I don't I don't spend too much time on it right now. But you know the basic outline of the French Revolution, right? Where the nobility and the Marquis were thrown, and they established a new revolutionary government. And the monarchies of Europe united against France

because they saw France as a threat to the established social order of Europe. And the French revolutionaries were able to defeat the combined. armies of Europe and under Napoleon they established a French empire so all three incidents incidents are very similar to what happened in the Arabian Peninsula in 600 C so in other words what I believe happened is the Muslims were the world's first global revolution okay so let me explain what I mean by that okay so first of all let's let's better understand the Arabian Peninsula at this time okay so this is the year 600 and again there are two major world empires between

the Arabian Peninsula there's the Byzantine Empire which is basically like like this okay okay these are Byzantines so and they are they here's to the Romans so basically the Eastern Roman Empire and they still figure themselves as the Roman Empire but historically we call them the Byzantines now and over here are what we call the Sasanian Persian Empire and as you can see they're huge okay this is India and this is Spain by the way okay this is Egypt so these are huge world empires and then you have the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula which is this which is this desert okay and you look at this

map you'd be like oh my god how was it possible the Arabs to defeat both the Byzantine Empire and and the Sassanian Persian Empire. And the answer is this. What people don't understand, what is not recognized is, in 600 CE, the hotbed of innovation was actually here in the Arabian Peninsula. This was the most creative, the most open,

and the most cosmopolitan center in the world at this time. And that's what people don't really understand. So let me explain why. Okay, as you can see from this map, Arabian Peninsula is a desert, but it's basically the center of the world. And remember, in this class, what you're taught is the world has always been connected through trade. Okay?

So the Arabian Peninsula, even though you can't really have cities, because you don't have rivers and you can't really grow crops, you can't have agriculture. They've been trading with other nations and civilizations for thousands of years, okay? Because there's a criss-cross of empire. So if India wanted to access Egypt, okay, because again, Egypt for the longest time was the wealthiest civilization, then they had to first send their goods to Arabia. And then the nomads would transport the goods into Egypt.

So what does it mean to be a trading center? Well, the first thing that it means is you have access to the most advanced technology, information, and knowledge in the world. Because you're a trader. You go everywhere and you bring back not just goods, but stories and information. They know everything about the world. They know exactly what's happening in the Byzantine Empire. They know exactly what's happening in the Assassin Empire,

So most people don't know what's happening in the desert, okay? Also, because of traders, they're extremely open-minded and cosmopolitan. They have no prejudices. They have to be friends with everyone. And the third thing is, because you're traders, they have to constantly learn new information. So that's the first unique characteristic about the Aryan Peninsula at this time. These are open-minded, cosmopolitan people who are constantly absorbing new information, new knowledge to better their society.

The second thing about the Arabian Peninsula is that it's a war society. You don't have cities, you don't have centralized control. All just tribes, just different clans, different families fighting each other. So honor is very important. If you offend someone in my family, we go to war. But guess what? Because they're always at war, these are strong, brave people who know how to fight. And that's why both the Byzantines and the Sassanians hired these people as mercenaries. And so as mercenaries, they were learning the most advanced warcraft, military doctrine of both the Sassanines and the Byzantines.

These were the best soldiers in the world, basically. And what happened is that over time, the Byzantines and the Assassinians would establish client states within the Arabian Peninsula. So these are client states. So that's the second thing. This is a war society who know how to fight. The third thing that makes the Arabian Peninsula so innovative is its diversity. So what do I mean by that? Okay.

So as we discussed last class, Augustine creates this intellectual blueprint for the Catholic Church. And the focus is on obedience. Okay. The idea is orthodoxy, meaning there is only one proper way to understand our religion. If you disagree, then it's harassment. Okay? As we discuss, the problem with the Christian religion is it's very, very confusing. So we talked about the example of the Godhead, right?

Jesus, Holy Spirit, and God are one and the same. Well, this creates a lot of problems. For example, the very basis of the Christian religion is that Jesus died for our sins, right? Jesus was sacrificed, he was crucified, and he suffered for his sins. Here's a question, though. How does God suffer? How does God die? That makes no sense.

So one debate that has never ended, okay? Even today, Christians still fight over it, is the idea of Christology. What is the nature of Christ? Is he divine? Is he human? Is he both? Is he half half? Was he human here and then divine up there?

There are lots of possibilities. And even today, Christians cannot agree. Okay? So even, so from the first day, Christians have fought over each other, over the nature of Christ and the nature of the Godhead. And again, because of orthodoxy, there's only one interpretation, and you must follow that interpretation. And if you don't follow that interpretation, guess what? You either have to go somewhere else or you die. And so they're forced to go east, right?

They either go to the Sassanian Empire or they go to the Ariririvian Desert. Many choose to go the Arabian Desert. Why? Because in the Arabian Desert, there's no sense of authority. You are free to practice the faith as you choose. And guess what? Often those who are the most heretical, those who want to practice your own faith are the most innovative. Because they like to ask questions.

They like to explore. They want to practice a personal faith. They believe that God is someone you communicate with. The Catholic Church demands that you can only access God through priests. You're not to read the Bible. You're not allowed to question orthodoxy. And the most intelligent people want to do that. They want to speak to God.

They want to practice their own personal faith. They want to ask questions. And in this world at this time, the only place you can do that is the Arabian Desert. So you have lots of Christians. Here are Christians who are very controversial. They all end up in the Arabian Desert, in order to practice their faith. You also have a lot of Jews in the Arabian Desert. Why? Well, first of all, I mean, the Arabian Desert is very close to Jerusalem, right?

So there's always been Jews there as traitors. And when they go to the Arabian Desert, remember, this is a common story about how the Arabs and the Jews come from one big family, Abraham. Okay? So they're able to coalesce, intermingle, intermingle, fairly easily. You also had a lot of Jews who are escaping persecution, right? You also had a lot of Jews who fought in the civil wars against Rome, and they lost, and they had to run to the Arabian desert. Okay, you have a lot of Jews here as well. You also have Zoroastrianans from the Sassan Empire who, again, want to practice their own personal faith. So the Arabian Desert, it is a hotbed of religious religiously.

religious diversity and religious tolerance. You are allowed to practice any faith, and people respect that. And again, they have some of the smartest Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians in the world at this point. People who will eventually lend their expertise to the Arab military machine. So they will help the Arabs develop innovative. siege warfare and military doctrine and science as well. Does that make sense? At the same time, while Arabia is increasing in terms of innovation and wealth and

diversity, both the Byzantine and the Sassanians are declining in terms of social stability. So as we discussed in this class, whenever you have stability, What happens is you will eventually have inequality and corruption. So people within the Byzantine Empire are extremely unhappy for three reasons. The first reason is the problem of landlessness. Second problem is debt. These are problems that have existed throughout human history. Why are there so many revolutions in Chinese history?

Because of these two problems, right? because there are a few people who control all the land, and because the peasants get into debt, so much debt, they can't pay it back. And their entire family, for generations, are enslaved to the landlords. But also, at this time, because of the Catholic Church, you also have the problem of religious persecution.

You are not allowed to practice your own faith. You are only allowed to practice the faith that the Catholic Church demands all of you. And the same situation is, true in the Persian Empire. So the people are extremely unhappy. At the same time, there's a lot of instability within the government of these empires. Why? Well, first of all, because they're always fighting each other, okay? So wars, they're always fighting each other. And that causes them to lose a lot of resources. Second is whenever you have large cities,

you have a problem of plagues, right? Disease, plagues. So there are these plagues called the Justinian plague that wiped out about 10 to 20% of the population at this point. And the third problem is civil wars, right? Because whenever an emperor dies, they fight over whose next emperor. So in other words, we think it seems that the Byzantines, and the assassins are really strong,

and the Arabs are really weak. We actually analyze it, you realize that, oh, wow, the Bidians are extremely weak, the sassanids are really weak, and the Arabs are really strong. The problem of the Arabs, though, is they're divided, right? They divide it into, like, thousands, tens of thousands of different tribes.

So the question now is, how do you unite them? So you need a leader to come and inspire the people. Okay, and this is Muhammad. Now, what's important for us to understand is there are lots of different prophets who think they are the Maasai at this point, okay? Because both the Zoroastrian religion and the Christian religion and the Jewish religion believe that the Maasai will come.

And we call this apocalyptic eschatology. This is very, very popular, right? with empires because the more stable empires are the more corruption the more inequality the more social stagnation there are okay so people that's we turn towards the idea of apocalyptic eschatology so there are a hundred people who who figure themselves as a messiah but eventually Mohammed becomes the Messiah of their people and why well fortunately we have a formulation of a a great leader that we've learned in this class.

All right? So let me remind you of this formulation. The first is the person is so strategic that he becomes visionary. Second is the person is so innovative, he becomes revolutionary. The third is the person is so disciplined, he becomes selfless. Right? And we, and so there are many individuals. we've met in this class that follows formula.

So, for example, Philip of Macedon, as well as Julius Caesar. Philip and Julius Caesar, we imagine warfare. They made their armies into meritocracies where the very best and the most loyal were able to rise up in the ranks, regardless of class or caste. And they were selfless.

They were always the first in battle. They put their lives, they put the soldiers' lives first. Okay? And so we can say that whoever Mohammed was, would fit this description. Okay? So let me explain. All right.

You are in the Arabian Peninsula. There are tens of thousands of different factions, different tribes, who have been fighting each other for centuries. They don't really like each other. Now, how do you unite them? How do you get everyone to work together and defeat both the Byzantines and assassinians? Well, you have, if you have three different messages, you can unite everyone. The first message is this.

We are all God's children. Okay? Arabs, Jews, Christians, we are all descendants of Abraham. we are all God's children. We are one big family. There should be no religious difference and persecution among us. And because we're all God's children and because we're all different, we should be free to practice any religion we want. The Christian religion is just as valid as the Jewish religion. Okay? So the first thing that you say. Second thing that you can say is that

We are, we, okay, so you're basically creating a meritocracy. The idea of meritocracy is basically revolution, right? The idea of class, the idea of caste, the idea of tribal loyalties, goes against the will of God, because we're all God's children. We're all equal in the eyes of God. Therefore, those who are most willing to work hard to achieve God's vision on earth, should rise to the top. Regardless of your religion, regardless of your class,

regardless of your caste. It's a meritocracy. And the third message is, God gave us the promised land. This land that extends from the Nile to the Tigers is what God promised us. We are all God's children, so each and every one of us should have land. But the Bicyns, the Persians,

the Persians, stole this land from us. But the landlords, the wealthy, stole it from us. Therefore, we must fight a jihad to take it back, because that is God's will. When we take it back, when we take it back, we'll establish a kingdom of heaven on earth. We will follow God's law. God's law demands equality. It demands mercy and tolerance. It demands openness.

That is God's law. So it's Muhammad. So in other words, Muhammad was a revolutionary who wanted to overfold the social order in order to establish the kingdom of heaven. He was the Messiah, promised to the Jews and promised to the Christians.

And who will now unite Arabs, Christians, and Jews in achieving the kingdom of heaven on earth. That's who Muhammad was. Okay? And so let's go back and we read the description of Muhammad and his army by Sibyles to see if this is correct, okay? At that time, a certain man from along the same lines, same sons as if of Ishmael, whose name was Mamet, a merchant, as if by God's command. Okay? So here's the Messiah.

He's the promised one. God has ordered him to do this. Appared them to as a preacher. So he united them, okay? And they started to see themselves as all the children of Abraham, and therefore the children of God. And then Namit gave them the law of God, not to eat carry on, not to drink wine,

not to speak falsely, and not to engage in fornication. This is a law of God. This is the kingdom of heaven. He said, with an oath, God promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him forever. This is the land that God promised to us, his children. But the Romans have it, the Persian habit, the landlords have it. And he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved Ishmael.

But now you are the sons of Abraham and God is accomplishing his promise to Abraham and his seat to you. Okay? I have come to you as God's messenger, as God's prophet, to tell you that this land is yours, and you must take it back. Love sincerely only the God of Abraham and go and seize the land which God gave to your father Abraham. Seize the land. Overfrew the tyrants. Overfrow the landlords. Take it back. No one will be able to resist you in battle because God is with you. So this combines revolutionary zeal over turning in the social order with religious devotion. God is with us.

And this is the same mentality that drove the French Revolution, the war of the Canaanos in Brazil, and the Tai Ping rebellion in China. And so this is the first truly global revolution. And this explains why the Muslims were able to triumph over both the Byzantines and the Sassimians. Because wherever they went, they freed the people from debt and landlessness and religious persecution. You are now allowed to practice any faith you want. You have that freedom now. That's important to people.

You now have some land where you can grow crops. and you will wipe away your debt. So in less than a hundred years, okay? Look what happened. They were able to conquer the entire Persian Empire and half of the Bison Empire. That's a power of religious devotion and revolutionary zeal.

So that's how they were able to do it. Now the last question we have is, Why don't we know any of this? Why isn't this time of history books? And the answer is, because the revolution worked out. Because they won. They achieved the revolution. But now after they achieved the revolution, they've become an empire.

If you're an empire, you don't want people to revolt against you. So you have to whitewash this history, right? You don't want people to know that Muhammad was a revolutionary. So you change the history. The history is that Mohammed was disgusted by the inequality in corruption he saw in the world around him. And he promised the people freedom from religious persecution, from debt, and from landlessness. And that's what drew followers to him. You don't want another Muhammad appearing in your empire.

So you changed the history and say that, oh, no, no. The real conflict was that Muhammad wanted monotheism, the Arabs wanted polytheism. That's what the problem was. And the same is true in China today, right? Who created the Chinese Revolution? Who enabled the Communist Party to control China? Mao Zedong, right?

Do you learn about Mao Zedong in school? No, you don't. same thing you understand so they're trying to whitewash your history because it's embarrassing for a global empire to celebrate a revolutionary who hated corruption and inequality and that's why there's so little written about Mohammed and that's why the Quran doesn't really tell that much that much that doesn't really tell us about Muhammad okay because his revolution One.

Okay. Is this clear to you? Do you have any questions? Okay. All right. So we have two more classes before the semester ends, okay? They're both on Dante. The reason why is Dante is the greatest poet, the greatest prophet in human history.

And he's really a second coming of Homer. Remember, Homer created Greek civilization. Well, Dante, with his work, the Vaincomedy, will create modern European civilization. So next class, next Tuesday, we'll start looking at Dante.