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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
Old mosque at Nouakchott
Courtesy Larry Barrie
In A.D. 610, Muhammad, a prosperous merchant of the Arabian
town of Mecca, began to preach the first of a series of
revelations said to have been granted him by God (Allah) through
the agency of the archangel Gabriel. The divine messages,
received during solitary visits into the desert, continued during
the remainder of his lifetime.
Muhammad denounced the polytheistic paganism of his fellow
Meccans, his vigorous and continuing censure ultimately earning
him their bitter enmity. In 622 he and a group of his followers
were forced to flee to Yathrib, which became known as Medina (the
city) through its association with Muhammad. The flight
(hijra) marked the beginning of the Islamic Era and the
entrance of Islam as a powerful force on the stage of history;
indeed, the Muslim calendar begins with the year 622. In Medina,
Muhammad continued his preaching, ultimately defeated his
detractors in battle, and consolidated the temporal and spiritual
leadership of most Arabs in his person before his death in 632.
After Muhammad's death, his followers compiled those of his
words that were regarded as coming directly from God in a
document known as the Quran, the holy scripture of Islam. Other
sayings and teachings of the Prophet, as well as the precedents
of his personal behavior as recalled by those who had known him,
became the hadith (sayings). From these sources, the
faithful have constructed the Prophet's customary practice, or
sunna, which they endeavor to emulate. Together, the
Quran, hadith, and sunna form a comprehensive guide
to the spiritual, ethical, and social life of the faithful in
most Muslim countries.
Islam in a short time was transformed from a small religious
community into a dynamic political and military authority. By the
early eighth century A.D., Muslim conquerors had subdued the
coastal population of North Africa, but widespread conversion of
the nomads of the central and western desert did not come until
after large-scale invasions of the eleventh century by beduin
tribes from Arabia and Egypt
(see Almoravids
, ch. 1). As Islam
spread westward and southward in Africa, various elements of
indigenous religious systems became absorbed into and then
altered strictly Islamic beliefs. For example, the Islamic
tradition includes provisions for a variety of spirits and
supernatural beings, as long as Allah is still recognized as the
only God. Muslims in Mauritania believe in various lesser spirits
apparently transformed from pre-Islamic faiths into Islamic
spirits. Mauritanian Muslims, however, do not emphasize the
Islamic concepts of the eternal soul and of reward or punishment
in an afterlife.
Data as of June 1988
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