Explain and comment on the ways in which Muhammad set about creating a united ummah between 622 and 632.

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Explain and comment on the ways in which Muhammad set about creating a united ummah between 622 and 632

Key to explaining the creation of the united ummah is the admission by Islam of the wars that were necessary in achieving their aim.

The Muslim belief about 622 is that Muhammad and the muhajirun who followed him from Mecca to Medina were mostly accepted by most residents of Medina.  The foundation for this was that they had been asked there in the first place - they were supposed to bring about a peaceful revolution in a city wrought with violence and feuds between seperate tribes of people.  As such, Islam was going to be the heal on the wounds that were plighting Medina.  

The non-Muslim view however is that Jews and munafiqun had difficulties in accepting the ideals of Islam and ridiculed it.  Muhammad was faced with a challenge in bringing the people round to his point of view, and by the end of 622, had only managed to persuade 1000.

The first undisputed, all-out battle of the creation of the ummah was in 624.  This was the Battle of Badr.  While Muslims claim that the battle was fought out of loyalty to Allah alone, non-Muslims claim that it was based on a desire for revenge against the Meccans who had forced them to leave their original home. The evidence that Muslims claim to have supporting their argument is the very fact that Muhammad and his followers won the battle - they had Allah on their side, as is described in Sura 7.  Sura 7 is however believed by opponents to have been written at a different time to the Qur’an, so cannot be taken at face value.  Non-believers claim that Muhammad was acting with intolerance, which overrided the supposed obligation from Allah that he had to act on.

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625 saw the Battle of Uhud, which saw Abu Sufyan setting out in opposition to Muhammad.  His 3000 men would logically make light work of the 700 that Muhammad could call upon - Muslim belief follows that Allah was testing the faith of his followers in allowing one side to be so much bigger than the other.  Non-Muslim belief obviously ranges, but some have argued that God could not have solely been on Muhammad’s side, given that the prophet emerged from the battle with war wounds, and that some Meccans disobeyed orders, so there were other forces acting on the ...

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