Islam, a Renewal of Axial Age Spirituality

Abstract

Like Christianity, Islam does not belong directly to the Axial Age but can be regarded as an offshoot or another stage of it. As far as money and property is concerned, Islam has basically taken over the approach of the biblical traditions. The special context in which Muhammad (ca. 560–632 CE) received his first revelations is characterized by conflicts with the rich class of traders in his hometown of Mecca.¹ Most inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula were nomadic Bedouins. Some tribes settled in small towns, which were normally meeting points between the sedentary and the nomadic people on the occasion of trade, markets, and pilgrimages. Mecca was situated at the trading route between the Yemen in the South and Great Syria in the North. In this situation, people had begun striving for individual wealth, and the traditional forms of behavior and tribal virtues (loyalty, hospitality) had started to erode. People were starting to expect immortality from hoarding money, as Aristotle had put it in his analysis of the money economy. Muhammad began to oppose these economic and social developments—with the consequence that he and his disciples were oppressed, boycotted, and persecuted by the ruling elites.