Prophetic Authority Quotes
The Messenger is Muhammed, founder of Islam. The Hadith are his sayings which have been compiled but are not in the Koran.
He had whipped the crowd up into a feverish pitch until someone rushed the bound and tied blacksmith and stabbed him to death. He had only criticized Mathias for being too harsh and stern a leader.
Islam was not very strong at this point and the followers of Muhammad were relatively few and Medina area contained Arab Non-Believers, Jews as well as the new Muslims. Muhammad drew up this document and got the non Muslims to agree to it. What is fascinating is that they bought into the idea that Muhammad would be the judge and final arbitrator of all disputes that were not resolved locally. The non Muslims agreed to this because Muhammad had been judging disputes for several years for those who would submit their cases to them. In a time of inconsistency, corruption, capriciousness and arbitrariness, Muhammad had developed a remarkable reputation for fairness, consistency, objectivity, and complete honesty. He could not be bought as most judges were at the time. He simply had demonstrated that he was the best man for the job.
Joseph ben Matthias
