Sublime

Muhammad’s role during those first couple of years in Yathrib was very likely that of a Hakam—albeit a powerful and divinely inspired one—whose arbitration was restricted to the Aws and Khazraj, and whose authority as a Shaykh was confined to his own “clan” of Emigrants: one clan out of many; one Shaykh out of many. Muhammad’s claim to be the Messe

theologically speaking, Muhammad’s assertion that “there is no god but God” would have been neither scandalous nor, for that matter, original in Mecca.