Lesley Hazleton: This is why when I talk about Islam with a capital “I” as a religion, it is not what Muhammad formed. It was a movement, an approach to the divine, a certain relationship to the divine. It was very strong on social and economic principles, which is something that has been overlooked. It was about social justice. If you go back to the roots of Judaism and Christianity, to Elijah’s protest, Jesus’s protest against the Romans and the collaboration of priests in the temple, the same issues are involved: unequal distribution of power. Unequal distribution of wealth. In Muhammad’s case, there was gender inequality, sons being valued more than daughters. Infanticide. They began from the bottom, the Occupy movements of the time. They began with the recognition of and growing realization that we can act against corruption, against the arrogance of power and greed and wealth. […] Something happens once a religion becomes institutionalized, once it becomes a “Religion,” which is connected with political and economic power. Principles tend to get lost. In the same way that early Islam was a political movement, so too was early Christianity, early Judaism. They were idealistic movements, strengthened by this idea that social justice and economic justice were part of divine rule, which gives it enormous moral authority. The early followers of Muhammad, like the early followers of Jesus, were the disenfranchised. They were the second and third and fourth sons, they were slaves, freed slaves, and women. They were a bunch of “nobodies,” which is what struck me about the new community that he founded in Medina. What an act of amazing idealism. More here.