The Prophetic Community-Building Process in the Meccan Period with an Emphasis on the Descent of the Children of Israel Story

Abstract

Community-building is a process that is established over time based on specific principles. The 23-year period of the revelation of the Holy Quran, which ultimately led to the formation of the desired community, provides the stages and structure of community formation to the audience. The process of community-building can be extracted from the 23-year period of the Prophet's mission, based on the descent of the Holy Quran. In the early years of revelation, the Prophet, while conceptualizing and creating the foundations for building a community, devoted efforts to the nurturing and education of individuals to initiate the formation of an Islamic community through human resource development. This research focuses on the Prophetic community-building process in the Meccan period with an emphasis on the descent of the Children of Israel story, utilizing the Quranic revelation approach, historical teachings, content analysis method, and the story of the Children of Israel. By analyzing the revealed verses and the story of the Children of Israel and their events in the Meccan period, the author argues that the Prophet, in the Meccan period, initially focused on creating an environment and strengthening the thoughts and transformations in the cognitive structure of the audience. Based on this and through human resource development, he first formed a minimal community of believers, and towards the end of the Meccan era, the community of believers officially emerged. The Prophet then took the initiative to establish a community and subsequently a government upon the command of migration and by entering Medina.

Keywords

• holy quran
• community-building
• quranic revelation approach
• meccan period
• children of israel story