The
Prophet of Islam –
His
Biography
Dr.
Hamidullah
[Taken from
Introduction to Islam by Muhammad Hamidullah (Centre Cultural
Islamique, Paris,
1969), with some changes to make it more readable. The
changes are marked
by pairs of brackets like around this paragraph. Dr.
Hamidullah's present
address is: 10 E. South Street, Apt 130, Wilkes Barre PA,
18701, USA.]
IN the annals
of men, individuals have not been lacking who
conspicuously
devoted their lives to the socio-religious reform of their
connected peoples.
We find them in every epoch and in all lands. In India,
there lived those
who transmitted to the world the Vedas, and there was also
the great Gautama
Buddha; China had its Confucius; the Avesta was produced
in Iran. Babylonia
gave to the world one of the greatest reformers, the Prophet
Abraham (not to
speak of such of his ancestors as Enoch and Noah about whom
we have very scanty
information). The Jewish people may rightly be proud of a
long series of
reformers: Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and Jesus among
others.
2. Two
points are to note: Firstly these reformers claimed in general to
be the
bearers each of a
Divine mission, and they left behind them sacred books
incorporating codes
of life for the guidance of their peoples. Secondly there
followed fratricidal
wars, and massacres and genocides became the order of
the day, causing
more or less a complete loss of these Divine messages. As to
the books of
Abraham, we know them only by the name; and as for the books
of Moses, records
tell us how they were repeatedly destroyed and only partly
restored.
Concept
of God
3.
If one should judge from the relics of the past already
brought to light of
the homo sapiens,
one finds that man has always been conscious of the
existence of a
Supreme Being, the Master and Creator of all. Methods and
approaches may have
differed, but the people of every epoch have left proofs
of their attempts to
obey God. Communication with the Omnipresent yet
invisible God has
also been recognized as possible in connection with a small
fraction of men with
noble and exalted spirits. Whether this communication
assumed the nature
of an incarnation of the Divinity or simply resolved itself
into a medium of
reception of Divine messages (through inspiration or
revelation), the
purpose in each case was the guidance of the people. It was
but natural that the
interpretations and explanations of certain systems should
have proved more
vital and convincing than others.
3/a.
Every system of metaphysical thought develops its own terminology.
In
the course of time
terms acquire a significance hardly contained in the word
and translations
fall short of their purpose. Yet there is no other method to
make people of one
group understand the thoughts of another. Non-Muslim
readers in
particular are requested to bear in mind this aspect which is a
real
yet unavoidable
handicap.
4. By
the end of the 6th century, after the birth of Jesus Christ, men
had
already made great
progress in diverse walks of life. At that time there were
some religions which
openly proclaimed that they were reserved for definite
races and groups of
men only, of course they bore no remedy for the ills of
humanity at large.
There were also a few which claimed universality, but
declared that the
salvation of man lay in the renunciation of the world. These
were the religions
for the elite, and catered for an extremely limited number
of men. We need not
speak of regions where there existed no religion at all,
where atheism and
materialism reigned supreme, where the thought was solely
of occupying one
self with one's own pleasures, without any regard or
consideration for
the rights of others.
Arabia
5. A perusal of the
map of the major hemisphere (from the point of view of the
proportion of land
to sea), shows the Arabian Peninsula lying at the confluence
of the three great
continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. At the time in
question, this
extensive Arabian subcontinent composed mostly of desert areas
was inhabited by
people of settled habitations as well as nomads. Often it was
found that members
of the same tribe were divided into these two groups, and
that they preserved
a relationship although following different modes of life.
The means of
subsistence in Arabia were meager. The desert had its handicaps,
and trade caravans
were features of greater importance than either agriculture
or industry. This
entailed much travel, and men had to proceed beyond the
peninsula to Syria,
Egypt, Abyssinia, Iraq, Sind, India and other lands.
6.
We do not know much about the Libyanites of Central Arabia,
but Yemen
was rightly called
Arabia Felix. Having once been the seat of the flourishing
civilizations of
Sheba and Ma'in even before the foundation of the city of Rome
had been laid, and
having later snatched from the Byzantians and Persians
several provinces,
greater Yemen which had passed through the hey-day of its
existence, was
however at this time broken up into innumerable principalities,
and even occupied in
part by foreign invaders. The Sassanians of Iran, who had
penetrated into
Yemen, had already obtained possession of Eastern Arabia.
There was
politico-social chaos at the capital (Mada'in = Ctesiphon), and
this
found reflection in
all her territories. Northern Arabia had succumbed to
Byzantine
influences, and was faced with its own particular problems. Only
Central Arabia
remained immune from the demoralizing effects of foreign
occupation.
7. In
this limited area of Central Arabia, the existence of the triangle
of
Mecca-Ta'if-Madinah
seemed something providential. Mecca, desertic, deprived
of water and the
amenities of agriculture in physical features represented
Africa and the
burning Sahara. Scarcely fifty miles from there, Ta'if presented a
picture of Europe
and its frost. Madinah in the North was not less fertile than
even the most
temperate of Asiatic countries like Syria. If climate has any
influence on human
character, this triangle standing in the middle of the major
hemisphere was, more
than any other region of the earth, a miniature
reproduction of the
entire world. And here was born a descendant of the
Babylonian Abraham,
and the Egyptian Hagar, Muhammad the Prophet of Islam,
a Meccan by origin
and yet with stock related, both to Madinah and Ta'if.
Religion
8. From
the point of view of religion, Arabia was idolatrous; only a few
individuals had
embraced religions like Christianity, Mazdaism, etc. The
Meccans did possess
the notion of the One God, but they believed also that
idols had the power
to intercede with Him. Curiously enough, they did not
believe in the
Resurrection and Afterlife. They had preserved the rite of the
pilgrimage to the
House of the One God, the Ka'bah, an institution set up under
divine inspiration
by their ancestor Abraham, yet the two thousand years that
separated them from
Abraham had caused to degenerate this pilgrimage into
the spectacle of a
commercial fair and an occasion of senseless idolatry which
far from producing
any good, only served to ruin their individual behaviour,
both social and
spiritual.
Society
9. In
spite of the comparative poverty in natural resources, Mecca was
the
most developed of
the three points of the triangle. Of the three, Mecca alone
had a city-state,
governed by a council of ten hereditary chiefs who enjoyed a
clear division of
power. (There was a minister of foreign relations, a minister
guardian of the
temple, a minister of oracles, a minister guardian of offerings
to the temple, one
to determine the torts and the damages payable, another in
charge of the
municipal council or parliament to enforce the decisions of the
ministries. There
were also ministers in charge of military affairs like
custodianship of the
flag, leadership of the cavalry etc.). As well reputed
caravan-leaders, the
Meccans were able to obtain permission from
neighbouring empires
like Iran, Byzantium and Abyssinia - and to enter into
agreements with the
tribes that lined the routes traversed by the caravans - to
visit their
countries and transact import and export business. They also
provided escorts to
foreigners when they passed through their country as well
as the territory of
allied tribes, in Arabia (cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar). Although
not interested much
in the preservation of ideas and records in writing, they
passionately
cultivated arts and letters like poetry, oratory discourses and
folk
tales. Women were
generally well treated, they enjoyed the privilege of
possessing property
in their own right, they gave their consent to marriage
contracts, in which
they could even add the condition of reserving their right to
divorce their
husbands. They could remarry when widowed or divorced. Burying
girls alive did
exist in certain classes, but that was rare.
Birth
of the Prophet
10. It
was in the midst of such conditions and environments that Muhammad
was born in 569
after Christ. His father, 'Abdullah had died some weeks earlier,
and it was his
grandfather who took him in charge. According to the prevailing
custom, the child
was entrusted to a Bedouin foster-mother, with whom he
passed several years
in the desert. All biographers state that the infant prophet
sucked only one
breast of his foster-mother, leaving the other for the
sustenance of his
foster-brother. When the child was brought back home, his
mother, Aminah, took
him to his maternal uncles at Madinah to visit the tomb
of 'Abdullah. During
the return journey, he lost his mother who died a sudden
death. At Mecca,
another bereavement awaited him, in the death of his
affectionate
grandfather. Subjected to such privations, he was at the age of
eight, consigned at
last to the care of his uncle, Abu-Talib, a man who was
generous of nature
but always short of resources and hardly able to provide for
his family.
11. Young
Muhammad had therefore to start immediately to earn his
livelihood; he
served as a shepherd boy to some neighbours. At the age of ten
he accompanied his
uncle to Syria when he was leading a caravan there. No
other travels of
Abu-Talib are mentioned, but there are references to his
having set up a shop
in Mecca. (Ibn Qutaibah, Ma'arif). It is possible that
Muhammad helped him
in this enterprise also.
12. By
the time he was twenty-five, Muhammad had become well known in the
city for the
integrity of his disposition and the honesty of his character. A
rich
widow, Khadijah,
took him in her employ and consigned to him her goods to be
taken for sale to
Syria. Delighted with the unusual profits she obtained as also
by the personal
charms of her agent, she offered him her hand. According to
divergent reports,
she was either 28 or 40 years of age at that time, (medical
reasons prefer the
age of 28 since she gave birth to five more children). The
union proved happy.
Later, we see him sometimes in the fair of Hubashah
(Yemen), and at
least once in the country of the 'Abd al-Qais (Bahrain-Oman),
as mentioned by Ibn
Hanbal. There is every reason to believe that this refers to
the great fair of
Daba (Oman), where, according to Ibn al-Kalbi (cf. Ibn Habib,
Muhabbar), the
traders of China, of Hind and Sind (India, Pakistan), of Persia,
of the East and the
West assembled every year, travelling both by land and sea.
There is also
mention of a commercial partner of Muhammad at Mecca. This
person, Sa'ib by
name reports: "We relayed each other; if Muhammad led the
caravan, he did not
enter his house on his return to Mecca without clearing
accounts with me;
and if I led the caravan, he would on my return enquire
about my welfare and
speak nothing about his own capital entrusted to me."
An
Order of Chivalry
13. Foreign
traders often brought their goods to Mecca for sale. One day a
certain Yemenite (of
the tribe of Zubaid) improvised a satirical poem against
some Meccans who had
refused to pay him the price of what he had sold, and
others who had not
supported his claim or had failed to come to his help when
he was victimised.
Zuhair, uncle and chief of the tribe of the Prophet, felt
great remorse on
hearing this just satire. He called for a meeting of certain
chieftains in the
city, and organized an order of chivalry, called Hilf al-fudul,
with the aim and
object of aiding the oppressed in Mecca, irrespective of their
being dwellers of
the city or aliens. Young Muhammad became an enthusiastic
member of the
organisation. Later in life he used to say: "I have
participated in
it, and I am not
prepared to give up that privilege even against a herd of
camels; if somebody
should appeal to me even today, by virtue of that pledge,
I shall hurry to his
help."
Beginning
of Religious Consciousness
14. Not
much is known about the religious practices of Muhammad until he
was thirty-five
years old, except that he had never worshipped idols. This is
substantiated by all
his biographers. It may be stated that there were a few
others in Mecca, who
had likewise revolted against the senseless practice of
paganism, although
conserving their fidelity to the Ka'bah as the house
dedicated to the One
God by its builder Abraham.
15. About
the year 605 of the Christian era, the draperies on the outer wall
of
the Ka'bah took
fire. The building was affected and could not bear the brunt of
the torrential rains
that followed. The reconstruction of the Ka'bah was
thereupon
undertaken. Each citizen contributed according to his means; and
only the gifts of
honest gains were accepted. Everybody participated in the
work of
construction, and Muhammad's shoulders were injured in the course
of
transporting stones.
To identify the place whence the ritual of
circumambulation
began, there had been set a black stone in the wall of the
Ka'bah. dating
probably from the time of Abraham himself. There was rivalry
among the citizens
for obtaining the honour of transposing this stone in its
place. When there
was danger of blood being shed, somebody suggested
leaving the matter
to Providence, and accepting the arbitration of him who
should happen to
arrive there first. It chanced that Muhammad just then
turned up there for
work as usual. He was popularly known by the appellation
of al-Amin (the
honest), and everyone accepted his arbitration without
hesitation. Muhammad
placed a sheet of cloth on the ground, put the stone on
it and asked the
chiefs of all the tribes in the city to lift together the cloth.
Then he himself
placed the stone in its proper place, in one of the angles of
the building, and
everybody was satisfied.
16.
It is from this moment that we find Muhammad becoming
more and more
absorbed in
spiritual meditations. Like his grandfather, he used to retire
during
the whole month of
Ramadan to a cave in Jabal-an-Nur (mountain of light). The
cave is called `Ghar-i-Hira'
or the cave of research. There he prayed,
meditated, and
shared his meagre provisions with the travellers who happened
to pass by.
Revelation
17. He
was forty years old, and it was the fifth consecutive year since
his
annual retreats,
when one night towards the end of the month of Ramadan, an
angel came to visit
him, and announced that God had chosen him as His
messenger to all
mankind. The angel taught him the mode of ablutions, the
way of worshipping
God and the conduct of prayer. He communicated to him
the following Divine
message:
With the name of
God, the Most Merciful, the All-Merciful.
Read: with the name
of thy Lord Who created,
Created man from
what clings,
Read: and thy Lord
is the Most Bounteous,
Who taught by the
pen,
Taught man what he
knew not. (Quran 96:1-5)
18. Deeply
affected, he returned home and related to his wife what had
happened, expressing
his fears that it might have been something diabolic or
the action of evil
spirits. She consoled him, saying that he had always been a
man of charity and
generosity, helping the poor, the orphans, the widows and
the needy, and
assured him that God would protect him against all evil.
19. Then
came a pause in revelation, extending over three years. The
Prophet
must have felt at
first a shock, then a calm, an ardent desire, and after a
period of waiting, a
growing impatience or nostalgia. The news of the first
vision had spread
and at the pause the sceptics in the city had begun to mock
at him and cut
bitter jokes. They went so far as to say that God had forsaken
him.
20.
During the three
years of waiting. the Prophet had given himself up more
and more to prayers
and to spiritual practices. The revelations were then
resumed and God
assured him that He had not at all forsaken him: on the
contrary it was He
Who had guided him to the right path: therefore he should
take care of the
orphans and the destitute, and proclaim the bounty of God on
him (cf. Q.
93:3-11). This was in reality an order to preach. Another
revelation
directed him to warn
people against evil practices, to exhort them to worship
none but the One
God, and to abandon everything that would displease God (Q.
74:2-7). Yet another
revelation commanded him to warn his own near relatives
(Q. 26:214); and:
"Proclaim openly that which thou art commanded, and
withdraw from the
Associators (idolaters). Lo! we defend thee from the
scoffers"
(15:94-5). According to Ibn Ishaq, the first revelation (n. 17)
had come
to the Prophet
during his sleep, evidently to reduce the shock. Later
revelations came in
full wakefulness.
The
Mission
21. The
Prophet began by preaching his mission secretly first among his
intimate friends,
then among the members of his own tribe and thereafter
publicly in the city
and suburbs. He insisted on the belief in One Transcendent
God, in Resurrection
and the Last Judgement. He invited men to charity and
beneficence. He took
necessary steps to preserve through writing the
revelations he was
receiving, and ordered his adherents also to learn them by
heart. This
continued all through his life, since the Quran was not revealed
all
at once, but in
fragments as occasions arose.
22. The
number of his adherents increased gradually, but with the
denunciation of
paganism, the opposition also grew intenser on the part of
those who were
firmly attached to their ancestral beliefs. This opposition
degenerated in the
course of time into physical torture of the Prophet and of
those who had
embraced his religion. These were stretched on burning sands,
cauterized with red
hot iron and imprisoned with chains on their feet. Some of
them died of the
effects of torture, but none would renounce his religion. In
despair, the Prophet
Muhammad advised his companions to quit their native
town and take refuge
abroad, in Abyssinia, "where governs a just ruler, in
whose realm nobody
is oppressed" (Ibn Hisham). Dozens of Muslims profited by
his advice, though
not all. These secret flights led to further persecution of
those who remained
behind.
23. The
Prophet Muhammad [was instructed to call this] religion
"Islam," i.e.
submission to the
will of God. Its distinctive features are two:
A harmonius
equilibrium between the temporal and the spiritual (the body
and the soul),
permitting a full enjoyment of all the good that God has
created, (Quran
7:32), enjoining at the same time on everybody duties
towards God, such as
worship, fasting, charity, etc. Islam was to be the
religion of the
masses and not merely of the elect.
A universality of
the call - all the believers becoming brothers and equals
without any
distinction of class or race or tongue. The only superiority which
it recognizes is a
personal one, based on the greater fear of God and greater
piety (Quran 49:13).
Social
Boycott
24. When
a large number of the Meccan Muslims migrated to Abyssinia, the
leaders of paganism
sent an ultimatum to the tribe of the Prophet, demanding
that he should be
excommunicated and outlawed and delivered to the pagans
for being put to
death. Every member of the tribe, Muslim and non-Muslim
rejected the demand.
(cf. Ibn Hisham). Thereupon the city decided on a
complete boycott of
the tribe: Nobody was to talk to them or have commercial
or matrimonial
relations with them. The group of Arab tribes called Ahabish,
inhabiting the
suburbs, who were allies of the Meccans, also joined in the
boycott, causing
stark misery among the innocent victims consisting of
children, men and
women, the old and the sick and the feeble. Some of them
succumbed yet nobody
would hand over the Prophet to his persecutors. An
uncle of the
Prophet, Abu Lahab, however left his tribesmen and participated
in the boycott along
with the pagans. After three dire years, during which the
victims were obliged
to devour even crushed hides, four or five non-Muslims,
more humane than the
rest and belonging to different clans proclaimed
publicly their
denunciation of the unjust boycott. At the same time, the
document
promulgating the pact of boycott which had been hung in the
temple, was found,
as Muhammad had predicted, eaten by white ants, that
spared nothing but
the words God and Muhammad. The boycott was lifted, yet
owing to the
privations that were undergone the wife and Abu Talib, the chief
of the tribe and
uncle of the Prophet died soon after. Another uncle of the
Prophet, Abu-Lahab,
who was an inveterate enemy of Islam, now succeeded to
the headship of the
tribe. (cf. lbn Hisham, Sirah).
The
Ascension
25. It
was at thIs time that the Prophet Muhammad was granted the mi'raj
(ascension): He saw
in a vision that he was received on heaven by God, and was
witness of the
marvels of the celestial regions. Returning, he brought for his
community, as a
Divine gift, the [ritual prayer of Islam, the salaat], which
constitutes a sort
of communion between man and God. It may be recalled that
in the last part of
Muslim service of worship, the faithful employ as a symbol of
their being in the
very presence of God, not concrete objects as others do at
the time of
communion, but the very words of greeting exchanged between the
Prophet Muhammad and
God on the occasion of the former's mi'raj: "The
blessed and pure
greetings for God! - Peace be with thee, O Prophet, as well as
the mercy and
blessing of God! - Peace be with us and with all the [righteous]
servants of
God!" The Christian term "communion" implies
participation in the
Divinity. Finding it
pretentious, Muslims use the term "ascension" towards
God
and reception in His
presence, God remaining God and man remaining man and
no confusion between
the twain.
26.
The news of this celestial meeting led to an increase
in the hostility of the
pagans of Mecca; and
the Prophet was obliged to quit his native town in search
of an asylum
elsewhere. He went to his maternal uncles in Ta'if, but returned
immediately to
Mecca, as the wicked people of that town chased the Prophet
out of their city by
pelting stones on him and wounding him.
Migration
to Madinah
27. The
annual pilgrimage of the Ka'bah brought to Mecca people from all
parts
of Arabia. The
Prophet Muhammad tried to persuade one tribe after another to
afford him shelter
and allow him to carry on his mission of reform. The
contingents of
fifteen tribes, whom he approached in succession, refused to do
so more or less
brutally, but he did not despair. Finally he met half a dozen
inhabitants of
Madinah who being neighbour of the Jews and the Christians,
had some notion of
prophets and Divine messages. They knew also that these
"people of the
Books" were awaiting the arrival of a prophet - a last
comforter.
So these Madinans
decided not to lose the opportunity of obtaining an advance
over others, and
forthwith embraced Islam, promising further to provide
additional adherents
and necessary help from Madinah. The following year a
dozen new Madinans
took the oath of allegiance to him and requested him to
provide with a
missionary teacher. The work of the missionary, Mus'ab, proved
very successful and
he led a contingent of seventy-three new converts to
Mecca, at the time
of the pilgrimage. These invited the Prophet and his Meccan
companions to
migrate to their town, and promised to shelter the Prophet and
to treat him and his
companions as their own kith and kin. Secretly and in small
groups, the greater
part of the Muslims emigrated to Madinah. Upon this the
pagans of Mecca not
only confiscated the property of the evacuees, but devised
a plot to
assassinate the Prophet. It became now impossible for him to
remain
at home. It is
worthy of mention, that in spite of their hostility to his
mission,
the pagans had
unbounded confidence in his probity, so much so that many of
them used to deposit
their savings with him. The Prophet Muhammad now
entrusted all these
deposits to 'Ali, a cousin of his, with instructions to return
in due course to the
rightful owners. He then left the town secretly in the
company of his
faithful friend, Abu-Bakr. After several adventures, they
succeeded in
reaching Madinah in safety. This happened in 622, whence starts
the Hijrah calendar.
Reorganization
of the Community
28. For
the better rehabilitation of the displaced immigrants, the Prophet
created a
fraternization between them and an equal number of well-to-do
Madinans. The
families of each pair of the contractual brothers worked
together to earn
their livelihood, and aided one another in the business of life.
29.
Further he thought that the development of the man as a
whole would be
better achieved if
he co-ordinated religion and politics as two constituent parts
of one whole. To
this end he invited the representatives of the Muslims as well
as the non-Muslim
inhabitants of the region: Arabs, Jews, Christians and others,
and suggested the
establishment of a City-State in Madinah. With their assent,
he endowed the city
with a written constitution - the first of its kind in the
world - in which he
defined the duties and rights both of the citizens and the
head of the State -
the Prophet Muhammad was unanimously hailed as such -
and abolished the
customary private justice. The administration of justice
became henceforward
the concern of the central organisation of the
community of the
citizens. The document laid down principles of defence and
foreign policy: it
organized a system of social insurance, called ma'aqil, in
cases of too heavy
obligations. It recognized that the Prophet Muhammad
would have the final
word in all differences, and that there was no limit to his
power of
legislation. It recognized also explicitly liberty of religion,
particularly
for the Jews, to
whom the constitutional act afforded equality with Muslims in
all that concerned
life in this world (cf. infra n. 303).
30. Muhammad
journeyed several times with a view to win the neighbouring
tribes and to
conclude with them treaties of alliance and mutual help. With
their help, he
decided to bring to bear economic pressure on the Meccan
pagans, who had
confiscated the property of the Muslim evacuees and also
caused innumerable
damage. Obstruction in the way of the Meccan caravans
and their passage
through the Madinan region exasperated the pagans, and a
bloody struggle
ensued.
31. In
the concern for the material interests of the community, the
spiritual
aspect was never
neglected. Hardly a year had passed after the migration to
Madinah, when the
most rigorous of spiritual disciplines, the fasting for the
whole month of
Ramadan every year, was imposed on every adult Muslim, man
and woman.
Struggle
Against Intolerance and Unbelief
32. Not
content with the expulsion of the Muslim compatriots, the Meccans
sent an ultimatum to
the Madinans, demanding the surrender or at least the
expulsion of
Muhammad and his companions but evidently all such efforts
proved in vain. A
few months later, in the year 2 H., they sent a powerful army
against the Prophet,
who opposed them at Badr; and the pagans thrice as
numerous as the
Muslims, were routed. After a year of preparation, the
Meccans again
invaded Madinah to avenge the defeat of Badr. They were now
four times as
numerous as the Muslims. After a bloody encounter at Uhud, the
enemy retired, the
issue being indecisive. The mercenaries in the Meccan army
did not want to take
too much risk, or endanger their safety.
33. In
the meanwhile the Jewish citizens of Madinah began to foment
trouble.
About the time of
the victory of Badr, one of their leaders, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf,
proceeded to Mecca
to give assurance of his alliance with the pagans, and to
incite them to a war
of revenge. After the battle of Uhud, the tribe of the
same chieftain
plotted to assassinate the Prophet by throwing on him a millstone
from above a tower,
when he had gone to visit their locality. In spite of
all this, the only
demand the Prophet made of the men of this tribe was to quit
the Madinan region,
taking with them all their properties, after selling their
immovables and
recovering their debts from the Muslims. The clemency thus
extended had an
effect contrary to what was hoped. The exiled not only
contacted the
Meccans, but also the tribes of the North, South and East of
Madinah, mobilized
military aid, and planned from Khaibar an invasion of
Madinah, with forces
four times more numerous than those employed at Uhud.
The Muslims prepared
for a siege, and dug a ditch to defend themselves against
this hardest of all
trials. Although the defection of the Jews still remaining
inside Madinah at a
later stage upset all strategy, yet with a sagacious
diplomacy, the
Prophet succeeded in breaking up the alliance, and the
different enemy
groups retired one after the other.
34. Alcoholic
drinks, gambling and games of chance were at this time declared
forbidden for the
Muslims.
The
Reconciliation
35. The
Prophet tried once more to reconcile the Meccans and proceeded to
Mecca. The barring
of the route of their Northern caravans had ruined their
economy. The Prophet
promised them transit security, extradition of their
fugitives and the
fulfillment of every condition they desired, agreeing even to
return to Madinah
without accomplishing the pilgrimage of the Ka'bah.
Thereupon the two
contracting parties promised at Hudaibiyah in the suburbs
of Mecca, not only
the maintenance of peace, but also the observance of
neutrality in their
conflicts with third parties.
36. Profiting
by the peace, the Prophet launched an intensive programme for
the propagation of
his religion. He addressed missionary letters to the foreign
rulers of Byzantium,
Iran, Abyssinia and other lands. The Byzantine autocrat
priest - Dughatur of
the Arabs - embraced Islam, but for this, was lynched by
the Christian mob;
the prefect of Ma'an (Palestine) suffered the same fate, and
was decapitated and
crucified by order of the emperor. A Muslim ambassador
was assassinated in
Syria-Palestine; and instead of punishing the culprit, the
emperor Heraclius
rushed with his armies to protect him against the punitive
expedition sent by
the Prophet (battle of Mu'tah).
37. The
pagans of Mecca hoping to profit by the Muslim difficulties,
violated
the terms of their
treaty. Upon this, the Prophet himself led an army, ten
thousand strong, and
surprised Mecca which he occupied in a bloodless manner.
As a benevolent
conqueror, he caused the vanquished people to assemble,
reminded them of
their ill deeds, their religious persecution, unjust
confiscation of the
evacuee property, ceaseless invasions and senseless
hostilities for
twenty years continuously. He asked them: "Now what do you
expect of me?"
When everybody lowered his head with shame, the Prophet
proclaimed:
"May God pardon you; go in peace; there shall be no
responsibility
on you today; you
are free!" He even renounced the claim for the Muslim
property confiscated
by the pagans. This produced a great psychological
change of hearts
instantaneously. When a Meccan chief advanced with a
fulsome heart
towards the Prophet, after hearing this general amnesty, in
order to declare his
acceptance of Islam, the Prophet told him: "And in my
turn, I appoint you
the governor of Mecca!" Without leaving a single soldier in
the conquered city,
the Prophet retired to Madinah. The Islamization of Mecca,
which was
accomplished in a few hours, was complete.
38. Immediately
after the occupation of Mecca, the city of Ta'if mobilized to
fight against the
Prophet. With some difficulty the enemy was dispersed in the
valley of Hunain,
but the Muslims preferred to raise the siege of nearby Ta'if
and use pacific
means to break the resistance of this region. Less than a year
later, a delegation
from Ta'if came to Madinah offering submission. But it
requested exemption
from prayer, taxes and military service, and the
continuance of the
liberty to adultery and fornication and alcoholic drinks. It
demanded even the
conservation of the temple of the idol al-Lat at Ta'if. But
Islam was not a
materialist immoral movement; and soon the delegation itself
felt ashamed of its
demands regarding prayer, adultery and wine. The Prophet
consented to concede
exemption from payment of taxes and rendering of
military service;
and added: You need not demolish the temple with your own
hands: we shall send
agents from here to do the job, and if there should be any
consequences, which
you are afraid of on account of your superstitions, it will
be they who would
suffer. This act of the Prophet shows what concessions
could be given to
new converts. The conversion of the Ta'ifites was so whole
hearted that in a
short while, they themselves renounced the contracted
exemptions, and we
find the Prophet nominating a tax collector in their
locality as in other
Islamic regions.
39. In
all these "wars," extending over a period of ten years,
the non-Muslims
lost on the
battlefield only about 250 persons killed, and the Muslim losses
were even less. With
these few incisions, the whole continent of Arabia, with
its million and more
of square miles, was cured of the abscess of anarchy and
immorality. During
these ten years of disinterested struggle, all the peoples of
the Arabian
Peninsula and the southern regions of Iraq and Palestine had
voluntarily embraced
Islam. Some Christian, Jewish and Parsi groups remained
attached to their
creeds, and they were granted liberty of conscience as well
as judicial and
juridical autonomy.
40. In
the year 10 H., when the Prophet went to Mecca for Hajj
(pilgrimage),
he met 140,000
Muslims there, who had come from different parts of Arabia to
fullfil their
religious obligation. He addressed to them his celebrated sermon,
in
which he gave a
resume of his teachings: "Belief in One God without images or
symbols, equality of
all the Believers without distinction of race or class, the
superiority of
individuals being based solely on piety; sanctity of life,
property
and honour;
abolition of interest, and of vendettas and private justice;
better
treatment of women;
obligatory inheritance and distribution of the property of
deceased persons
among near relatives of both sexes, and removal of the
possibility of the accumulation
of wealth in the hands of the few." The Quran and
the conduct of the
Prophet were to serve as the bases of law and a healthy
criterion in every
aspect of human life.
41. On
his return to Madinah, he fell ill; and a few weeks later, when he
breathed his last,
he had the satisfaction that he had well accomplished the
task which he had
undertaken - to preach to the world the Divine message.
42. He
bequeathed to posterity, a religion of pure monotheism; he created
a
well-disciplined
State out of the existent chaos and gave peace in place of the
war of everybody
against everybody else; he established a harmonious
equilibrium between
the spiritual and the temporal, between the mosque and
the citadel; he left
a new system of law, which dispensed impartial justice, in
which even the head
of the State was as much a subject to it as any
commoner, and in
which religious tolerance was so great that non-Muslim
inhabitants of
Muslim countries equally enjoyed complete juridical, judicial and
cultural autonomy.
In the matter of the revenues of the State, the Quran fixed
the principles of
budgeting, and paid more thought to the poor than to anybody
else. The revenues
were declared to be in no wise the private property of the
head of the State.
Above all, the Prophet Muhammad set a noble example and
fully practiced all
that he taught to others.
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