[Taken
from Introduction to Islam by Muhammad Hamidullah
(Centre Culturel 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: 9
Beaver Court, Wilkes Barre PA, 18702, 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 recognised 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 meagre. 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 demoralising 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 thc 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
mill-stone 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 thc
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 fulfil 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 cumulation 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 practised
all that he taught to others.
