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PART 1
“The Life of Muhammad”
Dr. Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Education Minister of Egypt
CONTENTS:
Translator's Preface
Foreword to the English Edition
Foreword to the First Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the Third Edition
Life of Muhammad
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Translator's Preface
Haykal's Hayat Muhammad has a long and strange story. Its translation into English and publication by the University of Chicago Press was discussed by numerous western experts in the forties and early fifties. Obvious as the need for a scholarly sympathetic biography of the Prophet may be, negotiations took years to complete. Agreement, however, was not reached until 1964. When in 1968 the translation was completed, approved by the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Cairo, Egypt, and the University of Chicago Press, the manuscript copy edited, and its actual production begun, mysterious forces intervened and the University of Chicago Press unilaterally withdrew from its agreement.
Another agreement was negotiated de novo between the same parties and Temple University Press, on practically the same terms as Chicago, in 1969. Five years passed with little or no action. Then, mysterious forces again intervened and resulted in the unilateral withdrawal of Temple University Press from its agreement.
This Determined opposition to the publication of the work did not dissuade the translator from preparing this new translation with the encouragement of the Muslim Students' Association of the United States and Canada, an agency interested in the promotion of Islamic scholarship.
Acknowledgments:
I wish to acknowledge with thanks the financial help and encouragement by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Saudi Arabia; and, the assistance of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, Egypt, in making the translation of this work possible.
"God and His angels bless the Prophet. O men who have believed: Invoke God's peace and blessing upon him" (Al-Quran, 33: 56)
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Praise be to God, Lord of the universe,
The Gracious, the Merciful,
Master of the Day of Judgment.
You alone we worship; You alone we implore for help.
Guide us unto the straight path
The path of those whom You have blessed,
Those who have not incurred Your displeasure,
Those who have not gone astray.
Amen - (Al-Quran, 1:1-7)
Ismail Razi A. al-Faruqi
Temple University
Philadelphia, USA
Safar 1396/February 1976
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Foreword to the English Edition
The book, "Hayat Muhammad", by Dr. Muhammad Husayn Haykal is well known to the Arabic reader. It is a biography of the Holy Prophet, salla, Allahu `alayhi wa sallam, written in light of all the rules and requirements of modern, exacting scholarship. As its author has said, it is a renewed effort to establish the historical truth of the details of the Prophet's life in accordance with these rules, as well as to refute, by the same means, the false allegations against Islam and its Apostle. It has derived its materials from genuine sources and treated them with a mind unshackled by parti pris or superstition, by ignorance or false hopes. We trust that it will be followed by the research works of many other scholars; for the English readers stand in great need for books to enlighten them in the nature and history of Islam.
Fortunately, Islamic sanity has persistently resisted all attempts at deifying the Prophet's person. Despite the fact that no human being has ever commanded as much respect and none has ever been object of so much affection by his followers, Muslims have rejected every suggestion imputing to the Prophet superhuman power or characteristics. By itself, and when compared with the conceptions of the careers of charismatic founders and leaders of other religions in history, the Muslims' insistence on Muhammad's humanity remains a miracle, a genuine triumph of the Muslim's historical sense. This book is a tribute to the Muslim's critical attitude in religious matters.
This is the fact which makes the quest of the historical Muhammad not only possible, but certain of achieving its objectives. It underlies this book and blesses its findings, as it invites further research and offers greater promise. Biography was never a critical science (it may even be contended that it ever existed!) before the Muslims began to sift the oral and written traditions concerning the Prophet. They undertook this task with a mind unwaveringly committed to Muhammad's humanity, absolutely convinced of his fulfillment of his mission under the full light of history.
It was these Muslim endeavors that produced the science of textual criticism. Firstly, the language, style, form, redaction and vocabulary of every reported tradition was subjected to the most complete analysis. Secondly, the ideational content of every tradition was subjected to critical tests of internal and external coherence (i.e., with itself, with the Holy Quran, with other traditions, with other established historical data). That content was further tested for historical relevance and relationality, and for reasonableness or systematic correspondence with reality. Finally, every isnad (or chain of reporters) was subjected to the most exacting tests of historicity and verification, giving birth to 'llm al Rijal, or the critical establishment of the minutest details of the personal lives of thousands of Muhammad's companions and contemporaries. This was Islamic "Criticism"-a whole millennium ago! It was objective and scientific textual research such as the world has never seen nor probably ever will, despite the tremendous advances the science of criticism has made in modern times. This academic sophistication has made of Islam the scholarly, modernist; critical religion long before the priesthood, not to speak of the laity, of other religions achieved the minimum standards of literacy. Unfortunately for humanity as a whole, this critical and scientific spirit was lost to the Muslims with their decline.
How refreshing it is to see in this book evidence of awakening and reactivation of this spirit which Islam, the foremost champion of natural religion, of reasonableness in religion, has nurtured through the centuries! Great as the achievements of our ancestors are, it is our duty to make ourselves worthy of them. Benefit from their achievement, we certainly must. Indeed, inspired by their example, we ought to move and aspire to match and surpass them. Muhammad Husayn Haykal's Hayat Muhammad is a fair step in that direction.
This book has another value. For centuries, the English reader has been presented with prejudiced literature about Islam and the Prophet. Such polemics has prevented the non-Muslim from appreciating the genuine light of revelation, the beneficial contribution Islam can make to the solution of humanity's spiritual and social ills in modern times. It is certainly high time for the voice of Islam to be raised against the forces of atheism and materialism which have blinded modern man and dissipated his effort at finding the truth. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, does not wish man to be lost in skepticism, to be corrupted by injustice, alienation and ethnocentrism. On the contrary, He wishes him to realize universal brotherhood through justice, truth, dignity and mercy; to restore to him his lost poise and equilibrium; to guide him towards peace, well-being and happiness. It is He Who said in His Holy Book:
"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know and cooperate with one another" (Al-Quran 49 :13)
"O mankind! Reverence your Guardian Lord, Who created you from a single person; Who created the first person's mate of like nature; Who created from them twain all men and women on earth" (Al-Quran 4:1)
“The believers are but a single brotherhood” (Al-Quran 49:9)
“God commands justice, the doing of the good, and liberality to kith and kin. He forbids all shameful deeds, injustice and rebellion. Thus does he instruct you, that you may receive admonition” (Al-Quran 16:90)
The Prophet of Islam (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) has said:
“All Muslims are equal like the teeth of a comb.”
“In relation to one another, the Muslims are like a building: every unit reinforces and is reinforced by all others.”
These values of Islam are indeed the only ones capable of saving humanity from its certain collapse. The life of the Prophet is the guide and key. His conduct is the example for everyone to follow at all times and places.
It is of the essence of rational religion, as it is of the truth, to convince and to persuade its audience by mere presentation. But presentation must be honest and critical, thorough and substantiated, as well as alive and appealing. It is by Allah’s grace that Professor Isma’il Raji al Faruqi completed translation of this volume. He is a Muslim scholar of great renown, gifted with deep Islamic knowledge and commitment.
Recognition is equally due to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and to the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada for their part in bringing this project to fulfillment. We pray that Allah may continue to guide them, as well as all other organizations and Islamic academic establishments dedicated to Islam, and assist them in their work for the salvation of mankind.
Allah alone is our help! He alone is Witness of our commitment and Judge of our deed!
Hasan ibn`Abdullah Al al Shaykh
President, World Assembly of Muslim Youth
Minister of Higher Education Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Riyad, Dhu al Hijjah 1395
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Foreword to the First Edition
Ever since man appeared on earth he has been anxious to penetrate the universe and discover its laws and secrets. The more he came to know, the more he wondered at its greatness, the weaker he appeared to himself and the less reason he saw for vanity. The Prophet of Islam-may God's peace be upon him is very much like the universe. From the very beginning, scholars worked hard to uncover various aspects of his great humanity, to grasp the realization of the divine attributes in his mind, character and wisdom. Certainly they achieved a fair measure of knowledge. Much however has escaped them; and there still lies ahead a long and indeed infinite road.
Prophethood is a gift which cannot be acquired. In His wisdom God grants it to whosoever stands prepared for it and is capable of carrying it. He knows best when and where it will be of most benefit. Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-was indeed prepared to carry the prophetic message unto all the races of mankind. He was equipped to carry the message of the most perfect religion, to be the final conclusion of prophethood, the unique light of guidance for ever and ever.
The infallibility of the prophets in the conveyance of their message and the performance of their divine trust is a matter on which the scholars have agreed for a long time. Once they are chosen for their task, the prophets' conveyance of their message and their performance of the duties entrusted to them carry no reward. Their work is a necessary consequence of such divine revelation. Like all men, prophets are truly fallible; their distinction lies in that God does not leave them in their error. He corrects them and often even blames them therefore.
Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-was commanded to convey a divine message. But he was not shown how to carry it out nor how to protect the fruits of his work. It was left to him as any rational and sentient being to conduct his affairs as his intelligence and wisdom might dictate. The revelation which he received was absolutely precise and clear in all that concerns the essence, unity, attributes and worship of God. But this was not the case as regards the social institutions of family, village and city, the state in its relations with the said institutions and with other states. There is hence wide scope for research on the Prophet's greatness before his commission as prophet, as there is after his commission had taken place. He became a messenger for his Lord, calling men unto Him, protecting the new faith and guaranteeing the freedom and security of its preachers. He became the ruler of the Ummah [community] of Islam, its commander in war and teacher, the judge and organizer of all its internal and foreign affairs. Throughout his career he established justice and reconciled hopelessly disparate and hostile nations and groups. His wisdom, farsightedness, perspicacity, presence of mind and resoluteness are evident in all that he said or did. From him streams of knowledge have sprung and heights of eloquence have arisen to which the great bend their heads in awe and wonder. He departed from this world satisfied with his work, assured of God's pleasure and crowned with the gratitude of men.
All these aspects of the Prophet's life deserve special study and research. It is not possible for any one scholar to give them their due; nor to exhaust the meanings inherent in any one of them.
Like that of any other great man, the biography of Muhammad-may God's blessing be upon him and upon his house-has been expanded by many an imaginary story, whether innocently or with ulterior motive, deliberately or accidentally. Unlike all other biographies, however, a great portion of it has been included in the divine revelation and has thus been preserved forever in the pure Quran. Another fair portion has been safely preserved for us by trustworthy narrators. From these unmistakable sources the biography of the Prophet should be constructed, and on their basis its hidden meanings and complicated problems should be investigated, and its moral established. Its constitutive materials should be subjected to objective and scholarly analysis taking well into consideration the circumstances of time and environment as well as the prevalent beliefs, institutions and customs.
In his book, The Life of Muhammad, Dr. Haykal gave us the biography of the Prophet-may God's peace and blessings be upon him-which I have had the pleasure of reading in part before printing. Dr. Haykal is well known to the Arabic reader; his many books obviate the need for an introduction. He studied law and familiarized himself with logic and philosophy. His personal circumstances and career enabled him to study ancient as well as modern culture and to learn a great deal from both. He lectured on and debated, attacked and defended many questions of belief, of social organization and politics. The maturity of his mind is matched by the perfection of his knowledge, and the wide range of his readings. He debates with powerful, convincing arguments and he treats his subject with sound logic and a style all his own. Such preparation stands behind Dr. Haykal's book. In his Preface, Dr. Haykal wrote: "No one should think that research in the life of Muhammad is completed with this work; and I am far from making any such claim. It is closer to the truth for me to say that my work is really only the beginning of scientific research in this field in Arabic. [See Preface to the First Edition] The reader might be surprised if the strong resemblance of the modern scientific method to the call of Muhammad is pointed out. The former demands that the investigator suspend his own beliefs and refrain from prejudgment, to begin his investigation with observation of the data, and then to proceed to experimentation, comparison, classification and finally to conclusion based upon these objective steps. A conclusion thus arrived at is scientific in that it is itself subject to further testing and critical analysis. It is reliable only as long as further scientific investigations do not disprove any of the premises on which it is based. True, the scientific method is the highest achievement of the human race in its effort to liberate man's thought, but it is precisely the method of Muhammad and the foundation of his call.
Dr. Haykal's new-method is truly Quranic. For he has made reason the judge, and evidence the foundation, of knowledge. He has repudiated conservatism and castigated the conservatives. Agreeing with the Quranic principle "opinion and speculation are no substitute for true knowledge" (Q 53:28), Dr. Haykal has chastised those who speculate without evidence; who regard the old purely for its age, as sacred. He has imposed the teaching of the truth upon all those who have the capacity to grasp it. "Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-had only one irresistible miracle-the Quran. But it is not irrational. How eloquent is the verse of al Busayri : `God did not try us with anything irrational. Thus, we fell under neither doubt nor illusion.' "
As for Dr. Haykal's claim that this method is a modern method, that is rather questionable. In holding such a claim, Dr. Haykal was reconciling the scholars who are his would-be critics. He himself has acknowledged that this method was the method of the Quran. It is also the method of Muslim scholars of the past. Consider the books of kalam [philosophy]. Some of them insisted that the first duty of the adult is to know God. Others held that the first incumbent duty is to doubt; for there is no knowledge except by means of proof and argument. Although the process of verification is a kind of deduction, the premises of such reasoning must be either self evident, mediately or immediately given to sense, or dependent upon unmistaken experimentation and generalization, following the rules of logic. The slightest error in any premise or in the form of reasoning vitiates the whole proof.
Al Ghazzali, the great teacher, followed exactly the same method. In one of his books, he reported that he had decided to strip his mind bare of all former opinions, to think and to consider, to compare and to contrast, then to rethink all the proofs and all the evidence step by step. After all this reconstruction he reached the conclusion that Islam is true, and thus established a number of views and arguments regarding its nature. He did all this in order to avoid conservatism, to achieve faith with certitude, founded upon truth and argument. It is this kind of faith arising from rational conviction which, all Muslims agree, cannot but be true and bring about salvation.
The same method or deliberate repudiation of all creeds, as a preliminary to investigation and scholarly study, is found in most books of kalam. Doubt is indeed an old method; and so is experimentation and generalization. The latter is founded upon observation; and it is not new with us at all. Neglected and forgotten in the orient since it took to conservatism and irrationalism, this old method was taken up by the West, purged clean, and used with great benefit to science and industry. We are now taking it back from the West thinking that we are adopting a new method of scientific research.
This method then is both old and new. However, to know a method is easy; to apply it is difficult: Men do not differ much in their knowledge of a certain law; but they stand widely apart in their application of it.
To suspend all prejudices, to observe, to experiment, to compare, to deduct and to extrapolate are all easy words. But for man standing under an inheritance of heavy biological and mental burdens, struggling against an oppressive environment of home, village, school, city and country, suffering under the tremendous weight of conditioning by temperament, health, disease and passion-how could it be easy for him to apply the law? That is the question, whether in the past or in the present. That is the reason for the proliferation of views and doctrines. That is the reason for the movement and change of these views from country to country and people to people. With every generation, philosophy and literature don new robes very much like women do. Hardly any theory or principal stands beyond attack, and none is an impregnable fortress. Change has even attacked the theories of knowledge which were venerated during long ages. The theory of relativity brought a whirlwind to accepted scientific principles. But soon, it too was put under attack. Likewise, the theories of nourishment and disease, of their causes and cures, are undergoing continual change. A closer look, therefore, will convince us that there is no security for the productions of our minds unless they are supported by convincing proofs. But what is the proportion of such secure productions of the mind to the long parade of theories which are produced by fancy, projected by sick minds, imposed by politics, or created by scientists who simply love to differ from their peers? This thought may perhaps sober such men of knowledge and science who are too proud of reason and depend on it alone. Such a thought may yet guide them one day toward the truth, to take shelter under the absolute conviction which it provides, the conviction of true revelation, of the holy Quran and the veritable Sunnah {practices of the Prophet].
Let us now turn to Dr. Haykal and his book. A number of mutakallimun [philosophers] have held that the knowledge which astronomy and the dissection of the human body provide clearly points to the fact that divine knowledge includes the most minute details of existence. I concur that the discovery and establishment of the laws and secrets of nature will, besides helping the human mind to penetrate what was incomprehensible before, finally support religion. In this vein, God said, "We shall show them Our signs in the horizons as well as within themselves, and We shall continue to do so until they realize that Our revelation is the truth. Is it not sufficient that your Lord witnesses everything?" (Q 41:53). The discovery of electricity and all the theories and inventions to which it has led has made it possible for us to understand how matter may be transformed into energy and energy into matter. Spiritualism has helped us to understand the transcendent nature of the soul and shed light on the possibility of its separate existence, of its capacity to travel through space and time. It has helped explain many matters on which men differed in ignorance. Dr. Haykal has used this new knowledge in his novel explanation of the story of Muhammad's Isra [Night Journey to Heavens].
To list the good points which Dr. Haykal has made in his book would take many long pages. Suffice it then to point to these contributions in a general way. Undoubtedly, the reader will realize the worth of this work and will learn much from Dr. Haykal's well documented arguments, fine logic, and penetrating insight. The reader will realize that Dr. Haykal's whole devotion has been to the truth alone, and that he has approached his task with a heart replete with the light and guidance of the revelation of Muhammad, as well as with great awe for the beauty, majesty, greatness, and moral height of the life of Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him. Dr. Haykal is fully convinced that this religion of Muhammad will surely deliver mankind from doubt, from dark materialism, and will open their eyes to the light of conviction, guide them to the divine light with which they will come to know God's infinite mercy. Dr. Haykal is confident that men will thereby come sooner or later to acknowledge the glory of God as heaven and earth already do, and praise the divine might before which all beings become humble. Indeed, he writes: "Indeed, I would even go further. I would assert that such a study may show the road to mankind as a whole to the new civilization to which it is currently groping. If western Christendom is too proud to find the new light in Islam and in its Prophet but willingly accepts it from Indian theosophy and other religions of the Far East then it devolves upon the Orientals themselves, Muslims, Jews or Christians, to undertake this study in all objectivity and fairness in order to reach and establish the truth. Islamic thought rests on a methodology that is scientific and modern as regards all that relates man to nature. In this respect it is perfectly realistic. But it becomes personalist the moment it leaves nature to consider the relationship of man to the cosmos as a whole and to his creator." Dr. Haykal goes on to say that "the pioneer fighters against this all-embracing paganism of modern times, however, are clearly distinguishable under close observance of the current flow of events. Perhaps, these pioneer forces will grow and become surer of themselves when scholarship has found answers to these spiritual problems through the study of the life of Muhammad, of his teachings, of his age, and of the spiritual world revolution which he incepted."
Dr. Haykal's firm conviction is corroborated by real events. What we have witnessed today of the West's concern for the study of our heritage and the care with which western scholars study the legacy of Islam, its various contents, its ancient and modern history and peoples, of the fair treatment that some of them give to the career of the Prophet-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-and finally, what we know by experience of the necessary final victory of truth-all this leads to the consideration that Islam will spread all over the world. In this process, the strongest protagonists of Islam may well be its strongest enemies whereas its present alien antagonists may be Islam's adherents and defenders. As in the early period the strangers have supported Islam, strangers may yet help it achieve its final victory. It is said that "Islam began as a stranger and will return as a stranger. God bless the strangers!"
Since the Prophet-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-was the last of the prophets, and the world is to have no prophet after him, and since, as the revealed text has said, his religion is the most perfect, it is not possible that the status quo of Islam will last. Its light must necessarily eclipse all other lights as the rays of the sun eclipse those of the stars.
Dr. Haykal related the events of the Prophet's life closely to one another. His book therefore presents a closely knit argument. In every case, he has elaborated strong evidence and articulated it clearly and convincingly. His work is not only persuasive; it is pleasant reading and it moves the reader to keep on reading to the very end.
Furthermore, the book contains many studies which do not properly belong to the biography of the Prophet but are necessitated by the author's pursuit of questions related thereto. Finally, let me conclude this prefatory note with the prayer of the master of all men-may God's peace and blessing be upon him, his house, and his followers: "God, I take shelter under the light of Your face before Whom darkness became light, by Whose command this world and the next were firmly established. Save me from Your wrath and displeasure. To You alone belongs the judgment, harsh as it may be when You are not pleased. There is neither power nor strength except in You."
Muhammad Mustafa al Maraghi
Grand Shaykh of al Azhar
15 February, 1935
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Preface to the First Edition
Muhammad, God's peace and blessing be upon him! This noble name has been on the lips of countless millions of men. For almost fourteen centuries, millions of hearts have palpitated with deep emotion at the pronouncement of it. Many more millions of people for a period as long as time, will pronounce it, and will be deeply moved thereby. Every day, as soon as the black thread becomes distinguishable from the white, the muezzin will call men to prayer. He will call them to the worship of God and the invocation of blessing upon His Prophet, a task the fulfillment of which is better for them than their sleep. Thousands and millions of men in every corner of the globe will undoubtedly respond to the muezzin's call, springing to honor through their prayers God's mercy and bounty, richly evidenced for them with the break of every new day. At high noon, the muezzin will call again for the noon prayer; then at mid-afternoon, at sunset, and after sunset. On each of these daily occasions Muslims remember Muhammad, the servant of God and His Prophet, with all reverence and piety. Even in between these prayers the Muslims never hear the name of Muhammad but they hasten to praise God and His chosen one. Thus they have been, and thus they will be until God vindicates His true religion and completes His bounty to all.
Muhammad did not have to wait long for his religion to become known, or for his dominion to spread. God has seen fit to complete the religion of Islam even before his death. It was he who laid down the plans for the propagation of this religion. He had sent to Chosroes, to Heraclius and other princes and kings of the world inviting them to join the new faith. No more than a hundred and fifty years passed from then until the flags of Islam were flying high between Spain in the west and India, Turkestan and indeed China in the east. Thus by joining Islam, the territories of al Sham [Greater Syria]. On the other hand, the Islamization of Egypt, Burqah, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco have linked the native land of Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-with Europe and Africa. From that time until our day Islam remains supreme throughout all these territories. It withdrew from Spain only under the attack of Christendom which inflicted upon the people of Spain all kinds of suffering and persecution. As the people could not bear these tragedies, some of them returned to Africa. Others under the threats of fear and panic apostasized, withdrew from the religion of their ancestors, and entered into that of the tyrants and conquerors.
What Islam had lost in Spain and in western Europe was regained when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and established the religion of Muhammad therein. From there, Islam spread throughout the Balkans into Russia and Poland and spread over territories many times wider than Spain. From the day of its initial conquest until now, no religion has ever conquered Islam despite the fact that its people have fallen under all kinds of tyrannies and unjust governments. Indeed, reduction of their worldly power has made the Muslims more strongly attached to their faith, to their Islamic way of life, and to their Islamic hope.
Islam and Christianity
The power with which Islam quickly spread brought it face to face with Christianity and involved the two religions in a guerre a outrance. Muhammad vanquished paganism and eliminated it from Arabia just as his early successors pursued it across Persia, Afghanistan and a good portion of India and eliminated it from these territories. Later on the successors of Muhammad conquered Christianity in Hirah, Yaman, Syria, Egypt, and even in the capital of the Christian empire, Constantinople. Was Christianity then to receive the same fate of extinction which befell paganism despite the fact that Muhammad had praised it and confirmed the prophethood of its founder? Were the Arabs, coming out of their arid desert peninsula, destined to conquer the gardens of Spain, of Byzantium, and all Christendom? "No! Death rather than such a fate!" Thus the fight continued for many centuries between the followers of Jesus and the followers of Muhammad. The war was not limited to swords and guns. It spread out to the fields of debate and controversy where the contenders contended in the names of Muhammad and Jesus. No means were spared to sway the community, to arouse the populace and to stir the passions of the people.
The Muslims and Jesus
Islam, however, prevented the Muslims from attacking the person of Jesus. It held that Jesus was a servant of God endowed with scripture and appointed as prophet. It also held that Jesus was always blessed; that he was enjoined as long as he lived to hold prayer and to give zakat [charity] that his mother was innocent and that he was neither unjust nor unfortunate. It asserted that Jesus was blessed on the day of his birth, on the day of his future death as well as on the day of his resurrection. Many Christians, on the other hand, have attacked the person of Muhammad and attributed to him the most unbecoming epithets-thereby giving vent to their resentment and sowing the seeds of hatred and hostility. Despite the commonly held view that the Crusades have long been finished and forgotten, fanatic Christian antagonism still continues to rage against Muhammad. The present situation has not changed except perhaps for the worse. Moved by the same fanaticism, the missionaries resort to immoral and depraved means in their struggle against Islam. This fanaticism was never exclusive to the Church. It stirred and inspired many writers and philosophers in Europe and America who are not related to the Church.
Christian Fanatics and Muhammad
One may wonder why Christian fanaticism against Islam continues to rage with such power in an age which is claimed to be the age of light and science, of tolerance and larger de coeur. This fanaticism is all the more surprising when one remembers that the early Muslims were overjoyed at the news of the victory of Christianity over Zoroastrianism, when the armies of Heraclius carried the day against those of Chosroes. Persia had a dominant influence in South Arabia ever since the Persians expelled the Abyssinians from Yaman. Chosroes had sent his army in 614 C.E. under the command of his general named Shahrbaraz to conquer Byzantium. When their armies met in Adhri'at and Busra, territories of al Sham close to Arabia, the Persians inflicted upon the Byzantines heavy losses in lives and destroyed their cities and orchards. The Arabs, especially the people of Makkah, used to follow the news of this war with great anxiety. At the time, the two hostile powers were the greatest on earth. The Arabs adjoined both powers and had territories which fell under the suzerainty of both. The Makkan idolaters rejoiced at the defeat of the Christians and celebrated the event. They regarded them as people with a scripture, very much like the Muslims, and they even attempted to attribute their defeat to their religion. For the Muslims, it was hard to believe the defeat of the Byzantines for the same reason, namely that like them they were a people with scripture. Muhammad and his companions especially hated to see the Zoroastrians victorious. This difference in the views of the Muslims and the idolaters of Makkah led to open contention between the two groups. The Muslims were ridiculed for holding such opinions. One of them was so bold in his show of joy in front of Abu Bakr that the latter, known for his great calm and friendliness, was prompted to say: "Don't take to joy too soon. The Byzantines will avenge themselves." When the idolater rejoined, "This is a lie," Abu Bakr became angry and said: "You are the liar, O Enemy of God: I wager ten camels that the Byzantines will win against the Zoroastrians within the scope of a year." When this came to the notice of Muhammad, he advised Abu Bakr to increase the amount of the wager and to extend its term. Abu Bakr then raised the wager to one hundred camels and extended the time to nine years. In 625 C.E. Heraclius was victorious. He defeated Persia and wrenched from it the territory of Syria as well as the cross of Christ. Abu Bakr won his wager and the prophesying of Muhammad was confirmed in the following Quranic revelation: "The Byzantines have been defeated in the land nearby. However, they shall win in a few years. To God belongs the command before and after. Then will the believers rejoice at the victory which God has sent. God, the Mighty and Merciful, gives His victory' to whomsoever He wishes. He never fails in His promise. Most men however do not know." [Q 30:1-7]
The First Principles of the Two Religions
Muslim rejoicing at the victory of Heraclius and his Christian armies was great. Despite the many controversies that had taken place between the followers of Muhammad and those who believed in Jesus, their friendly and fraternal relationships continued to be strong throughout the life of the Prophet. It was otherwise with the relationships of Muslims and Jews. There had been an armistice followed by alienation and war with consequences so disastrous and bloody that the Jews had to be moved out of the Arabian Peninsula altogether. The Quran confirms the bond of friendship between Muslims and Christians and denounces the enmity of the Jews. It advises the Muslims, "You will find greater enmity to the believers among those who are Jews and idolaters; but you will find greater friendliness among those who say, `We are Christians.' For they, especially the monks and priests among them, do not take to false pride."[Q 5:82]
Indeed Christianity and Islam entertain the same view of life and ethics. Their view of mankind and of creation is one and the same. Both religions believe that God created Adam and Eve, placed them in paradise and commanded them not to listen to Satan, and that eating of the tree thereby caused them to be discharged. Both religions believe that Satan is the enemy of mankind who, according to the Quran, refused to prostrate himself to Adam when commanded to do so by God and, according to Christian scripture, refused to honor the word of God. Satan whispered to Eve and deceived her, and she in turn deceived Adam. They ate from the tree of eternal life, discovered their nakedness, and then pleaded to God to forgive them. God sent them to earth, their descendants enemies of one another, forever open to the deception of Satan, some of them liable to fall under this deception and others capable of resisting it to the end. In order to transcend man's war against this deception, God sent Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the other prophets, commissioning every one of them to convey in the tongue of his people a book which confirms, elaborates, and makes evident the revelations received from his predecessor-prophet. As Satan is assisted by his helpers among the evil spirits, the angels praise the Lord and adore Him. Both the good and the evil powers therefore compete to win mankind until the Day of Judgment when every soul will receive that which it has earned and when everyone will be responsible for himself alone.
The Difference between Them
Not only has the Quran mentioned Jesus and Mary, but it has honored them and presented them in such light that the readers cannot but feel this fraternal feeling towards Christianity when they read its verses. It is all the more perplexing, therefore, that the Muslims and Christians have continued to fight each other century after century. The confusion disappears however, when we learn that Islam has differed from Christianity in many fundamental matters which were subjects of strong controversy, without ever leading to hatred and hostility. Christianity does not acknowledge the prophethood of Muhammad as Islam acknowledges the prophethood of Jesus. Moreover, Christianity upholds trinitarianism whereas Islam strongly rejects anything but the strictest monotheism. The Christians apotheosize Jesus and, in their argument with Muslims, seek confirmation of his divinity in the Quranic assertion that he spoke out in the cradle (19:29-34) and in the many miracles which he alone had been favored by God to perform. During the early days of Islam, the Christians used to dispute with the Muslims in the following vein: Doesn't the Quran itself, which was revealed to Muhammad, confirm our view when it says:
"The angels said, `O Mary God announces to you His command that a son will be born to you whose name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, and who will be honored in this world and in the next and be close to God. He will speak as a baby in the cradle and he will be righteous throughout his long age.' Mary asked: `How can I have a son when no human has touched me?' The angel answered: `Thus God creates whatever He wills. He commands a thing to be and it is.' God will teach Jesus the scripture, wisdom, the Torah and the Evangel. He will send him a prophet of Israel, and charge him with the conveyance of a new revelation from God. He will confirm him by giving him the power to blow life into birds which he could fashion out of clay, to give vision to the blind, to heal the leper, to resurrect the dead, and to prophesy about what the Jews eat and what they hide in their houses-all with God's permission-that the Jews may believe in him and thereby prove their faith."[Q 3:45-49]
The Quran then did declare that Jesus would resurrect the dead and give vision to the blind and heal the leper, create birds out of clay and prophesy-all of which are divine prerogatives. Such was the view of the Christians who, at the time of the Prophet, were disputing and arguing with him that Jesus was a god besides God. Another group of them apotheosized Mary on the grounds that she had been the recipient of God's command. The Christian adherents to this view regarded Mary as a member of a trinity which included the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, However, those who held that Jesus and his mother were divine were but one of the many sects into which Christianity was divided in those days.
Debate of the Christians with the Prophet
The Christians of the Arabian Peninsula debated with Muhammad on the basis of their diverse views. They argued that Jesus was God, that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus was the third person of the trinity. The apotheosizers of Jesus had recourse to the foregoing argument. Those who held the view that Jesus was the Son of God argued that he had no known father, that he had spoken out in the cradle as no other human had ever done. Those who held that he was the third person of the trinity argued that God referred to Himself as "We" in His acts of creation, of commanding and providing, and that this was evidence for His plurality-for otherwise He would have referred to Himself as "I." Muhammad used to listen to all these arguments and debate with them in kindness. He never showed in his debates the hardness and severities which characterized his debates with the associationists [idolotors] and the worshipers of idols. Rather, he argued with them on the basis of revealed scripture and based himself on what could be deduced there from. God said: "Blasphemous are those who claim that God is Jesus, the son of Mary. Say, 'Who is capable of anything should God desire to destroy Jesus, the son of Mary, as well as his mother and all that is on the face of the earth? To Him alone belongs the dominion of heaven and earth and all that is in between. He, the Omnipotent, creates what He wills.' Both Jews and Christians claim that they are the sons of God and His favorite people. Say, 'Why does He then punish you for your sins? Rather, you are all humans, on a par with all other men He has created. God forgives whomsoever He wills and punishes whomsoever He wills” [Q 5:17-18]. God said: "Blasphemous are those who claim that God is Jesus, the son of Mary. Jesus said: '0 Children of Israel, worship God alone, your Lord and my Lord. Whoever associates aught with God, God will exclude from paradise and punish in hell. Such unjust people will have no helper.' Blasphemous are those who claim that God is the third person of a trinity. There is no God other than God, the One. Unless they stop this blasphemy, God will inflict upon them a painful punishment." [Q 5:72-73] He, to Whom is the glory, also said: "God asked Jesus, son of Mary: 'Did you ask the people to take you and your mother as two gods beside God?' Jesus answered: 'Praise be to You alone, I had not said but that which I was commanded to say. You surely know whether I am guilty of such blasphemy, for You know all that is in my thoughts, and I know none of what is in Yours. You alone are omniscient. I did convey to them that which You commanded me to convey, namely, that they ought to worship God alone, my Lord and their Lord. In their midst, I have been a witness unto You throughout my life. And when You caused me to die, knowledge of what they did was Yours for You are the witness of everything. If You punish them, they are Your creatures and servants: if You choose to forgive them, You are the Mighty and Wise.’[Q 5:116-118]
Christianity upholds the trinitarian view and claims that Jesus is the Son of God. Islam, on the other hand, categorically denies that God could possibly have a son. "Say," God commands Muhammad, "God is one. God is eternal. He has neither progeny nor ancestry. He is absolutely without parallel."[Q 112:1-4] "It is not possible for God-may He be praised-to take unto Himself a son." [Q 19:35] "Jesus is to God as Adam was to Him, a creature made out of dust that had come to be at God's command." [Q 3:59] Islam is monotheistic par excellence; the unity of God it teaches is the most categorical, the clearest, the simplest, and therefore the strongest. Whatever casts the slightest doubt upon the unity of God is strongly rejected by Islam and declared blasphemous. "God does not forgive that He be associated with anyone, but He will forgive anything lesser than that to whomsoever He wills [Q 4:48]. Whatever connection Christianity may have had with ancient religions as far as its trinitarian doctrine is concerned furnished no justification at all in the eye of Muhammad. The truth is that God is one and unique, that He has no associates, that He has neither progeny nor ancestry and that He is absolutely without parallel. It is no wonder therefore that controversy arose between Muhammad and the Christians of his time, that he debated with them in kindness, and that revelation confirmed Muhammad with the foregoing Quranic corroborations.
The Question of Jesus' Crucifixion
Another problem in which Islam differed from Christianity and which aroused controversy at the time of the Prophet is that of the crucifixion of Jesus as atonement for the sins of mankind. The Quran clearly denies that the Jews had killed or crucified the Messiah. It says: "As for the Jews' claim that they killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Prophet of God, the truth is that they have not killed him, nor have they crucified him, but that that appeared to them to be the case; whereas those who contend concerning this matter have no certain knowledge at all but merely conjecture. None of them is absolutely certain that they killed Jesus. Rather, God the Mighty and Wise raised Jesus unto Himself." [Q 4:157-158]
Despite the fact that the idea of the Messiah's sacrifice and his atonement for the sins of mankind with his own blood is undoubtedly beautiful and the writings it had inspired are worthy of poetical, moral, and psychological analysis, Islam founded itself upon the principle that moral guilt is non-transferable and that on the Day of Judgment justice shall be meted out to each according to his due. This fact rules out any logical rapprochement between the two doctrines. The logique of Islam is so precise on this matter and so clear and distinct that the difference between it and Christianity cannot be composed. The doctrine of sacrificial atonement runs diametrically counter to that of personal justice. "No father may bear the guilt of his son, and no son may earn anything for his father." [Q 31:33]
Byzantines and Muslims
Did any Christians at the time consider this new religion and ponder the possibility of harmonizing its "unization" [tawhid] of God and their revelation of Jesus? Indeed! And many of them joined it as a result. The Byzantines, however, whose victory the Muslims had celebrated and regarded as the victory of the scriptural religions, did not take the trouble to investigate this new religion. Rather, they looked at it from a political angle, and worried about their dominion should the new religion carry the day. They therefore began to attack it and its people and sent an army of a hundred thousand soldiers (or of two hundred thousand according to another report) against it. This led to the conquest of Tabuk by the Muslims and the retreat of the Byzantines in front of the army which rallied around Muhammad to repulse the aggression with such power and determination as it deserved.
Ever since then, Muslims and Christians have followed a poll of hostility towards each other; for many centuries victory was on the side of the Muslims, enabling them to extend their empire from Spain in the west to India and China in the east. Most of the inhabitants of this empire joined the new faith and adopted its Arabic language. When history came full cycle, the Christians forced the Muslims from Spain, launched the Crusades against them, and began to attack their religion and Prophet with falsehoods, lies, and forgeries. In their prejudice, they forgot the great respect and honor accorded to Jesus-may God's blessing be upon him-by Muhammad-may God's blessing be upon him-as the tradition has reported and the Quran, the revelation to Muhammad, has stated.
Christian Scholars and Muhammad
In presenting the views Christian scholars had of Muhammad during the first half of the nineteenth century, the French Encyclopedie Larousse stated: "Muhammad remained in his moral corruption and debauchery a camel thief, a cardinal who failed to reach the throne of the papacy and win it for himself. He therefore invented a new religion with which to avenge himself against his colleagues. Many fanciful and immoral tales dominated his mind and conduct. The Life of Muhammad by Bahomet is an example of this kind of literature. Other books on Muhammad, such as those published by Renault and Frangois Michel in 1831, illustrate the idea of Muhammad prevalent in the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century, Peel looked at the Quran from a historian's point of view. But he refused to divulge his conclusions to his readers though he acknowledged that the ethical and social system of Muhammad does not differ from the Christian system except in the theory of punishment and polygamy."
Emil Dermenghem, the French writer, was one of the few Orientalists who investigated the life of Muhammad with some objectivity. Quoting some of the writings of his colleagues, he wrote: "After the war between Islam and Christianity had been going on for centuries, the misunderstanding naturally increased and we are forced to admit the most serious ones were on the side of the Occidentals. Numerous were the Byzantine polemists who covered Islam with their contempt without taking the trouble to study it (with perhaps the exception of St. John of Damascus), as well as the writers and minstrels who fought the Saracens with only ridiculous calumnies. They portrayed Mahomet as a camel-thief, a rake, sorcerer, a brigand chief, and even as a Roman cardinal furious at not having been elected pope . . . they showed him as a false god to whom the faithful made human sacrifices.
"The worthy Gilbert de Nogent himself tells us that he (Muhammad) died through excessive drunkenness and that his corpse was eaten by pigs on a dunghill, explaining why the flesh of this animal and wine are prohibited . . . .
"The opposition of the two religions had not, in the main, any more serious foundations than the affirmations of heroic songs portraying Mahomet, the iconoclast, as a golden-idol, and Mussulman mosques as pantheons filled with images! The Song of Antioch describes, as if the author had seen it, a massive idol, Mahom, in gold and silver enthroned on the mosaic seat of an elephant. The Song o f Roland, which shows Charlemagne's horsemen throwing down Mussulman idols, tells us that the Saracens worshiped a Trinity composed of Termagant, Mahom and Apollo. The Roman de Mahomet asserts the Islam permitted polyandry . . . .
"Hate and prejudice were tenacious of life. From the time of Rudolph de Ludheim (620) until the present, Nicholas de Cuse, Vives, Maracci, Hottinger, Bibliander, Prideaux, etc. present Mohamet as an impostor, Islam as the cluster of all the heresies and the work of the devil, the Mussulmans as brutes, and the Koran as a tissue of absurdities. They declined to treat such a ridiculous subject seriously. However, Pierre le Venerable, author of the first Occidental treatise against Islam, made a Latin translation of the Koran in the twelfth century. Innocent III once called Mahomet Antichrist, while in the Middle Ages he was nearly always merely looked upon as a heretic. Raymond Lull in the fourteenth century, Guillaume Postel in the sixteenth, Roland and Gagnier in the eighteenth, the Abbe de Broglie and Renan in the nineteenth give rather varied opinions. Voltaire, afterwards, amended in several places the hasty judgment expressed in his famous tragedy. Montesquieu, like Pascal and Malebranche, committed serious blunders on the religion, but his views of the manners and customs of the Mussulmans are well-considered and often reasonable. Le Comte de Boulainvilliers, Scholl, Caussin de Perceval, Dozy, Sprenger, Barthelemy, Saint-Hilaire de Castries, Carlyle, etc., are generally favorable to Islam and its Prophet and sometimes vindicate him. In 1876 Doughty nonetheless called Mahomet `a dirty and perfidious nomad,' while in 1822 Foster declared that `Mahomet was Daniel's little goat's horn while the Pope was the large one.' Islam still has many ardent detractors."
What a nether world of degradation have the writers of the West sunk to! What chronic, centuries-old obstinacy to go astray and to stir hatred and hostility between men! Many of the afore-mentioned men belonged to the Age of Enlightenment, the century of science, of free thought and research, and of the establishment of brotherhood between man and man. Perhaps the gravity of this unfortunate chronicle is somewhat attenuated by the fact that a number of objective scholars, mentioned by Dermenghem, have accepted the truthfulness of Muhammad's faith in the message which God had revealed to him, have commended the spiritual and moral greatness of Muhammad, his nobility and virtue, or have written about all these matters in literary and eloquent style. On the whole, however, the West continued to attack Islam and its prophet in the harshest possible terms. Indeed, western impertinence has gone so far as to spread Christian missionaries throughout the Muslim World, to urge them to dig their claws into its body, to dissuade the Muslims from their religion and to convert them to Christianity.
The Cause of Hostility between Islam and Christianity
We must search for the cause of this stormy hostility and fierce war which Christianity has been waging against Islam. We believe that western ignorance of the truth of Islam and of the life of its Prophet constitutes the first cause of this hostility. Without a doubt, ignorance is one of the most chronic causes of lethargy, conservatism and prejudice; and it is the most difficult to correct.
Ignorance and Fanaticism
This ignorance is centuries old. Over the years it has set up in the souls of generations idols of its own whose destruction will require a spiritual strength as great as that which characterized Islam when it first made its appearance. However, it is our opinion that there is yet another cause behind this fanaticism of the West and the terrible war it has waged and still wages against the Muslims, century after century. We are not here referring to political ambitions, or to the will of states to subjugate people for the purpose of exploiting them. In our opinion this is the result and not the cause of the fanaticism which goes beyond science and all its researches.
Christianity Does Not Accord with the Nature of Western Man
This deeper lying cause, we think, is the fact that Christianity-with its call for asceticism, other-worldliness, forgiveness, and the high personalist values-does not accord with the nature of western man whose religious life had for thousands of years been determined by polytheism and whose geographic position had imposed upon him the struggle against extreme cold and inclement nature. When historical circumstances brought about his Christianization, it was necessary for him to interpret it as a religion of struggle and to alter its tolerant and gentle nature. Thereby western man spoiled the spiritual sequence, completed by Islam, in which Christianity stood as a link in the chain. This spiritual continuum reconciles the claims of the body with those of the spirit; it synthesizes in harmony emotion and reason. It is a system which integrates the individual, indeed mankind, as a natural part of the cosmos and co-existent with it in its infinity of space and time. In our view, this spoiling is the cause of the fanaticism of the West vis-à-vis Islam and the cause of an attitude which Christian Abyssinia found beneath its dignity to adopt when the Muslims sought its protection at the beginning of the Prophet's career.
It is with reference to this cause that we can explain the exaggerated religiosity of western man as well as his extremist irreligiosity. For here too western fanatacism and hostility know neither tolerance nor temperance. Admittedly, history has known many saints among western men who in their lives have followed the example of Jesus and his disciples. But it cannot be denied that this same history affirms the life of the western people to be one of struggle, power, antagonism, and bloody war in the name of politics or religion. Nor can it be denied that the popes of the Church as well as the secular rulers have always engaged one another in strife: that one or the other was one day conqueror and the other vanquished. As secular power emerged victorious in the nineteenth century, it sought to stamp out the life of the spirit in the name of science, claiming that the latter should replace religious faith in human spirituality. Nowadays, after a long struggle, the West has come to realize its error and the impossibility of what it sought to achieve. Voices are now being heard from all sides demanding to regain the lost spirituality by looking for it in the new theosophic and other schools."
Had Christianity accorded with the instinct of strife which among westerners is the law of life, they would have realized the bankruptcy of materialism to furnish them with the needed spiritual power. They then would have returned to the noble Christian religion of Jesus, son of Mary, unless God were to guide them toward Islam. They would not have needed to emigrate to India and other places to obtain a necessary spiritual life. Such spirituality is of the essence of the religion of Jesus, indeed its very nature and being.
Colonialism and Christian Mission against Islam
Western colonialism helped the West to continue its war against Islam and Muhammad. It encouraged the West to proclaim that Islam is the cause of the decadence of its adherents and their subjugation by others. Many western scholars still subscribe to this claim unaware that by doing so they cede the point to the Makkans who proclaimed thirteen centuries ago that Christianity is responsible for the shameful defeat of Heraclius and Byzantium by Persia, as well as to anyone who wishes to make use of the argument to explain Christendom's retreat under the blows of the Muslims. One fact alone is sufficient to refute such an obvious piece of falsehood. That is the fact that the civilization of Islam was dominant in, and its people sovereign over, the whole known world for many centuries; that in the Muslim world arose greater men of science and knowledge who lived and worked in an atmosphere of freedom which the West was not to know until very recently. If it were at all possible to attribute to a religion the decay of its adherents, no such imputation is possible in the case of Islam which aroused the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula and enabled them to dominate the world.
Islam and the Present State of the Islamic Peoples
Those who impute to Islam responsibility for the decay of the Islamic peoples are partially right in the fact that there was added to the religion of God much which neither God nor Hip Prophet would have approved of. Such additions soon became integral to the religion, and whoever denied them was declared a heretic. Apart from the doctrine itself, let us take a close look at the biography of the Prophet of Islam-may God's blessing be upon him. Most of his biographies have narrated stories which no reason would accept and which no confirmation of Muhammad's prophethood needed. It was from such additions that the western Orientalists and critics of Islam, of its Prophet and of the Muslim peoples, drew their conclusions and formed their unjust and revolting attacks. After basing themselves on these incoherent assumptions, they launched further attacks and claimed for what they wrote the status of modern scientific research. The scientific method demands that events, people, and heroes be presented objectively, that the author's judgment be given only in light of the given evidence. The writings of these authors, however, were dictated by their passion for controversy and vituperation. They were aptly cast in expressions which deluded their co-religionists into believing that they were scientific, and that they were made in seeking after truth alone. Nonetheless, God did grant His peace to a number of contented souls, for among them there were men of letters, men of science, and other free thinkers who came closer to justice and fairness.
Conservatism and ljtihad among the Muslims
A number of 'ulama' [thoelogians] in different circumstances responded to the claims of these western fanatics. The name of Muhammad 'Abduh shines most in this regard. But they have not observed the scientific method which the European writers and historians claim to have observed. Their argument would not have the same power as that of their opponents. Moreover, the same Muslim scholars-Muhammad 'Abduh above all others-were accused of heresy and blasphemy-a fact which weakened their argument before the opponents of Islam. Such accusations as were directed at them left deep impressions in the hearts of educated Muslim youths. These young men felt that for a group of Muslim 'ulama' adjudication by reason and logic amounts to heresy, that heresy is the twin of ijtihad, and that iman [faith] is the twin of conservatism. Hence their minds panicked, and they rushed to the books of the West seeking to learn the truth which they believed was not to be found in the books of Muslim authors. They did not at all consider the books of Christianity and of Christian history. Instead, they turned to the books of philosophy to quench their burning thirst for the truth. In western logic and scientific method they sought the light with which to illuminate their human souls, and the means by which to communicate with the universe. In the western products of pure philosophy, literature, and allied fields, these men found many great ideas by which they were deeply impressed. The methods of their presentation, the precision of their logic and their authors' candidness in the search for the truth added all the mole to their attractiveness. That is why our youths' thinking was drawn away from all the religions in general and from the methods of Islam and its carriers in particular. They were anxious not to stir a war with conservatism which they were not confident they could win, and they did not realize that spiritual intercourse with the universe is the necessary requisite of any human realization of perfection, of that moral power which is strong enough to withstand the storms.
Western Science and Literature
Our young men were thus drawn away from serious confrontation with the Islamic message and its carriers. In this they were encouraged by what they observed of. positive science and positivist philosophy, ruling for them that religious questions are not subject to logic, that they do not fall within the realm of scientific thinking, and that the metaphysical assumptions implied in those questions fall outside the realm of the scientific method. Our men have also observed the clear separation of state and church in the western countries. They learned that despite the fact that the constitutions of these countries prescribe that their kings are the protectors of Protestantism or Catholicism, or that the official religion of the state is Christianity, the Western states do not mean any more than to subscribe to the public observance of the feasts and other occasions of the Christian calendar. Hence they were encouraged to enter into this line of scientific thinking and to derive therefrom, as well as from the related philosophy, literature and art, all the inspiration possible. When the time came to transfer their attention from study to practical life, their occupations pulled them away further from those problems which they could not solve even at the time of their study. Their minds, therefore, continued to run in their original courses. They looked at conservatism with contempt and pity and drew their nourishment from the lifeline of western thought and philosophy. Remembering this lifeline as the source from which they obtained their nourishment in their youth, they continued to find therein their intellectual pleasure; their admiration for it was always growing.
Nevertheless, the Orient stands today in great need of learning from western thought, literature and art. The present of the Orient is separated from its past by centuries of lethargy and conservatism which have locked its old healthy mind in ignorance and suspicion of anything new. Anyone who seeks to dissolve this thick curtain must needs be assisted by the most modern thinking in the world if he is to forge anew the link between the live present and the great legacy of the past.
Efforts of Islamic Reform
It is undeniable that we must acknowledge the worthy western achievements in Islamic and Oriental studies. These have prepared the road for Muslims as well as Orientals to enter these fields of research with greater promise than was open to their western colleagues. The Muslims and Orientals are naturally closer to the spirit of Islam and the Orient which they are seeking to penetrate. As long as the new leadership in this field has come from the West, it is the Muslim's and Oriental's duty to look into the products of the West, to correct their mistakes, and to give to the discipline the proper orientation which will re-establish the unity of the old and the new. This should not be done merely on paper, for it is a living legacy, spiritual and mental, which the heirs ought to represent to themselves, to add thereto, and to illumine with their own vision and understanding of the central realities.
Many of our young men have succeeded in their undertaking of scientific researches on these lines. The Orientalists have often appreciated their work and complimented them on their contributions to scholarship.
Western Missionaries and Muslim Conservatives
Scientific cooperation in Islamic between Muslim and Oriental scholars on one hand, and western scholars on the others, is worthy of great promise. Although it has just begun to make progress, we yet notice that the Christian missionaries continue their attacks against Islam and Muhammad with the same ferocity as their predecessors to whom we have alluded earlier. In this they are encouraged and supported by the western colonialist powers in the name of freedom of opinion. These very missionaries were themselves thrown out of their countries by their own governments because they were not trusted by them to implant true faith in the hearts of their own co-religionists at home, [France expelled them]. Moreover this colonialism assists the leaders of conservatism among the Muslims. Colonialism in fact has brought about a coalescence of the two tendencies; on the one hand it confirms the infusion of Islam with that which is not Islamic, such as the irrational and unrefined superstitions added to the life of the Prophet; on the other hand, it confirms the antagonists of Islam in their attacks against these forgeries.
The Idea and Plan of This Book
The circumstances of my life have enabled me to observe all these maneuvers in the various countries of the Islamic East, indeed throughout the Muslim World, and to discover their final purpose. The objective of colonialism is to destroy in these countries the freedom of opinion, the freedom to seek the truth. I have come to feel that I stand under the duty to foil these maneuvers and spoil their purpose, for they are certainly harmful to the whole of mankind, not only to Islam and the Orient. What greater damage could befall humanity than to have its greater half, the half which has throughout history been the carrier of civilization, to wallow in sterility and conservatism? It was this consideration which led me at the end of the road of life to the study of the life of Muhammad, the carrier of the message of Islam and the target of Christian attacks on one side and of Muslim conservatives on the other. But I have resolved that this will be a scientific study, developed on the western modern method, and written for the sake of truth alone.
I began to study the history of Muhammad and to look more closely into the Sirah of Ibn Hisham, the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa'd, the Maghazi of Waqidi, and the Spirit of Islam of Sayyid Ameer Ali. Then I took care to study what some orientalists have written on the subject such as the work of Dermenghem, and also that of Washington Irving. The winter of 1932 at Luxor provided me with the occasion to begin my writing. At that time I was quite hesitant to publish my thoughts because I feared the storm which the conservatives and their followers who believe in superstitions might raise. But I was encouraged by a number of professors in the Islamic institutions of learning, many of whom took such care in studying my writing and making pertinent observations on it that I resolved to follow my scientific treatment of the life of Muhammad to a conclusion. It was the encouragement of these men that stirred me to search for the best means by which to analyze the biography of the Prophet.
The Quran as the Most Reliable Source
I discovered that the most reliable source of information for the biography of Muhammad is the Holy Quran. It contains a reference to every event in the life of the Arab Prophet which can serve the investigator as a standard norm and as a guiding light in his analysis of the reports of the various biographies and of the Sunnah. As I sought to understand all the Quranic references to the life of the Prophet, Professor Ahmad Lutfi al Sayyid, of Dar al Kutub al Misriyyah, offered me great assistance by letting me use a topically arranged collection of all the verses of the Quran. While analyzing these verses, I began to realize that it was necessary to discover the causes and occasions of their revelation. I acknowledge that despite all the effort I put in that direction I was not always successful. The books of exegesis sometimes refer to these relations but often overlook them. A1 Wahidi's Asbab al Nuzul, and Ibn Salamah's al Nasikh Wa al Mansukh treat this matter very precisely but, unfortunately, very briefly. In these as well as other books of exegesis, I discovered many facts which helped me in my analysis of the claims various biographies have made as well as the many other facts worthy of being considered and investigated by all scholars of the Quran and Sunnah.
Candid Advice
As my research progressed I found candid advice coming to me from all directions, especially from the professors of Islam and the learned men of religion. Dar al Kutub al Misriyyah and its officers were responsible for the greatest assistance. No expression of appreciation of their work is adequate. Suffice it here to mention that, encouraged by his director and other senior officers, Professor 'Abd al Rahim Mahmud, Editor in the Division of Literature, used often to save me from great trouble by borrowing for me all the needed books. Whenever I did manage to go to Dar al Kutub, all the employees were delightfully ready to assist me in my search. Some of these men were personally known to me and others were not. I referred many a question which was opaque or presented difficulties to those of my friends whom I knew would shed some light thereon; and more often than not the confusion or opaqueness was cleared. This was many times the case with the Grand Shaykh Muhammad Mustafa al Maraghi, along with my expert friend, Ja'far Pasha Waliy, who lent me several of his books, such as the Sahih of Muslim and the histories of Makkah, and who guided me in many problems. Makram 'Ubayd Pasha, another friend of mine, lent me Sir William Muir's The life of Muhammad and Father Lammens's Islam. This valuable assistance is all in addition to that which I found in the writings of the contemporary authors such as Fajr al Islam by Ahmad Amin, Qisas al Anbiya by 'Abd al Wahhab al Najjar, Fi al Adab al Jahili by Taha Husayn, The Jews in Arabia by Israel Wolfenson, and many other contemporary works mentioned in my list of old and new references used in the preparation of this book.
As I progressed in my research more and more complicated problems emerged which overtaxed my powers. Throughout, the biographies of Muhammad and the books of exegeses as well as the works of the orientalists have, assisted me in achieving a measure of certainty of purpose. I found myself compelled to limit my investigation to the events in the life of Muhammad and to refrain from tackling a number of side issues connected there-with. Had I allowed myself to indulge in the discussion of all these problems, I would have needed to write many volumes of this size or larger. Let me mention in passing that Caussin de Perceval wrote three volumes under the title Study in Arab History, of which he devoted the first two to the history and life of the Arab tribes and the third to the history of Muhammad and his first two successors, Abu Bakr and 'Umar. Likewise, the Tabaqat of Ibn Sa'd devoted one of its many volumes to the life of Muhammad and all the others to the lives of his companions. My purpose in this work has never gone beyond the investigation of the life of Muhammad itself; therefore, I did not allow myself the liberty to investigate the other problems involved.
Restriction to the Life of Muhammad
Another consideration restricted me to the frontiers of the life of Muhammad-the greatness, majesty, and brilliance which make his life unique among all others. How great was Abfi Bakr ! And how great was 'Umar! Each was a great sun eclipsing all others around him. How great, too, were the first Muslims, the companions of Muhammad, who are remembered from generation to generation with the greatest pride. All these men, however, stood beneath Muhammad, reflecting his light and his glory. It is not easy therefore for the investigator to restrict himself to the life of Muhammad alone. This is all the more so if the investigation is to follow the modern scientific method, and thereby present the greatness of that life with all its strength and moving appeal in a manner which both Muslims and non-Muslims may accept and admire.
If we were to disregard those foolish fanatics, such as the missionaries and their like, whose purpose never goes beyond vituperation of Muhammad, we could still find a clear and distinct respect for greatness in the life of Muhammad in the works of the western orientalists. In his On Heroes and Hero Worship, Thomas Carlyle devoted a chapter to Muhammad in which he described the revelation of Muhammad as issuing from a spark that is divine and holy. He understood Muhammad's greatness and portrayed it in its whole strength. Likewise, Muir, Irving, Sprenger, and Weil, among other orientalists, eloquently described the greatness of Muhammad. A lack of vision, penetration, and critical skill prevented some of them from regarding one point or another of Muhammad's life as other than blameworthy. It is probable that they had relied in their investigation on unreliable biographies and books of exegesis of the Prophet, forgetting that the earliest biography was not written down until two centuries after Muhammad's death, and that during this time a great number of Israelitisms and other forgeries were forced into his biography and into his teachings. Generally, western orientalists acknowledge this fact even though they attribute to the Prophet materials which the least investigation would reject as superfluous. The cases of the goddesses of Makkah, of Zayd and Zaynab, of the wives of the Prophet, constitute examples of such superfluous materials as I have had the occasion to investigate in this book.
This Book as Mere Beginning of Research
No one should think that research in the life of Muhammad is completed with this work. It is closer to the truth for me to say that my work is really only the beginning of scientific research in this field in Arabic and that all my efforts in this regard do not make my work any more than a mere beginning in the scientific as well as Islamic undertaking of this grave subject. As many scholars have devoted all their energies to the study of one period of history, even as Aulard has specialized in the study of the French Revolution, some scholars and historians ought to devote themselves to the study of the Age of Muhammad. The life of Muhammad is certainly worthy of being studied in a scientific and academic manner by more than one specialist or by more than one competent scholar. I have no doubt that any efforts spent on such scientific study of this brief period in the history of Arabia and on investigating the relations of Arabia to other countries during that age will prove beneficial to mankind as a whole, not merely to Islam or the Muslims. Such a study will clear many psychological and spiritual problems and prepare them for scholarly research. It will shed great light on the social moral and legislative life of Arabia and thus illuminate areas which so far science has been unable to penetrate on account of the religious conflict between Islam and Christianity. Such a study would dissipate the futile attempt at westernizing the Orientals or Christianizing the Muslims in a way that history has proven to be impossible and harmful to the relations of the various parts of mankind with one another.
Universal Benefits of the Study
Indeed, I would even go further. I would assert that such a study may show the road to mankind as a whole to the new civilization to which it is currently groping. If western Christendom is too proud to find the new light in Islam and in its Prophet but willingly accepts it from Indian theosophy and other religions of the Far East, then it devolves upon the Orientals themselves, Muslims, Jews or Christians, to undertake this study in all objectivity and fairness in order to reach and establish the truth. Islamic thought rests on a methodology that is scientific and modern as regards all that relates man to nature. In this respect it is perfectly realistic. But it becomes personalist the moment it leaves nature to consider the relationship of man to the cosmos as a whole and to his creator. Moreover, in the psychological and spiritual fields Islamic thought made contributions which science has not yet been able either to confirm or to deny. Although science may not regard these discoveries as facts in the scientific sense of the terms, they still remain the constituents of man's happiness and the determinants of his conduct in the world. What then is life? And what is man's relation to this world? How shall we explain his concern for life? What is the common faith which inspires human groups and by which their morale is raised to high pitch or dissolved? What is being? And what is the unity of being? What is the place of man in this being and in its unity? These are problems of metaphysics and a whole literature has arisen around them. Answers far nearer human understanding and implementation than are usually found in the literature of metaphysics are found in the life of Muhammad and his teachings. Ever since the `Abbasi period, Muslim thinkers have spent centuries looking for metaphysical answers. Likewise western thinkers have spent three centuries, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth, to lead the West to modern science in the same manner as the Muslims have done in the past. Once more, science stands today as it stood in the past as failing to realize human happiness on earth. Such happiness is impossible to realize unless we resume research for a correct understanding of the personal relationship of man to the cosmos and to the creator of the cosmos, and unless such understanding is sought on the basis of a divine unity, which is eternal and immutable, and with regard to space and time in relation to our short life. The life of Muhammad provides us with the best example of personalist communion with being as well as the best materials for a scientific study of this relationship. The same materials may equally be the object of practical study for those who are endowed therefore but naturally removed from achieving such communion with God as the Prophet had achieved. It is most likely that the scientific study, and the practical study, if felicitously undertaken, may yet shake our world loose from the paganism into which it has fallen in spite of its religious creeds and scientific doctrines. It may yet save the world from its present monolatry of wealth that has made all science, art, and ethics its servants and conscripted all man's powers to do its bidding and sing its praises. Such hopes may still be far from realization. However, the beginning of the end of this all-embracing paganism of modern times is clearly distinguishable under close observance of the current flow of events. Perhaps, these humble beginnings will grow and become surer of themselves when scholarship has found answers to these spiritual problems through the study of the life of Muhammad, of his teachings, of his age, and of the spiritual world revolution which he incepted. Should such scientific and scholarly research uncover for man his stronger bonds with the higher reality of the world, it would have then provided the new civilization with its first foundation.
As I said already, this book is only a mere beginning on this road. It will prove sufficient reward for me if it should succeed in convincing the reader of the validity of its assertions, and the scholars and researchers of the need for dedication and specialization if the final end of the study is to be reached. God will surely reward the good doers.
Muhammad Husayn Haykal
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Preface to the Second Edition
The speed with which the first edition of this work was exhausted has exceeded all expectations. Ten thousand copies were printed of which one-third were sold before the book came off the press. The remaining copies were sold during the first three months following its publication. If this is any indication, the reader must have been quite interested in its contents. A second printing, therefore, is as imperative as the reconsideration of those contents.
An Observation
Without a doubt, the title of the book attracted the reader most. The attraction may also have been due to the method with which the subject was treated. Whatever the reason, the thought of a second edition has occasioned the question of whether or not I should allow the book to be reprinted without change or have it corrected, considering that a need for correction, clarification, or addition has in the meantime seemed to me evident. Some, whose counsel I certainly value, have advised me to make the second edition an exact copy of the first in order to achieve equality between the earlier and later buyers and to allow myself longer time for revision thereafter. This view almost convinced me. Had I followed it, this second edition would have been put in the hands of the readers many months ago. But I hesitated to accept this advice and finally decided in favor of revisions which many considerations had made necessary. The first of such considerations concerned a number of observations which Muhammad Mustafa al Maraghi, Grand Shaykh of al Azhar, had kindly made when he read the first parts of the book as they came from the press, and kindly decided to write the foreword. When the book made its appearance, a number of `ulama' and other scholars spoke and wrote about it. Their observations were all preceded by numerous compliments for the achievement of this work, indeed more than the book actually deserved. These observations were based upon the understanding that a book about the Arab Prophet, which is so well written that it has won their approval and appreciation, ought to be absolutely free of all shortcomings. It is therefore necessary for me to take them into account and give them the consideration due.
It was perhaps this very approval and appreciation of the readers which moved them to make observations on incidental matters related neither to the essence of the book nor to its main themes. Some of them, for instance, pleaded for further clarification of certain points. Others called for closer scrutiny of my use of prepositions. Still others suggested different words better to express the meanings I intended. A number of them did focus on the themes of the book and therefore caused me to review what I have written. I certainly wish that this second edition will come closer to satisfying all these writers and scholars. All this notwithstanding, I still believe that this book provides no more than a mere beginning in the Arabic language of such studies using the modern scientific method.
A further consideration caused me to review the first edition. Having read the many observations made, most of which were not new, I became convinced as I read my work again that I ought to add, where relevant, a discussion of the points to which the observations referred in order at least to convince their authors of my point of view and of the veracity of my arguments. My reconsideration of some of these points opened new vistas which any student of the biography of the Arab Prophet will have to study. Although I am proud that the first edition did in fact deal with the points raised in the reviews, I am more proud yet today to present to the reader this second edition in which the same points have been treated more fully. No study, however, can be full or perfect which undertakes the investigation of the life of the greatest man history has known-the Seal of the Prophets and of the Messengers from on high-may God's peace and blessing be upon him.
In this edition, I have tried to address myself to a number of observations made regarding my method of investigation. I have added to the book two new chapters in which I have dealt with matters which have been only slightly referred to toward the end of the preface of the first edition. I have also re-edited the work wherever it needed editing, and added to its various sections and paragraphs such points as my rethinking has made necessary.
Answering the Followers of Western Orientalists
I want first to address myself to a letter I received from an Egyptian writer. He claimed that his letter is an Arabic translation of an article he wrote for a German Orientalists magazine in criticism of this book. I have not published this letter in the Arabic press because it contains many unfounded attacks; and I thought that its author had better bear the responsibility of publishing it if he wished to. Nor will I mention his name here because I believe he will repudiate his old views when he reads the critical analysis that follows. The substance of the letter is that my The Life of Muhammad is not a scientific one in the modern sense. He argues that I have depended upon Arabic sources alone and have not consulted the studies of German orientalists such as Weil, Goldziher, Noldeke, and others, and have not adopted their conclusions. The letter also blames me for regarding the Quran as a certain historical document, whereas the investigations of the foregoing orientalists have proven that it has been tampered with and been changed after the death of Muhammad in the first century A.H. It reported that these investigations have discovered that the name of the Prophet is a case in point; that having once been "Qutham" or "Quthamah," it was later changed to "Muhammad" in order to accord with the verse, "Jesus said: O Children of Israel, I am the Prophet of God sent to you to confirm the scripture that is already in my hand and to announce to you the advent of a prophet after me whose name shall be Ahmad."[Q 61:6] This fabrication was deemed desirable in order to forge a link between the Prophet and the Evangel's announcement of a prophet coming after Jesus. Moreover, the letter added, the researches of the orientalists have revealed that the Prophet suffered from epilepsy, that his so called revelations were really effects of his epileptic attacks; that the symptoms of epilepsy-loss of consciousness, perspiration, convulsion, foam around the mouth-were all apparent in his case. It was after he recovered from these fits that he claimed that the revelation had come to him, recited it to the believers, and claimed that it had come from God.
By itself, this letter is not worthy of attention or investigation. Its author, however, is a Muslim and an Egyptian. Had he been an orientalists or a missionary, I would have let him alone to rave as he pleased. What I have said in the preface to the first edition in this regard is sufficient refutation for such people and views. The author of this letter, however, is an example of a class of young Muslims who are too ready to accept what the orientalists say and regard it as true knowledge. It is precisely to this class of people that I want now to address myself and warn them of the errors in which the orientalists fall. Some of these orientalists are candid and scholarly despite their errors. Error nonetheless finds its way into their conclusions either because of their lack of mastery of the nuances of the Arabic language, or of their prejudice against religion as such, or Islam in particular, which, in turn, conditions them to seek to destroy the fundamental basis of religion. Both shortcomings are unworthy of scholars and it behooves them to seek a remedy therefore. We have seen Christian thinkers who, moved by this same antagonism, denied that Jesus ever existed in history; and we have seen others who have gone further and have even written about the madness of Jesus. The western thinker's innate antagonism to religion was generated by the struggle between the Church and the state and this led both the men of science and the men of religion to pull in different directions in order to wrench power from the other side and seize it for themselves. Islam, on the other hand, is free of such strife; Muslim scholars, therefore, should not be affected by it as their western colleagues have been. In most cases, to fall under such a complexus would vitiate the research. Muslim readers therefore, should watch out more carefully when they read a religious study by a westerner. They should scrutinize every claim these studies make for the truth. A large measure of their researches are deeply affected by this past strife which the men of religion and the men of science had waged against one another during long centuries.
Dependence upon the Muslim Biographers
The case of the letter from the Egyptian Muslim colleague clearly points to the need for such care. His first criticism concerned my dependence upon Arabic and Islamic sources. Of course this is not denied. But I have also consulted the books of the orientalists mentioned in my list of references. The Arabic sources, however, constituted my primary sources as they constituted the primary sources for orientalists before me. That is natural. For these sources, and the Quran above all, were the first ones ever to discuss the life of the Arab Prophet. There is nothing objectionable if such early historical documents are taken as primary sources for any modern and scientific biographical study of the Prophet. Noldeke, Goldziher, Weil, Sprenger, Muir, and other orientalists have all taken the same works as primary sources for their studies, just as I have done. I have also allowed myself as much liberty in scrutinizing the reports of these works as they did. And I have also not omitted to consult some of the early Christian books which the orientalists had consulted despite the fact that they were products of Christian fanaticism rather than of scholarly research and criticism. If anybody were to criticize my work on the grounds that I have allowed myself to differ from some orientalists and have arrived at conclusions other than their own, he would in fact be calling for intellectual stagnation-a conservatism not less reactionary or retrogressive than any other conservatism we have known. It is unlikely that any of the orientalists themselves agree with such call; for to do so implies approval of religious stagnation. Neither for me nor for any scholarly student of history is such a stand viable. Rather, I should ask myself, as well as any other scholar, to scrutinize the work of his colleagues. Unless he is convinced by clear evidence and incontestable proofs, he should seek other ways to the truth. To this task I call those of us, particularly the youth, who admire the researches of the Orientalists. This has also been my task. Mine is the reward where I have in fact arrived at the truth; and mine is the apology where I have erred despite my good intentions.
The Orientalists and the Bases of Religion
The aforesaid Muslim Egyptian's letter gives evidence of the western orientalists' extreme care to destroy the basis of religion. They claim that their researches have established that the Quran is not a historical document devoid of doubt but that it has been tampered with and edited, and many verses added to it for religious or political ulterior purposes in the first century after the death of the Prophet of Islam. I am not questioning the author of the letter from an Islamic point of view but arguing with him, as it were, as a fellow Muslim, the veracity or otherwise of the Islamic conviction that the Quran is the work of God and that it is impossible for it to be forged. The stand from which he wrote his letter is clearly that of the orientalists who hold that the Quran is a book written by Muhammad. According to a number of orientalists, Muhammad wrote the Quran in the belief that it was God's revelation to him; according to others, Muhammad claimed that the Quran was the revelation of God merely in order to prove the genuineness of his message. Let me then address the author of this letter in his own language assuming that he is one of those free thinkers who refuse to be convinced except by scientific, apodeictic proof.
The False Charge of Forgery
Our young author depends upon the western orientalists and their views. A number of these do think of the Quran in the manner this young author exemplified. Their claim is based upon flagrant motives which stand at the farthest possible remove from science and the scientific method. Suffice it to expose the incoherence of their arguments that the phrase, "and announcing the advent of a prophet after me whose name shall be Ahmad"[Q 61:6] was added to the Quran after the death of the Prophet in order to establish proof of Muhammad's prophethood based upon the scriptures preceding the Quran. Had these orientalists who make this claim truly sought to serve the purpose of science, they would not have recoursed to this cheap propaganda that the Torah and the Evangel are truly revealed books. Had they honored science for its own sake, they would have treated the Quran on a par with the scriptures antecedent to it. Either they would have regarded the Quran as sacred as these scriptures-in which case it would have been natural for it to refer to its antecedents-or, they would have regarded all these books as they did the Quran and imputed to them the same kind of doubtful nature as they did to it, holding as well their authors to have forged or written them in satisfaction of ulterior religious or political purposes. Had the orientalists held such a view, logic would rule out their claim that the Quran had been tampered with and forged for political and religious purposes. It is inadmissible that the Muslims would have sought such confirmation of Muhammad's claim to prophethood from these scriptures after Muslim dominion had been established, the Christian empire vanquished, so many other peoples of the earth subjugated and, indeed, after the Christians themselves had entered into Islam en masse. The inadmissibility of these orientalists' claims is demanded by genuine scientific thought. Furthermore, the claim that the Torah and the Evangel are sacred whereas the Quran is not is devoid of scientific support. Therefore, the claim that the Quran had been tampered with and forged in order to seek confirmation of Muhammad's prophethood on the basis of the Torah and the Evangel is a piece of sheer nonsense unacceptable to either logic or history.
Those western orientalists who have made this false claim are very few and belong to the more fanatic group. The majority of them do believe that the Quran which is in our hands today is precisely the Quran which Muhammad had recited to the Muslims during his lifetime; that it has neither been tampered with nor forged. They admit this explicitly in their writings while criticizing the method by which the verses of the Quran were collected and its chapters arranged-a matter of discussion which does not belong here. The Muslim students of the Quran did in fact study these criticisms and exposed their errors. As for our purpose here, suffice it to look at some orientalists' writing on this subject. Perhaps our young Muslim Egyptian author would thereby be convinced and, perhaps, he would convince those of his fellows who think like him.
Muir Rejects the Forgery of the Quran
The orientalists have written a great deal on this subject. We can select a passage by Sir William Muir from his book, The Life of Mahomet [1878], in the hope that those who claim that the Quran has been forged will realize wherein they have erred, to the detriment of both the truth and their own scholarship. It should be remembered that our author, Muir, is a Christian, an engage and proud Christian, as well as a missionary who never misses occasion to criticize the Prophet of Islam or its scripture.
When he came to speak of the Quran and the veracity and precision of its text, he wrote:
"The divine revelation was the cornerstone of Islam. The recital of a passage from it formed an essential part of daily prayer public and private; and its perusal and repetition were enforced as a duty and a privilege fraught with religious merit. This is the universal voice of early tradition, and may be gathered also from the revelation itself. The Coran was accordingly committed to memory more or less by every adherent of Islam, and the extent to which it could be recited was one of the chief distinctions of nobility in the early Moslem empire. The custom of Arabia favoured the task. Passionately fond of poetry, yet possessed of but limited means and skill in committing to writing the effusions of their bards, the Arabs had long been habituated to imprint these, as well as the tradition of genealogical and other tribal events, on the living tablets of their hearts. The recollective faculty was thus cultivated to the highest pitch; and it was applied, with all the ardour of an awakened spirit, to the Coran. Such was the tenacity of their memory, and so great their power of application, that several of Mahomet's followers, according to early tradition, could, during his life-time, repeat with scrupulous accuracy the entire revelation.
"However retentive the Arab memory, we should still have regarded with distrust a transcript made entirely from that source. But there is good reason for believing that many fragmentary copies, embracing amongst them the whole Coran, or nearly the whole, were made by Mahomet's followers during his life. Writing was without doubt generally known at Mecca long before Mahomet assumed the prophetical office. Many of his followers are expressly mentioned as employed by the Prophet at Medina in writing his letters or despatches . . . Some of the poorer Meccan captives taken at Badr were offered their release on condition that they would teach a certain number of the ignorant citizens of Medina to write. And although the people of Medina were not so generally educated as those of Mecca, yet many are distinctly noticed as having been able to write before Islam. The ability thus existing, it may be safely inferred that the verses which were so indefatigably committed to memory, would be likewise committed carefully to writing.
"We also know that when a tribe first joined Islam, Mahomet was in the habit of deputing one or more of his followers to teach them the Coran and the requirements of the faith. We are frequently informed that they carried written instructions with them on the latter point, and they would naturally provide themselves also with transcripts of the more important parts of the Revelation, especially those upon which the ceremonies of Islam were founded, and such as were usually recited at the public prayers. Besides the reference in the Coran to its own existence in a written form, we have express mention made in the authentic traditions of Omar's conversion, of a copy of the 20th Sura being used by his sister's family for social and private devotional reading. This refers to a period preceding, by three or four years, the emigration to Medina. If transcripts of the revelations were made, and in common use, at that early time when the followers of Islam were few and oppressed, it is certain that they must have multiplied exceedingly when the Prophet came to power, and his Book formed the law of the greater part of Arabia.
"Such was the condition of the text of the Coran during Mahomet's life-time, and such it remained for about a year after his death, imprinted upon the hearts of his people, and fragmentary transcripts increasing daily. The two sources would correspond closely with each other; for the Coran, even while the Prophet was yet alive, was regarded with a superstitious awe as containing the very words of God; so that any variations would be reconciled by a direct reference to Mahomet himself, and after his death to the originals where they existed, or copies from the same, and to the memory of the Prophet's confidential friends and amanuenses.
"It was not till the overthrow of Moseilama, when a great carnage took place amongst the Moslems at Yemama, and large numbers of the best reciters of the Coran were slain, that a misgiving arose in Omar's mind as to the uncertainty which would be experienced regarding the text, when all those who had received it from the original source, and thence stored it in their memories, should have passed away. `I fear,' said he, addressing the Caliph Abu Bakr, `that slaughter may again wax hot amongst the reciters of the Coran, in other fields of battle; and that much may be lost therefrom. Now, therefore, my advice is, that thou shouldest give speedy orders for the collection of the Coran.' Abu Bakr agreed, and thus made known his wishes to Zeid ibn Thabit, a citizen of Medina, and the Prophet's chief amanuensis: 'Thou art a young man, and wise; against whom no one amongst us can cast an imputation; and thou wert wont to write down the inspired revelations of the Prophet of the Lord. Wherefore now search out the Coran, and bring it together.' So new and unexpected was the enterprise that Zeid at first shrank from it, and doubted the propriety, or even lawfulness, of attempting that which Mahomet had neither himself done nor commanded to be done. At last he yielded to the joint entreaties of Abu Bakr and Omar, and seeking out the fragments of the Coran from every quarter, 'gathered it together, from dateleaves, and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men.' By the labours of Zeid, these scattered and confused materials were reduced to the order and sequence in which we now find them, and in which it is said that Zeid used to repeat the Coran in the presence of Mahomet. The original copy prepared by Zeid was probably kept by Abu Bakr during the short remainder of his reign. It then came into the possession of Omar who . . . committed it to the custody of his daughter Hap hsa, the Prophet's widow. The compilation of Zeid, as embodied in this exemplar, continued during Omar's ten years' Caliphate to be the standard and authoritative text.
"But variety of expression either prevailed in the previous transcripts and modes of recitation, or soon crept into the copies which were made from Zeid's edition. Mussulmans were scandalized. The Coran sent down from heaven was ONE, but where was now its unity? Hodzeifa, who had warred both in Armenia and Adzerbaijan and had observed the different readings of the Syrians and of the men of Irac, alarmed at the number and extent of the variations, warned Othman to interpose, and 'stop the people, before they should differ regarding their Scripture, as did the Jews and Christians.' The Caliph was persuaded, and to remedy the evil had recourse again to Zeid, with whom he associated a syndicate of three Coreish. The original copy of the first edition was obtained from Haphsa's depository, the various readings were sought out from the different provinces, and a careful recension of the whole set on foot. In case of difference between Zeid and his coadjutors, the voice of the latter, as conclusive of the Coreishite idiom, was to preponderate; and the new collation was thus assimilated exclusively to the Meccan dialect, in which the Prophet had given utterance to his inspiration. Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and the previously existing copies were all, by the Caliph's command, committed to the flames. The old original was returned to Haphsa's custody.
"The recension of Othman had been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance-we might almost say no variations at all-among the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islam. Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but ONE CORAN has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text. The various readings are wonderfully few in number, and are chiefly confined to differences in the vowel points and diacritical signs. But these marks were invented at a later date. They did not exist at all in the early copies, and can hardly be said to affect the text of Othman.
"Since, then, we possess the undoubted text of Othman's recension, it remains to be enquired whether that text was, an honest reproduction of Abu Bakr's edition, with the simple reconcilement of unimportant variations. There is the fullest ground for believing that it was so. No early or trustworthy traditions throw suspicion upon Othman of tampering with the Coran in order to support his own claims. The Sheeahs of later times, indeed, pretend that Othman left out certain Suras or passages which favoured Ali. But this is incredible ....
"When Othman's edition was prepared, no open breach had taken place between the Omeyads and the Alyites. The unity of Islam was still complete and unthreatened. Ali's pretensions were as yet undeveloped. No sufficient object can, therefore, be assigned for the perpetration by Othman of an offence which Moslems regard as one of the blackest dye . . . At the time of the recension, there were still multitudes alive who had the Coran, as originally delivered, by heart; and of the supposed passages favouring Ali-had any ever existed-there would have been numerous transcripts in the hands of his family and followers. Both of these sources must have proved an effectual check upon any attempt at suppression. Fourth: The party of Ali shortly after assumed an independent attitude, and he himself succeeded to the Caliphate. Is it conceivable that either Ali, or his party, when thus arrived at power, would have tolerated a mutilated Coran-mutilated expressly to destroy his claims? Yet we find that they used the same Coran as their opponents, and raised no shadow of an objection against it. The insurgents are indeed said to have made it one of their complaints against Othman that he had caused a new edition to be made, and had committed the old copies of the sacred volume to the flames; but these proceedings were objected to simply as unauthorised and sacrilegious. No hint was dropped of alteration or omission. Such a supposition, palpably absurd at the time, is altogether an after-thought of the modern Sheeas.
"We may then safely conclude that Othman's recension was, what it professed to be, namely, the reproduction of Abu Bakr's edition, with a more perfect conformity to the dialect of Mecca, and possibly a more uniform arrangement of the component parts-but still a faithful reproduction. The most important question yet remains, viz., Whether Abu Bakr's edition was itself an authentic and complete collection of Mahomet's Revelations. The following considerations warrant the belief that it was authentic and in the main as complete as at the time was possible.
"First.-We have no reason to doubt that Abu Bakr was a sincere follower of Mahomet, and an earnest believer in the divine origin of the Coran. His faithful attachment to the Prophet's person, conspicuous for the last twenty years of his life, and his simple, consistent, and unambitious deportment as Caliph, admit no other supposition. Firmly believing the revelations of his friend to be the revelations of God himself, his first object would be to secure a pure and complete transcript of them. A similar argument applies with almost equal force to Omar and the other agents in the revision. The great mass of Mussulmans were undoubtedly sincere in their belief. From the scribes themselves, employed in the compilation, down to the humblest Believer who brought his little store of writing on stones or palm-leaves, all would be influenced by the same earnest desire to reproduce the very words which their Prophet had declared as his message from the Lord. And a similar guarantee existed in the feelings of the people at large, in whose soul no principle was more deeply rooted than an awful reverence for the supposed word of God. The Coran itself contains frequent denunciations against those who should presume to `fabricate anything in the name of the Lord,' or conceal any part of that which He had revealed. Such an action, represented as the very worst description of crime, we cannot believe that the first Moslems, in the early ardour of their faith and love, would have dared to contemplate.
"Second.-The compilation was made within two years of Mahomet's death. We have seen that several of his followers had the entire revelation . . . by heart; that every Moslem treasured up more or less some portions in his memory; and that there were official Reciters of it, for public worship and tuition, in all countries to which Islam extended. These formed a living link between the Revelation fresh from Mahomet's lips, and the edition of it by Zeid. Thus the people were not only sincere and fervent in wishing for a faithful copy of the Coran : they were also in possession of ample means for realizing their desire, and for testing the accuracy and completeness of the volume placed in their hands by Abu Bakr.
"Third.-A still greater security would be obtained from the fragmentary transcripts which existed in Mahomet's life-time, and which must have greatly multiplied before the Coran was compiled. These were in the possession, probably, of all who could read. And as we know that the compilation of Abu Bakr came into immediate and unquestioned use, it is reasonable to conclude that it embraced and corresponded with every extant fragment; and therefore, by common consent, superseded them. We hear of no fragments, sentences, or word intentionally omitted by the compilers, nor of any that differed from the received edition. Had any such been discoverable, they would undoubtedly have been preserved and noticed in those traditional repositories which treasured up the minutest and most trivial acts and sayings of the Prophet.
"Fourth.-The contents and the arrangement of the Coran speak forcibly for its authenticity. All the fragments that could be obtained have, with artless simplicity, been joined together. The patchwork bears no marks of a designing genius or moulding hand. It testifies to the faith and reverence of the compilers, and proves that they dared no more than simply collect the sacred fragments and place them in juxtaposition.
"The conclusion, which we may now with confidence draw, is that the editions of Abu Bakr and of Othman were not only faithful, but, so far as the materials went, complete; and that whatever omissions there may have been, were not on the part of the compilers intentional . . . we may upon the strongest presumption affirm that every verse in the Coran is the genuine and unaltered composition of Mahomet himself.” [Sir William Muir, The Life of Mahomet, London 1878]
The Slanderers of Islam
We have quoted Sir William Muir at length. Hence, we do not need to bring further quotations from the work of Father Lammens, Von Hammer, and other orientalists who hold this view. All these are absolutely certain that the Quran which we recite today contains all that Muhammad reported in all candidness as having been revealed to him from his Lord. If a certain group of orientalists do not agree and insist that the Quran is forged without regard to these rational proofs which Muir had listed and which most orientalists had in fact taken from Muslim historians and scholars, it is in order to slander Islam and its Prophet. Such is the dictate of hate and resentment. However clever and adept such orientalists may be in formulating their slander, they will never be able to pass it as genuine scientific research; nor will they ever be able to fool any Muslims, except perhaps those young men deluded enough to think that free research demands of them the denial of their tradition and the naive acceptance of any nicely presented falsehood and attacks against their legacy, regardless of the validity or falsity of its premises and assumptions.
We could have quoted these same arguments of Sir William Muir and other orientalists directly from their primary Muslim sources as written by the scholars of Islam. But we have preferred to quote them in the words of an Orientalists in order to show those of our youths who are spellbound by western works that precision in scientific research and a candid desire to seek the truth are sufficient to lead anyone to the ultimate facts of history. It was also our intention to show that the investigator ought to be very exact and precise in his investigation if he is to arrive at an understanding of his objective unaffected by ulterior motives or prejudice. Some orientalists undoubtedly arrive at the truth in some cases; others have not been as fortunate. The research which we have conducted in the writing of this book has convinced us that as regards the problem which the life of the Prophet poses to the scholar most of the orientalists have indeed erred.
Proper Methodology
It behooves us here to remember that the researcher should never assert or deny a thesis until his research and analysis have led him to perfect conviction that he has actually grasped all there is to know concerning the given problem. Here, the historian stands in the same predicament as his colleague researcher in the natural sciences. Such is his duty regardless of whether the material he analyzes is the work of an Orientalists or that of a Muslim scholar. If we sincerely seek the truth, our duty is to scrutinize critically all that the Arab and the Muslim scholars have written in the fields of medicine, astronomy, chemistry and other sciences, and to reject all that does not hold its ground before the tribunal of science and to confirm that which does. The search for truth imposes upon us such exactitude in historical matters even though they may be related to the life of the Prophet-may God's peace and blessing be upon him. The historian is not a mere reporter. He is also a critic of what he reports, analyzing it and ascertaining the truth that it contains. There is no criticism without analytic scrutiny; and science and knowledge constitute the foundation of such criticism and analysis.
The exacting analysis which we have quoted in the foregoing pages regarding the Quran is not enough. It does not obviate the need to respond to the letter of that Egyptian Muslim who naively believes all the writings of the orientalists, more particularly their claim that verses have been added to the Quran regarding the name of the Prophet, that it was once "Qutham" or "Quthamah." This claim is false, and it is motivated by the same ulterior motive that stands behind the charge of the forgery of the Quran.
Let us then return to the last point in the letter of our young Muslim Egyptian author. He says that the investigations of the orientalists have established that the Prophet suffered from epilepsy, that the symptoms of the disease were all present in him and that he used to lose consciousness, perspire, fall into convulsions and sputter. After recovering from such seizures, the claim continues, Muhammad would recite to the believers what he then claimed to be a revelation from God, whereas that was only an aftereffect of the epileptic fits which he suffered.
The Slander of Epilepsy
To represent the phenomenon of Muhammad's revelations in these terms is, from the standpoint of scientific research, the gravest nonsense. The fit of epilepsy leaves the patient utterly without memory of what has taken place. In fact, the patient completely forgets that period of his life and can recollect nothing that has happened to him in the meantime because the processes of sensing and thinking come to a complete stop during the fit. Such are the symptoms of epilepsy as science has established them. This was not the case at all with the Prophet at the moment of revelation, for his cognitive faculties used to be strengthened-rather than weakened-and do so to a superlative degree hitherto unknown by the people who knew him most. Muhammad used to remember with utmost precision what he received by way of revelation and recited it to his companions without a flaw. Moreover, revelation was not always accompanied by paroxysms of the body. Much of it took place while the Prophet was perfectly conscious, during his usual wakefulness. We have advanced sufficient evidence for this in our discussion of the revelation of the surah "al Fath" upon return of the Muslims from Makkah to Yathrib after signing the Pact of Hudaybiyah.
Scientific investigation therefore reveals that the case of Muhammad was not one of epilepsy. For this reason very few orientalists have upheld this claim and these turn out to be the same authors who upheld the charge of forgery against the Quran. Obviously, in charging Muhammad with epilepsy, their motivation was not the establishment of historical fact but the derogation of the Prophet in the eyes of his Muslim followers. Perhaps, they thought, propagation of such views would cast some suspicion upon his revelation, for it was precisely the revelation that came as a result of the so-called epileptic fits. This, of course, makes them all the more blameworthy and, from the standpoint of science, positively in error.
Return to Science
Had these western orientalists been candid, they would not have presented their non-scientific claims in the name of science. They did so in order to delude the ignorant who, ignorant though they be of the symptoms of the epileptic disease, are prevented by their own naivete from checking the orientalists' claims against the writings and opinions of the men of the medical sciences. A consultation of medical literature would have quickly exposed the errors of the orientalists, deliberate or accidental, and convinced them that in an epileptic fit all the intellectual and spiritual processes come to an absolute stop. When in a fit, the epileptic patient is either in a ridiculously mechanical state of motion or on a rampage injurious to his fellow men. He is utterly unconscious, unknowing of what he himself does, or of what happens to him, very much like the somnambulant who has no control over his movements during his sleep and who cannot remember them when he wakes up. A very great difference separates an epileptic fit from a revelation in which an intense and penetrating consciousness establishes, in full knowledge and conviction, a contact with the supernal plenum that enables the prophet to report and convey his revelation. Epilepsy, on the other hand, stops cognition. It reduces its patient to a mechanical state devoid of either feeling or sensation. Revelation is a spiritual heightening with which God prepares His prophet to receive from Him the highest and apodeictic cosmic truths that he may convey them to mankind. Science may eventually reach some of these truths and discover the secrets and laws of the universe. The rest may never become object of human knowledge until existence on this earth has come to an end. Nonetheless, these truths are apodeictically certain, furnishing true guidance to the earnest believer though they remain opaque to the ignorant whose hearts are locked and whose vision is dim.
Incapacity of Science in Some Fields
We would have understood and appreciated the western orientalists having said: "Revelation is a strange psychic phenomenon inexplicable in terms of contemporary science." Such a statement would mean that despite its wide scope and penetration, our science is still unable to explain many spiritual and psychic phenomena of which revelation is one. This statement is neither objectionable nor strange. Science is still unable to explain many natural, cosmic phenomena. The nature of the sun, moon, stars, and planets is still largely a matter for hypothesis. These heavenly bodies are only some of what the human eye, whether naked or through the telescope, reveals to us of the cosmos. Many of the inventions of the twentieth century that we presently take for granted were regarded by our predecessors in the nineteenth century as pure fiction. Psychic and spiritual phenomena are now subject to careful scientific study. But they have not yet been subject to the dominion of science so that it could be made to reveal their permanent role. We have often read about phenomena witnessed by the men of science and ascertained by them without explanation in terms coherent with scientific knowledge. Psychology, for instance, is a science which is not yet certain of the structures of many areas of psychic life. If this uncertainty is true of everyday phenomena, the demand to explain all the phenomena of life scientifically must be a shameful and futile exaggeration.
The revelations of Muhammad were phenomena witnessed by his Muslim contemporaries. The more they heard the Quran, the more convinced they became of the truth of these revelations. Among these contemporaries were many of extreme intelligence. Others were Jews and Christians who had argued with the Prophet for a long time before, and they believed in his mission and trusted his revelation in every detail. Some men of Quraysh had accused Muhammad of magic and madness. Later, convinced that he was neither a magician nor a madman, they believed in and followed him. Since all these facts are certain, it is as unscientific to deny the phenomenon of revelation as it is unworthy of the men of science to speak of it in derogative terms. The man of science candid in his search for the truth will not go beyond asserting that his discipline is unable to explain the phenomenon of revelation according to the materialistic theory. But he will never deny the factuality of revelation as reported by the companions of the Prophet and the historians of the first century of Islam. To do otherwise would be to fall under prejudice and betray the spirit of science.
Slander against Muhammad Is Argumentum ad Hominem
Such obstinate prejudice only proves the determined concern of its author to arouse suspicion in Islam itself. Such people have been incapable of arguing against Islam because they had found it sublimely noble, simple, and easy to understand, and realized that these qualities are the sources of its strength. They hence resort to the trick of the impotent who shifts attention from the great idea beyond his reach to the person advocating it. That is the argumentum ad hominem fallacy which every scholar should seek to avoid. It is natural for men to concern themselves with ideas and not with the personal circumstances of their authors and advocates. Men do not give themselves the trouble to investigate the roots of a tree whose fruits they had found delectable, nor the fertilizer which had helped it to grow, as long as their purpose is not to plant a similar or better tree. When they analyze the philosophy of Plato, the plays of Shakespeare, or the paintings of Raphael, and find nothing objectionable in them, they do not look for blameworthy aspects in the lives of these great men who constitute humanity's glory and pride. And if they try to fabricate charges against these persons, they will never succeed in convincing anyone. They only succeed in betraying themselves and exposing their ulterior motives. Casting resentment in the form of scientific research does not alter it from being what it is: namely resentment. Resentment refuses to recognize the truth; and the truth will always be too proud to allow resentment to be its source or associate. Such is the case of the orientalists' charges against the person of the Arab Prophet Muhammad, Seal of the Prophets; and that is why their charges fall to the ground.
That is all I have to say by way of response to those orientalists to whom the letter of the Egyptian Muslim had referred. Having thus refuted their views, let me now direct my attention to a number of observations made on the first edition of this book by the Islamicists at home.
It is my earnest hope that such base charges unworthy of science and unacceptable to scholars will never be repeated again. Perhaps, hitherto, the orientalists felt themselves excused on the grounds that they were writing for the consumption of their fellow Christians and Europeans and that they were actually discharging a national or religious duty imposed upon them by a patriotism or faith which requires scholarly form to make its propaganda palatable. Our day, however, is different. Communication between the various corners of the globe by means of radio broadcasting and the press has made it possible for anything said or published in Europe or America today to become known throughout the Orient in that same day or even the same hour. It is therefore the duty of those who assume the scholarly profession and the pursuit of truth to tear away from their hearts and eyes every curtain of national, racial, or religious isolation. They should realize that whatever they say or write will soon reach the ears of all men throughout the world and will be subject to universal criticism and scrutiny. The absolute and unconditional truth should be the objective of every one of us; and let us all take due care to connect the present reality of mankind with its past, to regard humanity as one great unit undivided by nationality, race or religion. Let such connection be the bond of free fraternity in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, and the noblest ideal that humanity has ever known. Such a bond is alone capable of guiding humanity in its quick march toward happiness and perfection.
Observations of Muslim Islamicists
Whereas the naive believers in the exaggerations of the orientalists blame us for having recourse to the Arabic sources and depending upon them, a number of Muslim Islamicists blame us for turning to the writings of the orientalists rather than limiting ourselves to the Islamic biographies and books of Hadith. The latter have also criticized us for not following the same method as these ancient books.
It was on this basis that some of them made friendly observations in hope of reaching the fact of the matter in question. Others made observations which betray such ignorance or prejudice as no scholar would wish to associate himself with. The former took note of the fact that we have not reported the miracles of Muhammad as the biographies and Hadith have done. In this regard we wrote in the conclusion of our first edition: "The Life of Muhammad, therefore, has realized the highest ideals possible to man. Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-was very careful that the Muslims should think of him as a human to whom revelation came. He never accepted that any miracle be attributed to him other than his association with the advent of the Quran, and actually told this much to his companions." As regards the story of the splitting of Muhammad's chest we wrote: "Orientalists as well as Muslim scholars take their attitude towards this event in the life of Muhammad on the grounds that Muhammad's whole life was all too human and noble and that he never resorted to miracles as previous prophets had done, in order to prove the veracity of his revelation. In taking this attitude, the above mentioned thinkers rely upon the Arab and Muslim historians who share their view and who deny any place in the biography of the Arab Prophet to all that is irrational. They regard their stand as being in perfect accord with the Quran's call to man to study the creation of God and discover therein His immutable laws. They find the claim for miracles incoherent with the Quran's condemnation of the associationists as men who do not reason, as men who have no faculties with which to reason." Other more considerate critics criticized us for having mentioned at all the orientalists' attacks upon the Prophet, though we did so but to refute them. In their opinion, this procedure does not accord with the veneration due to the person of the Prophet-may God's blessing be upon him. Lastly, there is the class of prejudiced critics who were known even before the first edition of this book had appeared and, indeed, even before my researches had been collected in book form. Their strongest criticism was that I have given my work the title, "The Life of Muhammad," without joining it to an invocation of peace and blessing upon him. Such invocations occur frequently in the course of the book. I had thought, nonetheless, that they would discover their prejudice once the title page of the first edition came out decorated, as it was, with the verse: "God and his angels bless the Prophet. O you who believe, invoke God's peace and blessing upon him and salute him with the salutation of peace.[Q 33:56] I had also thought that the method used in this book would itself dissolve their prejudice. By insisting as they did, however, they betrayed their ignorance of Islamic truths and their satisfaction with the imitation of their ancestors.
Let us begin by answering their false criticism in the hope that neither they nor any others will repeat it regarding this or any other book. We shall refuse their criticism by turning to the books of the classical leaders of Islamic knowledge. Everyone will then realize the free stand Islam has taken vis-à-vis all verbal restrictions and will then appreciate the hadith, "This religion is indeed sound. Analyze it as you wish, but gently. You will never find a flaw therein." Abu al Baqa' wrote in his book, AL Kulliyyat: "Writing the invocation of peace and blessing on Muhammad at the beginning of a book occurred during the `Abbasi period. That is why the Sahih of al Bukhari and others are devoid of it."
The majority of the great men of Islamic knowledge agree that the invocation of peace and blessing upon the Prophet need not be made by the Muslim more than once in his lifetime. In his book AL Bahr al Ra’iq, ibn Nujaym wrote: "The religious imperative implied in the divine command, `Invoke upon him God's peace and blessing,' is that it should be made at least once in a lifetime whether during or outside the prayer. For no command by itself implies repetition. On this there is no disagreement." Likewise, al Shafi'i contended with his colleagues on "whether or not the invocation of God's peace and blessing on the Prophet is imperative during the prayer or outside of it. Prayer is itself invocation. As it stands in the above mentioned verse, to invoke God's peace and blessing upon the Prophet simply means that one should ask God to bless the Prophet and to salute him the salutation of peace." That is the lesson which the Muslim men of knowledge and their leaders have taught in this regard. It proves that those who claim that this invocation is imperative whenever the name of the Prophet is mentioned or written are simply exaggerating. Had they known the foregoing facts, and that the greatest traditionists had not written such an invocation regarding the Prophet on the title pages or beginnings of their collections of hadiths, they would perhaps have avoided falling into their present error.
Refutation of the Orientalists and Its Method
As to those who claim that it does not become a Muslim scholar to repeat the attacks of the Orientalists and the missionaries against the Prophet even in order to refute them, they have really nothing to stand upon except an Islamic emotion which we salute. From the religious as well as scholarly points of view, they simply have no argument at all. The Holy Quran itself reported much of what the associationists of Makkah used to say about the Prophet and refuted them with clear and eloquent argument. The Arabic style of the Quran is the highest and its morals the noblest. It mentioned the accusation of the Quraysh that Muhammad was either possessed or a magician. It said: "We do know that they say that it is only a man who teaches Muhammad the Quran. But the tongue of him to whom they refer by this insinuation is foreign whereas this Quran is in the Arabic tongue, plain and clear." [Q 16:103] There are many such statements in the Quran. Moreover, an argument is not scientifically refuted unless it is honestly and precisely stated. In writing this book, my purpose has been to reach objective truth by means of scholarly research. And I have written my book so that both Muslims and non-Muslims may read it and be convinced of this objective truth. Such a purpose cannot be achieved unless the scholar be honest in his pursuit. He should never hesitate to acknowledge the truth whencesoever it may come.
Biographies and Hadith Books
Let us return to the first criticism the Muslim students of Islam have kindly directed to our work, namely, that we have not taken into consideration the Islamic biographies and Hadith books and that we have not followed the same methodology as these ancient works. It should suffice to say in reply to this criticism that I have resolved to follow the modern scientific method and to write in the style of the century and that I have taken this resolution because it is the only proper one in the eyes of the contemporary world, whether for historiography or any other discipline. This being the case, ancient methods are ruled out a priori. Between these and the methods of our agcy there is great difference, the most obvious of which is the freedom to criticize. Most of the ancient works were written for a religious purpose and as devotional exercises, whereas contemporary writers are interested only in scientific analysis and criticism. To say this much concerning my method and work should be sufficient answer to their criticism. But I see the need for a more detailed treatment in order to show the reasons why our classical scholars of the past did not, and those of the present should not, assume in wholesale fashion the veracity of all that the books of biography and Hadith have brought. It is also my intention to clarify the reasons why we ought to observe the rules of scientific criticism as closely as possible in order to guard against all possible errors.
The Difference between These Books
The first of these reasons is the difference of these books in their reporting of events supposed to have taken place in the life of the Arab Prophet. Those who studied these books have observed that the miracles and extraordinary events reported increased or decreased for no reason other than the change in the time when they were written. The earlier report fewer miracles than the later; and the miracles they do report are less unreasonable than those reported in later books. The oldest known biography, namely, that of ibn Hisham for example, has far less material than the Tarikh of Abu al Fida', than Al Shifa of Qadi `Ayyad and of most later writings. The same is true of the books of the Hadith. Some of them tell a story and others omit it, or they report it and point out that it is not trustworthy. The objective researcher investigating these books must therefore have a standard by which he can evaluate the various claims. That which agrees with the standard he would find acceptable and that which does not, he would subject to closer scrutiny wherever possible.
Our ancestors have followed this method in their investigations at times, and they have omitted doing so at others. An example of their omission is the story of "the daughters of God." It is told that when the Prophet, under ever-increasing oppression of Quraysh, recited the Quranic surah "al Najm" and arrived at the verse: "Consider al Lat and al `Uzza ; and Mandt, the third goddess," [Q 53:19-20] he added: "Those are the goddesses on high; their intercession with God is worthy of our prayers." He then went on reciting the surah to its end and when he finished, he prostrated himself in worship, and Muslims and associationists joined him and did likewise. This story was reported by ibn Sa'd in his Al Tabaqat al Kubrd without criticism. It also occurs with little variation in some books of Hadith. Ibn Ishaq, however, reported the story and judged it as being the fabrication of zindiqs" [hypocrites]. In his Al Bidayah wa al Nihayah fi al Tarikh, Ibn Kathir wrote: "They mentioned the story of the goddesses of Makkah, whereas we have decided to omit it for fear that the uninstructed may naively accept it as truth. The story was first reported in the books of Hadith." He then reported a tradition from Bukhari in this regard and qualified it as being "unique to Bukhari, rejected by Muslim." As for me, I did not hesitate to reject the story altogether and to agree with ibn Ishaq that it was the fabrication of zindiqs. In analyzing it I brought together several pieces of evidence. In addition to its denial of the infallibility of the Prophets in their conveyance of their divine messages, this story must also be subject to modern scientific criticism.
The Age of These Books
The books of the ancestors should be closely scrutinized and criticized in a scientific manner because the most ancient of them was written a hundred or more years after the death of the Prophet. At that time, many political and religious movements were spreading throughout the Islamic Empire, each of which fabricated all kinds of stories and hadiths to justify its own cause. The later books, written during even more turbulent and unsettled times, are more vulnerable. Political struggles caused a great deal of trouble to the collectors of Hadith because they took utmost care in scrutinizing these various reports, rejecting the suspicious, and confirming only those which passed the severest tests. It is sufficient to remember here the travails of al Bukhari in his travels throughout the Muslim World undertaken for this purpose. He told us that he had found some six hundred thousand hadiths current, of which only 4,000 he could confirm as true. The ratio is that of one to 150 hadiths. As for Abu Dawiid, he could confirm 4,800 hadiths out of half a million. Such was the task of all collectors of hadiths. Nonetheless, many of the hadiths which they had found true after criticism were found untrue by a number of other scholars under further criticism. Such was the case of the goddesses. If such is the case of Hadith, despite all the efforts spent by the early collectors, how trustworthy can the later biographies of the Prophet be? How can their reports be taken without scientific scrutiny?
Effects of Islamic Political Strife
In fact, the political struggles of the first century of Islam caused the various parties to invent, and press into their service, a great number of stories and hadiths. No Hadith has been committed to writing until the last years of the Umawi period. It was `Umar ibn `Abd al `Aziz who ordered its collection for the first time. The job, however, was not completed until the reign of al Ma'mun, the time when "the true hadith was as discernible from the false as a white hair is in the fur of a black bull," to borrow the phrase of Daraqutni. The Hadith was not collected in the first century of Islam perhaps because of the reported command of the Prophet: "Do not write down anything I say except the Quran. Whoever has written something other than the Quran, let him destroy it." Nonetheless, the hadiths of the Prophet were current in those days and must have been varied. During his caliphate, `Umar ibn al Khattab once tried to deal with the problem by committing the Hadith to writing. The companions of the Prophet whom he consulted encouraged him, but he was not quite sure whether he should proceed. One day, moved by God's inspiration, he made up his mind and announced: "I wanted to have the traditions of the Prophet written down, but I fear that the Book of God might be encroached upon. Hence I shall not permit this to happen." He therefore changed his mind and instructed the Muslims throughout the provinces: "Whoever has a document bearing a prophetic tradition shall destroy it." The Hadith therefore continued to be transmitted orally and was not collected and written down until the period of al Ma'mun.
The Standard of Hadith Criticism
Despite the great care and precision of the Hadith scholars, much of what they regarded as true was later proved to be spurious. In his commentary on the collection of Muslim, al Nawawi wrote: "A number of scholars discovered many hadiths in the collections of Muslim and Bukhari which do not fulfill the conditions of verification assumed by these men." The collectors attached the greater weight to the trustworthiness of the narrators. Their criterion was certainly valuable, but it was not sufficient. In our opinion, the criterion for the Hadith criticism, as well as standard for materials concerning the Prophet's life, is the one which the Prophet himself gave. He said: "After I am gone differences will arise among you. Compare whatever is reported to be mine with the Book of God; that which agrees therewith you may accept as having come from me; that which disagrees you will reject as a fabrication." This valid standard is observed by the great men of Islam right from the very beginning. It continues to be the standard of thinkers today. Ibn Khaldun wrote: "I do not believe any hadith or report of a companion of the Prophet to be true which differs from the common sense meaning of the Quran, no matter how trustworthy the narrators may have been. It is not impossible that a narrator appears to be trustworthy though he may be moved by ulterior motive. If the hadiths were criticized for their textual contents as they were for the narrators who transmitted them a great number would have had to be rejected. It is a recognized principle that a hadith could be declared spurious if it departs from the common sense meaning of the Quran from the recognized principles of the Shari'ah, [The Law of Islam] the rules of logic, the evidence of sense, or any other self-evident truth." This criterion, as given by the Prophet as well as ibn Khaldun, perfectly accords with modern scientific criticism.
True, after Muhammad's death the Muslims differed, and they fabricated thousands of hadiths and reports to support their various causes. From the day Abu Lu'lu'ah, the servant of al Mughirah, killed `Umar ibn al Khattab and `Uthman ibn `Affan assumed the caliphate, the old pre-Islamic enmity of Banu Hashim and Banu Umayyah reappeared. When, upon the murder of `Uthman, civil war broke out between the Muslims, `A'ishah fought against `Ali and `Ali's supporters consolidated themselves into a party, the fabrication of hadiths spread to the point where `Ali ibn Abu Talib himself had to reject the practice and warn against it. He reportedly said: "We have no book and no writing to read to you except the Quran and this sheet which I have received from the Prophet of God in which he specified the duties prescribed by charity." Apparently, this exhortation did not stop the Hadith narrators from fabricating their stories either in support of a cause they advocated, or of a virtue or practice to which they exhorted the Muslims and which they thought would have more appeal if vested with prophetic authority. When the Banu Umayyah firmly established themselves in power, their protagonists among the Hadith narrators deprecated the prophetic traditions reported by the party of `Ali ibn Abu Talib, and the latter defended those traditions and propagated them with all the means at their disposal. Undoubtedly they also deprecated the traditions reported by `A'ishah, "Mother of the Faithful." A humorous piece of reportage was given us by ibn `Asakir who wrote: "Abu Sa'd Isma'il ibn al Muthannaal Istrabadhi was giving a sermon one day in Damascus when a man stood up and asked him what he thought of the hadith of the Prophet: 'I am the city of knowledge and 'All is its gate.' Abu Sa'd pondered the question for a while and then replied: Indeed! No one knows this hadith of the Prophet except those who lived in the first century of Islam. What the Prophet had said, he continued, was, rather, "I am the city of knowledge; Abu Bakr is its foundation; 'Umar, its walls; 'Uthman its ceiling; and 'Ali is its gate.' The audience was quite pleased with his reply and asked him to furnish them with its chain of narrators. Abu Sa'd could not furnish any chain and was terribly embarrassed." Thus hadiths were fabricated for political and other purposes. This wanton multiplication alarmed the Muslims because many ran counter to the Book of God. The attempts to stop this wave of fabrication under the Umawis did not succeed. When the 'Abbasids took over, and al Ma'mun assumed the caliphate almost two centuries after the death of the Prophet, the fabricated hadiths numbered in the thousands and hundreds of thousands and contained an unimaginable amount of contradiction and variety. It was then that the collectors applied themselves to the task of putting the Hadith together and the biographers of the Prophet wrote their biographies. A1 Waqidi, ibn Hisham and al Mada'ini lived and wrote their books in the days of al Ma'mun. They could not afford to contradict the caliphate and hence could not apply with the precision due the Prophet's criterion that his traditions ought to be checked against the Quran and accepted only if they accorded therewith.
Had this criterion, which does not differ from the modern method of scientific criticism, been applied with precision, the ancient masters would have altered much of their writing. Circumstances of history imposed upon them the application of it to some of their writings but not to others. The later generations inherited their method of treating the biography of the Prophet without questioning it. Had they been true to history, they would have applied this criterion in general as well as in detail. No reported events disagreeing with the Quran would have been spared, and none would have been confirmed but those which agreed with the Book of God as well as the laws of nature. Even so, these hadiths would have been subject to strict analysis and established only with valid proof and incontestable evidence. This stand was taken by the greatest Muslim scholars of the past as well as of the present. The grand Shaykh of al Azhar, Muhammad Mustafa al Maraghi, wrote in his foreword to this book: "Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-had only one irresistible miracle-the Quran. But it is not irrational. How eloquent is the verse of al Busayri: 'God did not try us with anything irrational. Thus, we fell under neither doubt nor illusion.'
The late Muhammad Rashid Rida, editor of al Manar, wrote in answer to our critics: "The most important objection which the Azharis and the Sufis raise against Haykal concerns the problem of the miracles. In my book, Al Wahy al Muhammadi, I have analyzed the problem from all aspects in the second chapter and the second section of the fifth chapter. I have established there that the Quran alone is the conclusive proof of the prophethood of Muhammad-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-as well as of the other prophets of their messages and prophecies regarding him. In our age it is impossible to prove any work of the Prophet except by the Quran. From its standpoint, supernatural events are ipso facto doubtful. Besides the ubiquitous reports of their occurrence in all ages and places, they are believed in by the superstitious of all faiths. I have also analyzed the causes of this predeliction for belief in miracles and distinguished the miraculous from the spiritual and shown the relationship of both to cosmic laws." [Al Manar, May 3, 1935, p. 793]
In his book, Al Islam wa al Nasraniyyah, Muhammad 'Abduh, the great scholar and leader wrote: "Islam, therefore, and its demand for faith in God and in His unity, depend only on rational proof and common sense human thinking. Islam does not overwhelm the mind with the supernatural, confuse the understanding with the extraordinary, impose acquiescent silence by resorting to heavenly intervention, nor does it impede the movement of thought by any sudden cry of divinity. All the Muslims are agreed, except those whose opinion is insignificant, that faith in God is prior to faith in prophethood and that it is not possible to believe in a prophet except after one has come to believe in God. It is unreasonable to demand faith in God on the ground that the prophets or the revealed books had said so, for it is unreasonable to believe that any book had been revealed by God unless one already believed that God exists and that it is possible for Him to reveal a book or send a messenger."
I am inclined to think that those who wrote biographies of the Prophet agreed with this view. The earlier generation of them could not apply it because of the historical circumstances in which they lived. The later generation of them suspended the principle deliberately on account of their belief that the more miraculous their portrayal of the Prophet, the more faith this would engender among their audience. They assumed, quite naively, that the inclusion of these extraneous matters into his biography achieved a good purpose. Had they lived to our day and seen how the enemies of Islam had taken their writings as an argument against Islam and its people, they would have followed the Quran more closely and agreed with al Ghazzali, Muhammad `Abduh, al Maraghi, and all other objective scholars. And had they lived in our day and age, and witnessed how their stories have alienated many Muslim minds and hearts instead of confirming their faith, they would have been satisfied with the indubitable proofs and arguments of the Book of God.
Reports Condemned by Reason and Science
Now that the defect of reports condemned by reason and science has become obvious, scientific and critical analysis of the materials involved is demanded. This is equally the demand of Islam and a service to it as well as to the history of the Arab Prophet. It is a necessary requisite if that history is to illuminate the road of mankind towards high culture and civilization.
The Quran and Miracles
We will quickly agree with the views of the objective Muslim scholars as soon as we compare a number of narratives from the biography and Hadith books with the Quran. The latter told us that the Makkans had asked the Prophet to perform some miracles if they were to believe in him; it mentioned specifically their demands, and refuted them. God said
"They said that they will never believe in you unless you cause a fountain to spring forth from the earth; or create for yourself a garden of big trees and vines and cause abundant streams of water to run from one side of it to the other, or cause heaven to fall upon them in pieces as you had claimed, or bring God and His angels before them face to face, or create for yourself a beauteous palace, or ascend to heaven in front of them. `Nay,' they said to Muhammad, `we will not believe in your ascension unless you send down upon us a book confirming that you have done all these things clearly and unequivocally.' Answer: `Praised be my Lord: Have I ever claimed to be anything but a human and a messenger?' [Q 17:90-93]
God also said: "They swore their strongest oaths that if they could witness a miracle they would believe. Answer: `Miracles are God's prerogative, not mine.' But what would convince you [Muhammad] that they will not believe even if such miracles were to take place? Let their mind and understanding remain as confused as ever. Let them wander aimlessly in their misguidance. Indeed, unless of course God wills for them to believe, they will not believe even if We sent them the angels, caused the dead to speak to them, and placed everything squarely before them. But most of them are ignorant."[Q 6:109-111] There is no mention in the whole Quran of any miracle intended to support the prophethood of Muhammad except the Quran, notwithstanding its acknowledge of many of the miracles performed with God's permission by the prophets preceding Muhammad and description of the many other favors which God has bestowed upon him. What the Quran did report about the Arab Prophet does not violate any of the laws of nature in the least degree.
The Greatest Miracle
Since this is the logic of the Book of God and is demanded by the advent of His Prophet, what reason could have caused some of the Muslims of the past, and still cause some of them in the present, to attribute miracles to Muhammad? It must be their reading in the Quran of miracles performed by prophets preceding Muhammad and their jumping to the conclusion that such supernatural occurrences are necessary for prophethood. They thus believed the stories circulating about Muhammad's miracles despite the fact that they could not find any confirmation of them in the Quran. They mistakenly believed that the more of them they could muster the more convinced they and their audiences would be of their faith. To compare the Arab Prophet with his predecessor prophets is to compare the incomparable. For he was the last of the prophets and the first one sent by God unto all mankind rather than unto any specific people alone. That is why God desired that the "miracle" of Muhammad be human and rational, though unmatchable by any humans or genii. This miracle is the Quran itself, the greatest that God permitted. He-may His glory be praised-willed that His Prophet's mission be established by rational argument and clear proof. He willed that His religion achieve victory in the life of His prophet and that men might see in his victory the might and dominion of God. Had God willed that a material miracle force the conversion of Makkah, the miracle would have occurred and would have been mentioned in the Quran. But some men do not believe except in that which their reason understands and corroborates. The proper way to convince them would be to appeal to their understanding and reason. God made the Quran Muhammad's convincing argument, a miracle of the "illiterate Prophet." He willed that men's entry into Islam and the sense of their faith in Him be dependent upon true conviction and apodeictic evidence. A religion thus founded would be worthy of the faith of all men in all times whatever their race or language.
Should a people convert to Islam today who did not need any miracle beside the Quran, this fact would neither detract from their faith nor from the worth of their conversion. As long as a people is not itself recipient of a revelation, it is perfectly legitimate to subject all the reports of such revelation to the closest scrutiny. That which unquestionable proof confirms is acceptable; the rest may validly be put to question. To believe in God alone without associate does not need recourse to a miracle. Nor does it need more than consideration of the nature of this universe which God created. On the other hand, to believe in the Prophethood of Muhammad who, by command of God, called men precisely unto such faith, does not need any miracles other than the Quran. Nor does it need any more than the presentation of the revealed text to consciousness.
Were a people to believe today in this religion without the benefit of any miracle other than the Quran, its faithful would belong to one of the following kinds: the man whose mind and heart does not oscillate but is guided by God directly to the object of his faith, as was the case with Abu Bakr who believed without hesitation; and, the man who does not seek his faith in the miraculous but in the natural (i.e., the created world, unlimited in space or time and running perfectly in accordance with eternal and immutable laws), and whose reason guides him from these laws of nature to the creator and fashioner thereof. Even if miracles did exist, they would constitute no problem for either kind of believer who regards them as mere signs of divine mercy. Many leaders of Islamic knowledge regard this kind of faith as indeed the highest. Some of them even prescribe that faith should not stand on a foundation of fear of God's punishment or ambition to win His reward. They insist that it should be held purely for the sake of God and involve an actual annihilation of self in God. To Him all things belong; and so do we. To Him, we and all things shall return.
The Believers during the Life of the Prophet
Those who believe today in God and in His Prophet and whose faith does not rest on miracles are in the same position as those who believed during the life of the Prophet. History has not reported to us that any one of those early companions had entered the faith because of a miracle he witnessed. Rather, it was the conclusive divine argument conveyed through revelation and the superlatively noble life of the Prophet himself which conduced those men to their faith. In fact, all biographies mention that a number of those who believed in Muhammad before the Isrd' abandoned their faith when the Prophet reported to them that he had been transported during the night from the Mosque of Makkah to the Blessed One of Jerusalem. Even Suraqah ibn Ju'shum, who pursued Muhammad on the latter's flight to Madinah in order to capture him dead or alive and win the prize the Makkans had placed on his head, did not believe despite the miracle which the biographers have reported to have taken place on his way there. History has not reported a single case of an associationists who believed in Muhammad because of a miracle performed. Islam has no parallel to the case of the magicians of Pharaoh whose rods were swallowed up by that of Moses.' [Q 26:43-48]
The Goddesses and Tabuk
The classical biographies are not unanimous in their reportage of the so-called miracles. Many a time their narratives were subject to strong criticism despite their corroboration by the books of Hadith. We have already referred to the question of the goddesses in this preface, and we have also treated the problem in detail in the course of this work. The story of the opening of Muhammad's chest as reported by Halimah, Muhammad's wet nurse, is equally inconclusive. There is a difference of opinion concerning Ualimah's reports as well as the age of Muhammad at which the story has supposedly taken place. Likewise, the reports of the biographies and of the Hadith concerning Zayd and Zaynab are` devoid of foundation, as we shall have occasion to see later. Similar disagreement exists as regards the story of the military expedition to Tabuk (Jaysh al 'Usrah). In his Sahih, Muslim reported from Mu'adh ibn Jabal that "the Prophet told ibn Jabal and his companions who were marching to Tabuk: 'Tomorrow, but not before mid-day, you will, with God's leave, reach the spring of Tabuk. You will not, however, touch its waters until I come.' When we arrived, we found that two of our men had reached it before us and the spring had very little water. The Prophet asked the two men whether they had touched the water of the spring, and they confessed. He-may God's peace and blessing be upon himcriticized and scolded them as he should. They then filled a container with water from the spring. Mu'adh said: 'The Prophet of God-may God's peace and blessing be upon him-washed his face and his hands and poured the water back into the spring whereupon the spring gushed forth abundantly (he might have said 'profusely') until all men drank and were satisfied. The Prophet then said: 'If you were to live long enough, O Mu'adh, you would see this place full of gardens."[Sahih Muslim, vol 7]
In the biographies, on the other hand, the story of Tabuk is told in a different way without mention of any miracles. Thus we read in Ibn Hisham's The Life of Muhammad: "When, in the morning, the men discovered they had no water, they complained to the Prophet-may God's peace and blessing be upon him. He prayed to God, who then sent a rain cloud. So much rain fell that everybody drank his fill and filled his skin. Ibn Ishaq said: 'Asim ibn 'Umar ibn Qatadah, reporting from Mahmud ibn Labid, who in turn was reporting what he heard from some men of the Banu 'Abd al Ashhal tribe, said: `I said to Mahmud, 'Did these Muslims know that some hypocrites were among them'? He answered, 'Yes. Sometimes a man would tell a hypocrite even if he were his brother, father, uncle or fellow tribesman; at other times he would not be able to differentiate between them.' Mahmud continued: 'A fellow tribesman told me of a well-known hypocrite who used to accompany the Prophet of God-may God's peace and blessing be upon him wherever he went, and who was present at this expedition. After the miracle had taken place, we went to him and asked: `Are you still in doubt after what you saw with your own eyes?' He answered, `It was but a passing cloud.'"
Such a wide range of difference as separates the classical accounts of this story makes it impossible for us to affirm it conclusively. Those who apply themselves to the study of it should not stop at probable solutions which neither confirm nor deny the classical reports. Whenever they are confronted by a story not supported by positive evidence, the least they can do is to discard it. Should other investigators later on discover the required evidence, the duty of presenting the story with its proofclaims would devolve upon them.
My Methodology
This is the method which I have followed in my study of the life of Muhammad, the Prophet of the Islamic mission to mankind. It characterizes my work throughout; for ever since I decided to undertake this study I resolved that it would be conducted in accordance with the modern scientific method in all sincerity and for the sake of truth alone. That is what I announced in the preface of this book and prayed, in the conclusion of its first edition, that I may have accomplished, thereby paving the way for deeper and wiser investigations. I had hoped that this and similar studies would clear for science a number of psychic and spiritual problems and establish facts which would guide mankind to the new civilization for which it is groping. There is no doubt that deepening of analysis and extending the scope of the investigation would unlock many secrets which many people have thought for a long time to lie beyond scientific explanation. The clearer the understanding mankind achieves of the psychological and spiritual secrets of the world, the stronger man's relation to the world will become and, hence, the greater his happiness. Man will then be better able to rehabilitate himself in the world when he knows its secrets, just as he became better able to enjoy it when he understood the latent forces of electricity and radio.
It therefore behooves any scholar applying himself to such a study to address his work not only to the Muslims but to mankind as a whole. The final purpose of such work is not, as some of them think, purely religious. Rather, it is, following the example of Muhammad, that all mankind may better learn the way to perfection. Fulfillment of this purpose is not possible without the guidance of reason and heart, and the conviction and certainty they bring when founded on true perception and knowledge. Speculative thinking based upon imprecise knowledge which is not conditioned by the scientific method is likely to go astray and point to conclusions far removed from the truth. By nature, our thinking is deeply influenced by temperament. Men with equal training and knowledge, common purpose and resolution, often differ from one another for no reason other than their difference in temperament. Some are passionate, deeply perceptive, over-hasty in their conclusions, mystical, stoic, ascetic, inclined towards matter, or utterly conditioned by it. Others are different, and their views of the world naturally separate them from one another. As far as artistic expression and practical living are concerned, this variety of the human kind is a great blessing. It is, however, a curse in the field of scientific endeavor which seeks to serve the higher benefit of mankind as a whole. The study of history should search for high ideals within the facts of human life. Anyone who applies himself to this search should therefore be free from passion and prejudice. No method succeeds as well in avoiding these pitfalls as the scientific method, and no method will more surely lead to error than that which uses the materials of history to propagate a certain view or bends them to corroborate a certain prejudice.
The Works of Orientalists
Many western Orientalists have been affected in their so-called scientific research by their preconceptions and passions. The same is true of many Muslim authors as well. More surprising in both is the fact that each had taken the passionate and prejudiced propaganda of the other as basic source work, and each had claimed for his writing the objectivity which belongs to a research done for the sake of truth alone. Neither realized how deeply affected he was by his own vehement reaction to the propaganda of the other. Had either party taken the trouble to analyze objectively the work of the other, the respective claims would have dissolved and crumbled. Had any author kept his own predelictions at bay, immunizing himself against them by applying scientific principles, his writings would have had a more lasting effect on his readers. In this preface I have attempted to expose as briefly as possible some of the errors of both parties; I hope I have done so with fairness and objectivity.
It is not possible to expect the western Orientalists to carry out their researches in Islamic matters with such precision and fairness, however sincere and scientific they may be. It is especially difficult for them to master the secrets of the Arabic language and to know its usage, its nuances and rules. Moreover, they are inevitably affected by the history of western Christianity which makes them regard all other religions with suspicion. The history of the struggle between Christianity and science affects equally the very few Orientalists who are still Christians. It causes them in their Islamic studies to fall under the same prejudice which generally characterizes all their Christian or religious research: namely, that one or the other party's line must be vindicated against its opposite. The candid Orientalists, however, cannot be blamed for this. For no man can completely escape the conditioning of his time and place. Nonetheless, this conditioning vitiates their Islamic researches and clouds their vision of the truth. All this imposes upon the Muslim scholars, whether in the religious or other fields of Islamic research, the very grave burden of studying their legacy with precision and exactitude, according to the scientific method. Assisted as they are by their mastery of the Arabic language and understanding of Arab life in general, their researches should convince all or some Orientalists of their errors; these researchers should also persuade them to accept the new results readily and with intellectual satisfaction.
The Muslims and Research
Such results will not be easy to achieve, nor are they impossible or altogether difficult. Patience, perseverance in study and research, sound judgment, and freethinking are all required. Moreover, this is an extremely grave matter, grave in its promise for or threat to the future of Islam, as well as mankind. It seems to me that to undertake it well, one must distinguish between two periods of Muslim history: the first begins with Muhammad and ends with the murder of `Uthman; the second begins with the murder of `Uthman and ends with the closing of the gates of ijtihad. In the first period, Muslim agreement was complete. It stood unaffected by the conquest of foreign lands, the War of Apostasy, the so-called "differences over the caliphate." After the murder of `Uthman, disagreement spread among the Muslims; civil war was declared between `All and Mu'awiyah; insurgence and rebellion continued; and politics played a serious role even in the religious life itself. In order to help the reader appreciate this difference, let us compare the principles implied in the accession speeches of Abu Bakr and al Mansur al `Abbasi. The former said: "O men! Here I have been assigned the job of ruling over you while I am not the best among you. If I do well in my job, help me. If I do wrong, redress me. Truthfulness is fidelity, and lying is treason. The weak shall be strong in my eye until I restore to them their right, and the strong shall be weak in my eye until I have dispossessed them of that right. No people give up fighting for the cause of God but He inflicts upon them abject subjection; and no people give themselves to lewdness but He envelops them with misery. Obey me as long as I obey God and His Prophet. But if I disobey God's command or His Prophet, then no obedience is incumbent upon you. Rise to your prayer so he may have mercy on you." The other said: "O men! I am the power of God on His earth. I rule you with His guidance and confirmation. I am the guardian over His wealth and I manage it by His will and in accordance with His pattern. I disburse from it with His permission, for He has made me the lock. If He chooses to open me so that you may receive therefrom and be provided for, He will. And if He chooses to keep me locked, He will . . . ." A comparison of these two speeches is sufficient to realize the great change which had taken place in the basic rules of Muslim life in less than two centuries. It was a change from the rule of shura [consultation] to that of absolute power derived from divine right.
Revolts and successive changes of government and political principles were the cause of the retrogression and decay of the Islamic State. Despite the fact that Islam and the civilization to which it gave birth continued to blossom two centuries after the murder of `Uthman, and despite the fact that after the first decay the Islamic state was energized again to conquer many provinces and kingdoms first by the Saljuqs and then by the Moghuls, it was during the first period which came to an end with the murder of `Uthman that the true principles of Islamic public life were established and crystallized. Therefore, one must look to that period alone if he seeks certitude regarding these principles. Later on, despite the blossoming of knowledge and science during the Umawi and especially the `Abbasi periods, these normative principles were tampered with, and often replaced by others which did not accord with the spirit of Islam. For the most part, this was done in pursuit of political shu'ubi reasons [rebellions].
It was the insincere converts from Judaism and Christianity as well as the Persians who propagated these new principles. They had no inhibition against the fabrication of hadiths and their attribution to the Prophet-may God's peace be upon him-nor against the fabrication of tales about the early caliphs contrary to what is known of their biographies and temperament.
None of the materials which have come to us from this late period can be depended upon without the strictest scrutiny and criticism; none may be scientifically accredited without subjection to impersonal analysis, absolutely free of prejudice. The first requirement consists of referring all controversial material concerning the Arab Prophet to the Quran and of discarding all that disagrees therewith. As for the rest of the period ending with the murder of `Uthman, scientific and critical analysis should accredit the materials that have come to us and thus enable us to use them as reference in our analysis of later materials. If we do this with scientific precision, we may gain a true picture of the genuine principles of Islam and of early Islamic life. We will grasp the mind and spirit of Islam which achieved such heights of power and vision that the Arab Bedouins who were caught by it sallied forth into the world to spread in a few decades the noblest humanism that history has ever known. Success in this task would lay bare for the benefit of humanity new horizons capable of leading it to communion with the realm of soul and spirit and the achievement of happiness and felicity, just as man’s knowledge of electricity and radio and his resultant communion with the forces of nature have led to his greater enjoyment of his life on earth. Furthermore, our success in this undertaking would bring to Islam the same honor which belonged to it in its early history when the Arabs carried forth its high principles from the Peninsula to the farthest reaches of the earth.
If we are to serve truth, science and humanity, one of our foremost requirements is to deepen our study of the biography of the Arab Prophet in order to uncover therein the guidance mankind seeks. The Quran is unquestionably the truest and most reliable source for such a study. It is the book which is absolutely free of error and which no doubt can penetrate. It is the only book whose text has remained for thirteen centuries, and will remain for the rest of time, absolutely pure and unadulterated. The purity of the Quranic text is and will forever remain the greatest miracle of all history. God said of it: "It is We who have revealed it and it is We who will guard it."[Q 15:9] The Quran will always remain as it once was, the only miracle of Muhammad. Of all that concerns his life, that is true which accords with the Quran, and that is false which does not. I have attempted to heed this principle in this elementary study as precisely as I could. In going over the first edition of this work I praise God and thank Him for His guidance and pray that He will guide and provide for the continuation of the scientific study of the life of the Prophet.
"Oh God! It is upon You that we depend, to You that we have recourse, and to You that we shall return.”[Q 60:40]
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Preface to the Third Edition
This edition does not differ from the second except in a few words and phrases as demanded by clarity or syntactical precision. The changes are unnoticeable except in verbatim comparison. Hence, there is no need to mention them.
My reticence to undertake more serious emendation of the text is not due to any judgment on my part that in its second edition the book is perfect. I do not tire of repeating here what I said in the preface to the first edition, namely, that this book is merely the beginning of scientific Islamic research in an important field. I have discussed many problems attendant upon such research in my book Fi Manzil al Wahy ["At the Locus of Revelation"] written after my pilgrimage and following the traces of the Prophet through Hijaz and Tihamah. I therefore refer the reader to it. Preoccupied with other things during the last eight years I have not been able to pursue my study of the life of the Prophet, of his teaching, and the careers of his companions, nor to analyze in detail the general assertions of the concluding chapters of the second edition. But I hope God will grant me the power to do so in a separate book devoted entirely to the subject. Perhaps, after reading the conclusion of the present edition, the reader might even share this hope with me.
Finally, I thank God for the appreciation with which this book has been met by Muslim as well as non-Muslim readers, and for the reviews and announcements of it in the publications of East and West. I pray Him to guide those who undertake the continuation of this research that they may be capable of bringing it to its ultimate purpose of service to the truth.
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Life of Muhammad
Arabia before Islam
The Cradle of Human Civilization
The problem of the origin and development of human civilization continues to baffle the student in modern times. Scholars have long thought that Egypt was the cradle of civilization six thousand years ago and that the earlier ages consisted of a proto-history of which no scientific knowledge was possible. Today, however, archeologists have been at work in `Iraq and Syria in the hope of discovering clues regarding the origins of the Mesopotamian and Phoenician civilizations, of establishing whether they are anterior or posterior to Egyptian civilization, and of determining the influence of one upon the other. Whatever the results of archeological research on this period of history, one fact has never been challenged by any archeological find in China or the Far East: that is the fact that the cradle of the earliest human civilization, whether in Egypt, Phoenicia, or Mesopotamia, was connected with the Mediterranean Sea. It is equally indubitable that Egypt was the first to export its civilization to Greece and Rome, and that modern civilization is very closely related to that antiquity. Whatever archeological study of the Far East may reveal concerning the civilizations of that region, it can hardly establish that any determining relationship existed between those civilizations and Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece. It is no more questioned whether these ancient civilizations of the Near East were influenced by the civilization of Islam. Indeed, the latter was the only civilization which has altered its course as soon as it came into contact with them. The world civilization of the present which is dominating the four corners of the globe is a result of the influences of the civilizations of the ancient Near East and that of Islam upon one another.
The Mediterranean and Red Sea Basins
The civilizations which sprang up several thousand years ago on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea or in proximity thereto-in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece-reached heights of achievement which elicit our wonder and admiration today, whether in the fields of science, industry, agriculture, trade, war, or any other human activity. The mainspring of all these civilizations which gave them their strength is religion. True, the figurations of this mainspring changed from the trinitarianism of ancient Egypt expressed in the myth of Osiris, Isis and Horus, and representing the continuity of life in death and resurrection and permanence through generation, to the paganism of Hellas expressed in the sensory representation of truth, goodness, and beauty. It changed, likewise, in the succeeding periods of decay and dissolution to levels where the sensory representations of Hellas became gross. Regardless of these variants, religion has remained the source which has fashioned the destiny of the world; and it plays the same role in our age. Present civilization has sometimes opposed religion, or sought to get rid of and discard it; and yet from time to time, it has inclined towards religion. On the other hand, religion has continued to court our civilization and, perhaps, one-day, may even assimilate it.
In this environment where civilization has rested for thousands of years on a religious base, three well-known world religions arose. Egypt saw the appearance of Moses. He was brought up and disciplined in Pharaoh's house, instructed in the unity of divine being and taught the secrets of the universe by Pharaoh's priesthood. When God permitted Moses to proclaim His religion to the people, Pharaoh was proclaiming to them: "I am your Lord supreme" (Q 79:24). Moses contended with Pharaoh and his priesthood until he finally had to emigrate with the children of Israel to Palestine. In Palestine there appeared Jesus, the spirit and word of God given unto Mary. When God raised Jesus unto Himself [4:156], his disciples preached his religion and met in the process the strongest prejudice and opposition. When God permitted Christianity to spread, the Emperor of Rome [Byzantium], then sovereign of the world converted to the new faith and adopted its cause. The Roman Empire followed, and the religion of Jesus spread through Egypt, Syria, and Greece. From Egypt it spread to Abyssinia, and for centuries it continued to grow. Whoever sought Roman protection or friendship joined the ranks of the new faith.
Christianity and Zoroastrianism
Facing this Christian religion which spread by Roman influence and power, stood the religion of Persia supported by the moral power of India and the Far East. The civilization of Egypt, extending to Phoenicia and that of Mesopotamia had for many ages separated the East from the West and prevented any grave confrontation of their ideologies and civilizations. The entry of Egypt and Phoenicia into Christianity dissolved this barrier and brought the Christianity of the West and the Zoroastrianism of the East face to face. For centuries east and West confronted each other without intermingling between their religions. Each felt such fear of the other party's religion that a moral barrier came to replace the old barrier provided by the ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Each was thus compelled to direct its religious expansion to its own hinterland, away from the other's territory. Despite the numerous wars they fought, each exhausted its power without being able to confront the other on the religious or civilizational level. Although Persia conquered and ruled Syria and Egypt and the approaches of Byzantium, its kings never thought of spreading their religion or of converting the Christians. On the contrary, the conquerors respected the religions of the conquered and assisted them in reconstructing the temples which war had ravished. They granted them the liberty of upholding their religious rituals. The farthest the Persians had gone in infringing on their subjects' religion was to seize the "Holy Cross" and to keep it in Persia. When the tables were turned and the Byzantines won, they took the cross back. Thus the spiritual conquests of the West were restricted to the West, and those of the East were restricted to the East. The moral barrier separated them as decisively as the geographic civilizational one had done. Spiritually speaking, the two paths were equivalent and their equivalence prevented any clash between them.
Byzantium, the Heir of Rome
This situation remained without significant change until the sixth century of the Christian era. In the meantime, competition between the East and West Roman empires was intensified. Rome, which had ruled the West as far as Gaul and England for many generations, and which looked proudly back to the age of Julius Caesar, began to lose its glory gradually. The glory of Byzantium was increasing and, after the dissolution of Roman power following the raids of the Vandals and their conquest of Rome itself [in 476], it became in fact the only heir of the wide Roman World. Naturally, these events were not without influence on Christianity, which arose in the lap of Rome where the believers in Jesus had suffered tyranny.
Christian Sects
Christianity began to divide into various sects, and every sect began in turn to divide into factions, each of which held a different opinion concerning the religion and its principles and bases. In the absence of commonly held principles, in terms of which these differences could be composed, the various sects became antagonistic toward one another. Their moral and mental backwardness transformed the opposing doctrines into personal antagonisms protected by blind prejudice and deadening conservatism. Some of them denied that Jesus ever had a body other than a ghostly shadow by which he appeared to men. Others regarded the person and soul of Jesus as related to each other with such extraordinary ties that only the most fastidious imagination could grasp what they meant. While some worshiped Mary, others denied that she remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. Thus the controversies dividing the followers of Jesus were typical of the dissolution and decadence affecting any nation or age; that is to say, they were merely verbal disputes arising from the assignment to words of secret and esoteric meanings removed from their commonsense connotations, oppugnant to reason and tolerated only by futile sophistry.
One of the monks of the Church wrote describing the situation of his day: "The city and all its precincts were full of controversy-in the market place, in the shops of apparel, at the changers, in the grocery stores. You ask for a piece of gold to be changed at the changers and you find yourself questioned about that which in the person of Jesus was created and that which was not created. You stop at the bakery to buy a loaf of bread and ask concerning the price, only to find the baker answer: ‘Will you agree that the Father is greater than the Son and the Son is subordinate to the Father?’ You ask your servant about your bath, whether or not the water is warm, and your servant answers you: ‘The Son was created from nothing.’”
The decay which befell Christianity and caused it to split into factions and sects did not shake the political foundations of the Imperium Romanum. The Empire remained strong and closely knit while the sects disputed their differences with one another and with the councils, which were called from time to time to resolve them. For some time at least no sect had enough power to coerce the others into agreement. The Empire protected them all and granted them the freedom to argue their doctrines with one another, a measure which increased the civil power of the Emperor without reducing his religious prestige. Each faction sought his sympathy and encouragement; indeed, each claimed that the emperor was its patron and advocate. It was the cohesion of the Empire which enabled Christianity to spread to the farthest reaches of imperial authority. From its base in Roman Egypt, Christianity thus reached to independent Abyssinia and thence to the Red Sea which it then invested with the same importance as the Mediterranean. The same imperial cohesion also enabled Christianity to move from Syria and Palestine once it had converted their people to the adjoining Arab tribe of Ghassan and the shores of the Euphrates. There it converted the Arabs of Hirah, the Banu Lakhm, and Banu Mundhir who had migrated thence from the desert but whose history has been divided between independence and Persian tutelage.
The Decay of Zoroastrianism
In Persia, Zoroastrianism was attacked by the same kind of decay. Although fire worship continued to give the various factions a semblance of unity, the religion and its followers divided into sects which contended with one another. Apparently unaffected by the religious controversy around the divine personifications and the meanings behind them, the political structure of the land remained strong. All sects sought the protection of the Persian emperor, and the latter readily gave it to them if only to increase his own power and to use them one against the other wherever a political gain for him was to be made or a political threat from any one section was to be avoided. The two powers, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, the West and the East, each allied with a number of smaller states which it held under its influence, surrounded the Arabian Peninsula at the beginning of the sixth century C.E. Each entertained its own ideas of colonialism and expansion. In each camp, the men of religion exerted great efforts to spread the faith anti doctrine in which they believed. This proselytizing notwithstanding, the Arabian Peninsula remained secure against conquest except at the fringes. Like a strong fortress it was secure against the spread of any religious call, whether Christian or Zoroastrian. Only very few of its tribes had answered the call, and they did so in insignificant numbers-a surprising phenomenon in history. To understand it we must grasp the situation and nature of Arabia and the influence that nature had exerted upon the lives, morals and thought of its people.
The Geographic Position of the Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula has the shape of an irregular rectangle. On the north it is bounded by Palestine and the Syrian desert; on the east by the kingdom of al Hirah, the Euphrates and Tigris and the Persian Gulf; on the south by the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of `Adan; and to the west by the Red Sea. The natural isolation of the Peninsula combined with its size to protect it against invasion. The Peninsula is over a thousand kilometers long and as wide. Moreover, this vast expanse is utterly uncultivable. It does not have a single river nor a dependable rainy season around which any agriculture could be organized. With the exception of fertile and rainy Yaman in the southwest, the Peninsula consists of plateaus, valleys and deserts devoid of vegetation and an atmosphere so inclement that no civilization could prosper therein. The Arabian Peninsula allows only desert life; and desert life demands continuous movement, adoption of the camel as means of transportation, and the pursuit of thin pasture which is no sooner discovered than it is exhausted and another movement becomes imperative. These well sought-after pastures grow around springs whose waters have collected from rainfall on the surrounding rocky terrain, allowing a scarce vegetation to grow in the immediate vicinity.
Except Yaman the Arabian Peninsula Is Unknown
In a country such as this, or such as the Sahara of Africa, it is natural that no people would seek to dwell and that it have a scarce population. It is equally natural that whoever settles in such a desert has done so for the sake of the refuge the desert provides and that he entertains no purpose beyond survival. The inhabitants of the oasis, on the other hand, may envision a different purpose. But the oases themselves remain unknown to any but the most daring adventurer prepared to venture into the desert at the risk of his own life. Except for Yaman, the Arabian Peninsula was literally unknown to the ancient world.
The geographic position of the Peninsula saved it from de-population. In those ancient times, men had not yet mastered navigation and had not yet learned to cross the sea with the confidence requisite for travel or commerce. The Arabic proverbs which have come down to us betray the fact that men feared the sea as they feared death. Trade and commerce had to find another road less dangerous than the sea. The most important trade route was that which extended from the Roman Empire and other territories in the west to India and other territories in the east. The Arabian Peninsula stood astride the two roads connecting east and West, whether by way of Egypt or by way of the Persian Gulf. Its inhabitants and masters, namely the Bedouins, naturally became the princes of the desert routes just as the maritime people became princes of the sea-lanes when sea communications replaced land communications. It was equally natural that the princes of the desert would plan the roads of caravan so as to guarantee the maximum degree of safety, just as the sea navigators were to plan the course of ships away from tempests, and other sea dangers. “The course of the caravan,” says Heeren, “was not a matter of free choice, but of established custom. In the vast steppes of sandy desert which the caravans had to cross, nature had sparingly allotted to the traveler a few scattered places of rest where, under the shade of palm trees and beside cool fountains, the merchant and his beast of burden might refresh themselves. Such places of repose became entrepots of commerce and, not infrequently, sites of temples and sanctuaries under the protection of which the merchant pursued his trade and to which the pilgrim resorted."
The Two Caravan Routes
The Arabian Peninsula was crisscrossed with caravan routes. Of these, two were important. The first ran alongside the Persian Gulf, then alongside the Tigris [and Euphrates river] and then crossed the Syrian Desert towards Palestine. It was properly called "the eastern route." The other route ran along the shore of the Red Sea and was properly called "the western route." On these two main routes, world trade ran between east and West carrying products and goods in both directions. These two routes provided the desert with income and prosperity. The peoples of the West, however, lived in total ignorance of the routes which their own trade took. None of them, or of their eastern neighbors, ever penetrated the desert territory unless it be the case of an adventurer who had no concern for his own life. A number of adventurers perished in trying the desert labyrinth in vain. The hardships which such travel entailed were unbearable except to those who had been accustomed to desert life from a tender age. A man accustomed to the luxuries of town living cannot be expected to bear the discomfort of these barren mountains separated from the Red Sea only by the narrow passages of Tihamah [Red Sea cost], and leading through naked rocks to the apparently infinite expanse of most arid and desolate desert. A man accustomed to a political order guaranteeing the security of all inhabitants at all times cannot be expected to bear the terror and lawlessness of the desert, devoid as it is of political order, and whose inhabitants live as utterly independent tribes, clans nay individuals except where their relations to one another come under the jurisdiction of tribal law, or some ad hoc convention of a strong protector. The desert had never known any urban order such as we enjoy in our modern cities. Its people lived in the shadow of retributive justice. They repelled attack by attack, and they sought to prevent aggression by the fear of counter-aggressions. The weak had no chance unless somebody took them under protection. Such a life does not encourage anyone to try it, nor does it invite anyone to learn of it in any detail. That is why the Arabian Peninsula remained an unknown continent throughout the world until the circumstances of history permitted its people, after the advent of Muhammad, may God's peace and blessing be upon him, to migrate and thus tell about their country and give the world the information it lacked.
The Civilization of Yaman
The only exception to this universal ignorance of the Arabian Peninsula concerns Yaman and the coastline of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. This exception is not due merely to their near location to the sea and ocean but to their radical difference from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. Rather than being a barren desert profitless to befriend, explore, or colonize, these lands were fertile and had well-defined seasons with a fair amount of rainfall. They had an established civilization with many urban centers and long-lasting temples. Its people, the Banu Himyar, were well endowed and intelligent. They were clever enough to think of ways of saving rain water from running down to the sea and of making good use of it. They built the dam of Ma'rib and thereby changed the course which water would have naturally followed to courses such as settled life and intensive agriculture required. Falling on high mountains, rain water would gather in a 400 meters wide valley flanked by two mountains east of the city of Ma'rib. It would then divide into many streams and spread over a wide plain that is very much like the Nile in the dam area in Upper Egypt. As their technological and administrative skill developed, the people of Yaman constructed a dam at the narrowest point between the two mountains with gates which allowed controlled distribution of water. By putting the resources of their country to good use, they increased the fertility of the land and the prosperity of the people. What has so far been discovered-and is still being discovered-by way of remains of this Himyari civilization in Yaman, proves that it had reached an impressive height and was strong enough to withstand not only a number of great political storms but even war.
Judaism and Christianity in Yaman
This civilization founded upon agricultural prosperity and settled life, brought upon Yaman great misfortune, unlike the desert whose barrenness was for it a sort of protector. Sovereigns in their own land, Banu Himyar ruled Yaman generation after generation. One of their kings, Dhu Nuwas, disliked the paganism of his people and inclined toward the Mosaic religion. In time, he was converted to this faith by the Jews who had migrated to Yaman. Historians agree that it was to this Himyari king that the Quran referred in the "story of the trench," reported in the following verses:
"Cursed be the fellows of the trench who fed the fire with fury, sat by it and witnessed the burning of the believers whom they threw therein. They executed the believers only because the latter believed in God, the Almighty, the Praiseworthy." [Q 85:5-9]
The story is that of a pious Christian, Qaymiyun by name, who emigrated from Byzantium, settled in Najran, and converted the people of that city by his piety, virtue, and good example. When the news of the increasing converts and widening influence of Christianity reached Dhu Nuwas, he went to Najran and solemnly warned its people that they must either convert to Judaism or be killed. Upon their refusal to apostasize, the king dug a wide trench, set it on fire, and threw them in. Whoever escaped from the fire was killed by the sword. According to the biographies, twenty thousand of them perished in this manner. Some nonetheless escaped, sought the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and asked for his help against Dhu Nuwas. Byzantium was too far from Yaman to send any effective assistance. Its emperor therefore wrote to the Negus of Abyssinia to avenge the Christians of Yaman. At the time of the sixth century, Abyssinia was at the height of its power, commanding a wide sea trade protected by a strong maritime fleet and imposing its influence upon the neighboring countries.
The Abyssinian kingdom was the ally of the Byzantine Empire and the protagonist of Christianity on the Red Sea just as the Byzantine Empire was its protagonist on the Mediterranean. When the Negus received the message of the Byzantine emperor, he sent with the Yamani, who carried the emperor's message to him, an Abyssinian army under the command of Aryat? One of the officers of this expeditionary force was Abraha al Ashram. Aryat conquered Yaman and ruled it in the name of the Negus of Abyssinia. Later on he was killed and succeeded by Abraha, "the general with the elephant," who sought to conquer Makkah and destroy the Ka'bah but failed, as we shall see in the next chapter.
The successors of Abraha ruled Yaman tyrannically. Seeking relief from the yoke the Himyari Sayf ibn Dhu Yazan approached the Byzantine emperor complaining against the Abyssinians and pleading for a Byzantine governor to be sent to establish justice. He was turned down because of the alliance between Byzantium and Abyssinia. Disappointed, he stopped on his way back at the court of Nu'man ibn al Mundhir, Viceroy of Chosroes for al Hirah and surrounding lands of `Iraq.
Conquest and Rule of Yaman by Persia
When al Nu'man entered the audience hall of Chosroes, he was accompanied by Sayf ibn Dhu Yazan. Chosroes received them at his winter residence, sitting on the throne of Darius in the great iwan decorated with the pictures of the Zodiac. The throne was surrounded with a curtain made of the most precious furs which served as background for golden and silver chandeliers filled with warm water and for his golden and silver crown filled with rubies, beryls and pearls which, being too heavy to rest on his head, was attached to the ceiling by a golden chain. His clothes were of a golden weave, and he decorated himself with gold. So brilliant was this spectacle that any person was seized with awe at the mere sight of it. Surely, such was the case of Sayf ibn Dhu Yazan. When he came back to himself and felt reassured, he was asked by Chosroes about his mission and told the emperor the story of Abyssinia's conquest and tyrannous rule. Chosroes hesitated at the beginning, but then decided to send to Yaman an army under the command of Wahriz, one of the noblest and bravest commanders of Persia. The Persian army arrived in Yaman, vanquished the Abyssinians and expelled them after a rule of seventy-two years. Yaman remained under Persian rule until the advent of Islam and the succeeding entry of all Arab countries into the religion of God as well as into the Islamic Empire.
Cyrus's Rule of Persia
The Persians who ruled Yaman did not come directly under the authority of the Persian Emperor, particularly after Cyrus had killed his father Chosroes and succeeded to his throne. The new emperor seemed to think that the whole world ran according to his wishes and that the kingdoms of the world existed only to fill his treasury and to increase his affluence and luxury. Because he was a young man, he neglected most of the affairs of state in order to devote himself to his pleasures and pastimes. The pageantry of his hunting trips was greater than any imagination could possibly conceive. He used to go out surrounded by a whole troop of youthful princes clad in red, yellow, and violet; carriers of falcons and servants held back their muzzled panthers, perfume carrying slaves, fly fighters and musicians. In order to give himself a feeling of spring in the midst of winter, he used to sit surrounded by the members of his house on an immense carpet on which were drawn the roads and highways of the kingdom, the orchards, and gardens full of flowers, the forests and greenwoods and the silvery rivers all in a state of blossoming spring. Despite Cyrus's extravagance and addiction to pleasure, Persia maintained its glory and strong resistance to Byzantium and prevented the spread of Christianity further east. It was clear, however, that the accession of Cyrus to the throne was the beginning of the decline of this empire and a preparation for its conquest by the Muslims and the spread of Islam therein.
Destruction of the Dam of Ma'rib
The conflict of which Yaman had been the theatre ever since the fourth century C.E. influenced the distribution of population in the Arabian Peninsula. It is told that the dam of Ma'rib, by means of which the Himyaris changed the course of nature to benefit their country, was destroyed by the great flood, "Sayl al Arim," with the result that large sections of the inhabitants had to migrate. Apparently the continuing political conflicts so distracted men and governments from attending to the repair and maintenance of the dam that when the flood came it was incapable of holding the water. It is also told that the shift in population was due to the fact that the Byzantine emperor, realizing the threat to his trade by the conflict with Persia over Yaman, built a fleet of ships to ply the Red Sea and thereby avoid the caravan routes of Arabia. Historians agree on the historicity of the immigration of the Azd tribes from Yaman to the north but disagree in explaining it. Some attribute it to the loss of trade, and others to the destruction of the dam of Ma'rib and the resultant loss in food production. Whatever the explanation, the historicity of the event is beyond doubt. It was at the root of the blood relation of the Yamanis with the northern Arabs and their involvement in the history of the north. Even today the problem is still far from solved.
The Social Order of the Peninsula
As we have just seen, the political order of Yaman was disturbed because of the geographic circumstances of that country and the political wars of conquest of which it had been the object. Per contra, the Arabian Peninsula was free from any such disturbances. Indeed, the political system known in Yaman, as well as any other political system-whatever the term may mean or may have meant to the civilized peoples of old-was literally unknown in the areas of Tihamah, Hijaz, Najd, and other wide spaces constituting the Arabian Peninsula. The sons of the desert were then, as most of them are today, nomads who had no taste for settled life and who knew no kind of permanence other than perpetual movement in search of pasture and satisfaction of the wish of the moment. In the desert, the basic unit of life is not the state but the tribe. Moreover, a tribe which is always on the move does not know of any universal law nor does it ever subject itself to any general political order. To the nomad, nothing is acceptable that falls short of total freedom for the individual, for the family, and for the tribe as a whole. Settled land farmers, on the other hand, agree to give up part of their freedom, whether to the group as a whole or to an absolute ruler, in exchange for peace, security, and the prosperity which order brings. But the desert man who disdains the prosperity and security of settled life and derides the comforts of urban living cannot give any of his freedom for such "gains." Neither does he accept anything short of absolute equality with all the members of his tribe as well as between his tribe and other tribes. Naturally, he is moved like all other men by the will to survive and to defend himself, but such will must accord with the principles of honor and integrity demanded by the free life of the desert. Therefore, the desert people have never suffered with patience any injustice inflicted upon them but resisted it with all their strength. If they cannot throw off the injustice imposed upon them, they give up the pasture and move out into the wide expanse of the desert. Nothing is easier for them than recourse to the sword whenever a conflict seems insoluble under the conventional desert rules of honor, nobility, and integrity. It was these very conditions of desert living which led to the cultivation and growth of the virtues of hospitality, bravery, mutual assistance, neighbor protection, and magnanimity. It is not by accident that these virtues are stronger and more popular in the desert and weaker and more scarce in the cities. For the above-mentioned economic reasons neither Byzantium nor Persia entertained any ideas of conquering the Arabian Peninsula with the exception of Yaman. For they know that the people of the Peninsula would prefer emigration to the life of subjection and that they would never yield to any established authority or order.
These nomadic characteristics influenced in large measure the few small towns which grew up in the Peninsula along the caravan routes. To these centers the traders used to come in order to rest. In them they found temples wherein to give thanks to the gods for bringing them safely through their travels and for safeguarding their goods while in transit. Such were Makkah, Ta'if, Yathrib, and others scattered between the mountains of the west coastland and the desert sands. In their order and organization these towns followed the pattern and laws of the desert. Indeed, their being closer to the desert than they were to civilized life was reflected in the system of their tribes and clans, in their morals and customs, and in their strong resistance to any imposition upon their freedom, despite the fact that settled life had somewhat restricted their movements in comparison with their desert cousins. We shall witness more of this in the coming chapters when we talk about Makkah and Yathrib.
Arab Paganism and Its Causes
This state of nature and the moral, political, and social order it implied were equally consequential for religion. Was Yaman influenced by Byzantine Christianity or Persian Zoroastrianism, and did it influence in turn the Arabian Peninsula? It would seem so, especially in the case of Christianity. The missionaries of Christianity were as active in those days as they are today. Moreover, unlike the life of the city, desert life is especially conducive to the rise of religious consciousness. In the desert, man is in constant touch with the universe as a whole. He senses the infinity of existence in all its forms and is thereby prompted to order his relationship with the infinite. The city man, on the other hand, is distracted from the consciousness of infinity by his constant occupation. He is protected from the angst and dread such consciousness of the infinite brings by the group to which he gave up part of his freedom. His submission to political authority and the consequent security arising from this submission prevent him from establishing a direct contact, beyond the civil power, with the spiritual powers of the world, and weaken his speculative thinking about them. In the case of the desert man, on the other hand, nothing impedes his speculation over religious meanings and problems to which the life of the desert naturally leads.
And now we may ask, did Christianity, with all its missionary activity, benefit from these circumstances to spread and propagate itself? Perhaps it would have done so had it not been that other factors went into play and enabled the Peninsula as a whole to preserve its paganism, the religion of its ancestors. Only a very few tribes therefore responded favorably to the Christian call.
Christianity and Judaism
The greatest civilization of the day stood in the basins of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The religions of Christianity and Judaism divided this civilization, and though they were not at war with each other, they were surely not friendly to each other. The Jews then remembered, as they still do, the rebellion Jesus had launched against their religion. As much as they could, therefore, they worked secretly to stop the flow of Christianity, the religion which forced them out of the Promised Land and assumed the Roman color as its own throughout the Empire. There were large communities of Jews living in Arabia, and a good number of them had settled in Yaman and in Yathrib. Zoroastrianism, on the other hand, was anxious to prevent Christianity from crossing the Euphrates. Hence, it lent its moral support to paganism while overlooking, or being mindful of, it’s spiritual and moral degradation. The fall of Rome and the passing of its power under all forms of dissolution encouraged the multiplication of sects in Christianity. These were not only becoming numerous and varied but were also fighting desperately with one another. Indeed, the Christian sects fell from the high level of faith to that of controversy regarding forms, figures, and words which related to the holiness of Mary and her priority to her son, the Christ. The sectarian controversies of Christianity betray the level of degradation and decay to which Christian thought and practice had sunk. It takes a truly decadent mind to discard content in favor of external form, to attach so much importance to externalities that the essence disappears under their opaque weight. And that is precisely what the Christian sects did.
The subjects under controversy varied from place to place; the Christians of al Sham [Greater Syria] disputed other questions than those of Hirah or Abyssinia. In their contact with the Christians, the Jews did nothing to calm the raging controversies or to temper the generated antagonism. The Arabs, on the other hand, were on good terms with the Christians of Damascus and Yaman with whom they came into contact during the winter and summer caravan trips, as well as with the Abyssinian Christians who visited them from time to time. It was natural for them to refrain from taking sides with any Christian party against another. The Arabs were happy with their paganism, contented to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, and prepared to leave both Christians and Jews alone as long as these were not interfering with their religion. Thus, idol worship continued to flourish among them and even spread to the centers inhabited by their Christian and Jewish neighbors, namely Najran and Yathrib. The Jews of Yathrib tolerated idol worship, coexisted with it, and finally befriended it as the trade routes linked them to the pagan Arabs with mutually beneficial relations.
The Spread of Paganism
Perhaps the desperate struggle of the Christian sects against one another was not the sole cause of why the Arabs remained pagan. Varieties of paganism were still adhered to even by the people who had converted to Christianity. Egyptian and Greek paganism was quite apparent in the ideologies and practices of many Christian sects. Indeed, they were apparent in some of the views of orthodox Christianity itself. The school of Alexandria and its philosophy still enjoyed a measure of influence, though it was naturally reduced from that which it enjoyed during the time of the Ptolemies, at the beginning of the Christian era. At any rate, this influence was deeply imbedded in the consciousness of the people, and its brilliant logic, though sophistic in nature, still exercised appeal for a polytheistic paganism of human deities so close and lovable to man. It seems to me that polytheism has been the strongest appeal of paganism to weak souls in all times and places. The weak soul is by nature incapable of rising high enough to establish a contact with total being and, in a supreme moment of consciousness, to grasp the unity of total being represented in that which is greater than all that exists, in God, the Lord of Majesty. The weak soul therefore stops at one of the differentiated phenomena of total being, like the sun or the moon or the fire, and awkwardly withdraws from rising beyond it to the unity of being itself.
What poverty of spirit characterizes those souls who, arrested by their grasp of a confused, insignificant little meaning of total being in an idol, commune with that object and wrap it with a halo of sanctity! We still witness this phenomenon in many countries of the world despite all the claims this modern world makes for its advances in science and civilization. Such is what the visitors see at St. Peter's cathedral in Rome where the foot of a statue of a certain saint is physically worn out by the kisses which the saint's worshipers proffer to it, so that the church has to change it for a new foot every now and then. If we could keep this in mind, we would excuse those Arabs whom God had not yet guided to the true faith. We would be less quick to condemn them for their continued idolatry and following in the footsteps of their ancestors when we remember that they were the witnesses of a desperate struggle of Christian neighbors against one another who had not yet liberated themselves completely from paganism. How can we not excuse them when pagan conditions are still with us and seem to be inextricably rooted in the world? How can we not excuse the pre-Islamic Arabs when paganism is still evident in the idolatrous practices of so many Muslims of the present world despite the fact that Islam, the one unflinching enemy of paganism that had once succeeded in sweeping away every other worship besides that of God, the Lord of majesty, is their professed religion?
Idol Worship
In their worship of idols, the Arabs followed many ways difficult for the modern researcher to discover and understand. The Prophet destroyed the idols of the Ka'bah and commanded his companions to destroy all idols wherever they might be. After they destroyed the idols' physical existence, the Muslims launched a campaign against the very mention of idols and sought to wipe them out from history, literature, and, indeed, from consciousness itself. The evidence the Quran gives for the existence of idolatry in pre-Islamic times as well as the stories which circulated in the second century A.H. concerning idolatrous practices, prove that idolatry once enjoyed a position of tremendous importance. The same evidence proves that it was of many kinds, that idolatrous practices were of great variety and that idols differed widely in the degree of sacralization conferred upon them. Every tribe had a different idol which it worshiped. Generally, objects of worship belonged to three genres: metal and wooden statues, stone statues, and shapeless masses of stone which one tribe or another consecrated because its origin was thought to be heavenly, whereas in reality it was only a piece of volcanic or meteoric rock. The most finely made statues were those which belonged to Yaman. No wonder for the Yamanis were more advanced in technology than the people of Hijaz, Najd, or Kindah. The classical works on pre-Islamic idols, however, did not report to us that any fine statues existed anywhere, except perhaps what they reported concerning Hubal, namely that it was made out of carnelian in the likeness of man, that its arm once broke off and was replaced by another contributed by Quraysh and made of solid gold. Hubal was the greatest member of the Arab pantheon and resided in Makkah, inside the Ka'bah. Pilgrims came to its shrine from all corners. Still unsatisfied by these great idols to which they prayed and offered sacrifices, the Arabs used to adopt other statues or sacred stones for domestic worship and devotion. They used to circumambulate the "holy" precincts of these gods both before leaving on a trip and upon returning home. They often carried their idols with them when they traveled, presuming that the idol had permitted its worshiper to travel. All these statues, whether in the Ka'bah, around it or scattered around the tribes or the provinces, were regarded as intermediaries between their worshipers and the supreme god. They regarded the worship of them as a means of rapprochement with God even though in reality that same worship had caused them to forget the true worship of God.
Makkah's Place in Arabia
Despite the fact that Yaman was the most advanced province in the Arabian Peninsula and the most civilized on account of its fertility and the sound administration of its water resources, its religious practices never commanded the respect of the inhabitants of the desert. Its temples never constituted a single center of pilgrimage. Makkah, on the other hand, and its Ka'bah, the house of Isma'il, was the object of pilgrimage ever since Arab history began. Every Arab sought to travel to it. In it the holy months were observed with far more ado than anywhere else. For this reason, as well as for its distinguished position in the trade of the Peninsula as a whole, it was regarded as the capital. Further, it was to be the birthplace of Muhammad, the Arab Prophet, and became the object of the yearning of the world throughout the centuries. Its ancient house was to remain holy forever. The tribe of Quraysh was to continue to enjoy a distinguished and sovereign position. All this was to remain so forever despite the fact that the Makkans and their city continued to lead a life closer to the hardness of bedouin existence which had been their custom for many tens of centuries.
Geographic Position of Mecca
About eighty kilometers east of the shore of the Red Sea a number of mountain chains run from north to south paralleling the shore line and dovetailing with the caravan route between Yaman and Palestine. These chains would completely enclose a small plain, were it not for three main outlets connecting it with the road to Yaman, the road to the Red Sea close to the port town of Juddah and the road leading to Palestine. In this plain surrounded by mountains on all sides stands Mecca. It is difficult to trace its origins. In all likelihood these origins lie thousands of years in the past. It is certain that even before Mecca was built the valley on which it stands must have been used as a resting point for the caravan routes. Its number of water springs made it a natural stopping point for the caravans going south to Yaman as well as for those going north to Palestine. Isma`il, son of Ibrahim, was probably the first one to dwell there permanently and
establish it as a permanent settlement after it had long been a resting station for transient caravans and a market place in which the northbound and southbound travelers exchanged their goods.
Ibrahim [Abraham]: May God's Peace be upon Him
Granted that Isma'il was the first to make of Mecca a permanent habitat, the history of the city before Ismail is rather obscure. Perhaps it can be said that Mecca was used as a place of worship even before Isma'il had migrated there. The story of the latter's migration to Mecca demands that we summarize the story of his father, Ibrahim-may God's peace be upon him. Ibrahim was born in 'Iraq to a father whose occupation was carpentry and the making and selling of statues for worship. As Ibrahim grew up and observed his father making these statues out of pieces of wood, he was struck by his people's worship and consecration of them. He doubted these deities and was troubled by his doubt. One day he asked his father to explain how he could worship that which his hand had wrought. Unsatisfied by his father's answer, Ibrahim talked about his doubts to his friends, and soon the father began to fear the consequences for the security of his son as well as for his own trade. Ibrahim, however, respected his own reason too much to silence its voice. Accordingly, he sought to convince his people of the futility of idol worship with argument and proof. Once he seized the opportunity of the absence of worshipers from the temple and destroyed all the statues of the gods but that of the principal deity. When he was accused in public of this crime he was asked: "Was it you Ibrahim, who destroyed our gods?" He answered: "No, rather, it was the principal god who destroyed the other gods. Ask them, for they would speak, wouldn't they?"[Q 21:62-63].
Ibrahim's destruction of the idols came after he had long pondered the error of idol worship and searched earnestly for a worthier object of devotion:
"When the night came, and Ibrahim saw the star rise, he took it to be the true God. Soon, however, the star set and Ibrahim was disappointed. 'How could a veritable God set and disappear?' he asked himself. He then observed the moon shining brilliantly and thought: 'That is my Lord.' But when it too set, he was all the more disappointed and thought: 'Unless God guides me truly, I shall certainly go astray.' Later on Ibrahim observed the sun in its brilliant and dazzling glory and he thought: 'This finally must be my Lord, for it is the greatest of all.' But then it too set and disappeared. Ibrahim was thus cured of the star worship common among his people. `I shall devote myself,' he therefore resolved, 'to Him Who has created the heavens and the earth, I shall dedicate myself as a hanif and not be an idol worshiper.’ [Q 6:76-79]
Ibrahim and Sarah in Egypt
Ibrahim did not succeed in liberating his people from paganism. On the contrary, they punished him by throwing him into the fire. God rescued him by allowing him to run away to Palestine together with his wife, Sarah. From Palestine he moved on to Egypt, which was then ruled by the Hyksos or Amalekite kings. Sarah was a beautiful lady, and as the Hyksos kings were in the habit of taking into their households any beautiful married women they met, Ibrahim therefore pretended that Sarah was his sister and hence unmarried so that the king might not take her away and kill him in the process. The king, however, did take her and later realized that she was married. He returned her to Ibrahim, blamed him for his lie, and gave him a number of gifts, one of which was a slave girl by the name of Hagar. As Sarah remained barren after many years of married life, she urged her husband to go into Hagar. After Ibrahim did so, Hagar soon bore him his son Isma'il. Later on, after Isma'il became a youth, Sarah bore a son who was called Ishaq.
Who Was the Sacrificial Son?
Historians of this period disagree on the matter of Ibrahim's sacrifice of Isma'il. Did the event take place before the birth of Ishaq or thereafter? Did it take place in Palestine or in the Hijaz? Jewish historians insist that the sacrificial son was Ishaq, not Isma'il. This is not the place to analyze this issue. In his book Qisas al Anbiyd', Shaykh Abd al Wahhab al Najjar concluded that the sacrificial son was Isma'il. His evidence was drawn from the Quran itself where the sacrificial son is described as being Ibrahim's unique son, which could only be Isma'il, and only as long as Ishaq was not yet born [Genesis 22:2]. For with the birth of Ishaq, Ibrahim would have no "unique" son but two, Isma'il and Ishaq. But to accede to this evidence implies that the sacrifice should have taken place in Palestine. This would equally be true in case the sacrificial son was Ishaq, for the latter remained with his mother Sarah in Palestine and never left for the Hijaz. On the other hand, the report which makes the sacrifice take place on the mountain of Mina near Mecca identifies the sacrificial son as Isma'il. The Quran did not mention the name of the sacrificial son, and hence Muslim historians disagree in this regard.
The Quranic Version of the Sacrifice
The story of the sacrifice is that Ibrahim saw in a dream God commanding him to sacrifice his son to Him. In the morning he took his son and went out to fulfill the command:
"When they reached the destination Ibrahim said to his son: `My son, I saw in a dream God commanding me to sacrifice you. What will you say?' His son answered: `Fulfill whatever you have been commanded; by God's will you will find me patient.' When Ibrahim threw his son on the ground for the sacrifice and both had acquiesced to the commandment, God called out to him: `O Ibrahim, you have fulfilled the commandment. We shall reward you as We reward the virtuous. You have manifestly succeeded in your travail.' We ransomed him with a worthy animal to sacrifice."[Q 37:102-107]
The Historians' Version
Some historians tell this story in more dramatic way. The beauty of some versions justifies a brief pause despite the fact that the story itself does not belong in this apercu of Meccan history. It is told, for instance, that when Ibrahim saw in his dream that he should sacrifice his son and ascertained that that was God's commandment, he asked his son to take a rope and a knife and to go ahead of him to a nearby hill in order to collect some wood for fuel. The boy complied with his father's request. Satan took the guise of a man, came to Isma'il's mother and said:"Do you know where Ibrahim is taking your son?" She answered: "Yes, they both went to collect some wood." Satan said:"By God, he did not take him except to sacrifice him." The mother answered, "Not at all! His father is even more loving and gentler to him than me." Satan said: "But he claims that God has commanded him to do so." The mother answered: "If God has thus commanded him then so let it be." Thus Satan lost the first round. He ran to the son as he was following his father and repeated to him the same temptations he offered to his mother. But the son answered in exactly the same way as his mother did. Satan then approached Ibrahim and told him that what he saw in his dream was only a Satanic illusion that he may kill his son and grieve there at the rest of his days. Ibrahim dismissed him and cursed him. Iblis (Satan) returned maddened and frustrated at his failure to dissuade Ibrahim, his wife, and his son from fulfillment of God's command. The same storytellers also report that Ibrahim divulged his dream to his son and asked for his opinion. They report the son as answering: "O father, do what you are commanded to do." A still more fanciful version of the story reports the son as saying: "O father, if you want to kill me, then bind me tight that I may not move and splatter you with my blood and thus reduce my own reward for the fulfillment of God's command. I know that death is hard, and I am not certain I will stay still when it comes. Therefore sharpen your blade that you may finish me quickly. Lay me face down rather than on my side, for I fear that if you were to witness my face as you cut my throat you would be moved by compassion for me and fail to complete that which God had asked you to do. And if you see fit to return my shirt to my mother that she may remember me therewith and, perhaps, find some consolation, please do so.' Ibrahim answered: `My son, you are the best help in the fulfillment of God's command.' As he prepared for the sacrifice, bound the child, and laid him down, Ibrahim was called to stop. For he had given evidence of his obedience to God's command, and the son was ransomed with a sheep which Ibrahim found close by and which he killed and burnt."
That is the story of the sacrifice. It is the story of submission to God and His decree as well as of the fulfillment of His commandment.
Ibrahim, Isma'il, and Hagar's Trip to the Valley of Mecca
Ishaq grew up in the company of his brother Isma'il. The father loved both equally, but Sarah was not pleased with this equation of her son with the son of the slave girl Hagar. Once, upon seeing Isma'il chastising his younger brother, she swore that she would not live with Hagar nor her son. Ibrahim realized that happiness was not possible as long as the two women lived in the same household; hence, he took Hagar and her son and traveled south until they arrived to the valley of Mecca. As we said earlier, the valley was a midway place of rest for caravans on the road between Yaman and al Sham. The caravans came in season, and the place was empty at all or most other times. Ibrahim deposited Isma'il and his mother there and left them some sustenance. Hagar built a little hut in which she settled with her son and whereto Ibrahim returned when he came. When water and provisions were exhausted, Hagar set out to look for food, but she could not find any. As the storytellers put it, she ran towards the valley seeking water and, not finding any, would run in another direction. After running to and fro seven times between Safa and Marwah, she returned in despair to her son. But what surprise when she found him! Having scratched the surface of the earth with his foot, he uncovered a water fountain which sprung under his feet. Hagar drank and gave Isma'il to drink until they were both satisfied. She then closed in the spring that its water might not be lost in the sand. Thereafter the child and his mother lived in Mecca. Arab travelers continued to use the place as a rest stop, and in exchange for services they rendered to the travelers who came with one caravan after another, Hagar and Isma'il were sufficiently provided for.
Subsequently a number of tribes liked the fountain water of Zamzam sufficiently to settle nearby. Jurhum was the first such tribe to settle in Mecca. Some versions assert that Jurhum was already settled in Mecca even before Hagar and her son arrived there. According to other reports, no tribes settled in Mecca until Zamzam had sprung forth and made life possible in this otherwise barren valley and hence, after Isma'il's advent. Isma'il grew up, married a girl from the tribe of Jurhum and lived with this tribe in the same area where he built the holy temple. Thereafter, the city of Mecca arose around the temple. It is also told that Ibrahim once took leave of Sarah to visit Isma'il and his mother. When he inquired about the house of Isma'il and found it, he asked Isma'il's wife, "Where is your husband?" She answered, "He went out to hunt." He then asked her whether she had any food or drink to give him. She answered in the negative. Before he turned back, Ibrahim asked her to convey to her husband a message. "Give him my greetings," he said, "and tell him that he should change the threshold of his house." When Isma'il's wife related to her husband his father's message, he divorced her and married a girl from the Jurhum tribe, the daughter of Mudad ibn `Amr. This second wife knew well how to entertain Ibrahim when he came to visit his son a second time later. At the end of his second visit, Ibrahim asked Isma'il's wife to greet her husband for him and to tell him, "Now the threshold of your house is straight." Twelve sons were born to Isma'il from this marriage with the Jurhum girl. These were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Arabized or Northern Arabs. On their mother's side these were related through Jurhum to the Arabizing Arabs, the sons of Ya'rub ibn Qahtan. They were also related to Egypt through their grandmother on their father's side, Hagar, which was a close relation indeed. Through their grandfather Ibrahim, they were related to `Iraq and to Palestine, his old and new abodes.
Discussion of the Story
Despite disagreement on details, the main theme of this story which history had brought down to us, namely the emigration of Ibrahim and Isma'il to Mecca, is backed by an almost complete consensus on the part of the historians. The differences center on whether, when Hagar arrived with Isma'il in the valley of Mecca, the springs were already there and whether the tribe of Jurhum had already occupied the place and had welcomed Hagar when Ibrahim brought her and her son to live in their midst. When Isma'il grew up, he married a Jurhum girl and had several sons from her. It was this mixture of Hebrew, Egyptian and Arab blood that gave to Isma'il's descendants resoluteness, courage, and all the virtues of the native Arabs, the Hebrews, and the Egyptians combined. As for the detail regarding Hagar's difficulty when she ran out of water and of her running to and fro between Safa and Marwah and the way, in which Zamzam sprang forth, all these are subject to debate.
Sir William Muir, for instance, doubts the whole story of Ibrahim and Isma'il's trip to Hijaz and denies it altogether. He claims that it is one of the Israelitisms which the Jews had invented long before Islam in order to strike a link with the Arabs by making them descendents of Ibrahim, now father of all. Since the Jews regarded themselves as descendants of Ishaq, they would become the cousins of the Arabs and therefore entitled to Arab hospitality if the Arabs were declared the sons of Ishaq's brother, namely Isma'il. Such a theme, if properly advocated, was probably thought to help establish Jewish trade in the Peninsula. In making this claim, Muir assumed that the religious situation in Arabia was far removed from the religion of Abraham. The former was pagan whereas Ibrahim was a Hanif and a Muslim. For our part, we do not think that this is sufficient reason to deny a historical truth. Our evidence for the paganism of the Arabs is centuries later
than the arrival of Ibrahim and Isma'il to the scene. It cannot therefore constitute any proof that at the time of Ibrahim's arrival to Hijaz and his building of the Kaba with his son Isma'il that the Arabs were pagan. Neither would Sir William's claims be corroborated had the religion of the Arabs been pagan at the time. Ibrahim's own people, whom he tried to bring forth to monotheism without success, were also idol worshipers. Had Ibrahim called the Arabs to monotheism, as he did his own people earlier, and not succeeded, and the Arabs remained idol worshipers, they would not have acquiesced to Ibrahim's coming to Mecca nor in his son's settlement there. Rather, logic would here corroborate the report of history. Ibrahim, the man who left `Iraq to escape from his people and traveled to Palestine and to Egypt, was a man who knew how to travel and was familiar with desert crossing. The road between Palestine and Mecca was one trodden by the caravans for ages. There is, therefore, no reason to doubt a historical event which consensus has confirmed, at least in its general themes.
Sir William Muir and others who shared his view claim that it is possible that a number of the descendants of Ibrahim and Isma`il had moved to the Arabian Peninsula after they had settled in Palestine and that the blood relationship had developed after their arrival to Arabia. That is a fine opinion indeed! But if it is possible for the sons of Ibrahim and Isma'il to do such a thing, why should it not have been possible for the two men, Ibrahim and Isma'il personally, only a generation or two earlier? How can we deny a confirmed historical tradition? And how can we doubt an event which the Quran, as well as a number of other old scriptures, has mentioned?
Ibrahim and Isma'il's Construction of the Kaba
Together Ibrahim and Isma'il laid down the foundations and built the holy temple. "It was the first house built for public worship in Mecca. It still stands as a blessing and guidance to mankind. In it are manifest signs; that is the house of Ibrahim. Whoever enters it shall be secure."[Q 3:96-97] God also says: "For We made the house a refuge and a place of security for the people. We commanded them to take the house of Ibrahim as a place of worship and We have commanded Ibrahim and Isma`il to purify My house for pilgrims and men in retreat, for those who kneel and prostrate themselves in prayer. When Ibrahim prayed, `0 Lord, make this town a place of security and give its people of Your bounty, those of them who have believed in God and in the day of judgment,' God answered: 'Yea, even those who do not believe will enjoy my security and bounty for a while before I inflict upon them the punishment of fire and the sad fate they deserve.' As Ibrahim and Isma'il laid the foundations and raised the walls of the house, they prayed: 'O Lord, bless our work; for You alone are all hearing and all-knowing.'[Q 2:125-127]
Religious Development in Arabia
How did it happen that Ibrahim built the house as a place of refuge and security for the people so that the believers in God alone might use it for prayer, and then it became a pantheon full of statues for idol worship? What were the conditions of worship after Ibrahim and Isma'il? In what form and with what ritual was worship conducted in the holy house? When were these conditions and forms superceded by paganism? In vain do we turn the pages of history books looking for answers to these questions? All we find therein are presumptions which their authors think are reports of facts. The Sabeans were star worshipers, and they enjoyed great popularity and prestige in Arabia. As the reports go, the Sabeans did not always worship the stars for their own sake. At one time it is said that they had worshiped God alone and venerated the stars as signs of His creation and power. Since the majority of people were neither endowed nor cultivated enough to understand the transcendent nature of the Godhead, they confused the stars with God and took them as gods. Some of the volcanic or meteoric stones appeared to men to have fallen from heaven and therefore to be astral in nature. Consequently, they were taken as hierophanies of the astral divinities and sanctified as such. Later on they were venerated for their own sake, and then worshipped as divinities. In fact, the Arabs venerated these stones so much that not only did they worship the black stone in the Kaba, but they would take one of the stones of the Kaba as a holy object in their travels, praying to it and asking it to bless every move they made. Thus all the veneration and worship due to the stars, or to the creator of the stars, were now conferred upon these stones. It was in a development similar to this that paganism was established in Arabia, that the statues were sanctified, and that sacrifices were made to them.
This is the picture which some historians give of religious development in Arabia after Ibrahim dedicated the Kaba to the worship of God. Herodotus, father of written history, mentions the worship of al Lat in Arabia; and Diodorus, the Sicilian, mentions the house of Mecca venerated by the Arabs. Their two witnesses point to the antiquity of paganism in the Peninsula and therefore to the fact that the religion of Ibrahim was not always observed there.
The Arab Prophets
During these long centuries many prophets called their tribes to the worship of God alone. The Arabs gave them little hearing and continued with their paganism. Hud was one of those prophets sent to the tribe of 'Ad which lived in the north of Hadramawt. Few tribesmen responded to his call. The majority were too proud to relinquish their old ways and they answered, "O Hud! You brought us no sign. We cannot relinquish our gods just because you tell us to. We shall not believe" [Q 11:53]. Hud kept on calling for years, but the more he called the more obstinate they became. Similarly, Salih arose in the tribe of Thamud who lived in al Hijr between Hijaz and al Sham, this side of Wadi al Qura and to the southeast of the land of Madyan, close to the Gulf of `Aqabah. His call bore no more fruit than Hud's. Shu'ayb arose among the people of Madyan who then lived in the Hijaz. He called them to the worship of God alone, but they refused to hear and they perished as the people of 'Ad and Thamud before them. The Quranic narratives told us about the stories and missions of other prophets who called men unto God alone, and of their peoples' obstinacy and pride, their continued paganism, their worship of the idols of the Kaba, and their pilgrimage to the Kaba from every corner of the Arabian Peninsula. All this is implied in God's statement, "And We inflict no punishment on anyone until We have sent them a prophet to warn them"[Q 17:15]
Offices of the Kaba
Ever since its establishment, the Kaba gave rise to a number of offices such as those which were held by Qusayy ibn Kilab when he took over the kingship of Mecca, in the middle of the fifth century C.E. His offices included hijabah, siqayah, rifadah, nadwah, liwa' and qiyadah. Hijabah implied maintenance of the house and guardianship over its keys. Siqayah implied the provision of fresh water-which was scarce in Mecca-as well as date wine to all the pilgrims. Rifadah implied the provision of food to the pilgrims. Nadwah implied the chairmanship of all convocations held. Qiyadah implied the leadership of the army at war. Liwa was the flag which, hoisted on a spear, accompanied the army whenever it went out to meet the enemy and, hence, it meant a secondary command in times of war. All these offices were recognized as belonging to Mecca, indeed to the Kaba, to which all Arabs looked when in worship. It is more likely that not all of these offices developed at the time when the house was constructed but rather that they arose one after the other independently of the Kaba and its religious position, though some may have had to do with the Kaba by nature.
At the building of the Kaba, Mecca could not have consisted, even at best, of more than a few tribes of `Amaliq and Jurhumis. A long time must have lapsed between Ibrahim and Isma'il's advent to Mecca and their building of the Kaba on the one hand, and the development of Mecca as a town or quasi-urban center on the other. Indeed, as long as any vestiges of their early nomadism lingered in the mind and customs of the Meccans, we cannot speak of Mecca as urban. Some historians would rather agree that Mecca had remained nomadic until the kingship of Qusayy in the middle of the fifth century C.E. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine a town like Mecca remaining nomadic while her ancient house is venerated by the whole surrounding country. It is historically certain that the guardianship of the house remained in the hands of Jurhum, Isma'il's in-laws, for continuous generations. This implies continuous residence near the Kaba-a fact not possible for nomads bent on movement from pasture to pasture. Moreover, the well established fact that Mecca was the rendezvous of the caravans traveling between Yaman, Hirah, al Sham and Najd, that it was connected to the Red Sea close by and there from to the trade routes of the world, further refutes the claim that Mecca was merely a nomad's campsite. We are therefore compelled to acknowledge that Mecca, which Ibrahim called "a town" and which he prayed God to bless, had known the life of settlement many generations before Qusayy.
Ascendancy of Qoresh
After their conquest of the `Amaliq, the tribe of Jurhum ruled Mecca until the regime of Mudad ibn `Amr ibn al Harith During these generations, trade had prospered so well that the tribe of Jurhum waxed fat and forgot that they were really living in a desolate place and that they ought to work very hard to keep their position. Their neglect led to the drying up of the Zamzam spring; furthermore, the tribe of Khuza'ah had even thought of conquering Mecca and establishing their authority over its whole precinct.
Mudad's warning to his people did not stop their indulgence and carelessness. Realizing that his and his tribe's power was on the decline and would soon be lost, he dug a deep hole within the well of Zamzam in which he buried two golden gazelles and the treasure of the holy house, with the hope that he would return some day to power and reclaim the treasure. Together with the Jurhum tribe and the descendants of Isma'il he withdrew from Mecca in favor of the tribe of Khuza'ah, who ruled it from generation to generation until the advent of Qusayy ibn Kilab, the fifth grandfather of the Prophet.
Qusayy ibn Kilab (circa 480 C.E)
Fatimah, daughter of Saad ibn Sayl, mother of Qusayy, married Kilab and gave him two sons, Zuhrah and Qusayy. Kilab died when Qusayy was an infant. Fatimah then married Rabia ibn Haram who took her with him to al Sham where she gave birth to a son called Darraj. Qusayy grew up knowing no other father than Rabia. When a quarrel broke out between Qusayy and some members of the Rabia tribe, they reproached him as they would a foreigner and betrayed the fact that they never regarded him as one of their own. Qusayy complained to his mother and related to her the reproach he heard. Her answer was as defiant as it was proud. "O my son," she said, "your descendance is nobler than theirs, you are the son of Kilab ibn Murrah, and your people live in the proximity of the holy house in Mecca." This was the cause of Qusayy's departure from al Sham and return to Mecca. His seriousness and wisdom soon won him the respect of the Meccans. At the time, the guardianship of the holy house was in the hands of a man of the Khuza'ah tribe called Hulayl ibn Hubshiyyah, a very wise man with deep insight. Soon Qusayy asked for and married Hubba, daughter of Hulayl. He continued to work hard at his trade and acquired much affluence, great respect, and many children. When his father-in-law died, he committed the keys of the Kaba to Hubba, wife of Qusayy. But the latter apologized and committed the keys to Abu Ghibshan, a man from Khuza'ah. Abu Ghibshan, however, was a drunkard and one day he exchanged the keys of the Kaba for a jug of wine from Qusayy. The Khuza'ah tribe realized that it was in danger should the guardianship of the Kaba remain in the hands of Qusayy whose wealth and influence were always increasing and around whom the tribe of Qoresh was now rallying. They therefore thought to dispossess him of his guardianship. Qusayy called upon the Qoresh tribe to help him and, with the concurrence of a number of tribes from the surrounding area, he was judged the wisest and the mightiest and confirmed in his guardianship. When the tribe of Khuza'ah had to evacuate, Qusayy combined in his person all the offices associated with the holy house and became king over the Qoresh.
Construction of Permanent Residences in Mecca
Some historians claim that Mecca had no constructed houses other than the Kaba until Qusayy became its king because neither Khuza'ah nor Jurhum wanted to raise any other construction besides the holy house and neither one spent his life outside of the holy area in the open desert. They added that upon his assumption of the kingship of Mecca, Qusayy commanded his people, the Qoresh tribe, to build their residences in the vicinity of the holy house. They also explained that it was Qusayy who built the house of Nadwah where the elders of Mecca met under his chairmanship in order to run the affairs of their city, for it was their custom not to allow anything to happen without their unanimous approval. No man or woman of Mecca married except in the Nadwah and with the approval of the Qoresh elders. According to this view, it was the Qoresh that built, at the command of Qusayy, their houses around the Kaba, leaving sufficient space for circumambulation of the holy house. Their residences in the vicinity were spaced so as to leave a narrow passage to the holy house between every two houses.
The Descendants of Qusayy
Although 'Abd al Dar was the eldest of Qusayy's children, his brother 'Abd Manaf was more famous and more respected by the people. As Qusayy grew old and weak and became unable to carry out the duties of his position, he delegated the hijabah to 'Abd al Dar and handed over to him the keys of the holy house. He also delegated to him the siqayah, the Liwa, and the rifadah. The rifadah implied a contribution the tribe of Qoresh used to levy from every member to help Qusayy in the provision of food for pilgrims incapable of procuring nourishment on their own. Qusayy was the first to impose the rifadah on the Qoresh tribe; and he incepted this practice after he rallied the Qoresh and dislodged the tribe of Khuza'ah from Mecca. At the time the rifadah was imposed, Qusayy said, "O people of Qoresh! You are the neighbors of God and the people of His house and temple. The pilgrim is the guest of God and visitor
of His house. Of all guests that you receive during the year, the pilgrim is the most worthy of your hospitality. Provide for him food and drink during the days of pilgrimage."
The Descendants of `Abd Manaf
Abd al Dar discharged the new duties incumbent upon him as his father had directed. His sons did likewise after him but could not match the sons of 'Abd Manaf in honor and popular esteem. Hence, Hashim, `Abd Shams, al Muttalib and Nawfal, the sons of `Abd Manaf, resolved to take over these privilege from their cousins. The tribe of Qoresh stood divided into two factions, each supporting one of the contestants. The descendants of 'Abd Manaf concluded the Hilf al Mutayyibbin, a treaty so called because the covenantors dipped their hands in perfume as they swore allegiance to its new terms. The descendants of 'Abd al Dar, for their part, entered into another treaty called Hilf al Ahldf [Pact of Allies], and the stage was set for a civil war which could have dissolved the Qoresh tribe. A peace was reached, however, under which the descendants of 'Abd Manaf were granted the siqayah and rifadah, and the descendents of 'Abd al Dar kept the hijabah, the liwa', and the nadwah. Thereafter the two parties lived in peace until the advent of Islam.
Hashim (646 C.E.)
Hashim was the leader of his people and a prosperous man. He was in charge of the siqayah and the rifadah. In the discharge of his duties he called upon every member of the Qoresh to make a contribution for use in providing food for the pilgrims. Like his grandfather Qusayy, he argued with his contemporaries that the pilgrims and visitors to the house of God are God's guests and, therefore, worthy of their hospitality. He discharged his duties well and provided for all the pilgrims during the time of their pilgrimage in Mecca.
Meccan Affluence and Prosperity
Hashim did for the people of Mecca more than his duty demanded. In a year of drought he was generous enough to provide food for the whole population and turned the occasion into one of joy. It was he who regulated and standardized the two main caravan trips of the Meccan traders, the winter trip to Yaman, and the summer trip to al Sham. Under his good ordering and wise leadership Mecca prospered and its position rose throughout the Peninsula. It soon became the acknowledged capital of Arabia. From this position of influence the descendents of `Abd Manaf concluded peace treaties with their neighbors. Hashim went in person to Byzantium and to the neighboring tribe of Ghassan to sign a treaty of friendship and good neighborliness. He obtained from Byzantium permission for the tribe of Qoresh to move anywhere in the territories of al Sham in peace and security. 'Abd Shams, on the other hand, concluded a treaty of trade with the Negus of Abyssinia and Nawfal and al Muttalib, both a treaty of friendship with Persia and a trade treaty with the Himyaris of Yaman. The glory of Mecca increased with its prosperity. The Meccans became so adept in trade that nobody could compete with them. The caravans came to Mecca from all directions, and the goods were exported in two big convoys in summer and winter. Surrounding Mecca all kinds of markets were built to deal with all the attendant business. This experience developed in the Meccans competence in business affairs as well as adeptness in the administration of the calendar and interest in financing.
Hashim remained the uncontested chief of Mecca throughout his life. Nobody thought of competing with him in this regard. His nephew, however, Umayyah ibn `Abd Shams, did entertain such ideas but he lost and chose to live in exile in al Sham for ten full years. On one of his trips to al Sham, Hashim stopped in Yathrib where he saw a woman of noble birth engaging in business with some of her agents. That was Salma, daughter of `Amr of the Khazraj tribe. Hashim fell in love with her and inquired whether she was married. When he learned that she was a divorced woman, but a very independent person, he asked her directly to marry him. As his position and prestige were known to her, she accepted. She lived with him in Mecca for a while before she returned to Medina where she gave birth to a son called Shaybah, whom she kept with her in Yathrib [Medina].
Al Muttalib
Several years later Hashim died on one of his trips and was buried in Gaza. His brother, al Muttalib, succeeded him in his posts. Though al Muttalib was younger than `Abd Shams, he was well esteemed by the people. The Qoresh used to call him "Mr. Abundance" for his generosity and goodness. Naturally, with such competence and prestige as al Muttalib enjoyed, the situation in Mecca continued to be prosperous and peaceful.
One day al Muttalib thought of his nephew Shaybah. He went to Yathrib and asked Salma to hand the child over now that he had become fully grown. On return to Mecca, al Muttalib allowed the young man to precede him on his camel. The Qoresh thought that he was a servant of al Muttalib and called him so, namely Abd al Muttalib. When al Muttalib heard of this he said, "Hold it, Fellow Tribesmen. This man is not my servant but my nephew, son of Hashim, whom I brought back from Yathrib." The title Abd al Muttalib was so popular, however, that the young man's old name, Shaybah, was forgotten.
Abd al Muttalib (495 C.E.)
When al Muttalib sought to return to his nephew the wealth which Hashim left behind, Nawfal objected and seized the wealth. Abd al Muttalib waited until he grew and then asked for the support of his uncles in Yathrib against his uncles in Mecca. Eighty Khazraj horsemen arrived from Yathrib ready to give him the military support he needed in order to reclaim his rights. Nawfal refused to fight and returned the seized wealth. Abd al Muttalib then was assigned the offices which Hashim occupied, namely the siqayah and the rifadah, after al Muttalib passed away. He experienced no little difficulty in discharging the requisite duties because at that time he had only one son, al Harith. As the well of Zamzam had been destroyed, water had to be brought in from a number of sub-sidiary wells in the outskirts of Mecca and placed in smaller reservoirs near the Kaba. Plurality of descendants was an asset in the execution of such a task as this but Abd al Muttalib had only one son, and the task nearly exhausted him. Naturally, he gave the matter a good deal of thought.
The Redigging of Zamzam
The Meccans still had memories of the Zamzam well which was filled with dirt by Mudad ibn `Amr of the Jurhum tribe a few hundred years back and wished that it could be reactivated. This matter concerned Abd al Muttalib more than anyone else, and he gave it all his attention. Suffering under his duties, he thought so much about the matter that he even saw in his dreams a spirit calling him to re-dig the well whose waters sprang under the feet of his ancestor, Isma'il. But no one knew where the old well stood. Finally, after much investigation, Abd al Muttalib was inspired to try the place between the two idols, Isaf and Naila. Helped by his second son al Mughirah, he dug at the place until water sprang forth and the two golden gazelles and swords of Mudad of the Jurhum tribe appeared. The Qoresh wanted to share his find with Abd al Muttalib. After objecting, he finally came to an agreement with them to determine the rightful ownership of the treasure by the drawing of lots among three equal partners, namely the Kaba, the Qoresh, and himself. The divinatory arrows were drawn near the idol Hubal within the Kaba, and the result was that the Qoresh lost completely, Abd al Muttalib won the swords, and the Kaba won the two gazelles. Abd al Muttalib ordered his part, namely the swords, reforged as a door for the Kaba, and placed the two golden gazelles within the holy house as a decoration. Now that the Zamzam water was close by, Abd al Muttalib performed his siqayah duties with ease.
The Vow and Its Fulfillment
Abd al Muttalib realized the limitations, which his lack of children imposed upon him. He vowed that should he be given ten sons to grow to maturity and to help him in his task he would sacrifice one of them to God near the Kaba. Abd al Muttalib's wish was to be fulfilled: he had ten fully-grown sons. When he called them to assist him in the fulfillment of his vow, they accepted. It was agreed that the name of each one of them would be written on a divinatory arrow, that the arrows would be drawn near Hubal within the Kaba and that he whose name appeared on the drawn arrow would be sacrificed. It was then customary among the Arabs whenever they faced an insoluble problem to resort to divination by means of arrows at the foot of the greatest idol in the area. When the arrows were drawn it was the arrow of Abdullah, the youngest son of 'Abd al Muttalib and the most beloved, that came out. Without hesitation 'Abd al Muttalib took the young man by the hand and prepared to sacrifice him by the well of Zamzam between the idols of Isaf and Naila. 'Abd al Muttalib insisted upon the sacrifice, but the whole of Qoresh insisted that Abdullah be spared and that some kind of indulgence be sought from the god Hubal. Finally, in answer to 'Abd al Muttalib's inquiry as to what should be done to please the gods, al Mughirah ibn Abdullah al Makhzumi volunteered the answer, "Perhaps the youth can be ransomed with wealth; in that case, we shall be pleased to give up all the necessary wealth to save him." After consultation with one another, they decided to consult a divineress in Yathrib renowned for her good insight. When they came to her, she asked them to wait until the morrow; upon their return she asked, "What, in your custom, is the amount of a man's blood wit?" "Ten camels," they answered. She said, "Return then to your country and draw near your god two arrows, one with the name of the youth and the other with the term 'ten camels.' If the arrow drawn is that of the youth, then multiply the number of camels and draw again until your god is satisfied. They accepted her solution and drew the divinatory arrows which they found to converge on Abdullah. They kept multiplying the number of camels until the number reached one hundred. It was then that the camels' arrow was drawn. The people were satisfied and told 'Abd al Muttalib, who stood nearby in terror, "Thus did your god decide, O 'Abd al Muttalib." But he answered, "Not at all! I shall not be convinced that this is my god's wish until the same result comes out three times consecutively." The arrows were drawn three times, and in all three it was the camels' arrow that came out. 'Abd al Muttalib then felt sure that his god was contented, and he sacrified the one hundred camels.
In this way the books of biography have reported to us some of the customs of the Arabs and of their religious doctrines. In this way they have informed us of the Arabs' adherence to these doctrines and of their loyalty and devotion to their holy house. In confirming this custom al Tabari reports that a Muslim woman had once vowed to sacrifice one of her sons. She sought the advice of Abdullah ibn Umar without much avail. She went to Abdullah ibn Abbas who advised her to sacrifice one hundred camels after the example of Abd al Muttalib. But when Marwan, the governor of Medina, knew of what she was about, he forbade her to do it, holding to the Islamic principle that no vow is valid whose object is illegitimate.
The Year of the Elephant (570 C.E.)
The respect and esteem which Mecca and her holy house enjoyed suggested to some distant provinces in Arabia that they should construct holy houses in order to attract some of the people away from Mecca. The Ghassanis built such a house at al Hirah. Abrahah al Ashram built another in Yaman. Neither of them succeeded, however, in drawing the Arabs away from Mecca and its holy house. Indeed, Abrahah took a special care to decorate the house in Yaman and filled it with such beautiful furniture and statues that he thought that he could draw thereto not only the Arabs but the Meccans themselves. When later he found out that the Arabs were still going to the ancient house, that the inhabitants of Yaman were leaving behind the newly built house in their own territory and did not regard the pilgrimage valid except in Mecca, he came to the conclusion that there was no escape from destroying the house of Ibrahim and Isma'il. The viceroy of the Negus therefore prepared for war and brought a great army for that purpose from Abyssinia equipped with a great elephant on which he rode. When the Arabs heard of his war preparations, they became quite upset and feared the impending doom of Mecca, the Kaba, its statues, and the institution of pilgrimage. Dhu Nafar, a nobleman from Yaman, appealed to his fellow countrymen to revolt and fight Abrahah and thus prevent him from the destruction of God's house. Abrahah, however, was too strong to be fought with such tactics: Dhu Nafar as well as Nufayl ibn Habib al Khath'ami, leader of the two tribes of Shahran and Nahis, were taken prisoners after a brief but gallant fight. On the other hand, the people of al Ta'if, when they learned that it was not their house that he intended to destroy, cooperated with Abrahah and sent a guide with him to show him the way to Mecca.
Abrahah and the Kaba
Upon approaching Mecca, Abrahah sent a number of horsemen to seize whatever there was of Qoresh's animal wealth in the outskirts. The horsemen returned with some cattle and a hundred camels belonging to Abd al Muttalib. The Qoresh and other Meccans first thought of holding their ground and fighting Abrahah, but they soon realized that his power was far superior to theirs. Abrahah sent one of his men, Hunatah al Himyari to inform Abd al Muttalib, chief of Mecca, that Abrahah had not come to make war against the Meccans but only to destroy the house and that should the Meccans not stand in his way, he would not fight them at all. When 'Abd al Muttalib declared the intention of Mecca not to fight Abrahah, Hunatah invited Abd al Muttalib and his sons and some of the leaders of Mecca to Abrahah's encampment in order to talk to Abrahah directly. Abrahah received Abd al Muttalib well and returned his seized camels. But he refused to entertain any suggestion of saving the Kaba from destruction as well as the Meccans' offer to pay him one-third of the yearly crop of the Tihamah province. The conference therefore came to no conclusion, and Abd al Muttalib returned to Mecca. He immediately advised the Meccans to evacuate the city and withdraw to the mountains and thus save their own persons.
It was certainly a grave day on which the Meccans decided to evacuate their town and leave it an open city for destruction by Abrahah. Abd al Muttalib and the leaders of the Qoresh grasped the lock of the door of the Kaba and prayed to their gods to stop this aggression against the house of God. As they left Mecca, and Abrahah prepared to send his terrifying and formidable army into the city to destroy the house, smallpox spread within its ranks and began to take its toll. The epidemic attacked the army with unheard of fury. Perhaps the microbes of the disease were carried there by the wind from the west. Abrahah himself was not spared; and terrified by what he saw, he ordered the army to return to Yaman. Attacked by death and desertion, Abrahah's army dwindled to almost nothing, and, by the time he reached San'a', his capital in Yaman, he himself succumbed to the disease. This phenomenon was so extraordinary that the Meccans reckoned time with it by calling that year "The Year of the Elephant." The Quran had made this event immortal when it said:
"Consider what your Lord had done to the people of the elephant. Did he not undo their evil plotting? And send upon them wave after wave of flying stones of fire? And made their ranks like a harvested cornfield trodden by herds of hungry cattle?” [Q 105:1-5]
The Position of Mecca after the Year of the Elephant
This extraordinary event enhanced the religious position of Mecca as well as her trade. Her people became more committed than ever to the preservation of their exalted city and to resist every attempt at reducing it.
Meccan Luxury
The prosperity, affluence, and luxury which Mecca provided for its citizens, like an island in a large barren desert, confirmed the Meccans in their parochial zeal. The Meccans loved their wine and the revelry it brought. It helped them satisfy their passionate search for pleasure and to find that pleasure in the slave girls with which they traded and who invited them to ever-increasing indulgence. Their pursuit of pleasure, on the other hand, confirmed their personal freedom and the freedom of their city, which they were prepared to protect against any aggressor at any cost. They loved to hold their celebrations and their drinking parties right in the center of the city around the Kaba. There, in the proximity of three hundred or more statues belonging to about three hundred Arab tribes, the elders of the Qoresh and the aristocracy of Mecca held their salons and told one another tales of trips across desert or fertile land, tales of the kings of Hirah on the east or of Ghassan on the west, which the caravans and the nomads brought back and forth. The tribes carried these tales and customs throughout their areas with great speed, efficiency, and application. Meccan pastimes consisted of telling these stories to neighbors and friends and of hearing others, of drinking wine, and of preparing for a big night around the Kaba or in recovering from such a night. The idols must have witnessed with their stone eyes all this revelry around them. The revelers were certain of protection since the idols had conferred upon the Kaba a halo of sanctity and peace. The protection, however, was mutual, for it was the obligation of the Meccans never to allow a scripturist Christian or Jew, to enter Mecca except in the capacity of a servant and under the binding covenant that he would not speak in Mecca either of his religion or of his scripture. Consequently, there were neither Jewish nor Christian communities in Mecca, as was the case in Yathrib and Najran. The Kaba was then the holy of holies of paganism and securely protected against any attack against its authorities or sanctity. Thus Mecca was as independent as the Arab tribes were, ever unyielding in its protection of that independence which the Meccans regarded as worthier than life. No tribe ever thought of rallying with another or more tribes in order to form a union with superior strength to Mecca, and none ever entertained any idea of conquering her. The tribes remained separated, leading a pastoral nomadic existence but enjoying to the full the independence, freedom, pride, and chivalry, as well as the individualism which the life of the desert implied.
The Residences of Mecca
The houses of the Meccans surrounded the Kaba and stood at a distance from it proportionate to the social position, descendance, and prestige these inhabitants enjoyed. The Qoreshis were the closest to the Kaba and the most related to it on account of the offices of sidanah and siqayah which they held. On this account no honorific title was withheld from them, and it was for the sake of these titles that wars were fought, pacts concluded, and treaties covenanted. The texts of all Meccan treaties and pacts were kept in the Kaba so that the gods who undoubtedly, were taken as witnesses thereto, might punish those covenanters who violated their promises. Beyond these stood the houses of the less important tribes, and further still stood the houses of the slaves, servants and those without honor. In Mecca the Jews and Christians were slaves, as we said earlier. They were therefore allowed to live only in these far away houses on the edge of the desert. Whatever religious stories they could tell regarding Christianity or Judaism would be too far removed from the ears of the lords and nobles of Qoresh and Mecca. This distance permitted the latter to stop their ears as well as their conscience against all serious concern. Whatever they heard of Judaism or Christianity they obtained from a monastery or a hermitage recluse in the desert which lay on some road of the caravans.
Even so, the rumors circulating at the time about the possible rise of a prophet among the Arabs caused them great worry. Abu Sufyan one day strongly criticized Umayyah ibn Abu al Salt for repeating such Messianic stories as the monks circulated. One can imagine Abu Sufyan addressing Umayyah in some such words as these, "Those monks in the desert expect a Messiah because of their ignorance of their own religion. Surely they need a prophet to guide them thereto. As for us, we have the idols right here close by, and they do bring us close to God. We do not need any prophet, and we ought to combat any such suggestion." Fanatically committed to his native city as well as to its paganism, it was apparently impossible for Abu Sufyan to realize that the hour of guidance was just about to strike, that the prophethood of Muhammad - may God's blessing be upon him - had drawn near, and that from these pagan Arab lands a light was to shine over the whole world to illuminate it with monotheism and truth.
Abdullah ibn Abd al Muttalib
Abdullah ibn Abd al Muttalib was a handsome young man admired by the unmarried women of his town. They were fascinated by the story of ransom and the hundred camels which the god Hubal insisted on receiving in his stead. But fate had already prepared Abdullah for the noblest fatherhood that history had known, just as it had prepared Aminah, daughter of Wahb, to be mother to the son of Abdullah. The couple were married and, a few months after their marriage, Abdullah passed away. None could ransom him from this later fate. Aminah survived him, gave birth to Muhammad, and joined her husband while Muhammad was still an infant.
The Marriage of Abdullah and Aminah
Abd al Muttalib was seventy years old or more when Abraha arrived in Mecca to destroy the ancient house. His son Abdullah was twenty-four years of age and was hence ready for marriage. His father chose for him Aminah, daughter of Wahb ibn `Abd Manaf ibn Zuhrah, the chief of the tribe of Zuhrah as well as its eldest and noblest member. Abd al Muttalib took his son and went with him to the quarter of the tribe of Zuhrah. There, he sought the residence of Wahb and went in to ask for the hand of Wahb's daughter for his son. Some historians claim that Abd al Muttalib went to the residence of Uhayb, uncle of Aminah, assuming that her father had passed away and that she was under the protection of her uncle. On the same day that Abdullah married Aminah, his father Abd al Muttalib married a cousin of hers named Halah. It was thus that the Prophet could have an uncle on his father's side, namely Hamzah, of the same age as he.
As was the custom in those days, Abdullah lived with Aminah among her relatives the first three days of the marriage. Afterwards, they moved together to the quarter of Abd al Muttalib, and soon he was to be called on a trading trip to al Sham. When he left, Aminah was pregnant. A number of stories circulated telling of Abdullah's marriage with other women besides Aminah and of many women's seeking to marry Abdullah. It is not possible to ascertain the truth of such tales. What is certainly true is that Abdullah was a very handsome and strong young man; and it is not at all surprising that other women besides Aminah had wished to marry him. Such women would have at least temporarily given up hope once Abdullah's marriage to Aminah was announced. But who knows! It is not impossible that they may have waited for his return from al Sham hoping that they might still become his wives along with Aminah. Abdullah was absent for several months in Gaza. On his way back he stopped for a longer rest at Medina, where his uncles on his mother's side lived, and was preparing to join a caravan to Mecca when he fell ill. When the caravan reached. Mecca his father was alerted to Abdullah's absence and disease. Abd al Muttalib immediately sent his eldest son al Harith to Medina in order to accompany Abdullah on the trip back to Mecca after his recovery. Upon arriving at Medina, however, al Harith learned that Abdullah had died and that he had been buried in Medina a month after the start of that same caravan to Mecca. Al Harith returned to Mecca to announce the death of Abdullah to his aged father and his bereaved wife Aminah. The shock was tremendous, for Abd al Muttalib loved his son so much as to have ransomed him with a hundred camels, a ransom never equaled before.
Abdullah left five camels, a herd of sheep, and a slave nurse, called Umm Ayman, who was to take care of the Prophet. This patrimony does not prove that Abdullah was wealthy, but at the same time it does not prove that he was poor. Furthermore, Abdullah was still a young man capable of working and of amassing a fortune. His father was still alive and none of his wealth had as yet been transferred to his sons.
The Birth of Muhammad (570 C.E.)
There was nothing unusual about Aminah's pregnancy or delivery. As soon as she delivered her baby, she sent to Abd al Muttalib, who was then at the Kaba, announcing to him the birth of a grandson. The old man was overjoyed at the news and must have remembered on this occasion his loved one Abdullah. He rushed to his daughter-in-law, took her newborn in his hands, went into the Kaba and there called him "Muhammad." This name was not familiar among the Arabs, but it was known. He then returned the infant to his mother and awaited by her side for the arrival of wet nurses from the tribe of Banu Saad in order to arrange for one of them to take care of the new born, as was the practice of Meccan nobility.
Historians have disagreed about the year of Muhammad's birth. Most of them hold that it took place in "the Year of the Elephant," i.e. 570 C.E. Ibn Abbas claims that Muhammad was born on "the Day of the Elephant." Others claim that he was born fifteen years earlier. Still others claim that he was born a few days, months, or years, after "the Year of the Elephant." Some even assert that Muhammad was born thirty years and others seventy years later than "the Year of the Elephant." Historians have also differed concerning the month of Muhammad's birth although the majority of them agree that it was Rabi` al Awwal, the third month of the lunar year. It has also been claimed that he was born in Muharram, in Safar, in Rajab, or in Ramadan. Furthermore, historians have differed as to the day of the month on which Muhammad was born. Some claim that the birth took place on the third, of Rabi` al Awwal; others, on the ninth; and others on the tenth. The majority, however, agree that Muhammad was born on the twelfth of Rabi` al Awwal, the claim of ibn Ishaq and other biographers. Moreover, historians disagreed as to the time of day at which Muhammad was born, as well as to the place of birth. Caussin de Perceval wrote in his book on the Arabs that after weighing the evidence, it is most probable that Muhammad was born in August, 570 C.E., i.e. "the Year of the Elephant," and that he was born in the house of his grandfather Abd al Muttalib in Mecca. On the seventh day after Muhammad's birth, Abd al Muttalib gave a banquet in honor of his grandson to which he invited a number of Qoresh tribesmen and peers. When they inquired from him why he had chosen to name the child Muhammad, thus changing the practice of using the ancestors' names, Abd al Muttalib answered: "I did so with the wish that my grandson would be praised by God in heaven and on earth by men."
Muhammad's Nurses
Aminah waited for the arrival of the wet nurses from the tribe of Banu Saad to choose one for Muhammad, as was the practice of the nobles of Mecca. This custom is still practiced today among Meccan aristocracy. They send their children to the desert on the eighth day of their birth to remain there until the age of eight or ten. Some of the tribes of the desert have a reputation as providers of excellent wet nurses, especially the tribe of Banu Saad. At that time, Aminah gave her infant to Thuwaybah, servant of Muhammad's uncle Abu Lahab, who nursed him for a while as she did his uncle Hamzah later on, making the two brothers-in-nursing. Although Thuwaybah nursed Muhammad but a few days, he kept for her great affection and respect as long as she lived. When she died in 7 A.H. Muhammad remembered to inquire about her son who was also his brother-in-nursing, but found out that he had died before her.
The wet nurses of the tribe of Banu Saad finally arrived at Mecca to seek infants to nurse. The prospect of an orphan child did not much attract them since they hoped to be well rewarded by the father. The infants of widows, such as Muhammad, were not attractive at all. Not one of them accepted Muhammad into her care, preferring the infants of the. living and of the affluent.
Halimah, Daughter of Abu Dhu'ayb
Having spurned him at first as her colleagues had done before her, Halimah al Saadiyyah, daughter of Abu Dhu'ayb, accepted Muhammad into her charge because she had found no other. Thin and rather poor looking, she did not appeal to the ladies of Mecca. When her people prepared to leave Mecca for the desert, Halimah pleaded to her husband al Harith ibn Abd al `Uzza, "By God it is oppressive to me to return with my friends without a new infant to nurse. Surely, I should go back to that orphan and accept him." Her husband answered; "there would be no blame if you did. Perhaps God may even bless us for your doing so." Halimah therefore took Muhammad and carried him with her to the desert. She related that after she took him, she found all kinds of blessings. Her herd became fat and multiplied, and everything around her seemed to prosper.
In the desert Halimah nursed Muhammad for two whole years while her daughter Shayma' cuddled him. The purity of desert air and the hardness of desert living agreed with Muhammad's physical disposition and contributed to his quick growth, sound formation, and discipline. At the completion of the two years, which was also the occasion of his weaning, Halimah took the child to his mother but brought him back with her to the desert to grow up away from Mecca and her epidemics. Biographers disagree whether Halimah's new lease on her charge was arranged after her own or Aminah's wishes. The child lived in the desert for two more years playing freely in the vast expanse under the clear sky and growing unfettered by anything physical or spiritual.
The Story of Splitting Muhammad's Chest
It was in this period and before Muhammad reached the age of three that the following event is said to have happened. It is told that Muhammad was playing in a yard behind the encampment of the tribe with Halimah's son when the latter ran back to his parents and said, "Two men dressed in white took my Qoreshi brother, laid him down, opened his abdomen, and turned him around." It is also reported that Halimah said, -"my husband and I ran towards the boy and found him standing up and pale. When we asked what happened to him, the boy answered, "Two men dressed in white came up to me, laid me down, opened my abdomen and took something I know not what away." The parents returned to their tent fearing that the child had become possessed. They therefore returned him to Mecca to his mother. Ibn Ishaq reported a hadith issuing from the Prophet after his commission confirming this incident. But he was careful enough to warn the reader that the real reason for Muhammad's return to his mother was not the story of the two angels but, as Halimah was to report to Muhammad's mother later on, the fact that a number of Abyssinian Christians wanted to take Muhammad away with them once they had seen him after his weaning. According to Halimah's report, the Abyssinians had said to one another, "Let us take this child with us to our country and our king, for we know he is going to be of consequence." Halimah could barely disengage herself from them and run away with her protege. This story is also told by al Tabari, but he casts suspicion on it by reporting it first at this early year of Muhammad's age as well as later, just before the Prophet's commission at the age of forty.
Orientalists and many Muslim scholars do not trust the story and find the evidence therefore spurious. The biographies agree that the two men dressed in white were seen by children hardly beyond their second year of age which constitutes no witness at all and that Muhammad lived with the tribe of Banu Saad in the desert until he was five. The claim that this event had taken place while Muhammad was two and a half years old and that Halimah and her husband returned the child to his mother immediately thereafter contradicts this general consensus. Consequently, some writers have even asserted that Muhammad returned with Halimah for the third time. The Orientalist, Sir William Muir, refuses even to mention the story of the two men in white clothes. He wrote that if Halimah and her husband had become aware of something that had befallen the child, it must have been a sort of nervous breakdown, which could not at all have hurt Muhammad's healthy constitution.
Others claim that Muhammad stood in no need of any such surgery as God had prepared him at birth for receiving the divine message. Dermenghem believes that this whole story has no foundation other than the speculative interpretations of the following Quranic verses:
"Had we not revived your spirit [opened your chest] and dissipated your burden which was galling your back."[Q 94:1-3]
Certainly, in these verses the Quran is pointing to something purely spiritual. It means to describe a purification of the heart as preparation for receipt of the divine message and to stress Muhammad's over-taxing burden of prophethood.
Those Orientalists and Muslim thinkers who take this position vis-à-vis the foregoing tradition do so in consideration of the fact that the life of Muhammad was human through and through and that in order to prove his prophethood the Prophet never had recourse to miracle-mongering as previous prophets had done. This finding is corroborated by Arab and Muslim historians who consistently assert that the life of the Arab Prophet is free of anything irrational or mysterious and who regard the contrary as inconsistent with the Quranic position that God's creation is rationally analyzable, that His laws are immutable, and that the pagans are blameworthy because they do not reason.
Muhammad in the Desert
Until the fifth year of his life Muhammad remained with the tribe of Banu Saad inhaling with the pure air of the desert the spirit of personal freedom and independence. From this tribe he learned the Arabic language in its purest and most classical form. Justifiably, Muhammad used to tell his companions, "I am the most Arab among you, for I am of the tribe of Qoresh and I have been brought up among the tribe of Banu Saad ben Bakr."
These five years exerted upon Muhammad a most beautiful and lasting influence, as Halimah and her people remained the object of his love and admiration all the length of his life. When, following his marriage with Khadija a drought occurred and Halimah came to visit Muhammad, she returned with a camel loaded with water and forty heads of cattle. Whenever Halimah visited Muhammad, he stretched out his mantle for her to sit on as a sign of the respect he felt he owed her. Shayma', Halimah's daughter, was taken captive by the Muslim forces along with Banu Hawazin after the seige of Ta‘if. When she was brought before Muhammad, he recognized her, treated her well, and sent her back to her people as she wished.
The young Muhammad returned to his mother after five years of desert life. It is related that when Halimah brought the boy into Mecca, she lost him in the outskirts of the city. 'Abd al Muttalib sent his scouts to look for him and he was found with Waraqah ibn Nawfal. 'Abd al Muttalib took his grandson under his protection, and made him the object of great love and affection. As lord of Qoresh and master of the whole of Mecca, the aged leader used to sit on a cushion laid out in the shade of the Kaba. His children would sit around that cushion, not on it, in deference to their father. But whenever Muhammad joined the group, 'Abd al Muttalib would bring him close to him and ask him to sit on the cushion. He would pat the boy's back and show off his pronounced affection for him so that Muhammad's uncles could never stop him from moving ahead of them to his grandfather's side.
Muhammad Becomes Orphan
The grandson was to become the object of yet greater endearment to his grandfather. His mother, Aminah, took him to Medina in order to acquaint him with her uncles, the Banu al Najjar. She took with her on that trip Umm Ayman, the servant left behind by her husband Abdullah. In Medina, Aminah must have shown her little boy the house where his father died as well as the grave where he was buried. It was then that the boy must have first learned what it means to be an orphan. His mother must have talked much to him about his beloved father who had left her a few days after their marriage, and who had met his death among his uncles in Medina. After his emigration to that city the Prophet used to tell his companions about this first trip to Medina in his mother's company. The traditions have preserved for us a number of sayings, which could have come only from a man full of love for Medina and full of grief for the loss of those who were buried in its graves. After a stay of a month in Yathrib, Aminah prepared to return to Mecca with her son and set out on the same two camels, which carried them thither. On the road, at the village of Abwa [23 from Medina], Aminah became ill, died, and was buried. It was Umm Ayman that brought the lonely and bereaved child to Mecca, henceforth doubly confirmed in orphanhood. A few days earlier he must have shared his mother's grief as she told him of her bereavement while he was yet unborn. Now he was to see with his own eyes the loss of his mother and add to his experience of shared grief that of a grief henceforth to be borne by him alone.
The Death of Abd al Muttalib
The doubled orphanhood of Muhammad increased Abd al Muttalib's affection for him. Nonetheless, his orphanhood cut deeply into Muhammad's soul. Even the Quran had to console the Prophet reminding him, as it were, "Did God not find you an orphan and give you shelter and protection? Did He not find you erring and guide you to the truth?" [Q 93:6-7] It would have been somewhat easier on the orphaned boy had Abd al Muttalib lived longer than he did, to the ripe age of eighty when Muhammad was still only eight years old. The boy must have felt the loss just as strongly as he had felt that of his mother. At the funeral Muhammad cried continuously; thereafter, the memory of his grandfather was ever present to his mind despite all the care and protection which his uncle Abu Talib gave him before and after his commission to prophet hood. The truth is that the passing of Abd al Muttalib was a hard blow to the whole clan of Banu Hashim, for none of his children had ever come to enjoy the respect and position, the power, wisdom, generosity, and influence among all Arabs as he had. Abd al Muttalib fed the pilgrim gave him to drink, and came to the rescue of any Meccan in his hour of need. His children, on the other hand, never achieved that much. The poor among them were unable to give because they had little or nothing and the rich were too stingy to match their father's generosity. Consequently, the clan of Banu Umayyah prepared to take over the leadership of Mecca, till then enjoyed by Banu Hashim, undaunted by any opposition the latter might put forth.
Under Abu Talib's Protection
The protection of Muhammad now fell to Abu Talib, his uncle. Abu Talib was not the eldest of the brothers. A1 Harith was the eldest but he was not prosperous enough to expand his household responsibilities. A1 Abbas, on the other hand, was the richest but he was not hospitable: he undertook the siqayah alone and refused to assume responsibility for the rifadah. Despite his poverty, Abu Talib was the noblest and the most hospitable and, therefore, the most respected among the Qoresh. No wonder that the protection of Muhammad devolved upon him.
The First Trip to al Sham
Abu Talib loved his nephew just as Abd al Muttalib had done before him. He loved him so much that he gave him precedence over his own children. The uprightness, intelligence, charity, and good disposition of Muhammad strengthened the uncle's attachment to him. Even when Muhammad was twelve years old, Abu Talib did not take him along on his trade trips thinking that he was too young to bear the hardship of desert travel. It was only after Muhammad's strong insistence that Abu Talib permitted the child to accompany him and join the trip to al Sham. In connection with this trip which he took at an early age, the biographers relate Muhammad's encounter with the monk Bahirah at Busra, in the southern region of al Sham. They tell how the monk recognized in Muhammad the signs of prophethood as told in Christian books. Other traditions relate that the monk had advised Abu Talib not to take his nephew too far within al Sham for fear that the Jews would recognize the signs and harm the boy.
On this trip Muhammad must have learned to appreciate the vast expanse of the desert and the brilliance of the stars shining in its clear atmosphere. He must have passed through Madyan, Wadi al Qur'a, the lands of Thamud, and his attentive ears must have listened to the conversation of the Arabs and desert nomads about the cities and their history. On this trip, too, Muhammad must have witnessed the luscious green gardens of al Sham which far surpassed those of Ta'if back at home. These gardens must have struck his imagination all the more strongly as he compared them with the barren dryness of the desert and of the mountains surrounding Mecca. It was in al Sham that he came to know of Byzantine and Christian history and heard of the Christians' scriptures and of their struggle against the fire worshipping Persians. True, he was only at the tender age of twelve, but his great soul, intelligence, maturity, power of observation, memory and all the other qualities with which he was endowed in preparation for his prophet hood enabled him at an early age to listen perceptively and to observe details. Later on he would review in memory all that he had seen or heard and he would investigate it all in solitude, asking himself, "what, of all he has seen and heard, is the truth?"
In all likelihood, Abu Talib's trip to al Sham did not bring in much income. He never undertook another trip and was satisfied to remain in Mecca living within his means and taking care of his many children. Muhammad lived with his uncle, satisfied with his lot. There, Muhammad grew like any other child would in the city of Mecca. During the holy months he would either remain with his relatives or accompany them to the neighboring markets at `Ukaz, Majannah, and Dhu al Majaz. There he would listen to the [annual] recitations of the Mudhahhabat and Mu'allaqat poems and be enchanted by their eloquence, their erotic lyricism, the pride and noble lineage of their heroes, their conquests, hospitality, and magnanimity. All that the visits to these market places presented to his consciousness, he would later review, approve of, and admire or disapprove of and condemn. There, too, he would listen to the speeches of Christian and Jewish Arabs who strongly criticized the paganism of their fellow countrymen, who told about the scriptures of Jesus and Moses, and called men to what they believed to be the truth. Muhammad would review and weigh these views, preferring them to the paganism of his people, though not quite convinced of their claims to the truth. Thus Muhammad's circumstances exposed him at a tender age to what might prepare him for the great day, the day of the first revelation, when God called him to convey His message of truth and guidance to all mankind.
The Fijar War
Just as Muhammad learned the routes of the caravans in the desert from his Uncle Abu Talib, and just as he listened to the poets and the orators in the markets around Mecca during the holy months, he learned how to bear arms. In the Fijar [immoral] War, he stood on the side of his uncle. The war was so-called because, unlike other wars, it was fought during the holy months. Arabia stood then under the convention that during the holy months no tribe should undertake any hostile activity against another; the general peace permitted the markets of `Ukaz between Ta'if and Mecca, of Majannah and Dhu al Majaz in the proximity of `Arafat, to be held and to prosper. On these market occasions, men were not restricted to trade. They competed with one another in poetry and debated, and they performed a pilgrimage to their gods in the Kaba. The market at `Ukaz was the most famous in Arabia. There, the authors of the Mu'allaqat poems recited their poetry. Archbishop Quss of Najran exercised his oratory and Jews, Christians and pagans spoke freely each about his faith in the peace and security that the holy months provided.
In violation of the holiness of such months, al Barrad ibn Qays al Kinani stealthily attacked `Urwah al Rahhal ibn Utbah al Hawazini and killed him. Every year at this time, al Nu'man ibn al Mundhir, King of Hirah, used to send a caravan to `Ukaz to bring thither a load of musk and to take hence a load of hides, ropes, and brocade from Yaman. A1 Barrad al Kinani offered his services to guide the caravan as it passed through the lands of his tribe, namely Kinanah. `Urwah al Hawazini did likewise and offered to guide the caravan through the Hijaz on the road of Najd. King al Nu'man chose `Urwah and rejected the offer of al Barrad. The latter, enraged with jealously, followed the caravan, committed his crime, and ran away with the caravan itself. A1 Barrad then informed Bishr ibn Abu Hazim that the tribe of Hawazin would avenge the murder of `Urwah from Qoresh because the crime took place within the area under Qoresh jurisdiction. Indeed, members of the tribe of Hawazin followed members of the tribe of Qoresh and caught up with them before the latter entered the holy sanctuary. Hawazin, not yet satisfied, warned that they would make war next year at `Ukaz. This war continued to rage between the two parties for four consecutive years. It ended in reconciliation and a peace treaty, very much the kind of arrangement usually met with in the desert. The tribe with the lesser number of casualties would pay the other tribe the blood wit of the victims making up the difference. In the arrangement between Qoresh and Hawazin, the former paid the latter the blood wit of twenty men. Henceforth, al Barrad became the exemplar of mischief. History has not established the age of Muhammad during the Fijar War. Reports that he was fifteen and twenty years old have circulated. Perhaps the difference is due to the fact that the Fijar War lasted at least four years. If Muhammad saw its beginning at the age of fifteen, he must have been close to twenty at the conclusion of the peace.
There is apparent consensus as to the kind of participation that Muhammad had in this war. Some people claim that he was charged with collecting the arrows falling within the Meccan camp and bringing them over to his uncle for re-use against the enemy. Others claim that he himself participated in the shooting of these arrows. Since the said War lasted four years, it is not improbable that both claims are true. Years after his commission to prophet hood, Muhammad said, "I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!"
The Alliance of Fudul
Following the Fijar War, the Qoresh realized that their tragedy and deterioration as well as all the loss of Mecca's prestige in Arabia which they entailed ever since the death of Hisham and Abd al Muttalib were largely due to their disagreement and internal division. They realized that once they were the unquestioned leaders of Arabia, immune to all attacks, but that every tribe was now anxious to pick a fight with them and deprive them of what was left of their prestige and authority. With this recognition, al Zubayr ibn Abd al Muttalib called together the houses of Hashim, Zuhrah, and Taym and entertained them at the residence of Abdullah ibn Jud'an. At his request and appeal, they covenanted together, making God their witness, that they will henceforth and forever stand on the side of the victim of injustice. Muhammad attended the conclusion of this pact, which the Arabs called the Alliance of Fudul [Charity], and said, "I uphold the pact concluded in my presence when ibn Jud'an gave us a great banquet. Should it ever be invoked, I shall immediately rise to answer the call."
In the Fijar War, hostilities were waged only during a few days every year. During the rest of the year the Arabs returned to their normal occupations. Neither losses in property nor in life were grave enough to change the Meccans' daily routines of trade, usury, wine, women, and other kinds of entertainment. Was this Muhammad's daily routine as well? Or did his poverty and dependence upon his uncle for protection force him to stay away from the luxury and extravagance of his contemporaries? That he kept away from these indulgences is historically certain. That he did so not on account of his poverty is equally certain. The debauchees of Mecca who were hardly capable of providing for themselves the immediate needs of the day could still afford their life of turpitude. Indeed, some of the poorest among them could outdo the nobles of Mecca and the lords of Qoresh. Rather, the soul of Muhammad was far too possessed by his will to learn, to discover, and to know, to incline towards any such depravities. His having been deprived as a boy of the learning, which was the privilege of the rich, made him all the more anxious to learn on his own. His great soul whose light was later to fill the world and whose influence was to fashion history was so involved in its will to perfection that Muhammad could only turn away from the recreative pursuits of his fellow Meccans. As one already guided by the truth, Muhammad's mind was always turning towards the light of life evident in every one of its manifestations in the world. His constant preoccupation was with the discovery of the underlying truth of life, the perfection of its inner meaning. Ever since he was a youth his conduct was so perfect, manly, and truthful that all the people of Mecca agreed to call him "al Amin", or "the truthful", "the loyal."
Muhammad as Herdsman
Muhammad's occupation as herdsman during the years of his youth provided him with plenty of leisure to ponder and to contemplate. He took care of his family and neighbors' herds. Later, he used to recall these early days with joy, and say proudly that "God sent no prophet who was not a herdsman . . . Moses was a herdsman; David was also a herdsman; I, too, was commissioned to prophet hood while I grazed my family's cattle at Ajyad." The intelligent sensitive herdsman would surely find in the vastness of the atmosphere during the day and in the brilliance of the stars during the night fair enticement to thinking and contemplation. He would try to penetrate the skies, to seek an explanation for the manifestations of nature around him. If he were profound enough, his thoughts would bring him to realize that the world around him is not quite separate from the world within him. He would ponder the fact that he takes the atmosphere into his lungs that without it he would die. He would realize that the light of the sun revives him, that that of the moon guides him, and that he is not without relation to the heavenly bodies of the high and immense firmament. He would ponder the fact that these heavenly bodies are well ordered together in a precise system in which neither sun overtakes the moon nor night overtakes the day. If the security of this herd of animals demanded his complete and constant attention, if it were to be safeguarded against attack by the wolf and loss in the desert dunes, what supreme attention and what perseverence were needed to guard the order of the universe in all its detail! Such speculative thought can indeed divert man from preoccupation with worldly cares and passions; it can pull him beyond their apparent persuasiveness and appeal. Thus, in all his deeds, Muhammad never allowed anything to detract from his reputation, but answered to every expectation to which his nickname "al Amin" gave rise.
Further evidence to this effect may be found in the reports Muhammad made about this early period of his life. It is said that while he was a herdsman he had a companion whom he asked to take over his duties while he spent the night in town in some recreation as other youths were wont to do in those days. Before he reached his destination, however, Muhammad's attention was arrested by a wedding in one of the houses on the way. He stopped there to listen to the sounds emanating from the house and fell asleep. He came back to Mecca on another occasion for the same purpose, and again on the way his attention was arrested by the sound of beautiful music. He sat down on the street to listen, and again fell asleep. The temptations of Mecca had no power over the disciplined soul of Muhammad whose prime concern was contemplation. This is not surprising. Far lesser men than Muhammad have also overcome these temptations. He led a life far removed from vice and immorality, and found his pleasures in immersing himself in thought and contemplation.
The Life of Thought and Contemplation
The life of thought is satisfied with very little of the world's wealth and pleasure. Herding cattle and goats never brings much material return, anyway. Material return, however, did not concern Muhammad, for he regarded the world stoically and avoided, often with ascetic detachment, pursuing anything beyond the barest needs of survival. Did he not say, "We are a people who do not eat until we become hungry, a people who when sitting to eat would never eat their fill?" Was he not known throughout his life to call men to a life of hardness and himself to lead a life of stoic self-denial? Those who long after wealth and strive hard to obtain it satisfy passions which Muhammad never knew. Muhammad's greatest spiritual pleasure was that of beholding the beauty of the universe and responding to its invitation to ponder and to admire. Such pleasure is known only to the very few, but it was Muhammad's nourishment ever since he was a young child, and it was his only consolation when life began to try him with the unforgettably cruel misfortunes of the death of his father, of his mother, and of his grandfather. Spiritual and intellectual pleasures are free. Their pursuit demands no wealth but requires the moral tautness to direct one's gaze inward, to penetrate one's very essence. Even if Muhammad had never been called to prophet hood, his soul would never have allowed him to waste his energy in the pursuit of wealth. He would have been happy to remain as he was namely, a herdsman-but he would have been a herdsman whose soul encompassed the whole universe and was in turn encompassed by that universe as if he were the very center of it.
Khadija
As we have said earlier, Muhammad's uncle, Abu Talib, was poor and had many mouths to feed. It was necessary that he find for his nephew a higher paying job than herdsmanship. One day he heard that Khadija, daughter of Khuwaylid, was hiring men of the Qoresh tribe to work for her in her trade. Khadija was a tradeswoman of honor and great wealth. She used to hire men to bid and compete in the market on her behalf and rewarded them with a share of the profits. Being of the tribe of Banu Asad and having married twice within the tribe of Banu Makhzum, she had become very rich. Her father Khuwaylid and other people whom she trusted used to help her administer her large wealth. She had turned down several noblemen of Qoresh who asked for her hand, believing that they were after her wealth. Bound to a life of solitude, she had given all her energy to the development of her business. When Abu Talib learned that she was preparing a caravan to send to al Sham, he called his nephew, who was then twenty-five years of age, and said to him, "My nephew, I am a man devoid of wealth and possessions. The times have been hard on us. I have heard that Khadija has hired a man to do her trade for a remuneration of two young camels. We shall not accept for you a remuneration as little as that. Do you wish that I talk to her in this regard?" Muhammad answered, "let it be as you say my uncle." Abu Talib went to Khadija and said, “O Khadija, would you hire Muhammad? We have heard that you have hired a man for the remuneration of two young camels, but we would not accept for Muhammad any less than four." Khadija answered: "Had you asked this for an alien or a hateful man, I would have granted your request. How then can I turn you down when your request is in favor of a dear relative?" Abu Talib returned to Muhammad and told him the news, adding, "That is a true grace from God."
Muhammad's Employment with Khadija
On his first trip in the employ of Khadija, Muhammad was accompanied by Maysarah, her slave, who was also recommended to Muhammad by his uncle. The caravan made its way to al Sham, passing through Wad! Al Zahran, Madyan and Thamud as well as those spots through which Muhammad had passed once before with his uncle Abu Talib when he was twelve years old. This trip must have recalled to Muhammad the memory of his first trip in that area. It furnished more grist for his thinking and contemplating as he came to know more of the doctrines and rituals of the people of al Sham. When he arrived at Busrah, he came into contact with Syrian Christianity and talked to the monks and priests, some of whom were Nestorians. Perhaps those very priests or some others discussed with him the religion of Jesus which had by then divided itself into several sects and parties. Muhammad's adeptness and loyalty enabled him to make great gains for Khadija-indeed more than anyone had done before! -And his loyalty and gentleness had won for him the love and admiration of the slave, Maysarah. When the time came for them to return, Muhammad bought on behalf of Khadija all that she had asked him to buy of the products of al Sham.
When the caravan had returned to al Zahran near Mecca, Maysarah said to Muhammad, "Run to Khadija, O Muhammad, and bring to her the news of your success. She will reward you well." Muhammad galloped on his camel toward the residence of his employer and arrived there about noon. Khadija happened to be in an upper story of her house, saw Muhammad coming, and prepared to receive him. She listened to his report which he must have rendered in his very eloquent style about his trip, the successes he achieved in his trade, and the goods he had imported from al Sham. She must have been well pleased with her new employee. Later on, Maysarah arrived and reported to her about Muhammad, his gentle treatment of him and his loyalty to her that confirmed what she had already known of Muhammad's virtue and superiority over the other youths of Mecca. Shortly, despite her forty years of age and the indifference with which she rejected the offers of the noblest of Qoresh, her satisfaction with her employee was to turn into love. She desired to marry this youth whose eloquence and looks had made such a. profound impression upon her. According to one version, she intimated her desire to her sister, and according to another, to her friend Nufaysah, daughter of Munyah. Nufaysah approached Muhammad and said, "What prevents you from getting married?" Muhammad answered; "I have no means with which to afford it." She said, "What if you were excused from providing such means and were called by a person of beauty, wealth, status and honor; what would be your response?" He answered, "Who can such a person be?" She said, "Khadija." Muhammad wondered, "How could that be?" He too had felt inclined toward Khadija but he never allowed himself to entertain the idea of marrying her. He knew of her rejection of the noblest and wealthiest men of Qoresh. When, therefore, Nufaysah reported to him in answer to his question, "I shall arrange it," he hastened to declare his acceptance. Soon Khadija appointed the hour at which the uncles of Muhammad could find her people at her home and thus arrange for the completion of the marriage. It was her uncle, `Umar ibn Asad, who gave her away as her father Khuwaylid had died before the Fijar War. This fact disproves the claim that Khadija's father did not agree to the marriage and that his daughter had given him wine in order to extract such agreement from him.
Here a new page in the life of Muhammad begins. It is the page of married and family life which had brought great happiness to him as well as to Khadija. It was also a page of fatherhood in which he was to suffer the loss of children even as Muhammad had in his childhood suffered the loss of parents.
From Marriage to Prophethood
Muhammad married Khadija and gave her a dowry of twenty young camels. He moved to her house and thus began a new chapter in the life of both. Muhammad offered Khadija the love of a man of twenty-five, though not the raging passion of youth which is as quickly kindled as cooled or put off. Khadija gave him sons as well as daughters. The sons, namely al Qasim and Abdullah, died in childhood to the great grief of their father. The daughters survived and constantly remained the object of Muhammad's love and compassion just as he was the object of their love and devotion.
Muhammad's Qualities
Muhammad was handsome of face and of medium build, and neither conspicuously tall nor inconspicuously short. He had a large head, very black thick hair, wide forehead, heavy eyebrows, and large black eyes with a slight redness on their sides and long eyelashes to add to their attractiveness. He had a fine nose, well-spaced teeth, a thick beard, a long handsome neck, wide chest and shoulders, light colored skin, and thick palms and feet. He walked resolutely with firm steps. His appearance was always one of deep thought and contemplation. In his eyes there lurked the authority of a commander of men. It is no wonder that Khadija combined love for him with obedience to his wishes or that she soon excused him from having to administer her trade and took over its reins as she had done before marriage in order to give him leisure to pursue a life of contemplation.
Aided by a marriage which complemented his geneological honor and provided amply for his needs, Muhammad spent his days respected and loved by all the people of Mecca. His family life, numerous offspring, along with the ample provisions he now enjoyed, kept him from falling in public esteem. On the other hand, Muhammad had not withdrawn from society, from participating in the public life of Mecca as he did before. His new status added to his prestige among his peers as well as strengthened his already great modesty. Despite his great intelligence and outstanding ability, he listened well and attentively to anyone who spoke to him, never turning his face away from his interlocutor. Whosoever addressed him, Muhammad was never satisfied to lend his ear alone but turned to him with all his being. He spoke little, listened much, and inclined only to serious conversation though he did not refuse to share a joke. He always spoke the truth. Sometimes he would laugh until one could see his molars, but his anger could never be recognized except by perspiration between his eyebrows. His anger and fury were always sublimated, and his magnanimity, candidness, and loyalty knew no bounds. He loved to do the good, and was charitable, hospitable, and friendly, as well as resolved and strong willed. Once resolved on a course of action, he was persevering and knew no hesitancy. Whoever came into contact with him was deeply impressed by all these qualities; whoever saw him would immediately fear him; and whoever had anything to do with him, loved him. All these qualities helped strengthen the bond of loyalty, truthfulness, and love which united him to Khadija.
Reconstruction of the Kaba
We have said that Muhammad did not withdraw from the people of Mecca or from participating in the public life of the city. At the time, the Meccans were preoccupied with the rebuilding of the Kaba after a sudden flood had shaken its foundation and cracked its walls. The Kaba had for some time been the concern of the Qoresh. It had no ceiling and the treasures it housed were exposed to robbery. The Meccans were afraid, however, that a rebuilding of the Kaba with doors and ceilings might bring upon them a curse. The Kaba was girded by a series of superstitions designed to frighten the people from ever altering anything that pertained to it. Any such change would have been regarded as forbidden innovation and anathema. When the floods cracked its walls, it was imperative to do something about it despite fear and hesitancy. Coincidentally, a ship coming from Egypt belonging to a Byzantine trader called Pachomius was washed ashore. Pachomius was a builder by trade and knew something of carpentry. When Qoresh heard of him, al Walid ibn al Mughirah headed a delegation of Meccans to Juddah to negotiate with him. They bought from him the ship and commissioned him to come with them to Mecca and help them in the building of the Kaba. Pachomius accepted. In Mecca, there resided another Coptic man who knew something of carpentry. They asked him to assist Pachomius and the work began.
Wrecking and Rebuilding the Kaba
To every one of the four clans of Mecca fell the duty of wrecking and rebuilding one of the four walls of the Kaba. No one, however, volunteered to begin the work of wrecking for fear of punishment by its gods. Al Walid ibn al Mughirah, approaching his task with strong premonitions, prayed to the gods before pulling down part of the Yamani wall assigned to his tribe. The rest waited in order to see what would befall al Walid as a result of his deed. When the morning came and nothing had happened to him, they took courage and began their work. Like the rest, Muhammad carried stones back and forth, and the wrecking continued until the Kaba was leveled. Below the walls green stones were found which the Meccans were unable to shake loose. They decided to use them as foundation on which to build the new walls. From the neighboring mountains, they carried stones of blue granite. As the walls rose from the ground and the time came to place the sacred black stone in its place in the east wall, they differed as to who would have the honor of laying it in place. Competition was so keen that it almost led to a new civil war. The descendents of Abd al Dar and of `Adiyy allied themselves together and swore that none would rob them of this honor. They were so serious in their resolution that members of the clan of Banu Abd al Dar brought a bowl full of blood in which they dipped their hands in confirmation of their solemn oath. For this act they were later called "the blood mongers". When Abu Umayyah, son of Mughirah al Makhzumi saw what happened, he took advantage of his power and prestige and said to the Meccans, "While we are all standing here, let the first one to pass through the gate of al Suffah be our arbitrator in this dispute." The first one to pass through the gate was Muhammad. When they beheld him they said, "There goes al Amin. We shall agree with his verdict." Realizing, as he listened to them, that the contenders had worked themselves up into a passion, Muhammad thought for a moment and said, "bring me a robe." He took the robe they brought, spread it on the ground, and placed the black stone on it and then said, "Let the elders of each clan hold onto one edge of the robe." They all complied and together carried the stone to the site of construction. There, Muhammad picked up the stone and laid it in its place by himself. Bloodshed was thus averted and the dispute was solved. The Qoresh completed the building of the Kaba, raising its walls to a height of eighteen cubits. In order to make it more defensible, they raised its entrance above ground level. Inside the Kaba, they erected two parallel rows of three pillars each to support the ceiling and built a stairway on its north side leading to the roof. Hubal, the idol, was placed inside the Kaba together with all the treasures whose security concerned the Meccans.
There is disagreement about the age of Muhammad at the time of the rebuilding of the Kaba and of his arbitration between the Qoresh clans concerning the black stone. While some claimed that he was twenty-five years old, Ibn Ishaq reported him to be thirty-five. Regardless which of the two claims is true, the acceptance by the Qoresh of his arbitration and verdict as well as his taking over the stone with his own hands and laying it down first on the robe and then in its place in the wall all this proves the very high prestige Muhammad enjoyed among all Meccans as well as appreciation by his fellow countrymen for his objectivity and candidness of purpose.
Dissolution of Authority in Mecca and Its Effects
The foregoing dispute between the clans, the alliance of "the blood mongers," and the recourse to arbitration by the first man to pass through the gates of al Suffah, all proved that public power and authority in Mecca had by that time dissolved and that none of the absolute power of Qusayy, Hashim, or Abd al Muttalib had passed to any Meccan. Undoubtedly, this dissolution was furthered by the power struggle between Banu Hashim and Banu Umayyah after the death of Abd al Muttalib. Such dissolution of public power and authority was bound to harm the city sooner or later were it not for the sanctified status of the ancient house and the awe and reverence it commanded in the hearts of all Arabs. Nonetheless, a natural consequence of political dissolution was the noticeable increase in the liberty of many to speak out their religious and other views. It was equally evident in the boldness of Jews and Christians, hitherto living in fear, publicly to criticize
Arab idolatry. This dissolution of public power also contributed to the gradual disappearance among large numbers of Qoreshis of their old veneration of the idols, though their elders continued at least to appear to respect them. Anxious to safeguard the old ways, the elders held that to stabilize the situation and to prevent further deterioration of Meccan unity, idol worship in the Kaba might preserve for Mecca its place in the trade relations and religious life of Arabia. In fact, Mecca continued to benefit from this position of religious eminence, and its commerce continued to prosper. In the hearts of the Meccans themselves, however, Meccan prosperity could not for long impede the deterioration and final disappearance of idol worship.
Dissolution of Idol Worship
It is reported that one day the Qoresh tribe convened at a place called Nakhlah to celebrate the day of the goddess al `Uzza. Four Qoreshis failed to show up and participate in this sacrament: namely, Zayd ibn `Amr, Uthman bin al Huwayrith, `Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh and Waraqah ibn Nawfal. They are reported to have addressed one another in these words, "Mark well these words! By God, the people are unworthy and surely misguided. As for us, we shall circumambulate no stone which neither hears nor sees, which is capable of neither harm nor good and on which the blood of sacrifice runs. O people, seek for yourselves a religion other than this!" Waraqah joined Christianity, and it is reported that he translated into Arabic some of the contents of the Evangels. `Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh remained a man without religion until he joined Islam and emigrated with his fellow Muslims to Abyssinia. There it is reported that he joined Christianity and died a Christian. His wife Umm Habibah, daughter of Abu Sufyan, remained a Muslim. She returned to Medina and became one of the wives of the Prophet and a "Mother of the Faithful”. As for Zayd ibn `Amr, he separated himself from his wife and from his uncle al Khattab, lived for a while in al Sham and `Iraq and returned to Arabia without ever joining either Judaism or Christianity. He also separated himself from Meccan religion and avoided the idols. Leaning on the walls of the Kaba he used to pray, "O God! If I knew in which form you preferred to be worshipped, I would surely worship you in that form." Finally, as for Uthman bin al Huwayrith, a relative of Khadija, he traveled to Byzantium, became a Christian and, for some time, achieved a position of eminence in the imperial court. It is said that he sought to subjugate Mecca to Byzantium and to get himself appointed as the emperor's viceroy. The Meccans finally banished him from Mecca. He joined the Ghassanis in al Sham. From there he sought to cut off the trade route of Mecca, but the Meccans undid his schemes by sending all sorts of gifts to the Ghassani court. There, ibn al Huwayrith died by being poisoned.
Muhammad's Sons
The years passed while Muhammad participated in the public life of Mecca and found in Khadija, the loving woman who gave him many children, the best of all woman companions. She gave him two sons, al Qasim and Abdullah the last of whom was nicknamed al Tahir and al Tayyib-and four daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, Umm Kulthum and Fatimah. Hardly anything is known of al Qasim and Abdullah except that they died before the coming of Islam, while still infants. Undoubtedly their loss caused their parents great grief and affected them deeply. As their mother, Khadija must have received a permanent wound at their loss. She must have turned to her idols, inquisitively asking why the gods did not have mercy on her, and why they did not prevent her happiness from repeated shipwreck by the loss of her children. Certainly, Muhammad must have shared her grief and unhappiness. It is not difficult for us to imagine the depth of their tragedy in an age when daughters used to be buried alive and male descendants were sought after as the substance of life itself indeed more. Sufficient proof of this grief is the fact that Muhammad could not last long without a male heir. When he saw Zayd ibn Harithah offered for sale, he asked Khadija to buy him; no sooner was the new slave bought than Muhammad manumitted and adopted him as a son. He was called Zayd ibn Muhammad, lived under his protection, and became one of his best followers and companions. There was yet more grief ahead for Muhammad when his third son Ibrahim passed away in the Islamic period, after Islam had prohibited the burial of live daughters and declared paradise to stand under the feet of mothers. It is not surprising, therefore, that Muhammad's losses in his children should leave their deep mark upon his life and thought. He must, have been quite shocked when on each of these tragic occasions, Khadija turned to the idols of the Kaba, and sacrificed to Hubal, to al Lat, al `Uzza, and Manat in the hope that these deities would intercede on her behalf and prevent the loss of her children. But Muhammad must have then realized the vanity and futility of these hopes and efforts in his tragic bereavement and great sorrow.
Muhammad's Daughters
Muhammad took care to marry his daughters to good husbands. He married Zaynab, the eldest, to Abu al `As ibn al Rabi` ibn `Abd Shams, whose mother was Khadija's sister, and who was an upright and successful citizen. This marriage proved a happy one despite the separation of the two spouses following Zaynab's emigration to Medina after Islam; as we shall see later. He married Ruqayyah and Umm Kulthum to Utbah and `Utaybah, the sons of his Uncle Abu Lahab. These marriages did not last, for soon after the advent of Islam, Abu Lahab ordered his two sons to divorce their wives. It was `Uthman that married both of them one after the other. Fatimah, who was still a child, did not marry Ali until after Islam.
Still, Muhammad's life during these years was one of well being, peace, and security. Were it not for the loss of his sons, it would have been a very happy one blessed with progeny and Khadija's constant love and loyalty. During this period it was natural for Muhammad to allow his soul to wander, his mind and imagination to contemplate and to listen to the Meccan dialogue concerning their religion, to Jews and Christians concerning theirs, as well as to the tatter's critique of Meccan religion. He could afford to give these problems his time and energy and to concern himself with them far more than could his compatriots. Endowed with such penetrating insight and prepared for conveying the divine message to mankind and ready for guiding their spiritual life to the true path, Muhammad could not enjoy his peace and security while men sank in misguidance and untruth. It was necessary for such a soul as he had to seek the truth perennially and everywhere, for only by such seeking and soul searching would it receive that which God was about to reveal. Despite this keen and noble obsession with the spiritual, this natural impulsion to religion, Muhammad never sought to become a priest nor a wise counselor, such as Waraqah ibn Nawfal and others were, to whom men ran for advice. Rather he sought first to convince himself of the truth, not to pass it on to others. Consequently, he spent long intervals alone, completely absorbed in his thoughts and meditation, and hardly ever given to communicating his ideas to anyone.
The Arabs' Annual Retreat
It was Arabia's custom at the time for the pious and thoughtful to devote a period of each year to a retreat of worship, asceticism, and prayer. They would seek an empty place far away from their people where they could concentrate on their prayers and genuinely seek a new level of seriousness, wisdom, and ethical goodness through meditation. This practice was called tahannuth or tahannuf. Therein Muhammad found the best means of satisfying his will to thinking and meditating. In its solitude he could find a measure of spiritual detachment and peace that would enable his consciousness to screen the whole universe for inspiration and to pursue his thought where it might lead. At the head of Mount Hira', two miles north of Mecca, Muhammad discovered a cave whose perfect silence and total separation from Mecca made of it a perfect place for retreat. In that cave Muhammad used to spend the whole month of Ramadan. He would satisfy himself with the least provisions, carried to him from time to time by a servant, while devoting himself uninterruptedly to his spiritual pursuits in peace, solitude and tranquility. His devotion often caused him to forget himself, to forget his food, and, indeed, to forget the whole world around him. At these moments the very world and existence must have appeared to him like a dream. Through his mind he would turn the pages of all that he had heard and learned, and his search could only whet his appetite for the truth.
Groping after Truth
Muhammad did not hope to find the truth he sought in the narratives of the rabbis or the scriptures of the monks but in the very world surrounding him, in the sky and its stars, moon, and sun, and in the desert with its burning air under the brilliant sun-its impeccable purity enclosed by the light of the moon or that of the stars in the balmy night, in the sea with its countless waves, and in all that which underlies this existence and constitutes its unity of being. It was in the world that Muhammad sought to discover the supreme truth. He sought to unite his soul to it, to penetrate it, and to grasp the secret of its being. He did not take much thought to realize that his peoples' understanding of the nature of this world, of their religiosity and devotion, was all false. Their idols were mere stones-speechless, thoughtless, and powerless. Hubal, al Lat, and al `Uzza, as well as every one of these idols and statues inside or around the Kaba, had never created even so much as a fly and never did Mecca any good. Where was to be found the truth in this vast universe of infinite skies and stars? Is it in the brilliant stars which give men their light and warmth and sends them rain ? Is it in their water, the light and warmth as sources of life to all mankind throughout the world? No! For all these are creatures like the earth itself. Is the truth then behind the sky and their stars, in the boundless space beyond? But what is space? And what is this life which is today and is gone tomorrow? What is its origin and source? Is this world and our presence therein all a mere accident? The world and its life have, however, immutable laws which cannot be the product of circumstances. Men do good and they do evil. But do they do it willingly and deliberately, or is their action a mere instinct which they are powerless to control? It was of such spiritual and psychological problems that Muhammad thought during his solitary retreat in the cave of Hira', and it was in the totality of spirit and life that he sought to discover the truth. His ideas filled his soul, his heart, his consciousness, indeed all his being. This paramount occupation diverted him from the commonplace problems of everyday. When at the end of Ramadan, Muhammad returned to Khadija, his perturbed thoughts showed on his face and caused Khadija to inquire whether he was well. In his devotions during that retreat, did Muhammad follow any one of the known religious schools? That is a question on which scholars disagree. In his Al Kamil fi al Tarikh, ibn Kathir reported some of the current views in answer to this question. Some claimed that Muhammad followed the law of Noah; others, the law of Ibrahim; others, the law of Moses; others the law of Jesus. Others claimed that Muhammad had followed every known law and observed it. Perhaps this last claim is nearer to the truth than the others, for it agrees with what we know of Muhammad's constant search for answers and for ways to the truth.
The True Vision
Whenever the year revolved and the month of Ramadan arrived, Muhammad would return to the cave of Hira' for meditation with a soul yet more ripe and more concerned. After years of preoccupation with such problems, Muhammad began to see in his dream visions of the truth he sought. Contrasted with these visions, the illusory character of this life and the vanity of its ornaments became especially apparent. He had become perfectly convinced that his people had gone utterly astray and that their spiritual lives had been corrupted by their idols and the false beliefs associated with them. He was also convinced that neither the Jews nor the Christians had anything to offer that would save his people from their misguidance. Some truth there certainly was in the claims of both Judaism and Christianity, but there was also a fair measure of falsehood and illusion, of outright paganism, which could not possibly agree with the simple absolute truth beyond all the barren dialectics and futile controversies in which Christians as well as Jews indulged. This simple absolute truth is God, Creator of the universe, other than Whom there is no God. The truth is that God is Lord of the universe, that He is the Compassionate and the Merciful, and that men are responsible for their deeds. "Whoever will do an atom's weight of good, will be rewarded therefore on the Day of Judgment; and whoever does an atom's weight of evil, will like-wise be punished therefor” [Q 29:7-8]. The truth is that paradise and hell are true; that those who worship other gods than God shall dwell in hell and suffer eternal punishment.
When Muhammad retreated into the cave of Hira' as he approached the fortieth year of his age, his soul was fully convinced of the vision of truth he had seen. His mind was cleansed of all illusion and falsehood. His soul was well disciplined by the search for truth and devotion to it. His whole being was now oriented toward the eternal truth, and his whole life was devoted to the pursuit of its path. He had prayed with all his power that God might deliver his people from their misguidance and error. In his retreat he prayed day and night and fasted long periods. He would come down from the cave for a stroll on the desert highway and then return to his retreat, always rethinking, contemplating and reconsidering. This continued for six whole months while Muhammad was unable to tear himself away. Naturally he was scared, and intimated to his wife, Khadija, the fear that he might even be possessed by an evil spirit. His loving and loyal wife reassured him, reminding that he was al Amin" [faithful], that evil spirits could not approach him precisely because of his faith and strong morality. It had never occurred to either that God was preparing His chosen one by means of all these spiritual exercises for a truly great day, the day of the great news, the day of the first revelation. It did not occur to them that God was preparing His Prophet for prophet hood.
The Beginning of Revelation (610 C.E.)
One day, while Muhammad was asleep in the cave, an angel approached with a sheet in his hand. The angel said to Muhammad, "Read." Muhammad answered in surprise, "What shall I read?" He felt as if the angel had strangled and then released him and heard once more the command, "Read." Muhammad's reply was, "What shall I read?" Once more he felt the angel strangling and then releasing him, and he heard him repeat the command, "Read." For the third time Muhammad answered, "What shall I read?" fearful that this time the strangling would be stronger. The angel replied, "Read in the name of your Lord, the Creator, Who created man of a clot of blood. Read! Your Lord is most gracious. It is He who taught man by the pen that which he does not know” [Q 96:1-5.], Muhammad recited these verses, repeating them after the angel who withdrew after they were permanently carved upon his memory. Thus the earliest of the biographies reported, and so did ibn Ishaq. Many of the Muhaddithun [hadith writers] have reported likewise. Some of them have claimed that the beginning of revelation was in the hours of wakefulness, and they mention a hadith to the effect that Gabriel first said words of reassurance to assuage Muhammad's fear at his appearance. In his Al Kamil fi al Tarikh, Ibn Kathir gave a quotation from the book, Dala'il al Nubuwwah by Abu Na'im al Isbahani, in which the latter reported that `Alqamah ibn Qays had said, "The first revelations come to the prophets in their sleep until their hearts are reassured. Thereafter, revelation comes any time of the day or night." To this report Abu Na'im added, "This report comes to me from `Alqamah ibn Qays in person. It is sound and reasonable, and it is corroborated by that which comes before and after it."
Muhammad's Fear
Stricken with panic, Muhammad arose and asked himself, "What did I see? Did possession of the devil which I feared all along come to pass?" Muhammad looked to his right and his left but saw nothing. For a while he stood there trembling with fear and stricken with awe. He feared the cave might be haunted and that he might run away still unable to explain what he saw. He walked in the area around the mountain asking himself who could have commanded him to read. Until that day in his retreat, Muhammad used to have visions of the truth dawning upon him after his meditation and filling his consciousness with great light. In these visions, Muhammad was guided to the truth, his doubts were dissolved, and the darkness which had enveloped the Qoresh in their idol worship was exposed. This light that illuminated the way in front of him was that of the truth which provided him with true guidance. It was the One and only God. But who was this who came to remind Muhammad of Him, that He had created man, and that He was the most gracious who taught man by the pen that which he does not know? Pursued by his own questioning and still trembling in fear of what he had seen and heard in the cave, Muhammad stopped in the middle of the road when the same voice called to him from above. Mesmerized in his place, Muhammad lifted his head toward heaven. He saw the angel in the form of a human giant across the sky. For a moment he sought to escape, but wherever he looked or ran, the angel stood right there before him. In his absence from the cave a messenger from Khadija looked for him and could not find him. Filled with what he had seen, Muhammad returned home once the angel disappeared. His state was one of extreme dread. He had literally experienced the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans.
Khadija, the Faithful
As Muhammad entered his house he asked Khadija to wrap him in blankets. She could see that her husband was shivering as if struck with high fever. When he calmed down, he cast toward his wife the glance of a man in need of rescue and said, "O Khadija, what has happened to me?" He told her of his experience and intimated to her his fear that his mind had finally betrayed him, and that he was becoming a seer or a man possessed. Khadija was still the same angel of mercy, peace, and reassurance she had always been. As she did on earlier occasions when Muhammad feared possession by the devil, she now stood firm by her husband and devoid of the slightest doubt. Respectfully, indeed reverently, she said to him, "Joy to my cousin! Be firm. By him who dominates Khadija's soul I pray and hope that you will be the Prophet of this nation. By God, He will not let you down. You will be kind to your kin; your speech will all be true; you will rescue the weary; entertain the guest and help the truth to prevail."
Reassured, Muhammad thanked Khadija and was grateful for her faith. Exhausted, he fell asleep. This sleep was to be followed by a spiritual life of utmost strength, a life whose sublimity and beauty was to confront each and every mind. His life was to be dedicated purely to God, to truth, and to humanity. He was being commissioned to convey to man the message of His lord. He was to carry out his charge not by force, but by argument yet more gentle, sound and more convincing than any man has known. Despite every unbeliever, the light of God and His guidance will yet fill the world.
From the Beginning of Revelation to the Conversion of `Umar
Muhammad lapsed into perfect sleep while Khadija's eyes, full of compassion and hope, were pinned on him. She withdrew from his room pensive and restless at what she had just heard. She looked to the morrow hoping that her husband would become the Prophet of this Arab nation long lost in error. She wished her husband could bring his people to the religion of truth and blaze for them the path of goodness and virtue. But she was very apprehensive of that morrow, fearful for the good of her loving and faithful husband. She reviewed in her mind the events he had reported to her, and imagined the beautiful angel appearing to her husband across the sky after conveying to him the words of His Lord. She tried to imagine the angel perched in the sky so that, following Muhammad's description, wherever one looked one could not lose sight of him, and she recalled the holy words which Muhammad recited to her after they had been carved on his memory. As she reviewed all this she may have at one moment smiled with hope and conviction and later frowned with fear for what might have befallen her husband. She could not bear her solitude long, and the alternation of sweet hope and bitter fear overpowered her. She therefore thought to divulge what she knew to someone sure of insight and wisdom who could give her some advice and good counsel.
The Conversation of Waraqah and Khadija
Khadija ran to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal who, as we saw earlier, had already become a Christian and had translated part of the Evangel into Arabic. When she finished telling him what Muhammad had seen and heard and of her compassionate and hopeful response to her husband, Waraqah broke into these words: "Holy, Holy! By Him who dominates Waraqah's soul, if your report is true, O Khadija, this must be the Great Spirit that spoke to Moses. Muhammad must be the Prophet of this nation. Tell him that he must be firm." Khadija returned home and found Muhammad still asleep. For a while, she stared at him lovingly, faithfully, and hopefully. Suddenly she noticed that he was shivering, breathing deeply and perspiring. As he opened his eyes, he heard the angel say, "O you who lie wrapped in your mantle. Arise and warn. Glorify your Lord. Purify yourself. Shun uncleanliness. Give not in order to have more in return. For the sake of your Lord endure patiently." [Q 73:1-7].
Seeing him in this state, Khadija pleaded that he returns to his bed and resumes his rest. But Muhammad sprang to his feet and said to her, "The time of slumber and rest is past, O Khadija. Gabriel has commanded me to warn men and to call them to God and to His worship. But whom shall I call? And who will listen to me?" Khadija tried to appease and reassure him, to encourage him with predictions of success. She told him what she had heard from Waraqah and declared to him her Islam, i.e., her faith in his prophet hood.
It was natural for Khadija to be the first one to believe in Muhammad. For many long years she had known him to be the examplar of truthfulness, fidelity, honesty, charity, and compassion. In his many retreats during the last few years, she had noticed how he had been constantly preoccupied with the search for the truth, with the truth alone; how he had sought that truth with his heart, mind, and spirit beyond the idolatrous superstitions of the people and their sacrifices, and beyond the deities that are capable of neither good nor evil but which the people venerated without avail. She had witnessed his great doubt and utter perplexity on his return from the cave of Hira' after the first revelation. She asked him to tell her when the angel would come. When he did she seized Muhammad and placed him on her left leg, then on her right leg, then in her lap, always asking him whether he was still seeing the angel and Muhammad answering in the affirmative. She then uncovered herself and threw off her clothes and asked Muhammad whether he still saw the angel, but the angel then disappeared. At this her doubt that the appearance was that of the devil rather than of the angel was dissolved once and for all.
Waraqah and Muhammad
One day Muhammad went to the Kaba for circumambulation. He was met by Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who asked him about himself. Muhammad related the events as they had happened. When he finished, Waraqah said, "By Him Who dominates my soul I swear that you are the Prophet of this nation. The great spirit that has come to Moses has now come to you. You will be denied and you will be hurt. You will be abused and you will be pursued. If I should ever live to see that day I shall surely help the cause of God. God knows that I will." Waraqah then approached Muhammad, kissed his forehead and went away. Muhammad realized the faithfulness of Waraqah, and at the same time felt the burden weighing on his shoulder. Waraqah's warning that the struggle ahead would be hard only confirmed Muhammad's fears that the Qoresh were so attached to their false beliefs that they would fight to death for them. How could he fight. them when they were his very people, his nearest relatives?
Surely the Meccans were mistaken. Just as surely, it was to the truth that Muhammad was now calling them. He was calling them to transcend themselves, to commune with the God Who created them as well as their parents, and to worship Him alone in purity and faith. He called them to bring themselves near to God with good works, to give the neighbor and the wayfarer his due, and to reject the worship of those idols which they had taken as gods who overlooked their vices and immorality, their usury and robbery of orphans. But in doing all this, Muhammad was calling men whose minds and hearts were petrified and hardened beyond the stones to which their idol worship oriented them. Muhammad called men to consider the sky and the earth and all therein which God created, to perceive all this in its sublimity and gravity and grasp the laws by which heaven and earth exist. Muhammad called men to rise, through their worship of the sole Creator of all existence, beyond all that is mean and unworthy, to treat the misguided lovingly and to help him achieve proper guidance, to bring charity and goodness to every orphan, to the weak, the oppressed, and the poor. Yes, to all this did God command Muhammad to call men. But these obstinate souls, these coarse hearts, had committed themselves to remain forever loyal to the religion of the ancestors. Around this religion they had built trade relations which gave Mecca its eminence and centrality as a center of pilgrimage. Would the Meccans abjure the religion of their ancestors and expose their city to loss of prestige, a loss which would surely follow if all idol worship were to stop? Even if such a renunciation were possible, how could their hearts be purified of their chronic passion for every pleasure? How could they be lifted above the animal satisfaction of these passions? Muhammad called men to rise above their passions and above their idols. But what if they didn't respond to his call and refused to believe in him? What would he do?
Subsiding of the Revelations
Muhammad expected the revelations to guide his path from day to day, but they subsided. Gabriel did not appear for some time, and all around him there was nothing but silence. Muhammad fell into solitude, separated from himself as well as from the people. His old fears recurred. It is told that even Khadija said to him, "Does it not seem that your Lord is displeased with you?" Dismayed and frightened, he returned to the mountain and the cave of Hira'. There, he prayed for God fervently, seeking assiduously to reach Him. Particularly, he wanted to ask God about the cause of this divine displeasure. Khadija did not dread these days any less than Muhammad, nor was she any less fearful. Often Muhammad wished to die, but he would again feel the call and the command of his Lord which dispelled such ideas. It was also told that he once thought of throwing himself down from the top of Mount Hira' or Mount Abu Qubays, thinking what good was this life if his greatest hope therein was to be frustrated and destroyed? Torn between these fears on one hand and despair on the other, revelation came to him after a long interval. The word of God was as clear as it was reassuring:
"By the forenoon, and by the night as it spreads its wings over the world in peace, your Lord has not forsaken you; nor is He displeased with you. Surely, the end shall be better for you than the beginning. Your Lord will soon give you of His bounty and you will be well pleased. Did He not find you an orphan and give you shelter? Did He not find you erring and guide you to the truth? Did He not find you in want and provide for you? Do not, therefore, oppress the orphan nor turn away whosoever seeks your help. And the bounty of your Lord, always proclaim."[Q 93:1-11]
The Call to Truth Alone
Oh, what divine majesty, what peace of mind, what joy of heart and exaltation to the soul! Muhammad's fears dissolved and his dread was dissipated. He was overjoyed with this fresh evidence of his Lord's blessing and fell down in worship to God and praise of Him. There was no more reason to fear, as Khadija had done, that God was displeased with him, and there was no cause for his dread. God had now taken him under His protection and removed from him every doubt and fear. Henceforth there was to be no thought of suicide but only of a life dedicated to calling men unto God and unto God alone. To the Almighty God on High shall all men bend their brows. To Him shall all that is in heaven and earth prostrate themselves. He alone is the True, and all that they worship besides him is false. To Him alone the heart should turn, on Him alone the soul should depend, and in Him alone the spirit should find its confirmation. The other realm is better for man than this realm. In the other realm, the soul becomes aware of all being as well as the unity of being; and in this unity space and time disappear and the needs and considerations of this realm are forgotten. It is in the other realm that the forenoon with its brilliant and dazzling sun, the night with its widespread darkness, the heavens and the stars, and the earth and the mountains all become one; and the spirit which enters into awareness of this unity is happy and felicitous. That is the life which is the objective of this life. And that is the truth which illuminated with its light the soul of Muhammad. When revelation subsided for a while, it was this truth which inspired him anew to solicit and think of his Lord and to call men unto Him. The calling of men unto God demands the purification of oneself, the shunning of evil, and the bearing with patience all the harm and injury with which the caller may meet. It demands that he illumine the path of true knowledge for the benefit of ignorant mankind, that he never rebuke the inquisitive, and that he never reject the man in need or oppress the orphan. Sufficient unto him must be the fact that God had chosen him to convey His message to mankind. Let this message then be the permanent subject of his conversation. Sufficient unto him must be the fact that God had found him an orphan and given him shelter under the protection of his grandfather, Abd al Muttalib, and his uncle, Abu Talib. Sufficient unto him must be the fact that God had found him in want and provided for him through his trustworthiness, and had shown him His favor by granting to him Khadija, the companion of his youth, of his solitude and retreat, of his prophetic mission, and of love and kindness. Sufficient unto him must be the fact that God had found him erring and had guided him to the truth through His message. All this must be sufficient unto him. Let him now call to the truth and exert himself as heartily as he could. Such was the command of God to His Prophet whom He had chosen, whom He had not forsaken, and with whom He was not displeased.
Salat [Islamic Worship]
God taught His prophet how to worship. In turn Muhammad taught Khadija, and both worshipped together. Besides their own daughters, Ali ibn Abu Talib, who was still a boy, lived with them in the same house. Ali's residence with Muhammad dated from the time that Mecca suffered from economic depression. Since Abu Talib had a very large family, Muhammad approached his uncle Abbas, who was the richest member of the Banu Hashim clan, saying, "Your brother Abu Talib has a very large family, and he is in a state of want as a result of this depression. Let us together lighten his burden and take into our homes some of his children." Abbas agreed and took into his care Ja'far, and Muhammad took 'Ali. One day while Muhammad and Khadija were worshipping together, Ali entered their room suddenly and found them kneeling and prostrating themselves and reciting together some of the Quranic revelations. Surprised at this behavior, the youth stood still at the door until the pair finished their prayer. To his question, "To whom did you prostrate yourselves?" Muhammad answered, "We have prostrated ourselves to God Who has sent me a prophet and Who has commanded me to call men unto Him." Muhammad then invited his nephew to worship God alone without associates, and to enter into the religion that He had revealed to His Prophet. He asked him to repudiate the idols, like al Lat and al `Uzza, and recited to him something from the Quran. Ali was overwhelmed. The beauty and sublimity of the verses he heard gripped him. He pleaded for time to consult his father. After a tempestuous night, Ali rushed to Muhammad and Khadija and declared to them his conversion without consulting his father. The youth said, "God created me without consulting Abu Talib, my father. Why should I now consult him in order to worship God?" Ali was then the first youth to enter Islam. He was followed by Zayd ibn Harithah, Muhammad's client. Islam remained limited to one house. Besides Muhammad himself, the converts of the new faith were his wife, his cousin, and his client. The problem of how to call Qoresh to the new faith continued to press for a solution. Considering how attached the Meccans were to the religion of their ancestors and to their idols, and how fiercely they resisted any innovation, there was no easy solution in sight.
The Conversion of Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr ibn Abu Quhafah al Taymi was a very close friend to Muhammad. He trusted Muhammad, whom he knew to be worthy of this trust, and whose truthfulness was, as far as Abu Bakr was concerned, beyond doubt. Outside Muhammad's own household, Abu Bakr was the first man to be called to the worship of God alone and to the repudiation of idols. He was the first outsider to whom Muhammad confided the vision he had seen and the revelations he had heard. Abu Bakr did not hesitate to respond favorably to the call of Muhammad and to believe therein. But what soul would hesitate to leave idol worship for the worship of God alone if it were open at all to the voice of truth? What soul would prefer the worship of stones to the worship of God if it were endowed with any kind of nobility and transcendent awareness? What soul would resist self-purification, giving of one's bounty and doing good to the orphan, if it had any degree of innate purity and goodness? Abu Bakr broadcast his conversion and new faith in God and in His Prophet among his companions. He was "a good man and a noble character, friendly to his people, and amiable and gentle. He enjoyed the noblest lineage in Qoresh and was the most knowledgeable of its clans and geneologies and its past and present history. Better than any other member of the tribe, he knew its strengths and weaknesses. By profession he was a trader, well known and honest. His people loved him and respected him for his knowledge, his honesty and his entertaining conversation. Abu Bakr began to call unto Islam those of his people whom he trusted, and a number of them were converted. Uthman bin Afan, Abd al Rahman ibn `Awf, Talhah ibn `Ubayd Allah, Saad ibn Abu Waqqas, and al Zubayr .ibn al `Awwam were the first to respond favorably to his cause. Thereafter Abu `Ubaydah ibn al Jarrah was converted as well as a number of other Meccans. Whenever a man converted to Islam, he would seek the Prophet and declare his Islam to him and receive from him his instruction. Fearful of arousing the enmity and antagonism of Qoresh for their departure from idol worship, the new Muslims used to hide the fact of their conversion. They would go to the outskirts of Mecca in order to hold their prayers. For three years while Islam continued to spread among the Meccans, the Muslims continued to hide. In the meantime, the Quran was continually being revealed to Muhammad and this fortified the Muslims in their faith and confirmed them in it.
The personal example of Muhammad was the best support for the spread of his cause. He was merciful and charitable, humble yet manly, sweet of word yet just, giving to each his due yet full of compassion and sympathy for the weak, the orphan, the deprived, and the oppressed. In his night watch and prayer, in his chanting the Quran revealed to him, in his constant scrutinizing of the heavens and of the earth, he looked for the meaning of their existence and that of everything they contain; in his permanent orientation toward God alone, in his search for the meaning of existence and quintessence of life, deep within his own soul, he provided such an example for his followers that they became ever more convinced of their faith and ever more anxious to adhere to its precepts. The new Muslims did so notwithstanding the fact that they were repudiating the religion and practice of their ancestors as well as exposing themselves to injury by those who believed otherwise. Many noblemen and tradesmen from Mecca believed in Muhammad, but all were already known for their purity, honesty, kindness, and mercy. In addition, Muslim ranks included many converts from the weak, deprived, and oppressed classes of Mecca, The cause of God and His Prophet spread as men and women entered the faith wave after wave.
The Muslims and Qoresh
People talked about Muhammad and his message. The obdurate and hardhearted among the Meccans did not pay much attention to him, thinking that his cause would not go beyond what they had known of the causes of Quss, Umayyah, Waraqah, and others among the wise men and priests. They were certain men will eventually return to the religion of their ancestors, and that victory would finally belong to Hubal, al Lat, al `Uzza, Isaf, and Naila. But they forgot that candid faith is invincible and that the truth must someday prevail.
Muhammad's Nearest Relatives
Three years after the revelation began, God commanded the Prophet to proclaim Islam openly and to bring His revelation to the public. The following verses were revealed:
"Warn, O Muhammad, your nearest relatives. Extend your gentle protection to all those believers who follow in your footsteps and obey you. As for those who disobey, proclaim your repudiation of their doings .... Proclaim what you are commanded and turn away from the associationists." [Q 26:214-216; 15-94.]
Muhammad invited his kinsmen to a banquet in his home at which he tried to talk to them about Islam and to call them unto God. His uncle, Abu Lahab, interrupted his speech and asked the guests to stand up and leave. Muhammad invited them again on the morrow. After they had eaten he said, "I do not know of any man in Arab history who served his people better than I have served you. I have brought you the best of this world as well as of the next. My Lord has commanded me to call you unto Him. Who of you then would stand by me on this matter"? To this appeal, his kinsmen were unsympathetic and prepared to leave." Ali, however, though only a boy, arose and said, "Prophet of God: I shall be your helper. Whosoever opposes you, I shall fight as mortal enemy." The Banu Hashim smiled at this; others laughed loudly. All present looked once at Ali, once at Abu Talib, his father, and left full of ridicule for what they beheld.
[# Note #: Dr. Haykal had first published the Prophet's biography in his weekly paper as-Siyasa. In the first edition of this book, the writer narrates the "Event of the Feast" as follows:
"...When they had finished eating, he (the Prophet) said to them, 'I do not know any person among the Arabs who has come to his people with something better than what I have come to you; I have come to you with the best of this world and the hereafter. My Lord has ordered me to call you unto him. So who among you will help me in this matter, so that he may be my brother, my successor, and my caliph among you?'. All of them turned away from him and wanted to leave him but Ali stood up although he was still a child who had not reached maturity and said: 'O Messenger of Allah, I shall be your helper! I will help you against whomsoever you fight.' The Banu Hashim smiled, some of them laughed, and their eyes moved from Abu Talib to his son; and then they left in the state of ridicule."
Dr. Haykal quoted the important words ("my brother, my successor, and my caliph") in the initial statement of the Prophet asking for support; but conveniently left out the Prophet's entire response to Ali's readiness to help him! In the second edition of the book, the author seems to have given into the pressure from the bigots. He even deleted the crucial words of the Prophet and simply wrote: "He said to them: "so who among you will help me in this matter? All of them turned away from him." This clearly shows that Haykal doesn't doubt the actual "Summoning of the Family" event but he lacked the intellectual courage to stand by the logical conclusion of his initial findings in the study of history.]
After addressing his kinsmen, Muhammad now directed his call to the Meccans as a whole. One day he climbed to the top of al Safi and called, "O People of Qoresh !" Hearing his call, the Qoresh assembled around him and asked what was the matter. Muhammad answered, "tell me, O Men of Qoresh, if I were to tell you that I see a cavalry on the other side of the mountain, would you believe me?" They answered, "Indeed, for we trust you, and we have never known you to tell a lie." Muhammad said, "know then that I am a Warner and that I warn you of a severe punishment. O Banu Abd al Muttalib ! O Banu `Abd Manaf ! O Banu Zuhrah ! O Banu Taym! O Banu Makhzum ! O Banu Asad ! God has commanded me to warn you, my nearest kinsmen, that I can guarantee to you no good on earth or in heaven unless you witness that there is no God but God." Abu Lahab, fat but quick of temper as he was, arose and said, "Woe to you on this day! Did you assemble us for this?" Severely shocked, Muhammad looked toward his uncle for a moment. Soon the following verses were revealed:
"Accursed be the hands of Abu Lahab and accursed may he be. Neither his property nor his wealth will save him. He shall burn in the flames of hell." [Q 111:1-3]
Islam and Freedom
Neither the rancor of Abu Lahab nor the antagonism of other opponents in Qoresh prevented the spread of the Islamic call among the people of Mecca. Hardly a day passed without some new person joining the faith. Those inclined toward asceticism accepted Islam more readily, as neither trade nor vested interest could prejudice their consideration of the call. Such men had observed that Muhammad depended upon Khadija's wealth, but that he never allowed wealth to influence his religious judgment. The material considerations were always rejected wherever they ran counter to the dictates of love, compassion, friendship, and forgiveness. Indeed, revelation itself commanded that the will to wealth is a curse upon the spirit. Did it not say, "The pursuit of wealth has exhausted all your energies and preoccupied your life to the very end? But you will surely come to know-and you will surely come to know it well!-that your wealth will not avail a thing. Had you known it with certainty, you would have known of hell and you would have convinced yourselves of it. But it is on the Day of Judgment that you will be 'questioned concerning the moral worth of your deeds." [Q 102:1-8]. What is better than that to which Muhammad calls? He calls to freedom, to absolute and limitless freedom, to that freedom which is as dear to the Arab as his very life. Does he not liberate men from the bondage which the worship of other gods besides God imposes? Has he not destroyed all the obstacles that have once stood between man and God? Neither Hubal, al Lat, nor al `Uzza, neither the fire of the Zoroastrians nor the sun of the Egyptians, neither the astral bodies of the star worshippers, the apostles of Christ as princes of the church, nor any other human, angel or genii could stand between man and God. Before God and before Him alone is man responsible for his good and evil works. Man's works alone are his intercessor. On earthman's conscience alone is the final judge of his deeds, as it is its sole subject. Upon its everyday verdicts depends the last judgment of the person. What liberty is wider than this liberty to which Muhammad called men? Did Abu Lahab and his companions call to anything like it? Do they not call men to remain enslaved under superstitions so great that the light of truth and guidance can hardly penetrate and reach through them?
The Poets of Qoresh
Abu Lahab and Abu Sufyan, noblemen of Qoresh and lords of its commerce and entertainment, began to feel the threat which the call of Muhammad presented. They therefore decided to begin by ridiculing him and belying his prophet hood. Their first act was to tempt their poet friends to attack Muhammad in their poetry. It was then that Abu Sufyan ibn al Harith, `Amr ibn al `As, and Abdullah ibn al Zib'ari launched their vituperative attacks in verse. A number of Muslim poets undertook to answer these attacks in kind, despite the fact that Muhammad hardly needed their efforts. Besides the poets, others advanced and asked Muhammad to perform some miracles with which to prove his prophethood. They challenged him to do as much as Moses or Jesus had done. They asked, "Why don't you change Mount Safa and Mount Marwah into gold? Why don't you cause the book of which you speak so much to fall down from heaven already written? Why don't you cause Gabriel to appear to all of us and speak to us as he spoke to you? Why don't you resurrect the dead and remove these mountains which bound and enclose the city of Mecca? Why don't you cause a water fountain to spring whose water is sweeter than that of Zamzam, knowing how badly your town needs the additional water supply?" The unbelievers did not stop at these demands for miracles. In ridicule, they asked, "Why doesn't your God inform you of the market prices of the future in order to help you and us in the trade of the morrow?" Whether serious or in ridicule, all these questions and demands were answered once and for alt by revelation. God commanded Muhammad:
"Say: `I have no power whatever to bring advantage or avoid disadvantage. What God wills, that will happen. If it were given me to tell the future I would have used such knowledge to my own advantage. But I am only a man sent to warn you, and a messenger to convey a divine message that you may believe." [Q 7:188]
Indeed: Muhammad was only a warner and a messenger. How could they demand of him that which reason denies while he demanded of them only that which reason commends-nay, dictates and imposes? How could they demand of him that which no morality can tolerate, whereas he called them to goodness and genuine virtue? How could they ask him to perform miracles when the Book that was being revealed to him, which was his guide to the truth, was the end of all miracles? How could they ask him to prove his prophethood with miracles that they might then see whether or not they would follow him, while their so-called gods were dead and cold, utterly devoid of power to do anything, whether miracle or nonmiracle? How could they ask him to prove himself with miracles when they worshipped their stone and wooden gods without ever asking them to prove their divinity? If they had only once asked their gods to prove their divinity, they would have seen through their wood and stone and convinced themselves that they were no gods at all but dead, immobile, and unable to defend themselves against anyone.
Muhammad's Attack against the Idols
Muhammad did take the initiative of attacking their gods. Hitherto he had not mentioned them at all. Now, hs attacked them directly. To the Qoresh this was so serious that it aroused deep hatred. This man had become a threatening problem to them demanding definite solution. Until then they had not taken him seriously but had ridiculed him. When they assembled in Dar al Nadwah or around the Kaba and its idols and happened to mention him, they would speak lightly of him and ridicule his cause. Now that he had directly attacked their gods, ridiculed their worship as well as their ancestors', severely condemned Hubal, al Lat, al `Uzza and all other idols, the matter called for' something more than ridicule. It called for a fight plan and serious thinking of how to combat and counterattack. If this man were to succeed in converting the people of Mecca and in turning them against their old worship, what would happen to Meccan trade? What would remain of Mecca's religious eminence? These and like thoughts were ominous and called for the most careful strategy.
Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle, had not joined the faith, but he continued to protect his nephew and let everyone know of his preparation to fight for him. Led by Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, some noblemen of Qoresh went to Abu Talib and addressed him in these words: "O Abu Talib, your nephew has blasphemed our gods, attacked our religion, ridiculed our ideals and condemned our fathers for unbelief. Either you stop him or you relinquish your protection of him. Our faith which he attacks is equally your faith. Why don't you let us take care of him for you?" Abu Talib talked to them gently and discharged them. Muhammad continued his preaching and intensified his missionary activity. His followers multiplied. Once more Qoresh plotted against him. They went to Abu Talib and brought with them `Umarah ibn al Walid ibn al Mughirah, the most handsome youth in Qoresh. They asked Abu Talib to adopt `Umarah as his son and to let them handle Muhammad. Once more they were turned down. As Muhammad continued his missionary activities, they continued to plot. Finally, they went to Abu Talib for a third time saying, "O Abu Talib, you are an honorable elder among us. We have asked you to stop your nephew but you have not. By God, we cannot permit him to insult our fathers, to ridicule our ideals, and to castigate our gods. Either you stop him or we shall fight both you and him until one of us perishes in the process." To alienate them and to arouse their enmity was too much for Abu Talib, and yet he was neither prepared to join the faith of his nephew nor to betray him. What would he do? He called Muhammad and told him what had happened and pleaded with him: "Save me as well as yourself, and do not cause me to carry a burden I cannot bear."
The Logic of History
For a while Muhammad stood motionless in his place. It was a moment in which the history of being itself stopped without knowing which course to take. Whichever word this one man was about to say, would be a judgment of mankind. Should the world continue to wallow in its darkness? Should Zoroastrianism triumph over a corrupt and lifeless Christianity? Should paganism be allowed to raise its superstitious, rotten head? Or should he, Muhammad, proclaim to this world the unity of God, enlightening it with the light of truth, liberating the minds of men from the bondage of superstition, and raising the souls for communion with the Supernal Plenum? There was his uncle weakened by the people's opposition, unable to help or protect indeed, likely to betray him. And there were the Muslims, few and weak, unable to wage war or to resist a strong and well-equipped army such as Qoresh had. There was none to lend him support in this hour of dire need. Only the truth which he proclaimed and of which he was the advocate could console or rescue him. Nothing was left to count upon except his own faith and conviction of that truth. That alone was his whole force. Well, let it be. The other realm is better than this one. Let him then discharge his duty and convey his message. It is better to die faithful to the truth than to betray it or stammer in its cause. Refreshened and energized by the strength and determination of new resolution, he turned to his uncle and said, "O uncle! By God Almighty I swear, even if they should put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left that I abjure this cause, I shall not do so until God has vindicated it or caused me to perish in the process."
How great is the truth! And how sublime is faith in the truth! The old man was shaken to his depths when he heard the answer of Muhammad. It was his turn to stand motionless and speechless in front of this holy power and great will which had just spoken on behalf of a life above life. Choked with emotion at his uncle's request as well as at his own certainty of the course he was to follow, Muhammad got up to leave. For but a moment Abu Talib hesitated between the enmity of his people and the cause of his nephew. Immediately, he called Muhammad back. "Go forth, my nephew," he said, "and say what you will. By the same God I swear I shall never betray you to your enemies."
Banu Hashim Protects Muhammad against Qoresh
Abu Talib communicated his resolution to Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib and spoke to them about his nephew with great admiration and deep appreciation of the sublimity of Muhammad's position. He asked them all to protect Muhammad against the Qoresh. All of them pledged to do so except Abu Lahab, who declared openly his enmity to him and his withdrawal to the opposite camp. Undoubtedly, the tribal bond they shared with Muhammad and their traditional enmity with Banu Umayyah influenced their decision to stand by Muhammad. Tribal solidarity and politics, however, do not completely explain their new opposition to all Qoresh in a matter so grave as to require them to repudiate the faith and beliefs inherited from the fathers. The attitude of Muhammad toward them, his firm conviction, his calling them in kindness to the worship of God alone, and their awareness that among the tribes of Arabia there were certainly other religions besides their own all these factors caused them to realize that to their nephew and fellow tribesman belonged the right to speak out his views, just as Umayyah ibn Abu al Salt and Waraqah ibn Nawfal and others had done before him. If Muhammad were saying the truth and they did not think that that was the case truth will certainly prevail, and they stand to share in the glory of its victory. If, on the other hand, Muhammad was not telling the truth, then people would pass his claim by as they had other claims before. In this case it would not destroy their traditions, and there was, therefore, no reason why they should betray him to his enemies and allow them to kill him.
Persecution of the Muslims by Qoresh
From whatever harm might come from Qoresh Muhammad took refuge behind his people. From the worries he generated within himself he took refuge in the person of Khadija. With her faith and great love she was for him a refreshing source of joy. She supported him against every symptom of weakness or despondency generated by the harm his enemies had inflicted against him or against his followers. In fact, ever since Muhammad made public cause of his revelations, Qoresh knew no peace, and the tranquility of earlier days vanished. Instigated by the Qoresh, every clan and tribe began to attack its Muslim members to dissuade them from their faith. One unbeliever threw his Abyssinian slave, Bilal, onto the sand under the burning sun, laid a heavy stone on his chest and left him there to die, for no reason except his insistence upon Islam. Bearing himself gallantly under this torture, Bilal kept on repeating, "God is one, God is one." Abu Bakr saw him, bought him from his master and set him free. Indeed, Abu Bakr bought many of the slaves and clients who were being thus tortured by the unbelievers. Among these there was even a slave woman whom Abu Bakr had bought from `Umar bin Khattab before the tatter's conversion. One woman is known to have been tortured to death because of her attachment to Islam and her refusal to return to the old faith. Muslims of pure Arab blood were beaten and subjected to all sorts of maltreatment and contemptuous humiliation. Even Muhammad did not escape, despite the protection of Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib. Umm Jamil, Abu Lahab's wife, used to throw the refuse from her house onto Muhammad's door. All Muhammad could do was simply to remove it. While Muhammad was praying near the Kaba, Abu Lahab threw on him the entrails of a goat sacrificed to one of the gods; and Muhammad could only go to his daughter Fatimah for her to clean him and wash the dirt off his clothes. This abuse was all in addition to the terrible vituperation and vile calumnies the unbelievers directed against the Muslims on every occasion and in every quarter. Such persecution continued for a long time, but it only confirmed the Muslims in their faith and challenged them to sacrifice everything for the sake of their convictions.
Muslim Patience
This period of Muhammad's life is one of the noblest and greatest pages of human history. Neither he nor his followers sought wealth or reputation, power or sovereignty. Rather, they were seekers after the truth and believers therein. To those who did harm him, Muhammad prayed for guidance, for liberation from the yoke of vile paganism and from its immorality and villainy. It was for this noble spiritual objective that Muhammad suffered persecution. The poets insulted him; the tribe plotted against him, threw stones at his house, threatened his folks and followers, and came close to killing him near the Kaba. The more they persecuted, the more patience and resolve Muhammad showed in his mission. The believers repeated and were encouraged by Muhammad's pledge that he would not abjure this cause even if given both sun and moon. Great sacrifices became small, and death itself became a welcome alternative. One must appreciate the strength of these men's faith and the depth of their commitment at a time when the new religion was not even complete and the Quran was not yet fully revealed. No doubt Muhammad's gentleness, good character, truthfulness, resoluteness, strength of will, and conviction were contributing factors. But there were other factors besides.
Muhammad lived in a free country very much like a republic. As far as social eminence and nobility of lineage, he ranked among the highest and best. Muhammad did not have much wealth, but he had all he needed, and so did Banu Hashim. To them belonged the sidanah of the Kaba and the siqayah and all that they wished by way of religious titles. Therefore, Muhammad stood in no need of money, prestige, political power, or religious eminence. In this respect, Muhammad was quite different from the prophets that preceded him. Moses, for instance, was born in Egypt when Pharaoh was worshipped by its people as God. It was he who called to them, "I am your supreme God." [Q 79:24]. The priesthood assisted Pharaoh in tyrannizing over the people and in exploiting them. The revolution that Moses led by command of his Lord was a revolution against the political as well as the religious order. Did Moses not seek to reduce Pharaoh to the equal of the most ordinary peasant in front of God, even though that peasant was of the meanest class who drew their water from the Nile with the shadoof? Pharaoh's divinity, Moses thought, as well as the social order on which it stood, must all be destroyed. The revolution must first be political. Consequently, from the very beginning the Mosaic call was met by Pharaoh with all-out war, and miracles were necessary that the Mosaic call might be believed by the rank and file. When, for instance, Moses threw his stick on the ground, it became a living serpent devouring what Pharaoh's magicians had created. These miracles, however, turned out to be futile, for Moses had to flee from his country of birth. His flight was assisted by another miracle, that of the splitting of the waters of the sea. As for Jesus, he was born in Nazareth, in Palestine, a province under the yoke of Roman colonialism. He called men to patience in their suffering of injustice, to forgiveness after repentance and to forms of love and mercy which the rulers regarded as tantamount to rebellion against their tyranny. The miracles of resurrecting the dead, healing the sick, and all that Jesus did with the support of the Holy Spirit were necessary for the success of his cause. In their essence, the doctrines of Jesus and Muhammad were built on the same premises and led to the same conclusions, with differences in detail not relevant for our present discussion. The point is that these various factors, especially the political among them gave to the call of Jesus the orientation it took. As for Muhammad, since his circumstances were what we have just seen, his message was spiritual and rational. At every stage of its development, it rested on a foundation of truth, goodness, and beauty for their own sakes. Because of its distance from any political struggle, Muhammad's message did not disturb the republican regime of Mecca in the least, nor was it disturbed thereby.
The Call of Muhammad and Modern Scientific Inquiry
The reader may be surprised by our emphasis on the similarity of Muhammad's teaching to the methods of modern science. The scientific method demands that were one to undertake an investigation, he should suspend his personal views, beliefs and doctrines. It demands that he begins his study by observation, classification, comparison, experimentation, and then draw his conclusions from these scientific observations as premises. A conclusion reached through this method is scientific and, by the same token, it remains susceptible to further scrutiny and investigation. It remains valid as long as further scientific study has not disproved any one of the premises on which it is based. This scientific method is the highest human achievement in the cause of free thought. And yet this very method is none other than that of Muhammad, the very foundation of his cause. How did his followers become convinced of it? They repudiated all their previous beliefs had began to concentrate their thoughts on what lay before them. But what was before them? What were the facts of religious life in Arabia? Every one of the Arab tribes had its own idols; but which one was true and which false? Besides, within Arabia as well as in the surrounding countries, there were Christians, Jews, Sabeans, Zoroastrian fire-worshippers, and others who worshipped the sun. Whose faith was true and whose false?
The Essence of Muhammad's call
Suppose we lay all this aside and completely avoid its influence upon our minds and hearts. Suppose we cut ourselves loose from every view and every doctrine we have previously entertained. And suppose we observe and consider. The first truth to stand out is that every being is somehow connected with all other beings. In the case of man, the clans, the tribes, and nations are obviously interconnected. Man is also connected with the animals and the world of things. This earth of ours is connected with the sun, the moon, and all the heavenly bodies.
Necessary and immutable laws regulate and govern all these interconnections. Neither may the sun overtake the moon nor the night overtakes the day. If any one being in the universe were to alter or change these laws, the cosmos itself would change and would no more be what it is. If the sun, for instance, failed to provide the earth with light and heat and thus violate the laws by which nature has been running for millions of years, the earth and the sky would not be what they are. As long as this does not happen it is not possible for the totality of the cosmos to hold itself together except by a moving spirit, a spirit from which it has arisen and has developed and to which it must return. This spirit alone is that to which man should be subject. Everything else in this universe is subject to that spirit just as man is. Man, the cosmos, space, and time are therefore a unity; and this spirit is the origin and substance of this unity. To this spirit alone therefore belongs worship. To this spirit alone all minds and hearts should be oriented. Everywhere in this universe we should be able by reason and meditation to discover this spirit's eternal laws. Hence, whatever men worship besides God be it idols, kings, Pharaohs, fire, or sunrise a falsehood and an illusion unworthy of man, of human reason, of the human capacity to discover the laws of God through examination of the creation with which God has endowed man.
That is the essence of the message of Muhammad as the early Muslims knew it. It was conveyed to them by Muhammad as a revelation cast into such sublime form that it is still regarded as a miracle. This revelation has combined the truth of content with the perfection of form. Upon contact with it, the souls of the Muslims became ennobled, and their hearts were moved to seek communion with the noble spirit of Muhammad. Muhammad led them to the realization that good works constitute the road of felicity and that men shall be rewarded for their works on the day they complete in piety their duties in this world, i.e. when every soul shall receive its due. "And whosoever does an atom's weight of good shall be rewarded therefore, and whosoever does an atom's weight of evil shall be punished therefore." [Q, 99:7-8]
What great and ennobling respect for human reason! What sweeping destruction of all the impediments that stands in the way of human reason ! Sufficient is it to man to understand this for him to appreciate it, to believe in it, and to realize what it demands of him to rise to the highest level of humanity. As long as one takes his stand on the side of reason, every sacrifice demanded by such heights seems easy.
The Conversion of Hamzah
The majestic stand of Muhammad and of his followers convinced Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib to strengthen their protection of him. Once, on encountering Muhammad on the road, Abu Jahl insulted him and abused his new religion. Muhammad did not answer him and walked away. Hamzah, Muhammad's uncle and brother-in-nursing, still followed the religion of Qoresh and was very strong and fear inspiring. He was an addicted hunter who would circumambulate the Kaba every time he returned from a hunting trip and before he entered his home. As he entered the city on the day that Abu Jahl insulted Muhammad and learned of what had happened to his nephew, he became furious, and went straight to the Kaba. Upon entering the Mosque, he did not greet anyo a as he used to do. Rather, he went straight to Abu Jahl and hit him very hard with his bow. Some members of Banu Makhzum rose to the help of Abu Jahl, but Abu Jahl pushed them aside. He acknowledged that he had insulted Muhammad and then decided that the dispute had better be cut short rather than allowed to spread. Hamzah then declared his conversion to Islam, took the oath of allegiance to Muhammad and promised to sacrifice everything for the sake of God.
Delegation of Utbah ibn Rabiah
Undaunted by any harm or injury that befell them, their faith unshaken, the Muslims kept on increasing in numbers and strength. They proclaimed their faith loudly and performed their prayers publicly all to the alarm of Qoresh, who were at a loss what to do next. For a moment they thought that they could get rid of Muhammad by satisfying what they took to be his personal ambitions. Obviously they forgot the greatness of the Islamic call, the purity of its spiritual essence, and its noble transcendence of any political partisanship. Utbah bin Rabiah, one of the distinguished leaders of Arabia, convinced the Qoresh at one of their community meetings to delegate him to approach Muhammad with a number of alternative offerings of which, he thought, Muhammad would surely accept one. He therefore went to Muhammad and said, "O Nephew, you certainly enjoy among us great eminence and noble lineage, and you have brought about a great issue and divided your people. Listen to me for I am about to make several offers to you, certain as I am that one of them will prove satisfactory to you. If by bringing about the conflict you did, you have sought to achieve some wealth, know that we are prepared to give you of our wealth until you become the richest man among us. If, on the other hand, you desired honor and power, we would make you our chief and endow you with such power that nothing could be done without your consent. Even if you wanted to be a king, we should not hesitate to crown you king over us. Finally, if you are unable to cure yourself of the visions that you have been seeing, we shall be happy to seek for you at our expense all the medical service possible until your health is perfectly restored." When he finished, Muhammad recited to him, the surah "al Sajdah." [Q 32].
Utbah listened attentively to the divine recitation. Facing him was a man devoid of all ambition for wealth, prestige, honor, power, or sovereignty. Neither was he sick. Facing him was indeed a man telling the truth, calling to the good, answering him with arguments yet more soundly and sublimely expressed than any he had ever heard. When Muhammad finished, Utbah returned to Qoresh spellbound by the beauty and sublimity of what he had seen and heard and by the greatness of this man and his eloquence. The Qoresh were obviously not happy with this turn, nor did they agree with Utbah's opinion that they should leave Muhammad for all the Arabs together to deal with; they would thereby reap a harvest of pride in the event that Muhammad wins, or enjoy an effortless victory in the event he loses, In fact, Qoresh resumed their attacks upon Muhammad and his followers, intensified their aggression, and inflicted upon his companions all sorts of injuries from which Muhammad was saved only through the protection of Abu Talib, Banu Hashim, and Banu al Muttalib.
Emigration to Abyssinia
Meccan persecution of the Muslims increased in intensity. Many Muslims now became so subject to torture and murder that Muhammad instructed them to disperse throughout the world. When they asked where they should go, he advised them to escape to Abyssinia, the Christian kingdom-where "a king rules without injustice, a land of truthfulness-until God leads us to a way out of our difficulty." Fearful of Meccan persecution and desirous of worshipping God in peace and freedom, a number of Muslims emigrated to Abyssinia at Muhammad's advice. The first group to emigrate included eleven men and four women. After secretly leaving Mecca, they arrived in Abyssinia where they lived under the protection of the Negus until they heard that the Muslims in Mecca had become secure against Qoresh's attacks, as we shall see a little later. When upon return they found the Qoresh's persecution stronger than it ever was before, they emigrated once more to Abyssinia, this time about eighty men strong, not counting women and children. This larger group, of Muslims lived in Abyssinia until after the Prophet's emigration to Yathrib. Their emigration to Abyssinia is usually referred to as "the first emigration in Islam."
Qoresh's Delegation to the Negus
It is perfectly appropriate for the biographer of Muhammad to ask whether the purpose of this emigration undertaken by the Muslims at the advice and command of Muhammad was merely to escape from the pagans of Mecca and their persecution and harm. Or was it dictated by an Islamic political strategy by which Muhammad sought to realize a higher objective? These questions are indeed proper when we consider that the whole history of the Arab Prophet confirms ever more clearly that he was a profound and farsighted statesman in addition to being the carrier of the divine message and a man of unrivaled discipline and magnanimity. What makes this matter especially questionable is the report that the Meccans were so upset at this exodus of the Muslims to Abyssinia that they immediately sent a delegation to the Negus carrying precious gifts in order to bring about the emigrants' extradition and return to Mecca. Abyssinia, as well as its Negus, were all Christians and, therefore, there was no fear that they might follow the religion of Muhammad. Did the Meccans then fear that the Negus' protecion of the Muslims might provide support for the cause of Muhammad's religion within Arabia? Or did they think that the Muslim emigrants would one day return greater in numbers, wealth, and power in order to wage a retaliatory war against them?
The two ambassadors, Amr ibn al As and Abdullah ibn Abu Rabia, presented to the Negus and his patriarch their precious gifts and asked for permission to have the Muslim emigrants extradited and sent back to Mecca. They said to the Negus, "O King! A number of ignoble plebeians from Mecca have taken refuge in your county. They have apostasized from the religion of their people and have not joined your religion. They follow a new religion, known neither to us nor to you, which they created. The leading noblemen of Mecca, who are their parents, uncles, and relatives, have sent us to you to ask for their return. Their elders at home are better judges of the differences between them" The two ambassadors had already obtained the approval of the patriarch for extradition without prior reference of the matter to the Negus. Apparently, the Meccan gifts to the patriarch were instrumental in obtaining this summary decision.. The Negus, however, refused to concur in the judgment of his patriarch until he had had a chance to hear the refugees plead their own case. He sent after them and asked, "What is this new religion which caused you to separate yourselves from your people, a religion which is different from mine as well as from any other of the known religions?"
The Muslims Answer Ambassador's Claims
Ja'far ibn Abu Talib rose and said in answer, "O King! We were in a state of ignorance and immorality, worshipping idols, eating carrion, committing all sorts of iniquity. We honored no relative and assisted no neighbor. The strong among us exploited the weak. Then God sent us a prophet, one of our own people, whose lineage, truthfulness, loyalty, and purity were well known to us. He called us to worship God alone and to repudiate all the stones and idols which we and our ancestors used to worship. He commanded us always to tell the truth, to remain true to trust and promise, to assist the relative, to be good neighbors, to abstain from blood and things forbidden, and to avoid fornication, perjury, and false witness. He commanded us not to rob the wealth of the orphan or falsely to accuse the married woman. He ordered us to worship God alone and never to associate any other being with Him, to hold prayers, to fast, and to pay the zakat (the five pillars of Islam were here enumerated and explained). We believed in him and what he brought to us from God and followed him in what he enjoined and forbade. Our people, however, tried to sway us away from our religion and persecuted us and inflicted upon us great suffering that we might re-enter into the immoral practices of old. As they vanquished and berated us unjustly and made life intolerable for us in Mecca, we chose you and your country and came thither to live under your protection in justice and peace." Thereupon the Negus asked, "Will you show me some of the revelation which your Prophet claims to have come to him from God?" Ja'far answered, "Yes!" and recited to the Negus the surah of Mary from its beginning until the following verses:
"Mary, therefore, pointed to the child as her only answer. Her people asked, `How can we inquire of an infant in the cradle?' At this, Jesus spoke, `I am the servant of God to whom He has given the Book and whom He has blessed and commissioned with prophethood; whom He has enjoined with holding the prayer and giving the zakat as long as he lives. My mother is innocent and I am neither unjust nor evil. Peace be upon me on the day I was born, on the day I shall die, and on the day I shall be resurrected." [Q 19:29-33]
Answers of the Negus and the Patriarchs
When the patriarchs heard this statement confirming as it did the message of the Evangel, they were pleasantly surprised and said: "These words must have sprung from the same fountainhead from which the words of our master Jesus Christ have sprung." The Negus then said, "What you have just recited and that which was revealed to Moses must have both issued from the same source. Go forth into my kingdom; I shall not extradite you at all." On the following day, `Amr ibn al `As returned to the Negus and pleaded, "There is another side to the Muslims' new religion in which they judge Jesus, Son of Mary, in totally different but condemnable terms." The Negus sent after the Muslims, brought them back into his presence and asked them to tell him more about Jesus. The same Ja'far ibn Abu Talib answered for them, "Our judgment of Jesus is exactly the same as that which was revealed to our Prophet; namely, that Jesus is the servant of God, His Prophet, His spirit, His command given unto Mary, the innocent virgin." The Negus drew a line on the floor with his cane and said with great joy, "Between your religion and ours there is really no more difference than this line." Thus the Negus was convinced, after hearing the two parties, that the Muslims not only acknowledged Jesus and Christianity as true religion but worshipped the same God as well. The Muslims found under his protection the peace and tranquility they sought, and lived in his country until they found cause to return while Muhammad was still in Mecca. Apparently they had been misinformed that Qoresh's antagonism to the Muslims had subsided. When they discovered that the Meccans were still persecuting Muhammad and his followers, they returned to Abyssinia, this time eighty strong besides women and children. The question remains, however, whether these two emigrations were merely for escape from injury or were, at least in the foresight of Muhammad alone, devised for a political motive which the historian ought to investigate and clarify.
The Muslims and Abyssinian Christianity
The historian may certainly ask why Muhammad trusted that his companions and followers would go to a country whose religion was Christianity, a scriptural religion, and whose prophet was Jesus, whom Islam acknowledged as prophet and in whose message it concurred, without fearing that they might be exposed to abjuring their faith even though in favor of one different from that of Qoresh. How did he trust that his followers would remain faithful and loyal when Abyssinia was a far more fertile and affluent country than that of Qoresh? One of the Muslims that emigrated to Abyssinia did, in fact convert to Christianity, thus establishing that the danger was real. It was natural for Muhammad to have felt such fears, especially since Muhammad, himself, was still weak and his old followers were still in great doubt as to his ability to protect them or to come to their rescue. Assuming, therefore, Muhammad's great intelligence and foresight, -his charity,
kindness and compassion, it is most likely that such fears must have stirred within his soul. But he felt absolutely secure in this regard. Islam was on that day, as it was to remain throughout the Prophet's life, absolutely pure and unspoiled by internal doubts, divisions, and deviations. On the other hand, Abyssinian Christianity, like the Christianity of Najran, al Hirah, and al Sham, was mixed up with devious doctrines brought into the faith by the apotheosizers of Mary, the apotheosizers of Jesus, and the opponents of both. The Muslims, drawing directly from the pure fountainhead of prophetic revelation, could not possibly stand in any danger of being swayed by any such confusion.
The Spirit in Islam
In actual fact, most religions did not survive for a number of generations without becoming polluted by some kind of idolatry. Even if it were not of the same ignoble kind prevalent in early days in the Arabian Peninsula, it was still some form of idolatry. Islam is diametrically opposed to idolatry in any form or kind. From the earliest days of church history Christianity has accorded to the priesthood a special status in the religion itself; Islam has never given such position to anyone. On the contrary, Islam both condemned the priesthood and transcended it. Then as now, Islam has remained precisely the religion which enables the human soul to rise to the greatest heights. It has not tolerated any link between man and God except a person's own piety and good works and his wishing for his fellow men that which he wishes for himself. Nothing neither idols nor priesthood, diviners nor officiators-could prevent the human soul from rising to a
consciousness of unity with ultimate reality and to a unity of good will and good works, and, thereby, from winning its great reward with God. The human soul! That spirit which is from God! That spirit which is connected to eternal time! That spirit, which as long as it does the good, is not separated from God by anything whatever and is subject to no being whatever other than God. The rich, the mighty, and the evil can all lay hold upon the body. They can torture it and prevent it from realizing its passions and pleasures. They can even destroy it and rob it of its life. But they can never reach the soul as long as that person wants the soul to rise above matter, above power, and above time to link itself with ultimate, total reality! Only on the Day of Judgment will the human soul receive the punishment or reward that is its due. On that Day no father may take the place of his son, and no son may replace his father. On that Day neither the wealth of
the rich, the strength of the mighty, nor the argument of the eloquent will avail them. Good works will be the only witness and the only defense for or against their author. On that Day, all being its eternal past as well as its eternal future will stand as one integral unit. On that Day none will be done an injustice, and none will receive aught except his due.
How could Muhammad fear that his companions would abjure the spiritual meaning and values which he had so well inculcated upon their hearts? Why should he fear that they might be diverted from this conviction and faith when his example was ever present to them in his own person, so beloved of them that they cherished him more than themselves, their families and people? How could there be any chance of their deviation from the faith when Muhammad's resolution not to abjure the cause even if they should place the sun in his right hand and the moon in his left hand is a living reality, ever present to their minds? How could they abjure their faith when the spirit of Muhammad filled their being with the light of conviction, wisdom, justice, goodness, truth, and beauty; when their character and ethos had been molded by Muhammad's humility, charity, loving kindness, and compassion? Muhammad felt at ease toward the emigration of his companions to Abyssinia. The religious freedom and security the emigrants enjoyed under the Negus had caused the Qoresh no little embarrassment. That the Muslims were free among total strangers but persecuted by their own relatives, despite the closest bonds of family and tribe, must have been an annoying spectacle for Qoresh. It must have hurt their tribal pride to see their fellow tribesmen enjoy security and peace after having been subjected to all kinds of injustice and injury. After the victims had suffered much despair and helplessness, they began to see in suffering and patience, although this view runs counter to the logic of Islam, a very rapprochement to God, an attunement of themselves to His mercy.
The Conversion of `Umar bin Khattab
At that time, Umar bin Khattab was a mature man of thirty to thirty-five years of age. Physically he was well built and strong of muscle. Temperamentally he was capable of strong passion. He loved wine and amusement, and despite his very harshness of character, he was gentle and compassionate toward his people. As for the Muslims, he was one of their strongest opponents, a merciless aggressor upon their peace, security and religion. Their emigration to Abyssinia and the Negus's protection of them caused him no little resentment. His pride as a national of Mecca was wounded by the fact that a foreign king and country were protecting Meccans who can find neither security nor peace in their own homes. Muhammad was meeting one day with his own companions in a house in al Safa quarter of Mecca. Among those present were his uncle Hamzah, his cousin, 'All ibn Abu Talib, Abu Bakr ibn Abu Quhafah, and other Muslims. `Umar learned of their meeting and went there resolved to kill Muhammad and thus relieve the Qoresh of its burden, restore its ravaged unity, and re-establish respect for the gods that Muhammad had castigated. On the road to Mecca he was met by Nu'aym ibn Abdullah. Upon learning what Umar was about, Nu'aym said, "By God, you have deceived yourself, O Umar ! Do you think that Banu `Abd Manaf would let you run around alive once you had killed their son Muhammad? Why don't you return to your own house and at least set it straight?" When Umar learned that Fatimah, his sister, and her husband, Said ibn Zayd, had already been converted to Islam, he turned around and went straight to their house. Upon entering the house without knocking, he found them listening to a third person reciting the Quran. They, too, having heard him approach, had hid their visitor and put away the manuscript of the Quran from which they were reading. Umar asked, "What is this cantillation that I have heard as I walked in?" The pair denied hearing anything. Flying into a rage, Umar told them that he knew that they had foresworn their faith and entered into that of Muhammad. He chastised them and delivered a strong blow to his brotherin-law, Said. Fatimah rose to protect her husband. As she came between the two men, Umar hit her on the head and caused her to bleed. At this, the pair lost. their fear entirely and said together, "Yes, indeed! We have become Muslims. Do what you will!" At this surge of courage, as well as upon seeing the blood of his sister flow, `Umar was moved. After calming down a little, he asked his sister to, let him see the manuscript which she and her husband had been reading together. After she surrendered the manuscript to him, he read it and his face changed to an expression of regret for what he had just done. As for what he had just read, he was deeply shaken by its beauty, its majesty, the nobility of its call, and the magnanimity of its message. In short, Umar's good side got the better of him. He left the house of his sister, his heart mellow and his soul reassured by the new certainty which he had just discovered. He went straight to al Safa, where Muhammad was meeting with his companions, sought permission to enter, and declared his conversion to Islam in front of the Prophet. The Muslims acclaimed his conversion and found therein, as they did in the conversion of Hamzah, new security for the community as a whole.
The conversion of Umar divided the Qoresh further. It reduced their power and caused them to reconsider their strategy. In fact, it increased Muslim power so greatly and so significantly that both they and the Qoresh had to change their positions vis-à-vis each other. Moreover, it triggered a whole line of events in inspiring new levels of sacrifices and stirring new forces which, together, led to the emigration of Muhammad and to the inception of the political side of his career.
The Emigrants Return from Abyssinia
The emigrants resided in Abyssinia three months during which Umar bin Khattab converted to Islam. In their exile, they heard that upon Umar's conversion the Qoresh had stopped their persecution of Muhammad and his followers. According to one report a number of them had returned to Mecca, according to another, all. On reaching Mecca they realized that the Qoresh had resumed persecution of the Muslims with stronger hatred and renewed vigor. Unable to resist, a number of them returned to Abyssinia while others entered Mecca under the cover of night and hid themselves away, It is also reported that those who returned took with them a number of new converts to Abyssinia where they were to stay until after the emigration to Medina and the establishment of Muslim political power.
We may ask what incited the Muslims of Abyssinia to return to Mecca three months after their emigration. It is at this stage that the story of the goddesses is told by Ibn Saad in his AL Tabaqat al Kubra, by al Tabari in his Tarikh al Rusul wa al Muluk, as well as by a number of Muslim exegetes and biographers. This story arrested the attention of the western Orientalists who took it as true and repeated it ad nauseam. This story tells that realizing how alienated the Qoresh had become and how intensely they had persecuted his companions, Muhammad expressed the wish that a revelation might come that would reconcile his people rather than further alienate them. When, one day, he was sitting with the Qoresh in one of their club houses around the Kaba, he recited to them surah "al Najm." After reading the verses, "Would you consider al Lat and al `Uzza? as well as Manat, the third goddess?" [Q 53:19-20] he continued the recitation with the statement, "They are the goddesses on high. Their intercession is worthy of being sought." He then proceeded with his reading of the surah as we know it. When he finished he prostrated himself, and all the Qoresh likewise followed him. At this moment, the Qoresh proclaimed its satisfaction with what the Prophet had read and said, "We have always known that God creates and gives life, gives food, and resuscitates. But our gods intercede for us with Him. Now that you have allowed for them a place in your new religion, we are all with you." Thus the difference between Muhammad and the Qoresh was dissolved. When the news of this reconciliation reached Abyssinia, the Muslims there decided to return to their beloved country and people. As they reached the approaches of Mecca, they met some Kinanah tribesmen who informed them that Muhammad allowed the gods a good position in his religion, reconciled the Qoresh, and was now followed by everyone. The story then relates how Muhammad reverted by blaspheming those gods and the Qoresh reverted to persecution. It further adds that the returnees stopped to consider what their next course should be. They longed so much to see their relatives and next of kin that they went ahead and entered Mecca.
Other versions of the same story give detailed descriptions of Muhammad's attitude toward the gods of Qoresh. They claimed that Qoresh's plea that if he but grant their gods a share in his religion the Meccans would all support him troubled the Prophet. They relate how Muhammad one evening reviewed surah "al Najm" with Gabriel when the latter made a timely appearance. When he arrived at the sentence in question, Gabriel asked where it came from. Muhammad answered; "I must have attributed to God that which He did not say." God then revealed the following verses: "They have almost succeeded in inducing you, under promise of their friendship, to attribute to Us, against Our command, that which We did not reveal to you. Had We not confirmed you in your faith, you might have been tempted and hence fallen under the inescapable punishment."[Q 17:73-75]. Thereafter, Muhammad returned to his condemnation of the gods, and Qoresh returned to their persecution.
Incoherence of the Story
Such is the story of the goddesses reported by more than one biographer, pointed to by more than one exegete of the Quran, and singled out and repeated by a number of western Orientalists. It is a story whose incoherence is evident upon the least scrutiny. It contradicts the infallibility of every prophet in conveying the message of his Lord. All the more wonder, therefore, that some Muslim scholars have accepted it as true. Ibn Ishaq, for his part, did not hesitate at all to declare it a fabrication by the zindiqs [pagans]. Those who were taken in by it rationalized it further with the verse, "Every prophet We sent before you was such that whenever he pressed for revelation to come, Satan would hasten to inspire him with something satisfying his wish and thus necessitate God's abrogation of it if scripture is to be kept absolutely pure and true. God is all wise and all knowing. That which Satan had given is a lure for those who are sick of mind and hard of heart. Surely the unjust are deep in error."[Q 22:52-53]. Some explain the word "tamanna" in the foregoing verse as meaning "to read;" others give it the usual meaning of "to press wishfully." Muslim and Western scholars who accept the story explain that the Prophet suffered heavily from the persecution the unbelievers directed at his companions. They tell how the unbelievers killed some Muslims, exposed others to burning by the sun while pinned down to the ground with heavy stones (as was the case with Bilal), and how these sufferings pressured Muhammad to permit his companions to migrate to Abyssinia. They underscore Qoresh's alienation and the psychological effect of their boycott upon the Prophet. Since Muhammad was very anxious to convert them to Islam and to save them from idol worship, they claim that his thinking; of reconciling them by adding a few verses to surah "al Najm" is not farfetched. Finally, they allege that Muhammad's jubilation was all too natural when, coming to the end of his recitation and prostrating himself, the Qoresh joined in, showing their preparation to follow him now that he had given a share to their gods with God.
To these tales of some books of biography and exegesis, Sir William Muir adds what he thinks is a final and conclusive proof. He says that the emigrants to Abyssinia had hardly spent three months there during which the Negus had tolerated as well as protected them when they decided to return to Mecca. Had they not heard news of a reconciliation between Muhammad and Qoresh nothing would have caused them to return so soon. But, reasons Muir, how could there be reconciliation between Muhammad and Qoresh without a determined effort to that effect on the part of Muhammad? In Mecca, the Muslims had then been far fewer and weaker than the Qoresh. They were still incapable of protecting themselves against the injuries which the Qoresh had been inflicting upon them. Why, then, should the Qoresh have taken the initiative in such reconciliation?
Refutation of These Arguments
These are the arguments on which stands the claim for veracity of the story of the goddesses. They are all false, incapable of standing any scrutiny or analysis. Let us begin with the argument of the Orientalist Muir. The Muslims who returned from Abyssinia did so for two reasons. First, `Umar bin Khattab was converted to Islam shortly after their emigration. With him, he brought to the Muslim camp the same boldness, determination, and the tribal standing with which he had been fighting the Muslims before. He never concealed his conversion nor did he ever shun the Qoresh opponents. On the contrary, he proclaimed his conversion publicly and challenged the Qoresh openly. He did not approve the Muslim's concealment of themselves, their secret movement from one end of Mecca to the other, and their holding of prayers at a safe distance from any Qoresh attack. `Umar began to fight the Qoresh as soon as he entered the faith of Islam, constantly pressed his way close to the Kaba, and performed his prayer there in company with whatever Muslims that decided to join him. It was at this new challenging turn of events that the Qoresh came to the realization that any further injury inflicted upon Muhammad or his companions would henceforth create a civil war of which nobody knew the consequences. By this time, a great number of men from the various clans of Qoresh had joined Islam. To kill any one of these would necessarily imply the rise to war not only of his fellow Muslims but of all the clans of which the various Muslims or allies were members, even though the rest of the clan or the tribe were still of a different religion. After the conversion of `Umar and the entry of so many members of other clans into the faith, it became impossible to fight Muhammad in the same way as before. Such a course could easily expose the whole of Qoresh to terrible peril. It was necessary to find a new way which did not incur such risks, and until such way was found, the Qoresh thought it advantageous to enter into an armistice with Muhammad and the Muslims. It was this news which reached the emigrants in Mecca and prompted them to return home.
Two Revolutions in Abyssinia
The emigrants would have hesitated to return to Mecca were it not for another reason. A revolution broke out against the Negus in which his personal faith as well as his protection of the Muslims were under attack. For their part, the Muslims had prayed and wished that God would give the Negus victory over his enemies. But they could not participate in such a conflict since they were foreigners who arrived there too recently. When, at the same time, they heard of the news of an armistice between Muhammad and Qoresh favorable to the Muslims and protecting them from injury, they decided to escape from the Abyssinian revolution and return home. That is exactly what all or some of them did. They hardly reached Mecca, however, when Qoresh decided upon a course of action against the Muslims and entered into a pact with their allies to boycott Banu Hashim completely in order to prevent any intermarriage with them and to stop any purchase by or sale to them. As soon as this new alliance was concluded, open war broke out again. The returning Muslims sought immediately to re-emigrate and take with them all those who could manage to go. These were to meet greater difficulties as the Qoresh sought to impede their move. What caused the Muslims to return from Abyssinia, therefore, was not, as Orientalist Muir claims, the reconciliation of Muhammad with Qoresh. Rather, it was the armistice to which the Qoresh was compelled to resort following the conversion of `Umar and his bold support of the religion of God with his tribal relations. The so-called reconciliation, therefore, constitutes no evidence for the story of the goddesses.
Inverted Evidence of the Quranic Text
As for the argument of some biographers and exegetes that the verses, "They had almost succeeded in inducing you . . ."[Q 17:73-75] and "Every prophet We sent before you was such that, whenever he pressed for revelation . . ."[Q 22:52-53] constitute evidence for the story of the goddesses, it is yet more incoherent than that of Sir Muir. It is sufficient to remember that the first group of verses include the statement, "Had We not confirmed you in your faith, you might have been tempted." This group shows that even if Satan had actually hastened to inspire Muhammad with something satisfying his wish and thus induced him to favor the unbelievers, God had confirmed the Prophet in his faith and prevented him from falling to the temptation. Had Muhammad really fallen, God would have inflicted upon him inescapable punishment. The point is, precisely, that he did not fall. Hence, these verses prove the opposite of what these advocates assume them to prove. The story of the goddesses asserts that Muhammad did indeed incline toward the Qoresh, that the Qoresh had indeed induced him to add to the divine word, and that he indeed did attribute to God that which God had not said. The text on the other hand, tells us the exact opposite, namely that God confirmed him in his faith and that he did not add to the divine word. Moreover, we should well bear in mind the fact that the books of exegesis and the books dealing with the causes and circumstances of revelation regardless of whether or not they subcribe to the story in question affirm that these verses had been revealed at a time other than that during which the story of the goddesses had presumably taken place. To resort to the story of the goddesses in order to disprove the infallibility of the prophets in their conveyance of divine messages not only runs counter to the whole history of Muhammad but constitutes a fallacy of incoherent reasoning and, hence, a futile and perverse argument.
As for "Every prophet We sent before you…," these verses are utterly devoid of relation to the story of the goddesses. Moreover, they clearly affirm that God will abrogate all that the devil may bring forth, that Satan's work is only a lure to those who are sick of mind and hard of heart, and that God, the all wise and all-knowing, would keep His scripture absolutely pure and true.
Fallacious reasoning of the Claim
Let us now turn to a critical and scientific analysis of the story. The first evidence which imputes suspicion to the story is the fact that it has been reported in many forms and versions. First there is the report that the fabricated verses consist of the following words: "Tilka al gharaniq al `ula; wa inna shafa`atahu-nna laturtaja." Others reported them as consisting of, "al gharaniqah al `ula: inna shafa’atahum turtaja." Still others reported that they consist of the following words, "Inna shafa`atahunna turtaja" without mentioning the word "al gharaniq" or "al gharaniqah" at all. According to a fourth version, they were supposed to consist of the words: "Innaha lahiya al gharaniq al ula.." A fifth version reads, "Wa innahunna lahunna al gharaniq al ula wa inna shafa'atahunna lahiya allati, turtaja." The collections of Hadith have given us still more varied versions. The multiplicity of the versions proves that the report itself is fabricated, that it had been fabricated by the zindiqs-as ibn Ishaq had said earlier and that the forgers had sought thereby to spread doubt into the message of Muhammad and to attack his candidness in conveying the message of his Lord.
The Story's Violence to the Contextual Flow of Surah "al Najm"
Another proof of the falsity of the story, stronger and more conclusive than the foregoing, is the fact that the contextual flow of surah "al Najm" does not allow at all the inclusion of such verses as the story claims. The surah reads:
"He has witnessed many of the great signs of his lord. Would you consider the case of al Lat, al `Uzza, and of Manat, the third goddess? Would you then ascribe to God the females and to yourselves the males? Wouldn't that be a wretched ascription? All these are nothing but names, mere names which you and your ancestors had coined. Men are so prone to follow opinion! They credulously fall for the product of their own wishful thinking. But true guidance has indeed come from the Lord."
The logical and literary flow of these verses is crystal-clear. Al Lat, and al `Uzza are mere names devoid of substance given by the past and present unbelievers to works of their own creation. There is no deity such as the word name. The context does not allow any such addition as is here claimed. If, assuming such addition, the text were now to read: "Would you consider the case of al Lat, al `Uzza, and of Manat, the third goddess? These are the goddesses on high. Their intercession is to be sought. Would you then ascribe to God the females and to yourselves the males? Wouldn't that be a wretched ascription?" its corruption and outright self-contradiction become obvious. The text would have praised al Lat, al `Uzza,, and Manat as well as condemned them within the space of four consecutive verses. Such a text cannot proceed from any rational being. The contextual background in which the addition is supposed to have been made furnishes unquestionable and final evidence that the story of the goddesses was a forgery. The forgers were probably the zindiqs; and the credulous whose minds are not naturally repulsed by the irrational and the incoherent, accepted the forgery and passed it as true.
The Linguistic Evidence
There is yet another argument advanced by the late Shaykh Muhammad `Abduh. It consists of the fact that the Arabs have nowhere described their gods in such terms as "al gharaniq." Neither in their poetry nor in their speeches or traditions do we find their gods or goddesses described in such terms. Rather, the word "al ghurnuq" or "al gharniq" was the name of a black or white water bird, sometimes given figuratively to the handsome blond youth. The fact is indubitable that the Arabs never looked upon their gods in this manner.
The Story Contradicts the Fact of Muhammad's Candidness
There is yet one more final argument against the story of the goddesses that is based upon the nature of Muhammad's personal life. Ever since his childhood and throughout his adolescence, adulthood and maturity, he was never known to lie. So truthful was he that he had been nicknamed "al Amin" before he reached his twenty-fifth year of age. His truthfulness was unquestioned by anyone. He himself once addressed the Qoresh after his commission to prophethood : "Suppose I were to tell you that an enemy cavalry was advancing on the other side of this mountain, would you believe me?" His enemies themselves answered: "Yes, indeed! As far as we are concerned, you are innocent, for we have never found you to lie at all." How can we believe that such a man who had been known to be truthful in his relations with his fellow men from childhood to maturity, would be any less candid in his relation to God? How could such constant truthfulness allow him to lie and ascribe to his God that which He had not said? How could we believe that such a man did so in fear of the people and defiance of Almighty God? That is utterly impossible. Its impossibility is evident to all those who have studied these great; strong and distinguished souls of the prophets and religious leaders known for their dedication to the truth pereat mundus. How can we reconcile such an allegation with Muhammad's great declaration to his uncle that he will not adjure this cause even if his foes should put the sun in his right hand and the moon in his left? How can we. accept such a claim when it imputes to the Prophet the heinous charge of attributing to God that which God had not said, of violating the very foundation of the religion he was commissioned to proclaim and teach to mankind?
Furthermore, we may ask, when, according to the story, did Muhammad turn to praise the gods of Qoresh ? Ten years or so after his commission to prophethood, is the reply. But, then that is also after ten years of patient sufferance of all kinds of injury and harm, all kinds of sacrifices, after God had reinforced Islam with the conversion of Hamzah and `Umar, and, in short, after the Muslims had begun to feel themselves a significant power in Mecca and the news of their existence and exploits had begun to spread throughout Arabia, indeed to Abyssinia and other corners of the globe. Such a claim is not only uninformed, it is positively silly. The forgers of this story themselves must have realized its inadmissibility and sought to conceal its falsehood with the claim, “Muhammad hardly heard Qoresh’s words of reconciliation once he granted to their gods the honor of interceding with God, when his compromise appeared to him objectionable and he felt compelled to repent and to review the text of revelation with the angel Gabriel when he visited him that same evening.” This concealment, however, exposes the forgery rather than hides it. As long as the compromise appeared objectionable to Muhammad no later than he had "heard Qoresh's words of reconciliation," would he have not paused to reconsider it immediately and on the spot? How natural it would have been then for him instantly to recite the true version of the text! We may, therefore, conclude that this story of the goddesses is a fabrication and a forgery, authored by the enemies of Islam after the first century of the Hijrah.
Attack upon Tawhid [Monotheism]
The forgers must have been extremely bold to have attempted their forgery in the most essential principal of Islam as a whole: namely, in the principle of tawhid, where Muhammad had been sent right from the very beginning to make proclamations to all mankind in which he has never accepted any compromise whatever; he was never swayed by anything the Qoresh had offered him whether by way of wealth or royal power. These offers had come, it must be remembered, at a time when Muhammad had very few followers within Mecca. Later persecution by the Qoresh of his companions did not succeed in swaying Muhammad away from the call of his God or away from his mission. The zindiqs' strategy to work their forgery around the first principle of the faith, where Muhammad was known to be the most adamant, only points to their own inconsequence. Acceptance of the forgery by the credulous only points to their naiveté in the most conspicuous of cases.
The story of the goddesses, therefore, is absolutely devoid of foundation. It is utterly unrelated to the return of the Muslims from Abyssinia. As we said earlier, the latter returned after the conversion of `Umar, the strengthening of Islam with the same tribal solidarity with which he used to fight Islam hitherto, and the compulsion of Qoresh to enter into an armistice with the Muslims. Moreover, the Muslims' return from Abyssinia was partly due to the revolution which had broken out in that country and to their consequent fear of losing the Negus's protection. When the Qoresh learned of the Muslims' return, their fears reached a new level of intensity with the increase of Muhammad's followers within the city, and, therefore, they sought a new strategy. Their search for a new strategy was concluded with the signing of a pact in which they and their allied clans and tribes resolved to boycott the Banu Hashim in order to prevent any intermarriage with them, to stop all commercial relations and finally, to seek to kill Muhammad if they could only find the means.
The Malevolent Conduct of Qoresh
The conversion of `Umar to Islam reduced the power of Qoresh significantly in that `Umar brought with him to the faith the tribal loyalties with which he had fought Islam earlier. He did not hide himself or conceal his Islam. On the contrary he proclaimed it to all the people and fought them for not joining him. He did not at all approve of the Muslims' hiding themselves or holding prayers in the outskirts of Mecca far beyond the Qoresh's reach. He continued to struggle against the Qoresh until he could pray near the Kaba where his fellow Muslims joined him. Henceforth, Qoresh became certain that no injury inflicted upon Muhammad or his companions would stop men from entering the religion of God since they could now rely upon the tribal protection of `Umar, Hamzah, the Negus of Abyssinia, or others capable of protecting them. The Qoresh then sought a new strategy, and agreed among themselves to a written pact in which they resolved to boycott Banu Hashim and Banu Abd al Muttalib completely, prevent any intermarriage with them, and stop all commercial relations. The written pact itself was hung inside the Kaba, as was then the practice, for record and sanctification. They thought that this negative policy of boycott, isolation, and starvation would be more effective than the previous policy of harm and injury, though the latter was never stopped. The Qoresh blockaded the Muslims as well as the Banu Hashim and Banu Abd al Muttalib for two or three years during which time they hoped that these tribes would renounce Muhammad and thus cause him to fall under the hand of Qoresh. They had hoped that such a measure would isolate Muhammad and remove all danger from his mission.
The new strategy of Qoresh served only to strengthen Muhammad's faith in God and his followers' determination to protect his person and God's religion against attack. It did not prevent the spreading of Islam, not only within the bounds of Mecca but outside of it as well. Muhammad's mission became widely known among the Arabs of the Peninsula, and the new religion became the subject of conversation everywhere. This growth, in turn, increased the fury and determination of Qoresh to oppose and fight the man who abandoned and blasphemed her gods and to prevent the spread of his cause among the Arab tribes. Loyalty of these tribes was indispensable for Meccan commerce and trade relations with other people.
The Arm of Propaganda
It is nearly impossible for us to imagine the intensity and extent of the efforts which Qoresh spent in its struggle against Muhammad, or its perseverance during many long years in that struggle. The Qoresh threatened Muhammad and his relatives, especially his uncles. It ridiculed him and his message, and it insulted him as well as his followers. It commissioned its poets to revile him with their sharpest wits and to direct their most caustic sting against his preaching. It inflicted injury and harm on his person and on the persons of his followers. It offered him bribes of money, of royalty and power, of all that which satisfies the most fastidious among men. It not only banished and dispersed his followers from their own country but injured them in their trade and commerce while impoverishing them. It warned him and his followers that war with all its tragedies would fall upon them. As a last resort, it began a boycott of them designed to starve them. All this notwithstanding, Muhammad continued to call men with kind and gentle argument unto the God of truth who sent him as a prophet and a warner. Would Qoresh lay down its arms and believe the man whom it had always known to be truthful and honest? Or would they, under the illusion that they could still win, resort to new means of hostility to save the divine status, of their idols and the hallowed position of Mecca as their museum?
No! The time had not yet come for the Qoresh to submit and to convert to the new faith. Rather, they were more apprehensive than ever when the religion began to spread outside of Mecca within the Arab tribes. They had still another weapon which, though they had used it right from the very beginning, was yet capable of more power and damage. That was propaganda, or mental warfare, with all it implies by way of debate, counterargument, spreading of false rumors, ridicule of the opponent's point of view, and positive apologetics in favor of their own view. The development of this weapon was not to be limited to Mecca but would apply to the whole countryside, to the whole desert, and to the tribes of the Peninsula. Threat, bribery, aggression, and gangsterism allayed the need for propaganda within Mecca. There was a great need for it, however, among the thousands who came into Mecca every year for trade or pilgrimage, and among the attendants of the markets of 'Ukaz, Majannah, and Dhu al Majaz, who later arrived at the Kaba for thanksgiving and worship near the Kaba idols. Therefore, it was expedient for the Qoresh, the moment the lines of battle against Muhammad were clearly drawn, to plan and organize its propaganda forces. It had all the more reason to do so since Muhammad himself had always taken the initiative of approaching the pilgrim and addressing him on the subject of restricting worship to God alone without associates. The idea of such initiative did not occur to Muhammad until years after his commission to prophethood. At the beginning, revelation had commanded him to warn his nearest relatives. It was only after he had warned Qoresh and those who wanted to convert had converted that his revelation commanded him now to address his warning to the Arabs as a whole. He was later to be commanded to address his call to all mankind.
The Charge of Magical Eloquence
As Muhammad began to approach the pilgrims coming from various corners of Arabia with his call to God, a number of Qoresh leaders met with al Walid ibn al Mughirah to consult for a possible strategy. What would they say regarding Muhammad to the Arabs coming for pilgrimage? Their answers to this question should be universally the same; otherwise they would constitute arguments in favor of Muhammad's claims. Some suggested that they should claim that Muhammad was a diviner. A1 Walid rejected this suggestion on the grounds that what Muhammad recited was unlike the secret formulae of common diviners. Others suggested that they should claim that Muhammad was possessed or mad. A1 Walid again rejected this view on the grounds that the symptoms of madness or possession were not apparent in Muhammad. Still others suggested that they should claim that Muhammad was a magician, but al Walid again rejected this view on the grounds that Muhammad did not practice the common tricks of magicians. After some discussion, al Walid suggested that they should tell the non-Meccan Arab pilgrim that Muhammad was a magician whose craft was eloquence that by means of eloquent words he was capable of dividing the man against his father, his brother, his spouse and his own tribe. A1 Walid advised that they could produce evidence for such nefarious eloquence by pointing to the division which befell Mecca after Muhammad began to practice his craft. Any consideration of the present division, internal struggle, and internecine fighting raging among the Meccans who were once the exemplars of tribal solidarity and social unity would convince the observer that Muhammad's influence had brought the worst. During the pilgrimage season the Qoresh made a special effort to warn every visitor to Mecca against ever lending his ear to Muhammad for fear that he would be mesmerized by his magic eloquence and then suffer in turn the same evils that had befallen Mecca and thus bring about a general war in Arabia detrimental to all.
Al Nadr ibn al Harith
A mental warfare of such order could not be expected to withstand or counteract Muhammad's so-called magic eloquence all alone. If genuine truth were to come on the wings of this so-called magic eloquence, what would prevent the people from accepting it? Is the acknowledgment of the distinction of the antagonist and the acknowledgment of the inferiority of the protagonist ever successful as a propaganda weapon? There must needs be other fronts on which to attack Muhammad in addition to this proposed mental warfare. Let the Qoresh seek this second front with al Nadr ibn al Harith. The said al Nadr was one of the sophisticated geniuses of Qoresh. He had studied at al Hirah the history, religion, wisdom, theories of good and evil, cosmology, arid other literature of the Persians. Whenever Muhammad finished preaching his faith in an assembly calling men to God, and warning them of the consequences on the Day of Judgment taking the bygone peoples and civilizations as examples of such divine punishment for failure to worship God-al Nadr would rise and tell his fellow Meccans about Persia and its religion. He would conclude by asking the assembly, "Why is Muhammad's speech better than mine? Does he not draw from the tales of antiquity just as I do?" The Qoresh used to memorize al Nadr's speeches and statements and circulate them around and outside Mecca as countermeasures to the claims of Muhammad and his message.
Jabr, the Christian
Muhammad used to tarry at the shop of a Christian youth called Jabr whenever he passed by the Marwah quarter of Mecca. The Qoresh took advantage of the fact and began to spread the rumor that this Christian Jabr had taught Muhammad all that he knew and that if anyone were expected to apostatize from the religion of his ancestors, the Christian should be the first one to do so. As this rumor spread, revelation itself answered the claim in the verse: "We know they claim that the Quran is taught to him by another man. But the man whom they suspect is Persian of tongue, whereas the tongue of this Quran is pure and clear Arabic."[Q 16:103]
Al Tufayl ibn `Amr al Dawsa
With this and like feats of propaganda the Qoresh sought to fight Muhammad in hope of achieving by these means more than they did by means of injury and harm to his person and followers. The clear and simple might of truth, however, shone brilliantly in Muhammad's preaching. While the struggle between the two forces continued, Islam spread more and more widely among the Arabs. When al Tufayl ibn `Amr al Dawsi, a nobleman of great poetic talent, arrived in Mecca, he was immediately approached by the Qoresh and warned against Muhammad and his magical eloquence. They admonished him that Muhammad's craft might well divide him and his people and that his tribe might well suffer the same evil as had befallen Mecca. They asked him not to visit Muhammad or hear him if he wanted to avoid the evil. A1 Tufayl, however, went one day to the Kaba and there heard a little of the preaching of Muhammad and liked it. He then thought, "Woe to me! Am I, the intelligent poet, the mature man, to fear that I may not distinguish between the genuinely beautiful and the really ugly in human discourse? Shouldn't I go to Muhammad, hear all that he has to say and apply my own judgment? If I should find it good, why shouldn't I accept it? And if I find it evil, surely I shall avoid it." He followed Muhammad one day to his house and there told him exactly what. he thought and what he had decided. Muhammad welcomed him, presented to him the new religion, and recited for him the Quran. Al Tufayl was immediately converted, recited the confession of truth, and returned to his people a missionary for Islam. He was responsible for the conversion of many, though not all, of his tribesmen. For many years, he continued his missionary activity and succeeded in converting the greater number of them. He and they joined themselves to the forces of Muhammad after the conquest of Mecca once the political structure of the Islamic community began to crystallize.
A1 Tufayl ibn `Amr al Dawsi is only one of many examples. The idol worshippers were not the only ones responding favorably to the message of Muhammad. While Muhammad was still in Mecca, twenty Christian men arrived, sent by their own people on a fact-finding mission concerning the new faith. They sat with Muhammad and asked him all kinds of questions and listened to him. They, too, were converted on the spot, believed in Muhammad and in the revelation. This conversion aroused great anger and resentment among the Qoresh. Indeed the latter addressed the new converts in these words: "Wretched factfinding mission that you are! Your fellow religionists sent you here in order to investigate the man and bring them the factual news concerning him. But you have hardly sat down with him before you apostatized from your religion and believed him in everything he said." In vain did the Qoresh try to dissuade the Christian delegation from following Muhammad and converting to his faith. On the contrary, the Qoresh's attack against their sincerity had strengthened their faith in God and added to their monotheistic convictions since, before they heard Muhammad, they were already Christian and hence submissive to God.
Abu Sufyan, Abu Jahl, and al Akhnas
The struggle against Muhammad reached even greater proportions. The most antagonistic of the Qoresh began to ask themselves: "Is it true that this man is really calling unto the religion of truth? That what he promises us and threatens us with in the hereafter is true?" Abu Sufyan, Abu Jahl and al Akhnas ibn Shariq went out one night to hear Muhammad preach in his own house without any one of them knowing what the other was about. Unobserved by his colleagues, each one of them took his place in some corner and spent the night listening to Muhammad preach, then pray and recite the Quran in the still of night, cantillating its holy verses with his beautiful voice. As dawn arrived and the three auditors repaired to their houses, they met one another on the road. Each one of them knew what the others were about and blamed the others for such behavior. Arguing that this would be a blow to the morale of the rank and file of the Qoresh if they ever knew of it, they mutually promised one another never to do it again. When the following night came, however, and the hours of yesterday struck, each one of them felt as if he were being carried to the house of Muhammad without being able to stop himself. An irresistible power was drawing them to spend another night of listening to Muhammad's prayer, preaching, and cantillation of the divine verses. Again they met one another at dawn on their way back and blamed one another anew. Even this repeated violation of their mutual threat and promise did not prevent them from going to the same place the third night. It was only after the third violation that they realized their weakness and the strong attraction they felt toward the voice of Muhammad, his faith, and Quranic recitation. They pledged solemnly never to return again, but what they had heard from Muhammad during the three previous nights left such a deep impression upon their souls that it disturbed their inner peace and reduced their spirit of resistance. Naturally, they were quite apprehensive that, being leaders of their people, their inner disturbance would some day be discovered by their followers and sap the morale of the whole community.
"He Frowned and Turned Away"
What prevented these men from following Muhammad? He had not asked of them either reward or power or kingship. Rather, Muhammad was a very modest man, full of love for his people anxious to do good to them and to guide them in the true path. He was both strongly self-critical and fearful of bringing the least harm to the weak or the oppressed. In suffering the injuries inflicted upon him by others and forgiving their authors, he found peace and tranquility of conscience. Evidence of this personal characteristic of Muhammad may be found in the story of ibn Umm Maktum. Muhammad was once involved in serious conversation with al Walid ibn al Mughirah, one of the leading aristocrats of Qoresh, whom he hoped he would convert to Islam. Ibn Umm Maktum, the blind, stopped by and asked Muhammad to recite some Quranic verses for him. Preoccupied with his conversation, Muhammad did not answer. Ibn Umm Maktum insisted until he interrupted the conversation of the two men, to the severe annoyance of Muhammad. The conversation thus abruptly ended, Muhammad frowned, gave an angry look to the blind man and moved on without satisfying his request. When Muhammad came to himself, he began to criticize himself for this maltreatment of the blind man, and soon the following verses were revealed to him:
"He frowned and turned aside when the blind man approached him. Perhaps, the blind man may have sought to purify himself, to remember the words of God and to benefit there from. But to him who is disdainfully indifferent, you [Muhammad] pay great attention, though you are not responsible if he should never become purified. But he who came to you exerting himself and striving in fear and reverence, him you neglected. No! No! The whole matter is a reminder. So let him who so desires, be reminded of it. The Quran is inscribed in honored sheets, exalted and purified, and written by hands noble and virtuous."[Q 80:1-16]
If such was Muhammad's character, what did in fact prevent the Qoresh from following him and from helping him in his cause, especially as their hearts had mellowed, as the years had caused them to forget the obsolete traditions to which they had lethargically attached themselves, and as they saw in Muhammad's message true majesty and perfection?
The Will to Perfection
But is it true that time makes men forget their obsolete past and lethargic conservatism? Perhaps so, but only among those who are endowed with superior intelligence and a will to perfection. Such people spend their lives trying out and testing the truth which they have taken to be such in order to keep it free of admixture, superstition, and error. The minds and hearts of such people are cauldrons forever, boiling, accepting every new idea in order but to boil it down, purify it, and separate its good from its evil as well as its beauty from its ugliness. Such souls seek the truth in everything, everywhere, and from every source. In every nation and age, such people are few; they are the chosen and the distinguished. Such men always find themselves on the other side of any contest with the rich, the established, and the powerful. The latter are forever apprehensive of anything new lest it may adversely affect their wealth, prestige, or power and, generally speaking, they do not know any other facts besides those of concrete everyday living. Everything is true, in their opinion, if it leads to an increase in the substance of this very life, and false if it implies the slightest doubt regarding that substance. For the capitalist, virtue is good if it increases the substance, evil if it dissipates it. Religion itself, is indeed true only if it serves his passions and desires, and false if it denies or fails to satisfy them.
The man of political power and the man of social prestige stand here on a par with the capitalist. In their enmity to everything new and fearful, they mobilize the masses on whom their wealth, social prestige, or power depend against the innovator. This mobilization of the masses is carried out under an appeal to save the sanctity of the old order which may very well have become corrupt, obsolete, and spiritless. They present the old order they seek to save in great monuments of stone designed to delude the innocent rank and file. They pretend that the great spirit and value which moulded those monuments still lives therein with all its majesty and grandeur. The masses usually respond to their appeal with enthusiasm, for they are above all concerned with their daily bread; it is not easy for them to realize that any truth cannot remain for long imprisoned within the walls of any temple or monument, however beautiful or majestic it may be. It is hard for them to understand that it is of the nature of truth to be free, to invade the souls of men and to nourish them without discrimination between nobleman and slave; that no matter how hardily a system may defend itself against the truth and how closely it may be protected, the truth is always bound to win. How then could those Qoresh leaders who were seeking to listen to the Quran in secret, believe in its call when it proclaimed the wrath of God against the very practices which they were doing? How could they believe in a religion which did not differentiate between the blind pauper and the great capitalist except as regards the purity of their own souls? How could they believe in the call of Islam unto all men that "the greatest of you with God is the most pious and virtuous?"[Q 49:14]. If, therefore, Abu Sufyan and his colleagues remained true to the religion of their ancestors, it was not due to their faith in its truth value. Rather, it was due to their zeal to preserve the old order that not only protected them but also enabled them to achieve their position of wealth, social prestige, and power.
Jealousy and Competition
In addition to this anxiety and despair, jealousy and competition did their work to prevent the Qoresh from following the Prophet. Umayyah ibn Abu al Salt was one of those who predicted the rise of a prophet among the Arabs; indeed, he hoped that he himself was such a prophet. He was full of resentment and jealousy when revelation came to Muhammad rather than to him; he could not, despite his own superiority over Muhammad as far as poetical composition is concerned, follow a person whom he believed was his competitor. When Muhammad heard the poetry of Ummayyah, he exclaimed: "What a man is Ummayyah ! His poetry believes, but his heart does not." Likewise, al Walid ibn al Mughirah said: "It is incomprehensible to me that revelations would come to Muhammad and not to me while I am the greatest elder and master of Qoresh. Neither do I understand that revelation would not come to Abu Mas'ud `Amr ibn `Umayr al Thaqafi, the elder and master of Thaqif." It was in reference to such commonplace sentiments that the Quran says: "They said: would that this Quran be revealed to one of the great men in one of the two cities. Would they thus divide the mercy of your Lord? It is We who do so, as We do divide their livelihood among them in the world." [Q 43:31-32] After Abu Sufyan, Abu Jahl, and al Akhnas had listened for three consecutive nights to Muhammad's recitation of the Quran, as we have reported earlier, al Akhnas visited Abu Jahl in his home and asked, "O Abu al Hakam, what do you think of what we heard from Muhammad?" Abu Jahl answered, "What did you hear? Our house and the house of Banu `Abd Manaf have been competing for the honor: They have given the people to eat and so did we; they have carried the water to the pilgrims and so did we; they have assumed other burdens and so did we, they have given and so did we. Whenever we and they mount on our horses it always looks as if we are in a race. Now they are saying, among us is a prophet to whom revelation comes straight from heaven! When, if ever, will we achieve such a feat? Now, by God, we shall never believe in their prophet: we shall never accept what he says as true."
In these Bedouin souls of Muhammad's contemporaries, jealously and competition were deeply rooted, and it would be a great mistake to overlook them. We should remember that such passions are not unique to the Arabs but are shared by all men. To neutralize their effects or get rid of them demands long and arduous self-discipline, a radical self transformation that raises reason far above passion and ennobles one's spirit and heart to the degree of acknowledging the truth whithersoever it may come from, be he enemy or friend. It also demands believing that the possession of the truth is more precious than all the wealth of Midas, the glory of Alexander, or the power of Caesar. Such nobility and magnanimity of soul is hardly ever reached except by those whose hearts God Himself guides. Commonplace men are usually blinded by the wealth and pleasure of the world and by the present moment in which alone they spent their lives. Obviously, they are unable to rise to such spiritual height. In pursuit of quick satisfaction during the fleeting present, they struggle, fight, and kill one another. For its sake, nothing seems to prevent any of them from striking his teeth and claws into the very neck of truth, goodness and virtue, and from trampling to death the noblest and highest values. Seeing Muhammad's followers increasing in numbers and strength day by day, the Arabs of Qoresh were horrified by the idea that the truth which Muhammad proclaimed would one day achieve victory and power over them, over their allies and beyond, and over all the Arabs of the Peninsula. Heads shall roll rather than allow such a thing to happen, they thought. Counterpropaganda and mental warfare, boycott, blockade, injury and harm, persecutional these and the vials of wrath shall be poured over Muhammad and his followers.
Fear of Resurrection and the Day of Judgment
A third reason prevented the Qoresh from following Muhammad, namely, the terror of the resurrection on the Day of Judgment with its punishment of hell. They were a people immersed in recreation and the pursuit of pleasure; trade and usury were their means to its attainment. Those of them who could afford to indulge in these pursuits did not see in them anything immoral and felt no imperative to avoid them. Through their idol worship they thought that their evil deeds and sins could all be atoned for and forgiven. It was sufficient for a man to strike a few arrows at the foot of the statue of Hubal for him to think that anything he was about to undertake was blessed if not commanded by the god. It was sufficient to sacrifice something to these idols for him to have his sins and guilt wiped out and forgotten. Therefore, to kill, to rob, to commit adultery, to indulge in unbecoming speech and indecency were all proper and permissible as long as one was capable of bribing those gods and placating them with sacrifices.
On the other hand, Muhammad was proclaiming that the Lord was standing in wait for them, that they will be resurrected on the day of judgment, and that their works will be their only credit. Moreover, he did so with verses of such tremendous, power that they shook men's hearts to the foundation and threw their consciousness into horror and panic. The Quran proclaimed:
"But when the deafening cry is heard, when man would flee from his brother, from his father and mother, his wife and children, everyone will have enough to concern himself with his own destiny. On that day some faces will be bright, joyous and gay. Others will be dark and gloomy. The latter are the unbelievers, the wicked." [Q 80:33-42]
It proclaimed that the deafening cry would come:
"the day when heaven will be like molten copper, when mountains will be like flakes of wool, when no friend will be able to concern himself for his friends. Beholding the fate which is to be theirs, the condemned will wish to ransom themselves with their own children, their wives and brothers, their tribes that gave them protection, even the whole of mankind if such could save them from the impending doom. No indeed! There shall be a flame of fire, burning and dismembering, grasping without relief him who turned his back to the call of God, who played deaf to the moral imperative, who hoarded wealth and withheld it from the needy…"[Q 70:8-18]
"On that day you will be presented before God; none of your secrets will be hidden. Then, he who has received his record with his right hand will say: `Come, read my record. I had rightly thought that I was to meet my reckoning.' Such a man will lead a blessed life in a lofty garden whose fruits are ripe and within reach. When he is brought therein he will be told: Eat and drink joyfully for in the days gone by, you have done the good deeds.' As for him who is given his record in his left hand he will say: `Would I that I had never been given my record; that I never knew of my reckoning. Oh, would that death had made an end of me! My wealth is of no avail, and my power has come to naught.' To him God will say: `Seize him and fetter him. Broil him in the fire. Then bind him in a chain seventy cubits long. For he did not believe in Almighty God, nor did he urge the feeding of the hungry. Today, he shall have no loyal friends and no food except what is foul, which none eat except his fellow sinners.”[Q 69:18-37]
After this I may ask the reader: Have you read this well? Did you ponder every word of it? Have you fully understood its meaning? Are you not petrified and panic-stricken? But that is only a portion of Muhammad's warning to his people. You read these verses today and remember that you have read them many times over before. Concurrently with your reading, you will remember the Quran's description of hell:
"On that day, We shall ask hell, `Are you full?' And hell will answer: `Give me more!' . . . Whenever their skins wear out, We shall give them new skins that they may continue to suffer the punishment." [Q 50:30; 4:56].
You can well imagine then the horror which must have struck Qoresh, especially the rich among them wallowing in the protection of their gods and idols whenever Muhammad warned them of the imminent punishment. It would then become easy for you to appreciate the degree of their enthusiasm in belying Muhammad, opposing him, and urging the people to fight him. Previous to the Prophet's preaching, the Arabs had no idea of the Day of Judgment or of the resurrection, and they did not believe what they heard thereof from non-Arabs. None of them thought that he would be reckoned with after death for what he had done in this world. Whatever concern they had for the future was limited to this world. They feared disease, loss of wealth and children, of power and social prestige. This life, to them, was all there is to life. Their energies were exhausted in the amassing of the means with which to enjoy this life and to keep it safe from misfortune. The future was utterly opaque. Whenever their consciences were disturbed by a premonition of evil following upon their misdeeds, they had recourse to divination by arrows, pebbles, or bird chasing in order to dissipate the fear or confirm it. If confirmed they would sacrifice to their idols and thereby avoid the imminent misfortune.
As for reckoning after death, resurrection, and the Day of Judgment-paradise for the virtuous and hell for the unjust-all this completely escaped them despite the fact that they had heard of it in connection with the religion of the Jews and of the Christians. Nonetheless, they never heard of it described with such emphatic, frightening, indeed horrifying, terms and seriousness such as Muhammad's revelation had brought to them. What they had heard of before Muhammad never succeeded in pressing home to them the recognition that their continued life of pleasure, pursuit of wealth, exploitation of the weak, robbery of the orphan, neglect of the poor, and excess in usury, would surely incur eternal punishment. They had no idea of impending suffering in the depth of hell, and when they heard of it described in these terms, it was natural for them to be seized with panic. How strongly they must have felt when they realized, though they did not openly admit it, that the other world with its reward and punishment is truly there, waiting for them only one step beyond this life which was soon to end in death!
Qoresh and Paradise
As for God's promise to the virtuous of a paradise as large as heaven and earth, where there is neither evil word nor deed but only peace and blessedness, the Qoresh were quite suspicious. They doubted paradise all the more because of their attachment to this world and their anxiousness to enjoy its blessings right here and now. They were too impatient to wait for the Day of Judgment though they did not believe in any such day at all.
The Struggle of Good and Evil
One may indeed wonder how the Arabs locked their minds against any idea of the other world and its reckoning when the struggle of good and evil in this world has been raging eternally without letup or peace. Thousands of years before Muhammad, the ancient Egyptians provided their dead with their needs for the other world. In the coffins, they enclosed The Book of the Dead, which was full of psalms, invocations, and other prayers, and in their graves they painted pictures of judgment and scenes of repentance and punishment. The Indians, too, conceived of the other world in terms of Nirvana and transmigration of souls. A soul, they held, may suffer for thousands and millions of years before it is guided to the truth, purified, and rehabilitated to the good life at the end of which is Nirvana. Likewise, the Zoroastrians of Persia recognized the struggle of good and evil, and their gods were gods of light and darkness. So, too, did the Mosaic and the Christian religions, both of which describe a life of eternity dependent upon God's pleasure or wrath. Did the Arabs not know any of all this, though they were a people of trade in continual contact through their voyages with all the adherents of these religions? How could the case be otherwise? Why did they not have similar notions of their own when, as people of the desert, they were closer to infinity and eternity, to a conception of the spiritual existence induced by the heat of noon and the darkness of night, to good and evil spirits, which they had already conceived of as residing within the statues which interceded for them with God? Undoubtedly, they must have had an idea of the existence of the other world, but since they were a people of trade, they were more realistic and hence appreciative of that which they could see and touch. They were one and all bon vivants and, hence, all the more determined to deny punishment or reward in the hereafter. They thought that what man needs in this world is precisely the consequence of his deed whether good or evil. Further consequences of his deeds in the other world were therefore superfluous. That is why most of the revelations of Muhammad which warned, threatened, and made promises concerning the other world were revealed in Mecca at the beginning of Muhammad's commission. This revelation answered the need for saving those among whom Muhammad was sent. It was natural that Muhammad draw their attention as strongly as he could to their error and misguidance and that he call them to rise above idol worship to the worship of the One Almighty God.
For the Sake of Salvation
In the course of bringing spiritual salvation to his people and to all mankind, Muhammad and his followers suffered great harm. They were subjected to many travails of body and spirit, to emigration, to alienation from peers and relatives, and they bore these sacrifices with gallantry and patience. It was as if the more his people harmed Muhammad, the stronger became his love for them and the greater his desire and care to bring about their salvation. Resurrection and the day of judgment were the supreme ideas to which they were to give their attention if they were to be saved from their idolatry and evil deeds. Consequently, in the first years of Muhammad's prophethood, revelation constantly repeated divine threats and warnings that the Meccans might open their eyes and recognize the veracity of resurrection and the Day of Judgment. It was this constant assault by revelation which, in final analysis, had inflamed the terrible war between Muhammad and Mecca whose rage did not subside until God had given victory to Islam, His religion, over the religions of man.
Calling the Tribes to lslam during the Holy Months
The pact into which the clans of Qoresh had entered for boycotting Muhammad and blockading the Muslims continued to be observed for three consecutive years. During this time Muhammad and his family and companions fortified themselves against attack in one of the hills within Mecca. In their isolation, however, they suffered all kinds of privations; often they could not find enough food to satisfy their hunger. It was not possible either for Muhammad or the Muslims to mix with other people or to talk to them except during the holy months, when the Arabs would come to Mecca on pilgrimage and all hostilities would cease. In those months, no killing, persecution, aggression or vengence was permitted. Muhammad used to approach the Arabs and call them unto the religion of God and warn them of His imminent punishment as well as announce to them the blessings of paradise. The pilgrims knew what Muhammad had suffered in the cause of his mission, and this stirred their sympathy and compassion for him as well as their sensitivity to his call. Indeed, this boycott imposed by Qoresh, and Muhammad's patient bearing of it for the sake of his cause, won for him and his cause many hearts. Not all men were as hard of feeling as Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab.
Blockade of the Muslims
The long duration of the blockade and, consequently, the great sufferings inflicted upon the Muslims by the Qoresh, caused a number of Meccans to realize the hardness and injustice to which their very brethren, in-laws, and cousins, had been subjected. Were it not for the few who compassionately furnished the Muslims food, the latter would have surely starved. Hisham ibn `Amr was the most compassionate to the Muslims in their tragedy. He used to load his camel with food and other supplies, take it during the night and pass by the entrance to the quarter where the Muslims were isolated. He would detach the reins of the camel and let it go free, whipping it on the sides so that the camel would enter into the quarter and be seized by the Muslims. The more Muhammad and his companions suffered, the more disturbed a number of Qoreshis became. Unable to withhold his compassion, Hisham ibn `Amr went to Zuhayr ibn Abu Umayyah, whose mother was `Atikah, daughter of Abd al Muttalib. He said, "O Zuhayr, how could you eat and wear new clothes and marry and enjoy life when your uncles are locked up and isolated, unable to buy or purchase anything, to give or to take anyone in marriage? By God I swear that if the Muslims were the uncles of Abu al Hakam ibn Hisham and you had asked him to boycott them as he asked you to boycott the Muslims, he would have never fulfilled your request." Together the two men agreed to revoke the pact of the boycott and sought to convince others to do likewise, although secretly. Al Mut'am ibn `Adiyy, Abu al Bakhtari ibn Hisham, and Zam'ah ibn al Aswad agreed to denounce the pact of boycott and to work together for its repudiation.
One day after circumambulating the Kaba seven times, Zuhayr ibn Abu Umayyah addressed the Meccans : "O People of Mecca, would you that we eat food and enjoy ourselves while the Banu Hashim are dying one after another unable to buy or acquire anything? By God, I shall not sit still until this unjust pact of the boycott is revoked." Upon hearing this, Abu Jahl immediately rose and said to Zuhayr, "You are a liar. The pact is sacred and inviolable." At this, Zam'ah, Abu al Bakhtari, al Mut'am, as well as Hisham ibn `Amr, rose from their places to argue against Abu Jahl and to confirm Zuhayr in his request. At this show of strength, Abu Jahl realized that a previous agreement must have been reached between these men and that direct opposition to them might not prove advantageous. He therefore withdrew. A1 Mut'am rose to tear up the pact hanging on the wall of the Kaba only to find that insects had already devoured most of it except the opening words "In the name of God." At this, Muhammad and his companions were permitted to come out of their isolation and circulate in Mecca, to buy and to sell as usual, although the antagonism and hostility remained as they were, and each party continued to look forward to a day when it could overcome the other.
Infallibility of Muhammad in Conveying the Revelation
Some biographers claimed that the unbelievers who brought about the revocation of the boycott pact went to Muhammad and asked him to make some gesture of reconciliation toward the Qoresh in order to strengthen them in their attempts and to put a stop to further harm. They asked him to agree to give their gods a place, at least to grant them occasional recognition with the fingers of his hand as the Meccans were accustomed to do. The same biographers claim that Muhammad inclined toward doing some of this in gratitude for the good deeds just done to him. They even allege that he said to himself: "What blame is there if I do such a thing? God knows that I am innocent!" Other biographers report that the same men who helped revoke the pact of boycott went one evening to Muhammad, talked to him all night, and praised him so much and endeared themselves to him, calling him "Our Master, Our Master," until he was moved to answer some of their demands. The first version was reported by Said ibn Jubayr; and the second by Qatadah. In both versions, it is reported that God protected Muhammad against their subversion and revealed to him the following verse:
"They have almost succeeded in inducing you, under promise of their friendship, to attribute to Us, against Our command, that which We did not reveal to you. Had We not confirmed you in your faith, you might have been tempted and hence fallen under the inescapable punishment."[Q 17:73-75]
It should be remembered that these verses were claimed to have been revealed in connection with the forged story of the goddesses which we have investigated earlier; the present reporters attribute it to the story of the revocation of the boycott pact. The same verses have also been claimed by ibn Abbas, as reported by 'Ata', to have been revealed in connection with another story. That is the story of the delegation of Thaqif who came to Muhammad to ask him to declare their valley holy just as Mecca had declared her trees and birds and animals holy. It is claimed that the Prophet-may God's peace be upon him hesitated until these verses were revealed. Whatever the historical circumstances which occasioned the revelation of these verses, the verses themselves bespeak the greatness of Muhammad as well as his candidness. The same aspects of Muhammad's personality are equally in evidence in the verses we have reported from Surah 80. Indeed, they are supported by the history of Muhammad's life as a whole. Muhammad had repeatedly told the people that he was only a man, that as a man God had revealed to him certain messages for their guidance, and that without God's special protection in this regard he was as fallible as anyone. Muhammad did in fact err when he frowned in the face of ibn Umm Maktum and sent him away. He almost erred as reported above in the verses from the surah "al Isra' " as well as in the foregoing verses which tell of his inclination away from that which had been revealed to him and of the people's invitation to Muhammad to invent a revelation. But revelation did, in fact, come to Muhammad and condemned what he did in connection with the blind beggar, his near succumbing to Qoresh's temptation. Muhammad, however, reported all these revelations to the Qoresh people with equal truthfulness and candidness. Neither self-esteem nor pride nor any other human feeling prevented him from conveying the revelation, whether it was for or against him. The truth and the truth alone was the essence of his message. He declared the truth even if it were against himself. We are accustomed to expect the great man to bear resolutely and patiently whatever harm he might be exposed to on account of his conviction, but we hardly ever expect the great man to acknowledge that he almost succumbed to his temptations. Such temptations are usually not talked about, and most great men are contented to reckon with themselves strongly only in secret. He was therefore greater than the great, for his soul enabled him to rise to the height where it would acknowledge the truth even regarding its own struggle and proclaim it to the public. Such greatness that is greater than the great belongs exclusively to the prophets. It demands of the prophet the very utmost in truthfulness and candidness in the conveyance of the message of truth that comes from God alone.
Death of Abu Talib and Khadija
After the repudiation of the boycott pact, Muhammad and his companions emerged from their quarters. Muhammad immediately resumed his call to the Qoresh and to the tribes that used to come to Mecca during the holy months. Despite the spreading of his fame among the Arab tribes and the number of his followers, neither he nor they were quite yet safe from injury, and nothing he could do would have guaranteed such safety. A few months later two tragedies were to add to his troubles. First, the death of Abu Talib, his protector, and then that of Khadija, his wife. Abu Talib died at about the age of eighty. When Qoresh knew of his approaching end, they feared that the conflict with the Muslims would reach a new height now that their leadership would pass into the less temperate hands of Hamzah and `Umar, well known for their hardness and determined hostility. The leaders of Qoresh went up to Abu Talib and addressed him as he lay on his deathbed
"O Abu Talib, we hold for you great respect and we appreciate your counsel and wisdom. Now that you are about to leave us, and, knowing the conflict that has arisen between us and your nephew, do please call him and ask him to give us assurance as we are wont to give you for him, that he will leave us alone and we will leave him alone, that he will leave us to practice our religion and we shall leave him to practice his." Muhammad and his companions came to the meeting in his uncle's house. After he was told about their purpose he said
"Yes, indeed! All I want from you is this one word of assurance which, if given, will bring you mastery of all Arabia as well as Persia, namely…" "Speak out," interrupted Abu Jahl, "by your father we shall give it to you! Not one word but ten." Muhammad continued: "Namely, that you witness with me that there is no God but God and repudiate all that you worship besides Him." Some of them said to Muhammad: "Do you want to make all the gods one?" Turning to one another, the men of Qoresh said: "By God, this man is not going to give you any word of assurance such as you require." The leaders of Qoresh left Abu Talib's house without satisfaction, and Abu Talib died a few days later, the situation between him and the Qoresh being more hostile than ever before.
Later on, Khadija, who supported Muhammad with her love and goodness, her purity, gentleness and strong faith, passed away. At her death, Muhammad lost an angel of mercy who reassured and reconciled him whenever he felt crushed under the burdens of his cause. Henceforth, Muhammad was forever to miss the believing eyes of Khadija and her reassuring smile, just as he had lost in Abu Talib his protection and refuge from his enemies. How deeply these tragedies must have cut into Muhammad's heart! Surely they were strong enough to shake the most determined soul, to bring doubt and despair to the most resolute, and to leave behind the greatest degree of emptiness and despondence.
Increase of Qoresh's Hostility
Soon thereafter, the Qoresh were to increase their attacks against Muhammad. An example of the least of such injuries was the covering of Muhammad's head with soil thrown at him by one of the plebeians of Qoresh. Muhammad withdrew to his home where his daughter, Fatimah, moved to tears by the sight of her father, washed his head for him. It is certainly painful to us to hear our children cry, and more so to hear our daughters cry. Indeed, every tear dropped from a daughter's eye is a ball of fire fallen upon our hearts, causing us to cry in pain. The daughter's sob and painful murmur fall heavily upon the father's heart, and Fatimah's cries must have choked a compassionate father such as Muhammad. However, what was he to do to reassure a person who had just lost her mother and who is now appalled by the insults heaped upon her father? Nothing but to orient himself all the more to God, and to proclaim his conviction that God would give him final
victory. He said to his daughter: "Do not cry, O Fatimah ! Your father has God for protector." Often Muhammad would be heard saying: "By God. Qoresh never harmed me so much as after the death of Abu Talib."
Muhammad's Excursion to Ta'if (628 C.E.)
The Qoresh doubled and redoubled their injuries to Muhummad and his followers until Muhammad could bear it no longer. Alone, and without telling anyone, he undertook a trip to the city of Ta'if where he solicited the support of the tribe of Thaqif after calling them to Islam. When they refused, he asked them not to spread the news of their refusal to his enemies that they might not rejoice at his failure. The tribe of Thaqif, however, not only repudiated Muhammad's call but sent their servants to insult him and throw him out of their city. He ran away from them and took shelter near a wall which belonged to Utbah and Shaybah, sons of Rabia. There, he sat under a vine pondering his defeat, within sight of the sons of Rabia. He raised his hands to heaven and prayed with noticeable pain
"O God, please consider my weakness, my shortage of means, and the little esteem that people have of me. Oh, most Merciful God, You are the Lord of the oppressed, and You are my Lord. To whom would You leave my fate? To a stranger who insults me? Or to an enemy who dominates me? Would I that You have no wrath against me! Your pleasure alone is my objective. Under the light of Your faith which illuminates all darkness and on which this world and the other depend, I take my refuge. I pray that I may not become the object of Your wrath and anger. To You alone belongs the right to blame and to chastise until Your pleasure is met. There is neither power nor strength except in You."
`Addas, the Christian
For some time, the sons of Rabia watched Muhammad until a feeling of compassion and sympathy for him began to stir within them. They sent their Christian servant, Addas by name, with a bunch of grapes. Before Muhammad partook of the grapes, he said: "In the name of God." Addas was surprised and said, "That is not what the natives of this country usually say." Muhammad then asked him about his religion and his country of origin, and when he learned that he was a Christian from Nineveh, he said, "Are you then from the City of the Righteous Jonah, son of Mathew?" Still more surprised, Addas asked, "What do you know about Jonah, son of Matthew?" Muhammad answered, "That was my brother; he was a true prophet and so am I." Moved with emotion, Addas covered Muhammad with kisses. The two sons of Rabia were surprised at what they saw although they remained unmoved by Muhammad's religious claims. When their servant returned to them they counseled him: "O Addas, do not allow this man to convert you from your faith. Your faith is better for you than his."
Muhammad Offers Himself to the Tribes
The news of the injuries inflicted upon Muhammad lightened the hostility of the tribe of Thaqif, but it never succeeded in moving them to follow him. The Qoresh knew about this expedition and increased their injuries. Nothing, however, could dissuade Muhammad from continuing his call. At every season, whenever the tribes of Arabia came to Mecca, he offered himself and his cause to them, informed them that he was a commissioned prophet, and asked them to believe in him. His uncle Abd al `Uzza, son of Abd al Muttalib, otherwise known as Abu Lahab, would not let him; he would follow Muhammad everywhere he went to dissuade the people from listening to him. Muhammad, for his part, did not only preach his religion to the tribes in the pilgrimage season in Mecca, but sought those tribes in their own quarters. He visited the tribe of Kindah and the tribe of Kalb, of Banu Hanifah, Banu `Amir ibn Sa'sa'ah, each in its own province. None of them responded favorably to him, and they all repudiated his call sometimes with insults, as did the tribe of Banu Hanifah. The tribe of Banu `Amir felt more ambitious and imagined that they could assume a position of leadership should the cause of Muhammad triumph. But when Muhammad told them, "The matter belongs wholly to God; He places leadership wheresoever He wishes," they turned away and repudiated his call like the rest.
Did all these tribes repudiate Muhammad's call for the same reasons for which Qoresh did before them? We have seen the disappointment of the tribe of Banu `Amir upon the frustration of their ambition of leadership and power. As for the tribe of Thaqif, they had a different opinion. In addition to the cool atmosphere and vineyards which made it a summer resort, the city of Ta’if was the center of worship of al Lat, for it was in its midst that the idol stood and on its account the city had become a place of pilgrimage. Should the tribe of Thaqif follow Muhammad, the goddess al Lat would lose her place of worship, the city its pilgrimage site, and ensuing hostility with Qoresh would soon cut off all summer visits by the Meccans. Every tribe had thus its own reason, economic or other, for which it refused to accept Islam besides the personal attachment to the religion of the fathers and the worship of old idols.
Muhammad's Engagement to Aisha
The rejection of Muhammad by the tribes increased his isolation, as the doubled and redoubled injuries of the Qoresh increased Muhammad's pain and grief. The period of mourning for Khadija passed, and Muhammad thought of marrying again in the hope of finding consolation in a new companion. He also thought that marriage might even furnish a new occasion for strengthening the bond of brotherhood and commitment between himself and the earlier converts to Islam. He therefore asked Abu Bakr for the hand of his daughter, Aisha. Since she was still too young to marry, the engagement was announced, but the marriage was postponed for three more years until Aisha reached the age of eleven. In the meantime, Muhammad married Sawdah, the widow of one of the Muslim companions who emigrated to Abysinnia but died upon his return to Mecca. In both these instances, it is hoped that the reader will have a glimpse of the principle regulating Muhammad's later domestic life which we shall discuss in a forthcoming chapter.
Al Isra' (621 C.E)
It was during this period that al Isra' and al Mi'raj had taken place [Night Ascention to Heavens]. On the night of al Isra'. Muhammad was staying in the house of his cousin, Hind, daughter of Abu Talib, who was also called Umm Hani'. Hind related that "The Prophet of God spent the night in my quarters. He recited his night prayers and went to sleep. Just before dawn, the Prophet of God awoke us and we all prayed the dawn prayer together. When the prayer was through, he said, "O Umm Hani', I prayed with you the night prayer in this place; then I went to Jerusalem and I prayed there, and. as you see, I have just finished praying with you the dawn prayer.' I answered, `O Prophet, do not tell this to the people for they will belie you and harm you.' He said, `By God I shall tell them.'"
Was al Isra' in Body or in Soul?
Those who claim that al Isra' and al Mi'raj of Muhammad-may God's peace be upon him had taken place in soul rather than in body refer to this report of Umm Hani'. They also refer to another report by Aisha which says, "The body of the Prophet of God-may God's peace and blessing be upon him was never missed from his bed. Rather, God caused him to travel in soul alone." Whenever Mu'awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan was asked about al Isra' of the Prophet, he used to answer, "It was a true vision from God." Those who share such a view confirm their claim with the Quranic verse, "The vision which We have shown you is but a trial to the people."[Q 17:60]
According to the other view, al Isra' from Mecca to Jerusalem took place in body. In confirmation of this, they mention that Muhammad had related what he saw in the desert on the way hither and add that his ascension to heaven was in soul. Others hold that both al Isra' and al Mi'raj were in body. As a result of this great controversy, thousands of books have been written on the subject. We have a view of this matter which we shall give shortly, a view that somebody else may have held before us. Before we proceed, however, we shall give the story of al Isra' and al Mi'raj as it was reported in the biography books.
Al Isra' as Given in Literature
The Orientalist Dermenghem has reported the following eloquent story culled from a number of biography books. We shall quote it as he related it
"In the middle of a solemn, quiet night when even the night-birds and the rambling beasts were quiet, when the streams had stopped murmuring and no breezes played, Mahomet was awakened by a voice crying: `Sleeper, awake!' And before him stood the Angel Gabriel with radiant forehead, countenance white as snow, blond hair floating, in garments sewn with pearls and embroidered in gold. Manifold wings of every colour stood out quivering from his body.
"He led a fantastical steed, Boraq (`Lightning'), with a human head and two eagles' wings; it approached Mahomet, allowed him to mount and was off like an arrow over the mountains of Mecca and the sands of the desert toward the North . . . The Angel accompanied them on this prodigious flight. On the summit of Mt. Sinai, where God had spoken to Moses, Gabriel stopped Mahomet for prayer, and again at Bethlehem where Jesus was born, before resuming their course in the air. Mysterious voices attempted to detain the Prophet, who was so wrapped up in his mission that he felt God alone had the right to stop his steed. When they reached Jerusalem Mahomet tethered Boraq and prayed on the ruins of the Temple of Solomon with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Seeing an endless ladder appear upon Jacob's rock, the Prophet was enabled to mount rapidly to the heavens.
"The first heaven was of pure silver and the stars suspended from its vault by chains of gold; in each one an angel lay awake to prevent the demons from climbing into the holy dwelling places and the spirits from listening indiscreetly to celestial secrets. There, Mahomet greeted Adam. And in the six other heavens the Prophet met Noah, Aaron, Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon, Idris (Enoch), Yahya (John the Baptist) and Jesus. He saw the Angel of Death, Azrail, so huge that his eyes were separated by 70,000 marching days. He commanded 100,000 battalions and passed his time in writing in an immense book the names of those dying or being born. He saw the Angel of Tears who wept for the sins of the world; the Angel of Vengeance with brazen face, covered with warts, who presides over the elements of fire and sits on a throne of flames; and another immense angel made up half of snow and half of fire surrounded by a heavenly choir continually crying: `0 God, Thou hast united snow and fire, united all Thy servants in obedience to Thy Laws.’ In the seventh heaven where the souls of the just resided was an angel larger than the entire world, with 70,000 heads; each head had 70,000 mouths, each mouth had 70,000 tongues and each tongue spoke in 70,000 different idioms singing endlessly the praises of the Most High.
"While contemplating this extraordinary being, Mahomet was carried to the top of the Lote-Tree of Heaven flowering at the right of God's invisible throne and shading myriads of angelic spirits. Then after having crossed in a twinkling of an eye the widest seas, regions of dazzling light and deepest darkness, traversed millions of clouds of hyacinths, of gauze, of shadows, of fire, of air, of water, of void, each one separated by 500 marching years, he then passed more clouds of beauty, of perfection, of supremacy, of immensity, of unity, behind which were 70,000 choirs of angels bowed down and motionless in complete silence. The earth began to heave and he felt himself carried into the light of his Lord, where he was transfixed, paralyzed. From here heaven and earth together appeared as if imperceptible to him, as if melted into nothingness and reduced to the size of a grain of mustard seed in the middle of a field. And this is how Mahomet admits having been before the Throne of the Lord of the World.
"He was in the presence of the Throne `at a distance of two bows' Length or yet nearer" [Q 83], beholding God with his soul's eyes and seeing things which the tongue cannot express, surpassing all human understanding. The Almighty placed one hand on Mahomet's breast and the other on his shoulder to the very marrow of his bones he felt an icy chill, followed by an inexpressible feeling of calm and ecstatic annihilation.
"After a conversation whose ineffability is not honored by too precise tradition, the Prophet received the command from God that all believers must say fifty prayers each day. Upon coming down from heaven Mahomet met Moses, who spoke with him on this subject:
" `How do you hope to make your followers say fifty prayers each day? I had experience with mankind before you. I tried everything with the children of Israel that it was possible to try. Take my word, return to our Lord and ask for a reduction.'
"Mahomet returned, and the number of prayers was reduced to forty. Moses thought that this was still too many and made his successor go back to God a number of times. In the end God exacted not more than five prayers.
"Gabriel then took the Prophet to paradise where the faithful rejoice after their resurrection an immense garden with silver soil, gravel of pearls, mountains of amber, filled with golden palaces and precious stones.
"Finally, after returning by the luminous ladder to the earth, Mahomet untethered Boraq, mounted the saddle and rode into Jerusalem on the winged steed."[Emile Dermenghem, The Life of Mahomet, New York 1930]
Ibn Hisham's Report about al Isra'
Such is the report of the Orientalist Dermenghem concerning the story of al Isra and al Mi'raj. Every item he reported may be readily found, perhaps with greater or lesser detail, in many of the biographies. An example of the fertility of the reporters' imagination may be read in ibn Hisham's biography. Reporting on Muhammad's conversation with Adam in the first heaven, ibn Hisham wrote: "Then I saw men with lips like those of camels. In their hands were balls of fire which they thrusted into their mouths and collected from their extremities to thrust into their mouths again. I asked, 'Who are these, O Gabriel?' He said: 'These are men who robbed the orphans.' I then saw men with large bellies, the likes of which I have never seen before even on the road to the house of Pharaoh where the greatest punishment is meted out to the greatest sinners. These are trodden upon by men who when brought to the fire run like maddened camels. Those whom they tread upon
remain immobile, unable to move from their place. I asked, 'Who are those, O Gabriel?' He answered, 'Those are the usurers.' I then saw men sitting at a table loaded with delicious and fat meat as well as spoilt and stinking meat. They were eating of the latter and leaving the former untouched. I asked, 'Who are these, O Gabriel?' He answered, 'These are men who left their own women whom God had permitted them to enjoy and ran after other women illegitimately.' I then saw women hanging from their breasts and asked, 'Who are these, O Gabriel?' He answered, 'These are women who fathered on their husbands children not their own.' . . . He then took me into Paradise where I saw a beautiful damsel with luscious lips. As I was attracted by her I asked her, 'To whom do you belong?' She answered: 'To Zayd ibn Harithah.' The prophet of God-may God's peace and blessing be upon him announced this glad tiding to Zayd ibn Harithah."
Whether in ibn Hisham's or in other biographies of the Prophet or in the books of Quranic exegesis, the reader will find many details besides the above mentioned. It is certainly the historian's right to question how closely these reports have been scrutinized and investigated by their collectors, with the view to finding out how much of them may be truly ascribed to the Prophet and how much was the invention of the fancy of the Sufis and others. Although there is no room here to undertake such investigation, nor to decide the issue of whether or not al Isra' or al Mi'raj were both in body or in soul or the one in body and the other in soul, there is still no doubt that every one of these views has reasons which their advocates claim to be legitimate. There is no a priori reason why one may not adhere to one of these views rather than another. Whoever wishes to hold the view that al Isra' and al Mi'raj were in soul and not in body, could turn to the evidence of the reports we have already cited as well as to the Quranic emphasis that
"I am but a human like you unto whom a revelation is, given that your God is one God;" [Q 18:110] that the book of God is the sole "miracle" of Muhammad; and that "God does not forgive any association of aught with Him but He forgives to whomsoever He wishes anything else."[Q 4:48]
Whoever holds a view of al Isra and al Mi'raj such as this is perhaps better entitled to inquire about the meaning of these ideas. And that is precisely the issue to which, perhaps for the first time ever, we want to address ourselves in the following sections.
Al Isra' and the Unity of Being
As phenomena in the spiritual life of Muhammad, al Isra' and al Mi'raj carry great and noble meanings that are greater than the foregoing descriptions have suggested much of which being the product of pure imagination. In the moment of al Isra' and al Mi'raj, Muhammad grasped the unity of being in all its totality and perfection. In that moment, neither space nor time could prevent his consciousness from encompassing all being; whereas our consciousness, determined by weaker perceptive and rational faculties, is incapable of transcending the limitations of space and time. In that moment, all frontiers fell before Muhammad's insight; and all being was, as it were, gathered in his soul. In that moment, he came to know totality from beginning to end and represented this totality as the self-realization of the forces of goodness, truth, and beauty in their struggle against and conquest of evil, untruth, and fraud. All this happened to Muhammad by God's grace.
No one is capable of such transcendent vision except by means of superhuman power. If any of the followers of Muhammad were unable to match him in his struggle to rise to or to achieve such vision and perception, there should be neither blame nor surprise. Men's degrees of endowment differ, and their vision of the truth is always determined by these limitations which our ordinary powers are unable to transcend. There is perhaps an analogy between Muhammad's understanding of the universe at that moment and that of any other person who has risen to the highest level of consciousness possible for man. It is that of the story of the blind men who, upon being brought into contact with the elephant, were asked to identify it. It will be remembered that the first thought it was a long rope because he had touched its tail; the second, a thick tree because he had touched its leg; the third, a spear because he had touched its ivory; and the fourth, a moving round
tube because he had touched its trunk. These views are to the unimpaired view of the elephant as the understanding of most of us to that of Muhammad, implied in al Isra' and al Mi'raj, of the unity and totality of being. In Muhammad's vision, the finitude of space and time disappeared, and he beheld the universe all "gathered up" and present. Men capable of such great moments of consciousness see the details of space-time and problems of worldly living as mathematical atoms appended to the person without ever affecting him. None of them affect in the least the life of his body, the beat of his heart, the illumination of his soul, the enlightenment of his consciousness, nor his vibration with energy and life. For by existing, such a person enters into communion with all existence and all life, as it were, ipso facto.
A spiritual Isra' and Mi'raj cannot be different in its meanings of beauty, majesty, and transcendence than a bodily one. In itself, the story is a very strong figurization of the spiritual unity of all being. Muhammad's detour for a stop on Mount Sinai where God spoke to Moses face to face, at Bethlehem where Jesus was born, and the spiritual meeting of Muhammad, Jesus, Moses and Abraham in the moment of prayer is another very strong figurization of the unity of religious experience and life, a unity constitutive of the world as it tends to value and perfection.
Al Isra' and Modern Science
In our modern age, science confirms the possibility of a spiritual Isra' and Mi'raj. Where there is a meeting of genuine forces, that which shines forth is genuine reality; just as a meeting of the same forces of nature configured by the genius of Marconi produced the real effect of lighting a light in distant Australia by means of an electric radiation directed at it on the waves of space from his ship in Venice. In this age of ours, science has confirmed the possibility of prestidigitation, of broadcast of sound through space by means of the radio, as well as of pictures and writing, all of which was considered too fanciful even for the imagination. The forces latent in nature are still being discovered by science, and every new day brings a new surprise. Strong and powerful spirits such as Muhammad's are perfectly capable of being carried in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem and of being shown God's signs. That is not opposed to reason, especially
when the moral of it is the figurization of divine truths, of extraordinary meanings of beauty and transcendence, and of the unity of spirit and world so clearly achieved in the consciousness of Muhammad. Though extraordinary and unique to Muhammad, the experience is certainly possible for man upon removal of the illusions of this world, penetration of ultimate reality, and relation of oneself and the world thereto.
Doubt of Qoresh and Apostasy of Some Muslims
The Arabs of Mecca, however, were incapable of understanding such meanings. Therefore, as soon as Muhammad related his Isra', they could not progress beyond the question of the possibility or otherwise of instantaneous bodily transport to Jerusalem. Even those who followed Muhammad and believed in him were troubled by doubt. Some said, "This is clear and decisive. By God, camels run continually for a whole month to reach al Sham and another whole month to return. Would Muhammad achieve such a feat in one night?" Many of the Muslims apostatized. Those who were troubled by doubt went to Abu Bakr and related to him Muhammad's claim. Abu Bakr answered, "Surely you are telling me lies." They said, "There is Muhammad in the mosque telling the people of his trip." Abu Bakr answered, "By God, if Muhammad himself has said so, then it is true. He tells us that the word of God comes to him directly from heaven to earth in an hour of night or day and we believe him. Isn't this a greater miracle than what you are doubting today?" Abu Bakr came to the Prophet and listened to him describing Jerusalem and its mosque. When he finished, Abu Bakr said, "You said the truth, O Prophet." From that day on Muhammad called Abu Bakr "al Siddiq"[Truthful].
Al Isra' in Body
Those who claim that al Isra' took place in body explain, in support of their view, that when the Prophet proclaimed the news, Muslims and non-Muslims asked him for proof. Muhammad described to them a caravan of camels he had encountered on the road to Jerusalem. He related how he led the leaders of that caravan to one of their beasts which had gone astray in the desert, how he drank from a water jar carried on the back of one of those camels, and how he lowered the lid of the jar after he drank from it. They related that the Qoresh had inquired about that caravan and that the reports of the caravan leaders confirmed Muhammad's claim and description. On the other hand, those who believe that al Isrd' took place in spirit do not find such reports unbelievable now that science in our own days has confirmed the possibility of hypnotism and of the hypnotized one to report about events far removed from him. For a spirit holding in unity and presence the spiritual life of the universe in toto, for one so endowed with vision and power so as to penetrate the secret of all life from eternity to eternity, such a feat is not at all surprising.
The Two Covenants of Aqaba
Muslim Weakness after al Isra'
Qoresh did not understand the meanings behind al Isrd'. Neither did many of the Muslims who themselves apostatized in consequence, as we saw earlier. Encouraged by this relapse, Qoresh intensified its attacks against Muhammad and his followers until they could cope with it no more. Muhammad's hope of enlisting the tribes into his ranks was dissipated after his rejection by Thaqif at al Ta‘if, as well as by the tribes of Kindah, Kalb, Banu `Amir and Banu Hanifah at their annual pilgrimage in Mecca, After all these experiences, Muhammad nearly gave up hope of converting any more men from Qoresh. Realizing the isolation imposed upon Muhammad and the irreconcilable opposition of Qoresh to his cause, the other tribes of the Peninsula, especially those surrounding or having business relations with Mecca, became all the more reluctant to receive his calls. Despite his reliance upon Hamzah and `Umar, and his confidence that Qoresh could not harm him any more than they had already done on account of the tribal loyalties and alliances involved, Muhammad realized that the spread of God's call, limited as it were to a small number of weak people, exposed to the danger of apostasy or extermination, had come to a halt unless some victory from God was forthcoming. Days passed while Muhammad's increasing isolation kept pace with Qoresh's ever-growing enmity.
Muhammad's Fastness
Did this isolation of Muhammad weaken his determination or impair his morale? No! Rather, it strengthened his faith in the truth which had come to him from his Lord. Such travails would have discouraged any person of ordinary spirit; but the noble, the truly gifted, they can only be stimulated to higher levels of conviction, of resolution, and self exertion. Rather than being shaken, Muhammad and his companions continued to have the strongest faith that God would raise His religion above all religions and bring victory to them in the process. The storms of hatred raging around them did not shake the faith. Muhammad spent his year in Mecca unconcerned that his and Khadija's wealth was being rapidly exhausted to the point that poverty and want were imminent. Only the victory which he was absolutely certain God soon would grant him occupied his thought. When the season of pilgrimage came again and men from all over the Arabian Peninsula gathered in Mecca,
he renewed his call to the revealed truth, undaunted by any violent rejection with which these tribes might meet his call. The plebeians of Mecca renewed their attacks against his person whenever he preached in public, but their injuries did not reduce Muhammad's self assurance. He knew that it was Almighty God who sent him a messenger of the truth, that there could be no doubt but that God would confirm His truth and give it victory. He knew that God had asked him always to present his revelations to men with arguments yet more sound and gentle, counseling "and then, your enemy will become your very warm friend."[Q 41:34] He knew too well that God has asked him to be gentle to men that they might remember and fear. It was in this certainty, therefore, that Muhammad received the attacks of the Qoresh and bore patiently ,their injuries and harm. All along, he knew that God is always with the patient.
The First Signs of Victory in Yathrib
Muhammad did not have to wait more than a few years before the first signs of victory began to loom on the horizon, in the direction of Yathrib. Muhammad was related to Yathrib in ways other than trade. He had relatives in Yathrib. Moreover, in Yathrib was his father's grave. In Yathrib lived Banu al Najjar, uncle of his ancestor 'Abd al Muttalib, and hence his relative. To that grave, Aminah, the loyal wife, as well as Abd al Muttalib, the father who lost his son at the very height of his youth and power used to come for yearly visits. Muhammad himself accompanied his mother to Yathrib when he was six years old and visited his father's grave with her. On their way back to Mecca, his mother, Aminah, fell ill and died and was buried at al Abwa' midway between Yathrib and Mecca. It was no surprise to Muhammad that the first sign of victory came from a town to which he was so closely associated, a town which stood in the direction of al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, toward which he prayed and where stood the shrines of his two predecessors, Moses and Jesus. No wonder that circumstances prepared the town of Yathrib for this great destiny that Muhammad might achieve victory therein and that it might become the capital from which Islam was to conquer and to spread over the world.
Al Aws, al Khazraj, and the Jews
For this illustrious career, the town of Yathrib was better fitted than any other. Both al Aws and al Khazraj were idolaters sharing their town with the Jews whom they hated and often fought, and were hated and fought by them. History relates that the Christians of al Sham who then belonged to the dominant church in the East Roman Empire hated the Jews very strongly, regarding them as the crucifiers and torturers of Jesus. These Christians had raided Yathrib in the past for the express purpose of killing its Jewish citizens. When they could not succeed, they sought the assistance of al Aws and al Khazraj in order to draw the Jews of Medina into their trap. Such a plan was responsible for the death of many a Jew and deprived the Jewish community of its dominion and power within the city. It also raised al Aws and al Khazraj to a position of power greater than that which trade relations with the Byzantines had hitherto established for them. History further relates that once more the Madinese tried to destroy Jewish power in their city in order to extend their possessions and influence, and that they had succeeded. The surviving Jews hated al Aws and al Khazraj deeply. Enmity was hence deeply rooted in the hearts of both. However, the followers of Moses were quick to realize that they neither had the power nor the numbers needed to meet force with force, and that continuation of such adventures would in the end result in their own extermination should al Aws and al Khazraj ever find allies among their own coreligionists in Arabia. Hence they changed their tactics and, instead of victory in battle, they sought to divide and separate al Aws from al Kharzaj and cause the two tribes to hate and fight each other. In this they succeeded far better, for the two tribes were soon at each other's throats. Through the continuing hostility of the two Arab tribes, the Jews secured their position, increased their trade and wealth, and reestablished the dominion, possession, and prestige which they had once enjoyed.
The Jews' Spiritual Influences
Besides this competition for power and dominion, there is a sphere in which the Jews exerted greater influence upon al Aws and al Khazraj than they had over any other tribe of Arabia. That is the realm of the spirit. As adherents of a monotheistic faith, the Jews had been castigating their idolatrous neighbors for worshipping at the feet of idols which they took to be intercessors for them with God. The Jews had been threatening them with the prediction that soon a prophet would arise among the Arabs who would destroy them and ally himself to the Jews. Nonetheless, they did not succeed in judaizing the Arabs for two reasons: the first was that perpetual enmity between Christianity and Judaism did not allow the Jews to entertain any hope of political dominion in Yathrib. To realize for themselves a measure of security and prosperity through trade was the highest desideratum to which they would aspire. The second was that the Jews had thought of themselves as God's chosen people and objected that any other people might share with them such favored position. They do not missionarize their faith, for they do not wish for it to include other than their own people, the children of Israel. This notwithstanding, neighborliness and trade between Arab and Jew enabled al Aws and al Khazraj to become more familiar with and more prepared for spiritual and religious discussion than other tribes. The evidence of this preparation is in the fact that nowhere had the Arabs responded to Muhammad's spiritual call with the same understanding and enthusiasm.
Suwayd ibn al Samit
Suwayd ibn al Samit was one of the noblest men of Yathrib. His people called him "the perfect" for his bravery, his eloquent poetry, his great honor, and his noble lineage. During this period Suwayd, who came to Mecca for pilgrimage, was approached by Muhammad, who called him unto God and Islam. Suwayd said, "Perhaps what you have, Muhammad, is like that which I have." Muhammad answered, "What is it that you have?" He answered, "The wisdom of Luqman." Muhammad asked him to explain this wisdom, and after hearing him, he said: "Your words are good, but those which I have are even better. For they are a Quran revealed by God to me as light and guidance." He read to him the Quran and called him to Islam. Suwayd was pleased with what he heard, and said: "That is indeed good." When he left Muhammad, he was in deep thought; there are reports that when al Khazraj killed him he had already become a Muslim.
Iyas ibn Mu'adh
Suwayd ibn al Samit was not the only example of the spiritual influence of the Jews upon the Arabs of Yathrib. The Jews had not only instigated the enmity of al Aws for al Khazraj and vice versa, but fanned its flames as well. This enmity caused each of the two hostile tribes to seek alliances with other tribes to consolidate its power. It was in search of an alliance from the Qoresh against al Khazraj that Abu al Haysar Anas ibn Rafi` came to Mecca with a number of men from Banu Abd al Ashhal, including Iyas ibn Mu'adh. After Muhammad heard of their arrival, he visited with them for a while, calling them unto Islam and reading to them the Quran. When he finished, Iyas ibn Mu'adh, still young and of tender age, rose and said:”O my people, this is by God far better than your religion." The delegation returned to Yathrib with one convert to Islam, namely Iyas. Apparently, they were too busy to listen attentively to Muhammad's preaching and too preoccupied with their war preparations. Upon the return of Abu al Haysar and his delegation from Mecca, al Aws engaged them in the war of Bu'ath where both parties suffered grave losses. Nonetheless, the words of Muhammad-may God's peace be upon him-left such a deep impression upon them that both al Aws and al Khazra. carte to see in Muhammad a prophet, a messenger of God, and a worthy spiritual leader.
The Battle of Bu'ath
A1 Aws fought the battle of Bu'ath against al Khazraj in which both tribes gave full vent to their chronic enmity and hostility. So fierce did the battle rage that each party was seriously considering exterminating the enemy and finishing with the affair once and for all if it could only achieve victory. Abu Usayd was the general not only of the legions of al Aws but of their hate and resentment as well. In the first round of battle, al Aws lost and they ran toward the desert for their lives. A1 Khazraj, who accused them of cowardice, began to sing in verse of their unmanliness and poltroonery. When Abu Usayd heard this, he plunged his own spear in his leg, fell from his horse and shouted, "Woe! Woe! By God I shall not move from this spot until they kill me. If you my people must forsake me, go ahead and run." Moved by this sacrifice of their own leader, al Aws returned to the battle with such enthusiasm and resoluteness indeed despair that they inflicted a terrible defeat upon al Khazraj. Pressing forth against their enemy, they burnt their houses as well as their orchards until stopped by Saad ibn Mu'adh al Ashhali. Indeed Abu Usayd had intended to wipe out the Khazraj tribe completely, house by house, tree by tree, and person by person, until not one of them remained alive. Abu Qays ibn al Aslat, however, stood in his way and begged him to save al Khazraj saying, "They are your co-religionists ; it would still behoove you to keep them alive. They would be better neighbors for you than the foxes and beasts of prey of the desert."
Islamic Beginnings in Yathrib
After that day, the Jews recaptured their position of dominance in Yathrib. Both conqueror and vanquished realized the tragedy of what they had done, and they pondered their fate with gravity. Together they looked forward toward appointing a king to manage their affairs, a choice to fall upon Abdullah ibn Muhammad, of the vanquished al Khazraj, on account of his wisdom and sound opinions. The situation, evolved too rapidly, however, to allow a realization of this dream. A group of al Khazraj made a pilgrimage to Mecca where, they were met by Muhammad and asked about their affairs. The Prophet knew they were clients of the Jews. In order to keep their clients in check, the Jews used to threaten them that a new prophet was about to appear whom they would follow and bring to any of their enemies that dared oppose them the total destruction which was meted out to the ancient tribes of 'Ad and Iram. When the Prophet talked to this group and called them unto God, they looked to one another and said, "By God, this is the Prophet by whom the Jews had threatened us. Let us acclaim him before they do." They responded favorably to Muhammad's call, were converted, and said, "We have left our people, al Aws and al Khazraj, who are alienated from one another and are full of hatred for one another. Would to God that they might meet you and unite under your leadership! Should this ever become the case, you will be the strongest man in Arabia." The group included in their numbers two men from Banu al Najjar, the uncles of 'Abd al Muttalib, and the grandfather of Muhammad who had protected him ever since his birth; the latter returned to Medina and reported to their people their conversion to the new faith. The relatives received the news with joy and enthusiasm, for now they could boast of a religion that made them monotheists like the Jews indeed more excellent than they. Soon, there was no house in al Aws or al Khazraj in which the name of Muhammad God's peace by upon him was not mentioned with reverence and awe.
The First Covenant of `Aqabah
As the year passed and the holy months and the pilgrimage season returned, twelve men from Yathrib set out for Mecca. They met the Prophet at al 'Aqabah and entered with him into an alliance known as "the first covenant of al 'Aqabah." In this covenant they agreed to adhere to the absolute unity of God, neither to steal nor to commit adultery, neither to kill their children nor knowingly to commit any evil, and not to fail to obey God in His commandment of any good. They were satisfied that, in case they succeeded in living the life of virtue and obedience, their reward would be paradise; otherwise, their judgment belonged to God, His being the power to punish as well as to forgive. On their return to Yathrib, Muhammad sent with them Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr to teach them the Quran and the precepts of Islam. After this covenant, Islam spread in Yathrib. Mus'ab resided with the Muslims of al Aws and al Khazraj and taught them the religion of God and the revelation of truth while their numbers increased with new converts every day. When the holy months returned, Mus'ab traveled to Mecca and reported to Muhammad the progress of the Muslims at Medina in solidarity and power and informed the Prophet that a greater number of them, surpassing their predecessors in faith, would be arriving this season to perform the pilgrimage.
Muhammad Thinks of Emigration
Muhammad pondered the news which Mus'ab had brought for a long time. He thought of his followers in Yathrib who were increasing in number and power and who were progressing without let or hindrance from either Jews or others, unlike their colleagues in Mecca who suffered from Qoresh at every turn. He thought of Yathrib, the city of greater prosperity than Mecca on account of its large fields, its orchards and vineyards. It must have occurred to him to ask whether it might not be better that the Meccan Muslims emigrate to Yathrib, live with their coreligionists, and enjoy the security they missed so much at Mecca. In all likelihood, he pondered the observation which a member of the first group of converts from Yathrib once made, namely, that should al Aws and al Khazraj unite under him, he would be the strongest man in the country. Was it not better, now that God had united them under him, that he, too, should consider to emigrate to Yathrib? Muhammad did not want to return the injuries of Qoresh since he knew he was still weaker than they. As for his allies, Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib, it is one thing for them to come to his rescue as a sufferer of their injustice, but a totally different matter for them to support him in a war of aggression against the Qoresh. He also pondered the fact that Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib were not really capable of protecting all the Muslims in such an open war with Qoresh. It is true that religious conviction is man's strongest and most precious possession, for which he is prepared to sacrifice wealth, peace, freedom and life itself. It is equally true that the nature of religious conviction is such that physical injury inflames as well as strengthens it. Nonetheless, it is also true that persistence of injury, suffering, and sacrifice rob the believer of the possibility of the peaceful contemplation and precise vision necessary for the nourishment of faith and the deepening of man's awareness of ultimate reality. Previously, Muhammad had commanded his followers to emigrate to Christian Abyssinia because of its sound faith and just rule. There was all the more reason now to permit them to emigrate to Yathrib, to strengthen and be strengthened by their fellow Muslims in order to achieve a measure of peace and security against the evil designs of the enemy. There was all the more reason to ask them to do so in order to give them the chance to contemplate the religious truths, to cultivate their understanding, and to preach their faith to their fellow men. Islam had ruled out coercion and propagated itself through gentleness, persuasion, and conviction by argument alone.
The Second Covenant of `Aqabah
The year 622 C.E. saw a great number of pilgrims, seventy-three men and two women, from Yathrib. When Muhammad learned of their arrival, he thought of concluding another pact with them which would not be limited to the preaching of Islam in the way followed during the last thirteen years. Beyond the preaching of gentleness and forbearance and sacrifice under attack, the times and their present dangers called for an alliance by which the Muslims would help one another to prevent as well as to repel injury and aggression. Secretly Muhammad contacted the leaders of the group and learned of their good preparation for a task such as this. They agreed to meet at Aqaba during the night on the second day following the pilgrimage. The Muslims of Yathrib kept this appointment secret and did not inform the unbelievers among their own tribe. When the time came, they went to their rendezvous with the Prophet, stealing themselves away under the cover of night. When they reached Aqaba, men and women ascended the mountain and there awaited the arrival of the Prophet.
Muhammad arrived with his uncle Abbas ibn Abd al Muttalib. Abbas, who had not yet converted to Islam, knew from his nephew that this meeting was to conclude an alliance which might incite Qoresh to a war of aggression as much as it was designed to achieve peace and security. Muhammad had informed his uncle that together with some members of Banu al Muttalib and Banu Hashim he had agreed with the new group from Yathrib that they would protect him personally. Anxious to strengthen his nephew and people against a war whose losses might fall heavily upon Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib, Abbas sought to make sure that among this group from Yathrib he would find real helpers and allies. Consequently, he was the first one to open the discussion. He said, "O men from Khazraj, Muhammad's eminence and prestige among us are known to you. We have protected him even against those of his own people who think as highly of him as we do. Among us, he stands strong and secure. But he insists on joining your party. If you find yourselves capable of fulfilling toward him what you have promised, then you may proceed. But if you would betray him and send him over to his enemies once he has joined your party, you had better now say so and leave him alone." After hearing this speech of Abbas, the men from Yathrib said, "We have heard what you said, O Abbas," and turning to the Prophet, they continued, "O Prophet, speak out and choose for yourself and your Lord what you desire."
Muhammad, after reciting some verses from the Quran, preached his faith in God in moving terms. He then said to the men from Yathrib, "I covenant with you on the condition that you will protect me against all, just as you would protect your women and children." A1 Bard' ibn Ma'rur, who was chief of his people and their elder, had entered into Islam after the first covenant of Aqaba. Since then he had been fulfilling all that Islam required of him, except that he directed himself toward the Kaba whenever he prayed. Muhammad and all the Muslims were in the practice of turning their faces toward al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. His disagreement with his people on the subject of the qiblah was brought to the attention of the Prophet upon their arrival to Mecca. The Prophet enjoined al Bara not to turn his face toward the Kaba during prayer. Nonetheless, it was the same al Bara who first stretched forth his hand to covenant with the Prophet when the latter asked for the protection that the people of Yathrib were wont to give their women and children.
Discussion before Conclusion of the Covenant
A1 Bara said, "We have covenanted with you, O Prophet. By God, we are men of many wars; we are men of the sword, having inherited it from father unto son." Before al Bard' finished his words, Abu al Haytham ibn al Tayyihan said, "O Prophet, there are pacts between us and some Jews which we are going to denounce. Should your cause succeed later or among your own tribe, would you return to them and leave us alone?" Muhammad smiled and said, "No! Rather, your blood is my blood and your destruction is my destruction. You are of me and I am of you. I shall fight whomsoever you fight and make peace with whomsoever you will make peace." The people were about to rise and give covenant to Muhammad when Abbas ibn `Ubadah interrupted and said, "O men of Khazraj ! Are you fully aware of what you are about to covenant with this man? You are about to covenant with him to make war against all sorts of men without discrimination. If you have any fear that, should you lose your wealth and should your leaders fall by the sword, you might betray Muhammad, say so now and withdraw from this covenant. For if you do not and then betray your oath, you will have lost this world as well as the next. But if you feel certain that you can stand by him and fulfill this oath, notwithstanding the loss of your property and the murder of your dear ones, then go ahead and covenant with him. He is, by God, the best gain in this world and in the next."
All the people present answered together, "We take him despite all threats to property, wealth and life. Tell us, O Prophet, what will be our reward' if we remain true to this oath?" With his usual self-reliance Muhammad answered, "Paradise." They stretched out their hands to him, and he to them, and the covenant was concluded. Thereafter, the Prophet said, "Elect among yourselves twelve representative who will be responsible to me regarding your behavior and conduct." After they elected nine from al Khazraj and three from al Aws, the Prophet addressed them in the following words: "You are the guarantors of your people, just as the disciples were guarantors of theirs before Jesus, Son of Mary. I, for my part, am the guarantor of my people." Such was their second covenant which included the words, "We have covenanted to listen and to obey in health and in sickness, in fortune and misfortune, to tell the truth wherever we might be and, at all times, to fear none in the cause of God."
The Covenant
All this had taken place in the middle of the night atop one of the hills of Aqaba in perfect isolation from the surrounding world. Only God, the covenanters felt certain, knew what they were about. No sooner had they terminated their meeting, however, than they heard a crier warning the Qoresh in the following words, "Muhammad and the apostates have covenanted to make war against you." The case of this, however, was unique. He had heard a little bit about the matter as he traveled to Aqaba and, being a Qoreshi and idolater, he thought of spoiling the arrangement of Muhammad and of frightening the Muslims by pretending everything the Muslims did was known to their enemies. A1 Khazraj and al Aws, however, stood firm by their covenant. Indeed, Abbas ibn `Ubadah told Muhammad immediately after he heard the crier, "By God, who has sent you with the truth, if you order us to pounce upon Mina tomorrow morning with our swords, we shall do so." Muhammad answered, "God has not commanded us to fight. Return to your quarters." The covenanters returned to their quarters and slept until the morning.
Qoresh and the Covenant of Aqaba
The morrow had hardly come when the Qoresh, learning of the new pact, was disturbed by it. The Qoresh leaders went to al Khazraj in their own quarters and blamed them for what they had just done. The Qoresh reiterated that they sought no war against them and asked them why they had covenanted with Muhammad to fight them on his side. The unbelievers of al Khazraj denied that any of this had taken place. The Muslims, on the other hand, kept silent and were saved from embarrassment when the Qoresh believed the claim of their coreligionists. Thus the news was neither confirmed nor denied, and the Qoresh allowed the matter to stand until new evidence could be brought forth. The people of Yathrib returned to their city before the Qoresh had reached any certainty about what had happened. When later the Qoresh did learn the truth, they ran after the people of Yathrib who had exited the day before but could catch up with none except Saad ibn `Ubadah. They took him to Mecca in chains and tortured him until Jubayr ibn Mut'am ibn `Adiyy and al Harith ibn Umayyah ransomed him as their agent in Yathrib when they passed by there on their way to al Sham.
Tension between the Two Parties
Neither in its fear of them nor in its attempt to catch up with the people of Yathrib, who covenanted with Muhammad to fight against them, did the tribe of Qoresh overestimate the danger. For thirteen long years they had known and observed Muhammad. They had exerted enough effort in their war against Muhammad to exhaust their own as well as Muhammad's energies. The Qoresh knew Muhammad to be a very strong and tenacious man who held only to his God and the message He had entrusted to him. The Qoresh knew him as an unwavering man who feared neither harm nor death. For a moment it seemed to the Qoresh that after all the injuries they inflicted upon him, after blockading him within Mecca, and frightening the tribesmen enough to keep them from joining him, Muhammad's cause was about to fall. They predicted that Muhammad's activity would henceforth be restricted to his followers alone and that these would soon fall apart under the constant pressures of Qoresh to seek reconciliation. The new covenant brought a new determinant into the situation and gave Muhammad and his followers some hope of victory. It at least strengthened their freedom to conduct their missionary activity and renew their attack upon the idols of the Kaba and their worship. But who could predict what the situation would turn out to be throughout the Arabian Peninsula after Yathrib had come to the rescue of Muhammad and both its tribes of al Aws and al Khazraj were united under his leadership? The Qoresh were rightly apprehensive of the future since the covenant of Aqaba rendered the Muslims safe against attack and gave them freedom to practice their new faith, to preach it to the others, and to welcome the new converts under their protection. Qoresh thought, therefore, that unless this movement was uprooted and destroyed completely, the future would continue to be threatening and the victory of Muhammad would be a most disturbing possibility.
The Qoresh thought very hard how it could counterattack Muhammad and outmaneuver him in order to destroy this latent power. He, too, gave the same problem no less thought than did the Qoresh. He looked upon the covenant as a gate which God had unlocked before him in order to bring power and glory to His religion, to God's truthful words. The war between him and the Qoresh had then reached a new level of tension by becoming a matter of life and death for both parties. Muhammad trusted, however, that victory belonged to the truthful. He decided to rally his people to trust in God, in utter disregard to Qoresh and its plotting. He therefore must march forward, but with wisdom, precision, and sure step. The new situation called for the greatest possible statesmanship and the ablest generalship in time of battle.
The Muslims' Emigration to Yathrib
Subsequently, Muhammad commanded his companions to follow al Ansar [helpers] in Yathrib. He ordered them to exit from Mecca in very small groups so that they would not give cause to Qoresh to suspect or attack them. The Muslims began their exodus individually or in small groups. When the Qoresh realized what they were about, it began to return those whom it could catch to Mecca to suffer punishment and torture. This Meccan countermeasure was carried out with such zeal and determination that man and wife were separated whenever a pair wanted to exit from Mecca. Those who disobeyed were locked up in jail. But the Qoresh could not do more, fearful as they were of alienating the tribes by killing their Muslim members and thereby adding to their list of enemies. The Muslims, nonetheless, continued to exit from Mecca and to emigrate to Yathrib. Muhammad remained where he was, nobody knowing whether he, too, was planning to emigrate or not. None suspected him. Previously, he had permitted his companions to emigrate to Abyssinia without going there himself; he had stayed behind and continued to call the Meccans to Islam. Indeed, even Abu Bakr asked the Prophet for permission to emigrate to Yathrib. The Prophet advised, "Do not hurry; perhaps God may yet give you a companion for your trip." No more was said regarding this matter.
The Qoresh and the Prophet's Emigration
All this notwithstanding, the Qoresh were quite apprehensive lest the Prophet himself emigrate to Yathrib. The Muslims in that city had become so numerous that the dominion of the city was almost theirs. The Muhajirun who were arriving at Yathrib in numbers, consolidated and increased Muslim power. Should Muhammad himself go there, the Qoresh feared that under his wise and farsighted leadership and persistence, the people of Yathrib might even seek to attack Mecca or, at least, to cut off their trade route to al Sham. If this should ever become a real possibility, the Muslims would avenge the boycott and isolation of the Muslims in kind by cutting off the Meccan trade routes.
On the other hand, even if the Qoresh were to succeed in keeping Muhammad in Mecca and thus prevent him from joining his companions, the Qoresh were still exposed to the danger of the people of Yathrib's attacking them in defense of their Prophet. Hence, the Qoresh decided that there was really no alternative but to kill Muhammad and get rid of this persistent trouble once and for all. But in case they did succeed in killing him, Banu Hashim and Banu al Muttalib would surely seek to avenge his blood, and the civil war which they feared so much would break out within Mecca and bring a greater danger than that which they feared might come from the side of Yathrib. In al Nadwah, their community house, the Qoresh gathered in order to find a means and solution. One of them suggested, "Let us catch Muhammad and lock him up in jail. Then, wait to see happen to him that which has happened to other possessed people and poets like Zuhayr, al Nabighah, and others." This view found no supporters. Another suggested, "Let us carry him out of our country and banish him and then forget about him altogether." This, too, found no supporters because the Qoresh feared that Muhammad might then join his followers in Yathrib and lead them against Mecca frightful possibility, indeed. Finally, they concluded that the best solution is that each one of their clans delegate a strong youth and arm him with a sharp sword so that all these delegates can kill Muhammad together in one stroke; therefore, responsibility for his death would be equally divided among all, thus making vengeance on the part of Banu `Abd Manaf virtually impossible. The clan of Muhammad would then be forced to accept his bloodwit, and the Qoresh would put an end to this instigator who had rent its unity and sapped its power. The Qoresh thought well of this counsel and carefully chose their executioners. They expected that the story of Muhammad was soon to come to a close, that his cause would soon be buried and forgotten, and that those who had migrated to Yathrib would soon return to their tribe, their former religion and gods, and that Qoresh would resume the unity and leadership which it had almost lost.
Al Hijrah or the Prophet's Emigration
The Command to Emigrate
Muhammad discovered that the Qoresh had plotted to kill him rather than to allow him to emigrate to Medina where he might entrench the forces of Islam for a resolute stand against Mecca and from where he might cut off its trade with al Sham. No one doubted that Muhammad would hence-forth seize any opportunity to carry out his plan for emigration. But no one knew of any plans he might have had; not even Abu Bakr, who had been commanded to keep two beasts alert and ready ever since he asked the Prophet for permission to emigrate and the Prophet advised him to wait. Muhammad remained in Mecca until he learned of the Qoresh's plot to assassinate him, and until none but the fewest Muslims were still left there with him. He waited for the command of his Lord for emigration. When, finally, that command did come, he went to the house of Abu Bakr and informed him of the permission God had granted. He asked Abu Bakr to accompany him on the trip.
'Ali in the Prophet's Bed
Here begins one of the greatest adventures history has known in the cause of truth and religious conviction. It is one of the noblest and most beautiful. Abu Bakr had chosen his two beasts and given them to Abdullah ibn Urayqit to graze until the time when they would be needed. When the two men planned to leave Mecca they were absolutely certain that Qoresh would follow them in their trail in order to seize them and bring them back. Hence, Muhammad decided to surprise his enemies by leaving under circumstances and at a time hardly conceivable to them. The young men whom the Qoresh had prepared for performing the assassination had blockaded his house during the night in fear that he might run away. On the night of the Hijrah, Muhammad confided his plan to Ali ibn Abu Talib and asked him to cover himself with the Prophet's green mantle from Hadramawt and to sleep in the Prophet's bed. He further asked him to tarry in Mecca until he had returned all things left with Muhammad to their rightful owners. The Qoresh men waiting to kill the Prophet felt reassured whenever, looking through a hole in the door, they saw somebody sleeping in the Prophet's bed. Just before dawn, Muhammad left without being noticed, picked up Abu Bakr at the latter's house and from there they proceeded through a back door southward toward the cave of Thawr. The southerly direction of their flight was inconceivable to everyone.
Nobody knew of their hiding place in the cave except Abdullah, son of Abu Bakr, his two sisters, 'A'ishah and Asma', and their servant 'Amir ibn Fuhayrah. Abdullah spent his day in Mecca listening to what the Qoresh said and plotted about Muhammad and then reported it to the pair at their hideout under cover of night. 'Amir grazed the sheep of Abu Bakr and passed by the cave in the evening in order to give them some milk and meat. Upon Abdullah's return from the cave, 'Amir would follow him with all his sheep and then conceal any trace of his steps. For three long days, the pair remained in the cave and the Qoresh persistently looked for them without avail. For the Qoresh it was absolutely necessary to find Muhammad and to prevent his emigration to Yathrib. Meanwhile, Muhammad spent most of his time praying to God and invoking his blessings, and Abu Bakr continually sought to find out whether they were being discovered and to look after their security.
The young men of Qoresh who were chosen to kill Muhammad continued their search and came close to the cave fully armed and ready for the kill. When they found a shepherd in the vicinity, they asked him about Muhammad and Abu Bakr. He answered, "Perhaps they are within the cave, although I have not seen anyone go in or out." When he heard the shepherd's answer, Abu Bakr trembled with fear and expected the Qoresh to break into the cave any moment. He withdrew into a corner and, trusting in God, remained motionless. Some members of the Qoresh party climbed up to the cave, and the foremost among them turned round as soon as he saw the cave entrance. His companions asked him, "Why have you not gone into the cave? He answered, "Its entrance is covered with cobwebs, and there is a pair of wild pigeons on the threshold. Obviously, no one could have gone in without disturbing the pigeons and destroying the cobwebs." At that moment, Muhammad prayed while Abu Bakr continued to shake with fear. To Abu Bakr, who pressed ever closer to Muhammad, the latter whispered, "Do not grieve; God is with us." According to some Hadith books, it is reported that when the Qoresh party arrived at the cave entrance, Abu Bakr exclaimed: "If any one of them looks at his feet he will find us," and that the Prophet had answered, "O Abu Bakr, how can you fear for two men whose constant companion is God Himself?" The Qoresh men were further convinced that the cave was empty when they saw the entrance to the cave covered indeed blocked with branches growing from a tree nearby. They then agreed to leave and called one another for their return to Mecca. Only then did the two refugees within the cave feel reassured. Abu Bakr's faith in God and His Prophet became stronger, and Muhammad prayed: "Praise be to God! God is greater than all!"
The Miracle of the Cave
The cobwebs, the two wild pigeons, and the tree and its branches these are the miracles which the biography books relate concerning the hiding in the cave of Thawr. The miracle is that none of these things were there when the Prophet and his companion entered the cave, and that thereafter, the spider hurried to weave its cobwebs, the two pigeons to build their nest and to lay their eggs, and the tree to grow its branches around the door. In this connection the Orientalist Dermenghem wrote, "These three things are the only miracles recorded in authentic Mussulman history: The web of a spider, the love of a dove, the sprouting of a flower three miracles accomplished daily on God's earth."
Some Biographers Omit the Story
This miracle received no mention in Ibn Hisham's biography. His version of the story of the cave ran as follows: "They [Muhammad and Abu Bakr] went to the cave of Thawr, on the south side of Mecca. Abu Bakr ordered his son Abdullah to stay in Mecca during the day, listen to the news of the Qoresh and bring them knowledge thereof in the evening. He ordered his servant, `Amir ibn Fuhayrah, to continue to graze his sheep and to come by the cave at night. Asma', daughter of Abu Bakr, brought them provisions of food in the evening, also. The Prophet of God-may God's peace and blessing is upon him stayed in the cave three days. The Qoresh had announced a prize of one hundred camels to whosoever would bring back Muhammad to Mecca. Abdullah, son of Abu Bakr, used to spend his day in Mecca listening well to the plotting and gossip of the Qoresh, and when visiting the pair in the evening, related the news to them. `Amir ibn Fuhayrah, servant of Abu Bakr, used to graze the flock of sheep around Mecca and, in the evening, passed by the cave and gave milk and meat to the pair. When Abdullah, son of Abu Bakr, returned home to Mecca, he was followed by `Amir ibn Fuhayrah and his sheep in order to cover over his footprints. Three days later, when the interest of the Qoresh in this search had subsided, the man whom Abu Bakr had appointed to graze the two camels for the trip came with the three camels, two for Muhammad and Abu Bakr, and a third for himself …" That is all that Ibn Hisham says concerning the story of the cave. In the same connection, the following verses of the Quran were revealed:
"When the unbelievers plotted to imprison you, to kill you or to banish you, God planned on your behalf, and He is the best of planners… If you do not help Muhammad, then know that God Will. For God helped him when the unbelievers drove him out, and he and his companion hid in the cave. At that time, the Prophet said to his companion, `Grieve not for God is with us.' It was then that God sent down his peace upon him and assisted him with hosts invisible that the word of God might be supreme and that of the unbelievers might be repudiated. God is almighty and all wise."[Q 8:30; 9:40]
The Trip to Yathrib
On the third day, when they felt certain that the Qoresh had called off the hunt for them in the vicinity, Muhammad and Abu Bakr commanded their servant to bring them their camels for escape. The servant managed to bring a third camel for himself. Asma', daughter of Abu Bakr, brought them provisions. As they mounted, they could not find ropes with which to tie their provisions of food and water. Asma' cut her robe in two and used one hall' of it for the purpose while covering herself with the other half. For this reason she was called "the woman with the two half robes." Their provisions taken care of, the three men went forth. Abu Bakr carried five thousand Dirhims [silver coins] which was all that was left of his wealth. Lest the Qoresh should find them, they cautiously took an untrodden path toward their destination. Their servant and guide, Abdullah ibn Urayqit, from the tribe of Banu al Du'il, headed south of Mecca and then to the mountain range of Tihamat close by the shore of the Red Sea. From there he took an unknown path northward parallel to the shore but far removed from it. His purpose was always to remain off the beaten track. All night and most of the day the riders pressed forth unaffected by fatigue or hardship, for every hardship was preferable indeed easy by comparison to what the Qoresh was prepared to do to destroy them and their cause! Muhammad never doubted that God would come to his help, but God had also commanded man not to expose himself to open risks. God had counseled that He would assist man only as long as man helped himself and his brother. The two men were successful in their hiding in the cave. However, the Qoresh's announcement of an hundred camel prize to whoever would bring them back or furnish information which would lead to their capture was sufficient to mobilize the wealth seeking Meccans for the search, even if it was a criminal one. Still, the Arabs of Qoresh had additional motivation to conduct such a search, for they regarded Muhammad as their enemy par excellence; and they were so revengeful and passionate in their hate that no consideration could stop them from exploiting the weak and injuring the harmless. Therefore, they redoubled their attentiveness and renewed their vigor for the search.
The Story of Suraqah
Their intuition did not fail them. A man soon arrived at Mecca to report that on his way he met three riders whom he thought were Muhammad and his companions. Upon hearing this report, Suraqah ibn Malik ibn Ju'shum immediately said, "Those are the sons of so and so." His purpose was to lead his companions into disregarding the report so that he might capture Muhammad single-handed and win the prize of the hundred camels. A moment later, he returned home, loaded himself with arms, and ordered his servant to take his horse to the outskirts of the city so that no one would see him go. There, he arrayed himself for battle, mounted his horse, and galloped toward the spot where Muhammad was reported to have been seen. Muhammad and his two companions had at that time repaired to a tree to rest a little under its shade, to eat a meal and to replenish their energies.
The time was close to evening. Muhammad and Abu Bakr began to ready their beasts to resume their ride. Suraqah was still as far from them as the eye could see. Exhausted with fatigue from all its galloping, Suraqah's horse fell twice on the way. When the travelers came into his sight, and he realized he could now capture or kill them, Suraqah forgot that his horse had fallen twice already. He spurred it once more and hurried it toward them. The horse fell to the ground with its rider. At this turn, Suraqah felt very apprehensive that the gods were against the execution of his scheme and that he might be exposing himself to grave danger should he spur his horse forward for the fourth time. After stopping, he called to the travelers: "I am Suraqah ibn Ju'shum. Wait for me so that I may talk to you. By God, I shall do you neither harm or injury." When he arrived, he asked Muhammad to write him a note with which to prove his present encounter. At the Prophet's command, Abu Bakr wrote a note to this effect which Suraqah took and returned home. Made contrite by his unfortunate venture, he spread the news that the riders were not Muhammad and his party at all!
The Hardships of the Road
Muhammad and his two companions set forth toward Yathrib across mountains, hills, and deserts whose sands were glowing with heat. Since they were off the beaten track, they found hardly anything with which to alleviate the hardships of sun and thirst. Furthermore, they were ever apprehensive that the Qoresh or some other people might surprise and overtake them. Their only consolation was their patient trust in God and the truth revealed to His Prophet. For seven consecutive days they traveled, lying low during the heat of day and moving with great haste under cover of night. In the stillness of night and the brilliance of its stars lay their only security and assurance. When they reached the quarters of the tribe of Banu Sabin, where elder chieftain Buraydah came over to greet them, their fears lessened, and for the first time, their hearts palpitated with the hope and assurance of victory. They had almost reached their destination.
Awaiting the Prophet in Yathrib
During Muhammad's long and exhaustive trip, the news reached his companions in Yathrib that he had emigrated from Mecca in order to join them. Aware of the enmity of the Qoresh and of their attempts to follow and to seize the Prophet, the Muslims waited anxiously for his arrival and looked very much forward to hearing the details of his escape. Many of them had never seen the Prophet before although they had heard a great deal about his eloquence and resolution. Naturally, they were quite anxious to meet him. We can imagine the enthusiasm of these men when we know that a number of notables from Yathrib had followed Muhammad even though they had never seen him before. Their knowledge of him depended on his companions who had spoken to them of their love for him and who had been staunchly carrying his message about.
The Spread of Islam in Yathrib
Saad ibn Zurarah and Mus'ab ibn 'Umayr once sat in one of the courtyards of Banu Zafar listening to the speech of those who entered into Islam. Their news had reached Saad ibn Mu'adh and Usayd ibn Hudayr, chieftains of their tribes. Saad said to Usayd, as one chieftain to another, "Go out to these two men who came here to subvert the weaklings among us. Chastise them and forbid them to come here again. You can do this better than I because Saad ibn Zurarah is a cousin of mine and I cannot be harsh enough to him." Usayd went out to seek the two men. Mus'ab said, "Will you not sit down and listen to us? If you hear something worthwhile, accept it. If, on the other hand, you hear something unworthy, you may put a quick end to it." Usayd replied, "You are fair." He stuck his spear into the ground and sat down listening to Mus'ab's preaching of Islam. No sooner had Mus'ab finished than Usayd was converted to Islam. When he returned, his fellow chieftain, Saad, was annoyed at this and sought out the two men in person. They offered him the same choice, and he, too, was converted. Following upon this, Saad went to his people and said, "Oh, Banu Abd al Ashhal, what do you think of me?" They answered, "You are our chieftain, our dearest relative, our wise leader and righteous representative." He said, "Then I shall forbid myself to speak to any of your men and women until you believe in God and in His prophet." Banu Abd al Ashhal then entered into the faith en bloc.
Islam had spread so widely in Yathrib and the Muslims had gathered so much strength before the emigration of the Prophet that some Muslim youths were encouraged to attack the idols of the unbelievers. Apparently Islam had enjoyed a strength that the Muslims of Mecca had never dreamt of before. Amr ibn al Jamuh had a wooden idol which he called Manat and which he kept in his house according to the custom of the nobility, for he was one of the noblemen of Banu Salamah. When the youths of his tribe joined Islam, they raided his house at night and, without his knowledge, would steal away the idol and place it in the refuse dump outside the city. In the morning, `Amr would miss his statue and look for it. When he found it, he would cleanse, purify, and return it to its place. All along, he would curse and threaten the offenders in the strongest terms. The youth of Banu Salamah continued their attacks upon this idol until one day 'Amr hung his sword on the shoulder of the statue and said to it, "If there is any power in you, there's my sword, defend yourself." The following morning, however, he found the idol robbed of its sword and tied to a dead dog inside an empty pit. At that moment, his people talked to him and showed him how unworthy of man is idolatry. He was convinced and entered Islam.
With all these successes which Islam had been scoring in Yathrib, the people of Yathrib looked forward quite eagerly to the arrival of Muhammad when they heard of his emigration. For many days before his arrival, they went out to the outskirts of their city at dawn to spend the morning seeking signs of the Prophet's arrival.
The month was July and the days were hot. Muhammad reached Quba, two leagues [12 km] from Medina, and stayed there four days with Abu Bakr being constantly with him. During this interval, he founded a mosque and before he left for Medina, Ali ibn Abu Talib had joined his party. Ali had returned the trusts left with Muhammad which Muhammad had asked him to return to their rightful owners, and he came to Yathrib on foot, walking during the night and hiding during the day. He had been on the road for two whole weeks in order to join the Prophet and his fellow Muslims in Medina.
Muhammad's Entry into Medina
One day, as the Muslims waited the arrival of Muhammad, a Jew of Yathrib announced to them, “O People of Qaylah, your man has finally arrived." It was a Friday, and Muhammad performed his prayer in Medina at the mosque situated in the valley of Ranuqna. The Muslims of Yathrib arrived there from all quarters in order to see the man whom they had not seen, but whom they loved with all their minds and hearts, in whose message they had believed, and whose name they had mentioned many times in their daily prayers. A number of notables invited the Prophet to stay in their houses and to enjoy the comforts, security, and protection of their quarters. As Muhammad apologized, he rode his camel, which he allowed to go free, toward the city. As it ran forth surrounded by the Muslims who opened the way for it, the people of Yathrib, whether Jews or unbelievers, looked with surprise on the new agitation and vitality that had suddenly seized their city. They looked at this great visitor who was equally acclaimed by al Aws and al Khazraj, who had until recently been death enemies of each other. No one among them apparently grasped the new direction which history was taking at that auspicious moment, nor the great destiny at work to make their city immortal. The Prophet's camel continued to run until it stopped at a yard belonging to two orphans of Banu al Najjar. There, the camel lay down and the Prophet dismounted. Upon inquiring who the owner of the yard was, he learned from Mu'adh ibn `Afra' that it belonged to Sahl and Suhayl, sons of `Amr, of whom he was the guardian. He asked the Prophet to build a mosque there and made a promise to satisfy the two orphans. Muhammad accepted the request by building his mosque as well as his living quarters there.
Explanation of the City's Welcome
Having heard the news of his emigration, of Qoresh's plot to kill him, and of his travel in midsummer on an untrodden path ridden with hardships across rocky mountains and valleys aglow with fire under the torrid sun individuals and groups of men and women went out to welcome Muhammad to their city. Excited by their own curiosity after the spread of the news of Muhammad's mission throughout the Arabian Peninsula, the people of Yathrib went out to see and meet the author of this call to renounce the holy faith and sacred beliefs of their ancestors. More importantly, they went out to meet Muhammad and to welcome him because his intention was henceforth to live with them in their own city. Every clan and tribe of Yathrib well knew what political, social, and other advantages it stood to gain should it succeed in convincing the new guest to reside in its midst. Indeed, they went out to take a look at this man that they might confirm their intuition concerning him. Hence, neither the unbelievers of Yathrib nor its Jews were any less enthusiastic than the Muslims, whether Muhajirun or Ansar. That is why they came from all sides to walk in his procession although each was naturally moved by different feelings. As Muhammad allowed his camel to run loose, they followed him in a disorderly manner; it was as if he had intended it that way in order to give each one of them a chance to come closer to him to take a nearer glimpse of his face. It was as if everyone had come out in order to gather in one moment of consciousness all that he had heard about and all that he could see of the person to whom he had given the grand oath of allegiance at Aqaba where he pledged to lay down his life when necessary in fighting any man whatever that stood in the way of the faith. It was, furthermore, as if everyone wanted to see the man who taught the unity of God based upon a scientific investigation of the cosmos and an objective search for the truth: a doctrine for the sake of which he had abandoned his native town, its people, and borne their enmity and harm for some thirteen consecutive years.
Buildings of the Prophet's Mosque
We have seen that the Prophet's camel stopped in the courtyard of Sahl and Suhayl. The Prophet bought the land in order to build his mosque there. While the mosque was being erected, he stayed in the house of Abu Ayyub Khalid ibn Zayd al Ansari. In the construction of the mosque, Muhammad worked with his own hands as did the Muslims, whether Muhajirun or Ansar. When the mosque was completed, they built on one side of it living quarters for the Prophet. These operations did not over-tax anyone, for the two structures were utterly simple and economical. The mosque consisted of a vast courtyard whose four walls were built out of bricks and mud. A part of it was covered with a ceiling made from date trunks and leaves. Another part was devoted to shelter the poor who had no home at all. The mosque was not lit during the night except for an hour at the time of the night prayer. At that time some straw was burned for light. Thus it continued to be for nine years, after which lamps were attached to the tree trunks on which stood the ceiling. The living quarters of the Prophet were no more luxurious than the mosque although they had to be more closed in order to give a measure of privacy.
Upon completion of the building, Muhammad left the house of Abu Ayyub and moved into the new quarters. He began to think of this new life which he had just initiated and the wide gate it opened for his mission. The various tribes and clans of this city were already competing with one another; and they differed among themselves in ways and for reasons unknown to any Meccan. Yet it was equally obvious that they all longed for peace and freedom from the differences and hostilities which had torn them apart in the past. Moreover, they were ambitious for and willing to build a peaceful future capable of greater prestige and prosperity than Mecca had ever enjoyed. That is not to say that these matters concerned Muhammad in the least. Rather, his concern, whether immediate or ultimate, was the conveyance of the message God had entrusted to him. The people of Mecca had resisted that message with every weapon they knew, and their hostility prevented its light from shining in the hearts of most men. The injury and harm the Qoresh were wont to inflict upon anyone who ventured into the new faith was sufficient to prevent conversion of those who were not yet convinced of its truth and value. Hence it was a cardinal need that Muslims as well as others feel certain that whoever followed the new guidance and entered into the religion of God was absolutely secure against attack. This precaution was necessary in order to confirm the believers in their faith and to enable the weak, the fearful, and the hesitant to enter into the faith with confidence. This consideration preoccupied Muhammad as he moved to the security of his new home in Yathrib. In the years to follow, it constituted the cornerstone of his policy. All biographies have emphasized this orientation of Muhammad's policies. At the time, he thought of neither property, nor wealth, nor trade, but only of realizing the security of his followers and their right to worship as they pleased on an equal footing with men of other faiths. It was absolutely necessary that the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian have an equal opportunity in their exercise of religious freedom as well as in their freedom to hold different opinions and to preach their own faiths. Only such freedom can guarantee victory for the truth and progress of the world toward perfection in the higher unity of mankind. Every war against this freedom furthers the cause of falsehood. Every limitation of it gives power to the forces of darkness to cut off the light shining within the soul calling man to unity with mankind and the world to an eternal bond of harmony and love instead of alienation, war, and extinction.
Muhammad's Aversion to War
Ever since the Hijrah, revelation persistently confirmed this orientation of Muhammad and caused him strongly to incline toward peace, away from fighting, hostility or war. It made him regard fighting as the last resort in defense of this freedom and this faith. When, at the cry of the Qoreshi spy, the people of Yathrib who pledged to him their allegiance at the second Aqaba meeting proclaimed, “By God who sent you as a messenger of the truth, if you wish us to pounce on the quarter of Mina tomorrow morning with swords drawn, not one of us will stay behind,” did Muhammad not respond: “God has not commanded us to fight”? Did not the first verse granting such authority say: "Permission to fight is granted to those who are being fought, for they suffer injustice, and God is certainly capable of coming to their assistance"?[Q 22:39]. Was not this verse immediately followed by the revelation:
"And fight them until all persecution has stopped and religion has become all God's"[Q 8:39]
Muhammad's thought was then guided by one final objective, namely, the guarantee of freedom of religion and thought. It was for the sake of this freedom alone that fighting was permitted. It was in its defense that repulsion of the aggressor was allowed, that no one might be persecuted on account of his faith and that no injustice might befall anyone because of his faith or opinion.
The Thinking of Yathrib
While Muhammad was occupied by this line of thought and pondered over the measures necessary for guaranteeing this freedom, the people of Yathrib entertained different ideas. Each clan and party followed a line of thought peculiar to itself. The Muslims were either Muhajirun or Ansar; the unbelievers belonged to either al Aws or al Khazraj and were committed to a long history of mutual hostility, as we have shown earlier. There were also the Jews, of whom the Banu Qaynuqa` lived within the city, the Banu Qurayzah in the suburb of Fadak, the Banu al Nadir, nearby, and those of Khaybar toward the north. As for the Muslims, Muhammad feared that, despite the strongest ties with which the new religion had bound them together, the old hatred and prejudice might some day break out anew between them. The unbelievers, from al Aws or al Khazraj, were exhausted by the previous wars; they found themselves situated, in the new configuration of society, between the Jews and the Muslims. The unbelievers' strategy concentrated on dividing Jew and Muslim and pulling them farther apart. The Jews, for their part, gave Muhammad a good welcome in the hope of winning him over to their side. Their strategy demanded that they make use of the new unity of the Peninsula which he could help forge to bolster their opposition to Christendom. For to avenge their banishment from Palestine, the land of promise, and their national home, was the guiding concern of the Jews who saw themselves as God's chosen people. Each group followed its own train of thought and began to seek the means to realize its objective.
Muslim Brotherhood
At this time a new stage, unlike any other prophet before him, began in the career of Muhammad. Here began the political stage in which Muhammad showed such great wisdom, insight, and statesmanship as would arrest attention first in surprise and then in awe and reverence. Muhammad's great concern was to bring to his new home town a political and organizational unity hitherto unknown to Hijaz, though not to ancient Yaman. He consulted with Abu Bakr and `Umar, his two viziers, as he used to call them. Naturally, the first idea to occur to him was that of reorganizing Muslim ranks so as to consolidate their unity and to wipe out every possibility of a resurgence of division and hostility. In the realization of this objective, he asked the Muslims to fraternize with one another for the sake of God and to bind themselves together in pairs. He explained how he and Ali ibn Abu Talib were brothers, how his uncle Hamzah and his client, Zayd, were also brothers, as were likewise Abu Bakr and Kharijah ibn Zayd, and `Umar bin Khattab and `Itban ibn Malik al Khazraji. Despite the Muhajirun's rapid increase in number, following the emigration of the Prophet, everyone of them was now bound to a member of al Ansar group in a bond of mutual assistance. The Prophet's proclamation in this regard transformed that bond into one of blood and real fraternity. A new, genuine brotherhood arose which forged the Muslim ranks into an indivisible unity.
The Traders
A1 Ansar showed their Muhajirun brethren great hospitality which the latter had first accepted with joy. For when they emigrated from Mecca, they had left behind all their property, wealth, and goods and entered Medina devoid of the means with which to find their food. Only Uthman bin Afan was able to carry with him enough of his wealth to be prosperous in his new residence. The others had hardly been able to carry much or little that was of use to them. Even Hamzah, the Prophet's uncle, had one day to ask the Prophet to give him some food to eat. Abd al Rahman ibn `Awf and Saad ibn al Rabi` were bonded together in brotherhood. The former had nothing. The latter offered to split his wealth with him. Abd al Rahman refused and asked that he be shown the market place. There he began to sell cheese and butter and in short time achieved a measure of affluence fair enough to enable him to ask the hand of a Madinese woman as well as to send caravans in trade. Many other Muhajirun followed the example of Abd al Rahman; for, the Meccans, it should be remembered, were quite adept in trade. Indeed, they were so expert at it that it was said of them that they could by trade change the sand of the desert into gold.
The Harvest
Those who could not engage in trade such as Abu Bakr, `Umar, Ali ibn Abu Talib and others, took to farming on the land owned by al Ansar under the system of sharecropping. Another group of truly helpless people, with a past full of suffering and hardship, put their hand to menial jobs, preferring hard labor to living as parasites on the earnings of others. Despite their meager earnings, they found consolation in the new peace and security of their own persons and of their faith. There was yet another group of emigrants so poor and helpless that they could not find even a place to sleep. To these, Muhammad permitted the use of the covered part of the mosque during the night. That is why they were called "Ahl al Suffah," "suffah," meaning the covered area of the mosque. To these, Muhammad assigned a ration from the wealth of the more affluent Muslims, whether Ansar or Muhajirun.
Muhammad's Friendliness to the Jews
By this new brotherhood, Muhammad achieved an operational Muslim unity. Politically, it was a very wise move destined to show Muhammad's sound judgment and foresight. We shall better appreciate its wisdom when we learn of the attempts to divide al Aws against al Khazraj, and al Ansar against al Muhajirun. The politically greater achievement of Muhammad was his realization of a unity for the, city of Yathrib as a whole, his construction of a political structure in which the Jews entered freely into an alliance of mutual cooperation with the Muslims. We have already seen how the Jews gave Muhammad a good welcome in the hope of winning him as an ally. He, too, returned their greeting with like gestures and sought to consolidate his relations with them. He visited their chiefs and cultivated the friendship of their nobles. He bound himself to them in a bond of friendship on the grounds that they were scripturists and monotheists. So much had Muhammad defended the Jews that the fact that he fasted with them on the days they fasted and prayed toward Jerusalem as they did increased his personal and religious esteem among them. Everything seemed as if the future could only strengthen this Muslim Jewish friendship and produce further cooperation and closeness between them. Similarly, Muhammad's own conduct, his great humility, compassion, and faithfulness, and his outgoing charity and goodness to the poor, oppressed and deprived, as well as the prestige and influence which these qualities had won for him among all the people of Yathrib-all these enabled him to conclude the pact of friendship, alliance, and cooperation in the safeguarding of religious freedom throughout the city. In our opinion, this covenant is one of the greatest political documents which history has known. Such an accomplishment by Muhammad at this stage of his career had never been reached by any prophet. Jesus, Moses, and all the prophets that preceded them never went beyond the preaching of their religious messages through words and miracles. All of them had left their legacy to men of power and political authority who came after them; it was the latter who put their powers at the service of those messages and fought, with arms where necessary, for the freedom of the people to believe. Christianity spread at the hands of the disciples of Jesus and after his time, but only in extremely limited measure. The disciples as well as their followers were persecuted until one of the kings of the world favored this religion, adopted it, and put his royal power behind its missionary effort. [Emperor Constantine’s Toleration Decree in 313 showed favours toward Christianity].
All other religions in the East and the West have had nearly the same history, but not the religion of Muhammad. God willed that Islam be spread by Muhammad, and that the truth be vindicated by his hand. He willed Muhammad to be prophet, statesman, fighter, and conqueror, all for the sake of God and the truth with which he was commissioned as prophet. In all these aspects of his career Muhammad was great, the exemplar of human perfection, the typos of every realized value.
The covenant of Medina concluded between Muhajirun and Ansar on one side and Jews on the other, was dictated by Muhammad. It was the instrument of their alliance which confirmed the Jews in both their religion and position in society, and determined their rights as well as their duties. Following is the text of this important document:
"In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. This is a covenant given by Muhammad to the believers and Muslims of Qoresh, Yathrib, and those who followed them, joined them, and fought with them. They constitute one Ummah to the exclusion of all other men. As was their custom, the Muhajirun from Qoresh are bound together and shall ransom their prisoners in kindness and justice as believers do. Following their own custom, Banu `Awf are bound together as they have been before. Every clan of them shall ransom its prisoners with the kindness and justice common among believers. [ Same applies for every house and Ansar clan].
The believers shall leave none of their members in destitution without giving him in kindness what he needs by way of ransom or bloodwit. No believer shall take as an ally a freedman of another Muslim without the permission of his previous master. All pious believers shall rise as one man against whosoever rebels or seeks to commit injustice, aggression, sin, or spread mutual enmity between the believers, even though he may be one of their sons. No believer shall slay a believer in retaliation for an unbeliever; neither shall he assist an unbeliever against a believer. Just as God's bond is one and indivisible, all believers shall stand behind the commitment of the least of them. All believers are bonded one to another to the exclusion of other men. Any Jew who follows us is entitled to our assistance and the same rights as any one of us, without injustice or partisanship. This Pax Islamica is one and indivisible. No believer shall enter into a separate peace without all other believers whenever there is fighting in the cause of God, but will do so only on the basis of equality and justice to all others. In every military expedition we undertake our members shall be accompanied by others committed to the same objective. All believers shall avenge the blood of one another whenever any one of them falls fighting in the cause of God. The pious believers follow the best and most upright guidance. No unbeliever shall be allowed to place under his protection against the interest of a believer, any wealth or person belonging to Qoresh. Whoever is convicted of killing a believer deliberately but without righteous cause, shall be liable to the relatives of the killed. Until the latter are satisfied, the killer shall be subject to retaliation by each and every believer. The killer shall have no rights whatever until this right of the believers is satisfied. Whoever has entered into this covenant and believed in God and in the last day shall never protect or give shelter to a convict or a criminal; whoever does so shall be cursed by God and upon him shall the divine wrath fall on the day of judgment. Neither repentance nor ransom shall be acceptable from him. No object of contention among you may not be referred to God and to Muhammad, may God's peace and blessing be upon him, for judgment. As the Jews fight on the side of the believers, they shall spend of their wealth on equal par with the believers. The Jews of Banu Aws are an Ummah alongside the believers. The Jews have their religion and the Muslims theirs. Both enjoy the security of their own populace and clients except the unjust and the criminal among them. The unjust or the criminal destroys only himself and his family. The Jews of Banu al Najjar, Banu al Harith, Banu Sa'idah, Banu Jusham, Banu al Aws, Banu Tha'labah, Jafnah, and Banu al Shutaybah-to all the same rights and privileges apply as to the Jews of Banu Aws. The clients of the tribe of Tha'labah enjoy the same rights and duties as the members of the tribe themselves. Likewise, the clients of the Jews, as the Jews themselves. None of the foregoing shall go out to war except with the permission of Muhammad, may God's peace and blessing be upon him though none may be prevented from taking revenge for a wound inflicted upon him. Whoever murders anyone will have murdered himself and the members of his family, unless it be the case of a man suffering a wrong, for God will accept his action. The Jews shall bear their public expenses and so will the Muslims. Each shall assist the other against any violator of this covenant. Their relationship shall be one of mutual advice and consultation, and mutual assistance and charity rather than harm and aggression. However, no man is liable to a crime committed by his ally. Assistance is due to the party suffering an injustice, not to one perpetrating it. Since the Jews fight on the side of the believers they shall spend their wealth on a par with them. The town of Yathrib shall constitute a sanctuary for the parties of this covenant. Their neighbors shall be treated as themselves as long as they perpetrate no crime and commit no harm. No woman may be taken under protection without the consent of her family. Whatever difference or dispute between the parties to this covenant remains unsolved shall be referred to God and to Muhammad, the Prophet of God, may God's peace and blessing be upon him. God is the guarantor of the piety and goodness that is embodied in this covenant. Neither the Qoresh nor their allies shall be given any protection. The people of this covenant shall come to the assistance of one another against whoever attacks Yathrib. If they are called to cease hostilities and to enter into a peace, they shall be bound to do so in the interest of peace. If, on the other hand, they call upon the Muslims to cease hostilities and to enter into a peace, the Muslims shall be bound to do so and maintain the peace except when the war is against their religion. To every smaller group belongs the share which is their due as members of the larger group which is party to this covenant. The Jews of al Aws, as well as their clients, are entitled to the same rights as this covenant has granted to its parties together with the goodness and charity of the latter. Charity and goodness are clearly crime and injury, and there is no responsibility except for one's own deeds. God is the guarantor of the truth and good will of this covenant. This covenant shall constitute no protection for the unjust or the criminal. Whoever goes out to fight as well as whoever stays at home shall be safe and secure in this city unless he has perpetrated an injustice or committed a crime. God grants His protection to whosoever acts in piety, charity and goodness."
New Horizons in Political Life
The foregoing political document, which Muhammad wrote down fourteen centuries ago, establishes the freedom of faith and opinion, the invioliability of the city, human life, and property, and the forbiddance of crime. It certainly constitutes a breakthrough in the political and civil life of the world of that time. For that age was one in which exploitation, tyranny, and corruption were well established. Though the Jews of Banu Qurayzah, Banu al Nadir, and Banu Qaynuqa` did not sign this covenant at its conclusion, they did enter later on into like pacts with the Prophet. Thus Medina and all the territories surrounding it became inviolate to their peoples who were now bound to rise to their defense and protection together. These peoples were now bound to guarantee one another in the implementation of the covenant, in the establishment of the rights arising there from, and in the provision of freedom it has called for.
The Prophet's Marriage to Aisha
Muhammad was satisfied with the result of his negotiations. The Muslims felt secure in their religion and began to practice its duties and precepts as individuals and groups in public, without fear of attack or harm from any source. At this time Muhammad married Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, who was then ten or eleven years old. She was a beautiful, delicate, and amiable young girl, emerging out of childhood and blossoming into full womanhood. Although she was fully grown, she was still quite attracted by amusement and play. She had a room of her own near that of Sawdah alongside the mosque. In Muhammad, she found not only a sympathetic and loving husband but also a compassionate father who was not at all offended by her inclination to play games and amuse herself with trifles. On the contrary, she was for him a source of relaxation from the continuous tension imposed upon him by his great burden to which the government of Yathrib had just been added.
Adhan or the Call to Prayer
It was during this interval in which the Muslims felt secure in their religion that the duties of zakat, fasting, and legal sanctions of Islam were imposed and its dominion was firmly established in Yathrib. Ever since Muhammad arrived in Medina, whenever the time of prayer came, the people assembled around the Prophet without call. It occurred to him to have the Muslims called for prayer by means of a horn, following the style of the Jews, but he found the idea unbecoming. He had also thought of using the clapper, in the manner of the Christians. After consulting `Umar and a number of Muslims, according to one report, and by the command of God, according to another, he changed his idea to the Adhan and commanded Abdullah ibn Zayd ibn Tha'labah : "Get up with Bilal and dictate the call to prayer to him, but let him deliver it forth for he has a more beautiful voice than yours." A woman of Banu al Najjar owned a house next door to the mosque which was higher than the latter. Bilal used to ascend to the roof of that house and deliver the call to prayer from there. Thus the people of Yathrib all began to hear the call to prayer many times a day beginning at dawn. The Islamic call to prayer was equally a call to Islam sung beautifully by a beautiful voice and carried on the waves of the air unto all corners of the horizon. It was a call which penetrated the ear of life itself. It said, "God is greater. God is greater. I witness that there is no God but God. I witness that Muhammad is the Prophet of God. Rise to prayer. Rise to felicity. God is greater. God is greater. There is no God but God." Henceforth, the Muslims' fears were dissipated and they felt secure. Yathrib became Medina al Nabiy or, "the City of the Prophet." While the non-Muslim inhabitants began to fear Muslim power knowing well that it stemmed from the depth of hearts which had tasted sacrifice and persecution for the sake of faith, the Muslims collected the fruits of their patience and enjoyed their religious freedom. There peace and freedom were now made constitutional by the Islamic principles that no man has any authority over any other, that religion belongs to God alone, that service is to Him alone, that before Him all men are absolutely equal, and that nothing differentiates them except their works and intentions. In Medina, the atmosphere was finally cleared of all impediments, and Muhammad openly proclaimed his teachings. The theater was ready and the stage was set for Muhammad to constitute by his conduct the ideal exemplification and embodiment of these teachings and principles, and for his laying down the foundation stone of Islamic civilization.
Brotherhood: Foundation of Islamic Civilization
The rock bottom foundation of Islamic civilization is human brotherhood, a brotherhood under which man does not become truly human until he has loved for his brother what he loves for himself and implemented this love by deeds of goodness and mercy without weakness or servility. A man once asked Muhammad, "Which Islam is better?" Muhammad answered, "That you give food to the needy and that you greet those whom you know as well as those whom you don't." He opened the first sermon he delivered in Medina with the statement, “Whoever can protect his face from the fire even with a basket of dates, let him do so; and whoever does not find even that much, then let him do so with a good word, for the good word brings a reward ten times greater than itself.” In his second sermon he said, "Worship God and do not associate any being with Him. Fear and revere Him as He ought to be feared and revered. Be true unto Him by saying always the best than can be said. Love one another in the spirit of God. God is displeased whenever His covenant is violated." By this and like exhortations, Muhammad used to counsel his companions and preach to the people in his mosque, leaning against one of the date trunks supporting the ceiling. Later on, he ordered a pulpit of three steps to be made for him, the first to stand upon when delivering a sermon and the second to sit down upon.
Muslim Brotherhood
The brotherhood which Muhammad made the cornerstone of Islamic civilization did not rest on his preachings alone. It was embodied in its highest perfection in his deeds and concrete example. True, he was the Prophet of God, but he consistently refused to adopt any of the appearances of power, authority, kingship, or temporal sovereignty. He emphatically repeated to his companions, "Do not praise me as the Christians have praised the son of Mary, for I am but the servant of God. Rather, call me the servant of God and His Prophet." Once, he arrived at a gathering of his companions leaning on a stick and they all rose up in respect for him. He said, "Do not stand up for me as the Persians do in aggrandizement of one another." Whenever he joined his companions, he always sat at the edge of the space they occupied. He used to joke and mix with them, to talk to them about their own affairs, to pamper and coddle their children, and to answer the call of freeman, slave, maid servant and destitute alike. He used to visit the sick in the farthest district of Medina, to take the initiative in greeting whomever he met, and to stretch his hand in welcome to his visitors. No man came to visit Muhammad and found him in prayer but he shortened his prayer, attended to his visitor and returned to his prayer after the visitor had left. He was the most charitable of people, always smiling in the face of everyone except when revelation came to him or when he delivered a speech or a sermon. In his home, he felt no superiority over the members of his family. He washed his own robe and mended it by his own hand. He milked his own goat, repaired his own sandals, attended to himself and to his camel, ate with his servant, and fulfilled the request of the weak, the oppressed and the destitute. Whenever he found somebody in need, however lowly or plebeian, he preferred to attend to him first rather than to himself or to his family. That is why he never saved anything for the morrow, and when he died his shield was in possession of a Jewish pawnbroker as lien for a loan made to Muhammad to spend on his family. He was exceedingly modest and extremely loyal. When a deputation from the Negus of Abyssinia arrived to see him, he rose to serve them. His companions sought to stop him, but he said to them: "The Abyssinians were kind to our companions when they went to their country; I would like to treat them likewise and reward them." He was so loyal to Khadija that whenever she was mentioned he gave her the best of praises so that Aisha used to say, "I have never been jealous of a woman as I have been of Khadija for all that I have heard the Prophet praise her." Once when a woman came to him, he rose to greet her, spoke to her gently, and attended to her pleas; people asked him who she was. He answered, "She used to befriend us in the days of Khadija; loyalty to one's friends is of the faith." Indeed, he was so compassionate and gentle that he did not mind his grandsons' playing with him during his prayer. Once, he even prayed while Umamah, his granddaughter through Zaynab, sat on his shoulders and had to be put down when he prostrated himself.
Muhammad's Kindness to Animals
His kindness and mercy, on which he founded the new Islamic civilization, were not limited to man alone but extended to animals. Muhammad used to rise and open the door for a cat seeking to enter. He attended with his own hands to a sick rooster and rubbed down his own horse with his own sleeve. When Aisha rode on an obstinate camel and began to pull him hardly, he said to her, "Softly and gently please." Thus his kindness and mercy embraced all that ever came in touch with him every creature that sought to stand near his person.
The Brotherhood of Justice and Mercy
Muhammad's mercy did not proceed from weakness or servility, nor was it ever vitiated by pride, haughtiness, or the expectation of gratitude. It was done purely for the sake of God. Hence, nothing was excluded from it. This kindness differentiates the foundation of the civilization of Islam from all other civilizations. Islam puts justice side by side with kindness and judges that kindness is not kindness without justice:
"Whoever commits an aggression against you, return to him his aggression in like manner.”[Q 2:194]
"In punishment a whole life lies implicit, O you who have minds to reason with!”[Q 2:179]
Kindness is felicitous and the good deeds that issue from it are praiseworthy only when the motivation is internal, the will is free, and the purpose is the seeking of God's sake alone. Kindness should proceed from a strong soul that has known no submission to anything but God, has not succumbed to weakness, does not go to extremes in the name of piety, and knows no fear or contrition except on account for a misdeed it has done or a crime it has committed. As long as the soul is under alien dominion, it can never be strong; it can never be strong, either, if it stands under the dominion of its own passions and desires. Muhammad and his companions emigrated from Mecca precisely in rebellion against the dominion of Qoresh who attempted to weaken their souls by means of dominion and the injuries it perpetrates. On the other hand, the soul is said to be under the dominion of passions and desires whenever the body's demands take precedence over those of the spirit, when passion vanquishes reason, when external life exerts any power over internal lifeline short, when the soul does not know that it has no need of either passion or desire and is really their final master.
Muhammad's Power to Surmount Life
Muhammad provided the highest example of the power to overcome life. He achieved such a degree of mastery over life that he did not hesitate to give all that he had whenever he wanted to give. A contemporary of Muhammad once said of him, "Muhammad gives as if he has no fear of want at all." In order not to allow anything to exercise any power over him but rather to enable himself to determine it, Muhammad led a very ascetic life. Despite his strong desire to know the secrets of life and understand its structure, he was quite contemptuous of its joys and attractions. He slept in a bed of palm fibers; he never ate his fill; he never ate barley bread on two consecutive days, gruel being his main daily meal together with dates. Neither he nor his family had ever had enough tharid [a dish of bread with meat, rice, and gravy]. He felt the pangs of hunger more than once, and learned to press a stone against his stomach as a means to silence those pangs. This remarkable restraint, however, did not prevent his enjoying the delicacies of God's bounty if such were available, and he was known to love to eat leg of lamb, squash, honey, and other sweets.
In his dress he was as ascetic as he was in his food. His wife once gave him a new robe because he was in need of one. One of his companions asked him for something with which to shroud a dead relative, and Muhammad gave him the new robe he had just received. His wardrobe consisted of shirts and robes made out of wool, cotton, or linen. But on special occasions he had no objection to wearing a luxurious robe from Yaman should it be called for. He used to wear a simple sandal, and he did not wear slippers until the Negus of Abyssinia sent him some together with other clothes.
Muhammad's denial of the world and its luxuries was not pursued for its own sake. Nor was it a duty imposed by religion. The Quran said: "Eat of the delicacies of God's providing," and "Do seek the other world in what God has given you of this, but do not give up your share of this world. Do good, as God has done good to you."[Q 2:57; 28:77]. In the traditions of the early Muslims it is said, "Work for this world as if your life in it is eternal; work for the other world as if you were to die tomorrow." Certainly Muhammad sought to give mankind the highest possible example of a mastery of life absolutely free of weakness, in which no goods, wealth, or power dedicated to another being beside God could have any effect. When brotherhood is based upon such a power over life and its attractions issue into such exemplary deeds as Muhammad had done, it is pure, candid, and has no other object whatever besides the lofty fraternalism of man and man. In it, justice dovetails with mercy, and the subject is not determined except by his own free and deliberate judgment. Islam places both mercy and forgiveness side by side with justice. It insists that if they are to be themselves at all, mercy and forgiveness must issue from power. Only then will their purpose be the genuine good of the neighbor and his reconstruction.
The Sunnah of Muhammad
The foundation for a new civilization which Muhammad laid down was expressed very succinctly in a report by Ali ibn Abu Talib. He asked the Prophet of God concerning his Sunnah, and the latter replied: “Wisdom is my capital, reason the force of my religion, love my foundation, longing my vehicle, the remembrance of God my constant pleasure, trust my treasure, mourning my companion, knowledge my arm, patience my robe, contentment my booty, poverty my pride, asceticism my profession, conviction my strength, truthfulness my intercessor, obedience my argument, holy war my ethics, prayer my supreme pleasure.”
Beginning of Jewish Fears
Muhammad's teachings, example, and leadership had the deepest effect upon the people. Large numbers of men joined the ranks of Islam and their conversion consolidated and increased Muslim power in Medina. It was at this stage that the Jews began to rethink their position vis-à-vis Muhammad and his companions. They had concluded a pact with him and were still ambitiously hoping to win him over to their side in order to increase their power against the Christians. Muhammad, however, was becoming more powerful than both Christians and Jews, and his command was growing in effect and application. Muhammad had even begun thinking of Qoresh, of their banishment of him and the Muhajirun from Mecca, and of their forced conversion of some Muslims to the old idolatry. It was at this time that the Jews asked themselves whether they should let his call, spiritual power, and authority continue to spread while remaining satisfied with the security they enjoyed under his protection and the increased trade and wealth which his peace had brought to their city. Perhaps they might have done so had they felt certain that his religion was not going to spread in their midst and their own men would not abjure the exclusivism of Jewish prophethood and the people of Israel to convert to Islam. A great number of their priesthood and a learned rabbi, Abdullah ibn Salam, approached the Prophet and announced to him his conversion as well as that of his own household. Abdullah himself feared the calumny of the Jews and their defamation of him should they learn of his conversion. He therefore asked the Prophet to inquire of them about him, before any of the Jews had learned of his conversion. The Jews answered Muhammad, " Abdullah ibn Salam is our master, son of our master, our priest, and learned rabbi." When, however, Abdullah went back to them as a Muslim and called them to Islam, they attacked him and spread in the Jewish quarters of Medina all sorts of calumnies against him. This was the event which triggered their suspicions of Muhammad and their denial of Muhammad's prophethood. Those members of al Aws and al Khazraj tribes who never entered Islam or who did so in hypocrisy or for an ulterior purpose were quick to rally around the Jews once their opposition to Muhammad and to Islam began to crystallize.
The War of Words between Muhammad and the Jews
A war of words between Muhammad and the Jews, which proved to be greater and more sinister than that which raged between Muhammad arid Qoresh, followed ibn Salam's conversion. Unlike the hostility with Qoresh, the new war in Yathrib witnessed the connivance of treason, deception, and scriptural knowledge for the attack against Muhammad, his message, and his companions, whether Muhajirun or Ansar. The Jews sent some of their rabbis to feign conversion to Islam in order to enter Muslim ranks and councils. While showing all piety, these rabbis were commissioned to disseminate doubt and suspicion of Muhammad among his own people. They asked Muhammad questions which they thought might shake the Muslims' conviction and arouse doubt in the message Muhammad was teaching. A number of hypocrites from al Aws and al Khazraj tribes joined Islam for the same purpose. Both Jews and unbelievers, however, reached such levels of deception that they denied either Torah or God in order to ask Muhammad, "If God created creation, who then created God?" Muhammad used to answer them with the divine verses: "Say, `God is One, the Eternal. He was not born, nor did He give birth to anyone. None is like unto Him.'[Q 112:1-3]. The Muslims soon detected their purpose and uncovered their attempts. When some of them plotting in secrecy in one of the mosque's corners were discovered one day by the Muslims, Muhammad had to command that they be expelled from the mosque. However, their efforts to split Muslim ranks continued. A Jewish leader called Shas ibn Qays passed one day by a group of [Banu Qaylah] the al Aws and al Khazraj tribesmen, enjoying one another's company in good harmony. He remembered how they were once divided and warring against each other, and thought that if [these two clans of ] Banu Qaylah remained united in this territory, the Jews would not be able to live in peace for long. He therefore instructed a young Jew who frequented their sessions to seek an opportunity to arouse memories of the Day of Bu'ath when al Aws vanquished al Khazraj. The youth did speak and recalled the memory of that war and succeeded in arousing the old pride and hatred of the two tribes, convincing some that a return to that dies nefastus was possible as well as desirable. When Muhammad learned of this, he hurried with his companions and reminded the divisive elements how Islam had sweetened their hearts and made of them mutually loving brethren. Muhammad continued to talk to them, emphasizing their Islamic unity and brotherhood until their tears ran down in emotion and they embraced one another.
The war of words between Muhammad and the Jews increased in intensity. The evidence therefore is what the Quran has to say about it. The first eighty-one verses of Surah "al Nisa'," mention the people of the book, their denial of their own scripture, and condemns their unbelief and denial in strong terms:
"Verily, We revealed to Moses the scripture and called after him messengers to follow in his footsteps. To Jesus, Son of Mary, We gave manifest signs and We strengthened him with the spirit of holiness. `Will you then, O Jews, every time a prophet comes to you with what you yourselves do not like take to false pride and arrogantly belie some and kill others?' They rationalize and seek to excuse themselves by admitting to dimness of vision. God, however, curses them for their disbelief. Little are they convinced of the truth! And when the book which came from God and which confirmed their own scripture was brought to them and invoked for their benefit they denied it. Hitherto they were boasting of such revelation and deriding the unbelievers for never receiving any. Now that the same truth which they had known beforehand has come to the believers from God they reject it. God's wrath will surely fall upon the unbelievers.”[Q 2:87-89]
The Story of Finhas
Sometimes, controversy and argument between Jews and Muslims reached such a level of intensity that the participants attacked each other. In order to appreciate how provocative the Jews were in their war of words against the Muslims, suffice it to remember the story of Finhas. The gentleness, patience, and largezcr de coeur of Abu Bakr are proverbial. And yet he too could and did lose his temper. He once talked to Finhas calling the latter unto Islam. Finhas answered, "By God, 0 Abu Bakr, we do not need God. Rather, it is He who needs us. It is not I who pray to Him, it is He who prays to us. We are self-sufficient and He is not. If God were self-sufficient, He would not borrow our wealth as your Prophet claims. If He were truly not in need of us, He would not have prohibited usury to you and allowed it to us." Finhas was actually referring to the Quranic verse which said: "Will you then lend God a good loan which He will repay to you many times over?"[Q 2:245]. At this point in the conversation, Abu Bakr lost his patience and struck Finhas on the face saying, "By God, were it not for the covenant between your people and mine, I would have struck your head off, 0 enemy of God." The said Finhas took his complaint to the Prophet and denied his blasphemy. It was then that this verse was revealed: "God has heard those who said, `He is poor and we are rich.' On the day of judgment, God will remember this as well as their murder of the prophets. Then will he say: "Taste the punishments of hell.”[Q 3:181]
Not satisfied with their attempt to divide the Muhajirun and Ansar, al Aws and al Khazraj, in order to dissuade the Muslims from their religion and return them to idolatry without ever seeking to convert them to Judaism the Jews even tried to trap Muhammad himself. A number of their rabbis, elders, and noblemen went to him one day and said: "You know who we are and you know well our prestige with our people. You know that if we should follow you, the Jews would do likewise. Would you then not help us against our people by giving a verdict in our favor when we bring to you our litigation with them to arbitrate? If you do, we shall then follow you and believe in you. At this the following divine words were revealed:
"Judge between them by that which God has revealed, and do not follow their desires. Take care lest they sway you away from some of the revelations made to you. If they turn away from you, know that God is punishing them for some of their misdeeds. Most of them are immoral. What? Do they seek judgment on the basis of the idolatrous principles of pre-Islam? Is not God's judgment preferable? But they are people devoid of certain knowledge."[Q 5:49-50]
Orientation to the Kaba in Prayer
By this time, the Jews had lost their patience and began to plot against Muhammad, They sought to get him to leave Medina as the Qoresh had succeeded in causing him and his companions to leave Mecca. Their method, however, was different. They said to Muhammad that each and every prophet hitherto had gone to Jerusalem and there established his residence. They challenged him by asserting that if he were a true prophet, he would only do as his predecessors had done in considering Medina only as an intermediate station between Mecca and the city where al Aqsa Mosque stood. Muhammad, however, did not have to think hard to realize that they were plotting against him. It was then, seventeen months after his emigration from Mecca, that God commanded him to orient himself in prayer toward the holy mosque, the house of Ibrahim and Isma'il. It was then that the verse was revealed: "We see your yearning for a direction to take in prayer. Let us then guide you to a direction that you will accept. Orient yourself in prayer toward the holy mosque of Mecca, and wherever you may be, turn your face toward it.”[Q 2:144]. The Jews condemned Muhammad for this and sought to trap him once more. They went to him pleading that they would all enter into his faith if he would but return to Jerusalem, his old direction in prayer. In this connection, God revealed the following verses:
"Some foolish people will ask, `What caused them to change their old orientation?' Say: `To God belongs the East as well as the West. He guides unto His straight path whomsoever he wills." Thus We have caused you to be a nation following the course of the golden mean, witnessing unto mankind and witnessed to by the Prophet. The whole question of the orientation in prayer was intended by us to sift the true believers from the apostates and deceptors. To change orientation is a big travail only to those who have missed the divine guidance."[Q 2:142-143]
The Christian Delegation from Najran
While the war of words was raging between Muhammad and the Jews in full intensity, a delegation from the Christians of Najran consisting of sixty riders arrived in Medina. Among them were some of the nobles, learned men, and religious leaders of the tribe whom the emperors of Byzantium had been protecting, encouraging, financing, and assisting in the building of churches. Perhaps this delegation arrived in Medina after they learned of the conflict between Muhammad and the Jews with the hope of adding fuel to the fire so that neighboring Christendom, whether in al Sham or in Yaman, might relax and feel safe from Jewish plots and Arab aggression. The three scriptural religions thus confronted one another in Medina. The delegation entered with the Prophet into public debate and these were soon joined by the Jews, thus resulting in a tripartite dialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Jews were obstinately denying the prophethood of Jesus as well as of Muhammad, as we have seen earlier, and pretending that Ezra was the son of God. The Christians were defending trinitarianism and the divinity of Jesus. Muhammad was calling men to recognize the unity of God and the spiritual unity of mankind. Most Jews and Christians asked Muhammad which prophets he believed in. He answered: "We believe in God, in what has been revealed to us, to Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub, and his children. We believe in what has been revealed to Moses, to Jesus, as well as in all the revelations which the prophets have received from their Lord. We do not differentiate between them. And we have submitted ourselves to God."[Q 2:136]. Muhammad criticized both Jews and Christians in very strong terms for their compromise of the monotheistic faith that God is one, for tampering with the words of God in their scriptures, and for interpreting them in ways violating the understanding of the prophets whose prophethood they themselves acknowledged. He criticized them for asserting that the revelation of Jesus, Moses, and their predecessors in prophethood differed in many essential matters from his own revelation. In support of this, Muhammad argued that what those prophets had received from God was the same eternal truth as that revealed to him. Being the truth, its light shines forth clear and distinct, and its content is majestic and simple to any researcher submitting to none but God and to anyone capable of seeing the world as a connected and integrated unity rather than as ephemeral intimations of desire, passion, and ulterior motives. Being the truth, it must be readily recognized by the man liberated from blind submission to old wives' tales or to the sanctified legends of the fathers and ancestors. By nature, such truth must be open and possible for everyone to perceive.
Congress on the Three Religions
This was a truly great congress which the city of Yathrib had witnessed. In it, the three religions which today dominate the world and determine its destiny had met, and they did so for the greatest idea and the noblest purpose. It had neither political nor economic aims, but stood beyond the materialistic objectives which our present world is anxiously, yet so vainly trying to realize. The objective of the congress was purely spiritual. Whereas in the case of Christianity and Judaism the spiritual objective was backed or motivated by political, capitalistic, and worldly ambitions, Muhammad's spiritual purpose was pure and advocated for the sake of humanity as a whole. It was God that gave this purpose of Muhammad's its form, and this same form was proclaimed not only to the Jews but to the Christians and all mankind. Muhammad was commanded to address the delegates of both faiths:
"Say, `O People of the Book, come now to a fair principle common to both of us, that we do not worship aught but God, that we do not associate aught with Him and that we do not take one another as lords besides God.' But if they turn away, then say, `Bear witness that we are Muslims.”[Q 3:64]
Withdrawal of the Christian Delegation
What can Jews, Christians, or any other people say of this call to worship none but God, to associate none with Him and never to take one another as lords besides God? The spirit which is sincere and truthful, which is endowed with reason and candid emotion cannot but believe in this call and in it alone. But human life is not entirely dominated by such noble dispositions. There is yet the materialistic consideration. Man is indeed weak; and it is this inclination to material gain which causes him to subject himself to the dominion of another man for material advantage. Man suffers terribly from false pride, his considerateness, self-respect and reason are destroyed thereby. It was this materialistic ambition for wealth, worldly prestige and social eminence that caused Abu Harithah, the most learned of the people of Najran, to tell a friend of his that he was perfectly convinced of the truth of which Muhammad was teaching. When that friend asked him why he did not then convert to Islam, he answered: "I cannot do so on account of what my people have done to me. They have honored, financed, and respected me; and they insist on differing from him. Should I follow him, they would take away from me all this that I now have."
It was to this message that Muhammad summoned Jews and Christians alike. Muslim relationships with the former were already under the governance of the Covenant of Medina. Those of the latter depended upon the Christians' response to Muhammad's invitation. Though they did not join Islam at this time, the Christians resolved neither to oppose Muhammad nor the missionary activity of his followers. Appreciating the perfect justice of Muhammad's new order, they asked him to appoint for them a Muslim to act as judge in their own disputes at home. Muhammad sent with them Abu `Ubaydah ibn al Jarrah, who was vested with the proper judicial authority.
Rethinking the Problem of Qoresh and Mecca
Muhammad continued to consolidate the civilization for which his teaching and example provided the foundation. Together with his Muhajirun companions, he thought over the problem of Qoresh, which had vexed them ever since their emigration. The Muslims were moved by many considerations. In Mecca stood the Kaba, the house of Ibrahim, pilgrimage center to them as well as to all the Arabs. Until their exile, they had performed this sacred duty in season, every year. In Mecca too many of their friends, relatives, and loved ones had stayed behind and were still practicing the old idolatry. In Mecca, their wealth, worldly goods, trade, and properties were still under the jurisdiction of the Qoresh. Medina itself was struck with epidemic diseases which attacked the Muslims and inflicted upon them great suffering; indeed, the very trip to Medina on foot and without provisions had so worn them out that they entered the city on their first arrival already diseased and exhausted. This hard journey had naturally increased their longing for their hometown. Moreover, they did not leave Mecca of their own accord but under compulsion and full of resentment for their overlords who threatened them with all kinds of punishments and sanctions. It was not in their nature to suffer such injustices or to submit to such tyranny for long without thinking of avenging themselves. Besides these determinants, there was the natural motivation of longing to return to one's homeland, to one's home where one was born and grew up. There was the natural longing for the land, the plain, and the mountains, the water and the vegetation, all of which had constituted their earliest associations, friendships, and love. The land in which he grows and to which he returns at the end of his life has a special appeal for man. It determines his heart and his emotion and moves him to defend it with all his power and wealth as well as to exert all possible effort indeed his life -for its guardianship and well being. It is to the land from which we came out, as it were, that we want to return and be buried in at death. This natural feeling added a degree of intensity to the other emotions. Indeed, the Muhajirun could never forget Mecca nor stop thinking about the problem of their relation with the Qoresh. From the very nature of the case, and after thirteen long years of persecution and conflict in which they held their ground firmly, the Muslims could not possibly entertain any ideas of withdrawal or giving up. The religion itself to which they had converted and for the sake of which they had emigrated did not approve of weakness, despair, servile submission, or the patient bearing of injustice. Although it was strongly opposed to aggression and condemned it in no uncertain terms, and although it called for and promoted fraternity and brotherhood, it demanded that man rise up to the defense of his person, of his dignity, of the freedom of religion, and the freedom of homeland. It was for this defense and purpose that Muhammad concluded with the Muslims of Yathrib the great covenant of Aqaba. Now the question posed itself how may the Muhajirun fulfill this duty imposed upon them for the sake of God, His holy house, and their beloved homeland, Mecca? Toward the realization of this objective will the policy of Muhammad and of the Muslims now turn. This objective was to preoccupy them all until the conquest of Mecca had been achieved, and the religion of God, and the truth which it proclaimed, had become supreme.
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