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[Taken from Introduction
to Islam by Muhammad
Hamidullah (Centre Culturel Islamique,
Paris, 1969), with some changes to
make it more readable. The changes are
marked by pairs of brackets like
around this paragraph. Dr.
Hamidullah's present address is: 9
Beaver Court, Wilkes Barre PA, 18702,
USA.]
IN the
annals of men, individuals have not been
lacking who conspicuously devoted their
lives to the socio-religious reform of
their connected peoples. We find them in
every epoch and in all lands. In India,
there lived those who transmitted to the
world the Vedas, and there was also the
great Gautama Buddha; China had its
Confucius; the Avesta was produced in
Iran. Babylonia gave to the world one of
the greatest reformers, the Prophet
Abraham (not to speak of such of his
ancestors as Enoch and Noah about whom
we have very scanty information). The
Jewish people may rightly be proud of a
long series of reformers: Moses, Samuel,
David, Solomon, and Jesus among others.
2. Two points are to note: Firstly
these reformers claimed in general to be
the bearers each of a Divine mission,
and they left behind them sacred books
incorporating codes of life for the
guidance of their peoples. Secondly
there followed fratricidal wars, and
massacres and genocides became the order
of the day, causing more or less a
complete loss of these Divine messages.
As to the books of Abraham, we know them
only by the name; and as for the books
of Moses, records tell us how they were
repeatedly destroyed and only partly
restored.
Concept of God
3. If one should judge from the
relics of the past already brought to
light of the homo sapiens, one
finds that man has always been conscious
of the existence of a Supreme Being, the
Master and Creator of all. Methods and
approaches may have differed, but the
people of every epoch have left proofs
of their attempts to obey God.
Communication with the Omnipresent yet
invisible God has also been recognised
as possible in connection with a small
fraction of men with noble and exalted
spirits. Whether this communication
assumed the nature of an incarnation of
the Divinity or simply resolved itself
into a medium of reception of Divine
messages (through inspiration or
revelation), the purpose in each case
was the guidance of the people. It was
but natural that the interpretations and
explanations of certain systems should
have proved more vital and convincing
than others.
3/a. Every system of metaphysical
thought develops its own terminology. In
the course of time terms acquire a
significance hardly contained in the
word and translations fall short of
their purpose. Yet there is no other
method to make people of one group
understand the thoughts of another.
Non-Muslim readers in particular are
requested to bear in mind this aspect
which is a real yet unavoidable
handicap.
4. By the end of the 6th century,
after the birth of Jesus Christ, men had
already made great progress in diverse
walks of life. At that time there were
some religions which openly proclaimed
that they were reserved for definite
races and groups of men only, of course
they bore no remedy for the ills of
humanity at large. There were also a few
which claimed universality, but declared
that the salvation of man lay in the
renunciation of the world. These were
the religions for the elite, and catered
for an extremely limited number of men.
We need not speak of regions where there
existed no religion at all, where
atheism and materialism reigned supreme,
where the thought was solely of
occupying one self with one's own
pleasures, without any regard or
consideration for the rights of others.
Arabia
5. A perusal of the map of the major
hemisphere (from the point of view of
the proportion of land to sea), shows
the Arabian Peninsula lying at the
confluence of the three great continents
of Asia, Africa and Europe. At the time
in question. this extensive Arabian
subcontinent composed mostly of desert
areas was inhabited by people of settled
habitations as well as nomads. Often it
was found that members of the same tribe
were divided into these two groups, and
that they preserved a relationship
although following different modes of
life. The means of subsistence in Arabia
were meagre. The desert had its
handicaps, and trade caravans were
features of greater importance than
either agriculture or industry. This
entailed much travel, and men had to
proceed beyond the peninsula to Syria,
Egypt, Abyssinia, Iraq, Sind, India and
other lands.
6. We do not know much about the
Libyanites of Central Arabia, but Yemen
was rightly called Arabia Felix.
Having once been the seat of the
flourishing civilizations of Sheba and
Ma'in even before the foundation of the
city of Rome had been laid, and having
later snatched from the Byzantians and
Persians several provinces, greater
Yemen which had passed through the
hey-day of its existence, was however at
this time broken up into innumerable
principalities, and even occupied in
part by foreign invaders. The Sassanians
of Iran, who had penetrated into Yemen
had already obtained possession of
Eastern Arabia. There was
politico-social chaos at the capital (Mada'in
= Ctesiphon), and this found reflection
in all her territories. Northern Arabia
had succumbed to Byzantine influences,
and was faced with its own particular
problems. Only Central Arabia remained
immune from the demoralising effects of
foreign occupation.
7. In this limited area of Central
Arabia, the existence of the triangle of
Mecca-Ta'if-Madinah seemed something
providential. Mecca, desertic, deprived
of water and the amenities of
agriculture in physical features
represented Africa and the burning
Sahara. Scarcely fifty miles from there,
Ta'if presented a picture of Europe and
its frost. Madinah in the North was not
less fertile than even the most
temperate of Asiatic countries like
Syria. If climate has any influence on
human character, this triangle standing
in the middle of the major hemisphere
was, more than any other region of the
earth, a miniature reproduction of the
entire world. And here was born a
descendant of the Babylonian Abraham,
and the Egyptian Hagar, Muhammad the
Prophet of Islam, a Meccan by origin and
yet with stock related, both to Madinah
and Ta'if.
Religion
8. From the point of view of
religion, Arabia was idolatrous; only a
few individuals had embraced religions
like Christianity, Mazdaism, etc. The
Meccans did possess the notion of the
One God, but they believed also that
idols had the power to intercede with
Him. Curiously enough, they did not
believe in the Resurrection and
Afterlife. They had preserved the rite
of the pilgrimage to the House of the
One God, the Ka'bah, an institution set
up under divine inspiration by their
ancestor Abraham, yet the two thousand
years that separated them from Abraham
had caused to degenerate this pilgrimage
into the spectacle of a commercial fair
and an occasion of senseless idolatry
which far from producing any good, only
served to ruin their individual
behaviour, both social and spiritual.
Society
9. In spite of the comparative
poverty in natural resources, Mecca was
the most developed of the three points
of the triangle. Of the three, Mecca
alone had a city-state, governed by a
council of ten hereditary chiefs who
enjoyed a clear division of power.
(There was a minister of foreign
relations, a minister guardian of the
temple, a minister of oracles, a
minister guardian of offerings to the
temple, one to determine the torts and
the damages payable, another in charge
of the municipal council or parliament
to enforce the decisions of the
ministries. There were also ministers in
charge of military affairs like
custodianship of the flag, leadership of
the cavalry etc.). As well reputed
caravan-leaders, the Meccans were able
to obtain permission from neighbouring
empires like Iran, Byzantium and
Abyssinia - and to enter into agreements
with the tribes that lined the routes
traversed by the caravans - to visit
their countries and transact import and
export business. They also provided
escorts to foreigners when they passed
through their country as well as the
territory of allied tribes, in Arabia
(cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar).
Although not interested much in the
preservation of ideas and records in
writing, they passionately cultivated
arts and letters like poetry, oratory
discourses and folk tales. Women were
generally well treated, they enjoyed the
privilege of possessing property in
their own right, they gave their consent
to marriage contracts, in which they
could even add the condition of
reserving their right to divorce their
husbands. They could remarry when
widowed or divorced. Burying girls alive
did exist in certain classes, but that
was rare.
Birth of the Prophet
10. It was in the midst of such
conditions and environments that
Muhammad was born in 569 after Christ.
His father, 'Abdullah had died some
weeks earlier, and it was his
grandfather who took him in charge.
According to the prevailing custom, the
child was entrusted to a Bedouin
foster-mother, with whom he passed
several years in the desert. All
biographers state that the infant
prophet sucked only one breast of his
foster-mother, leaving the other for the
sustenance of his foster-brother. When
the child was brought back home, his
mother, Aminah, took him to his maternal
uncles at Madinah to visit the tomb of
'Abdullah. During the return journey, he
lost his mother who died a sudden death.
At Mecca, another bereavement awaited
him, in the death of his affectionate
grandfather. Subjected to such
privations, he was at the age of eight,
consigned at last to the care of his
uncle, Abu-Talib, a man who was generous
of nature but always short of resources
and hardly able to provide for his
family.
11. Young Muhammad had therefore to
start immediately to earn his
livelihood; he served as a shepherd boy
to some neighbours. At the age of ten he
accompanied his uncle to Syria when he
was leading a caravan there. No other
travels of Abu-Talib are mentioned, but
there are references to his having set
up a shop in Mecca. (Ibn Qutaibah, Ma'arif).
It is possible that Muhammad helped him
in this enterprise also.
12. By the time he was twenty-five,
Muhammad had become well known in the
city for the integrity of his
disposition and the honesty of his
character. A rich widow, Khadijah, took
him in her employ and consigned to him
her goods to be taken for sale to Syria.
Delighted with the unusual profits she
obtained as also by the personal charms
of her agent, she offered him her hand.
According to divergent reports, she was
either 28 or 40 years of age at that
time, (medical reasons prefer the age of
28 since she gave birth to five more
children). The union proved happy.
Later, we see him sometimes in the fair
of Hubashah (Yemen), and at least once
in the country of the 'Abd al-Qais
(Bahrain-Oman), as mentioned by Ibn
Hanbal. There is every reason to believe
that this refers to the great fair of
Daba (Oman), where, according to Ibn al-Kalbi
(cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar), the
traders of China, of Hind and Sind
(India, Pakistan), of Persia, of the
East and the West assembled every year,
travelling both by land and sea. There
is also mention of a commercial partner
of Muhammad at Mecca. This person, Sa'ib
by name reports: "We relayed each
other; if Muhammad led the caravan, he
did not enter his house on his return to
Mecca without clearing accounts with me;
and if I led the caravan, he would on my
return enquire about my welfare and
speak nothing about his own capital
entrusted to me."
An Order of Chivalry
13. Foreign traders often brought
their goods to Mecca for sale. One day a
certain Yemenite (of the tribe of Zubaid)
improvised a satirical poem against some
Meccans who had refused to pay him the
price of what he had sold, and others
who had not supported his claim or had
failed to come to his help when he was
victimised. Zuhair, uncle and chief of
the tribe of the Prophet, felt great
remorse on hearing this just satire. He
called for a meeting of certain
chieftains in the city, and organized an
order of chivalry, called Hilf al-fudul,
with the aim and object of aiding the
oppressed in Mecca, irrespective of
their being dwellers of the city or
aliens. Young Muhammad became an
enthusiastic member of the organisation.
Later in life he used to say: "I
have participated in it, and I am not
prepared to give up that privilege even
against a herd of camels; if somebody
should appeal to me even today, by
virtue of that pledge, I shall hurry to
his help."
Beginning of Religious Consciousness
14. Not much is known about the
religious practices of Muhammad until he
was thirty-five years old, except that
he had never worshipped idols. This is
substantiated by all his biographers. It
may be stated that there were a few
others in Mecca, who had likewise
revolted against the senseless practice
of paganism, although conserving their
fidelity to the Ka'bah as the house
dedicated to the One God by its builder
Abraham.
15. About the year 605 of the
Christian era, the draperies on the
outer wall of the Ka'bah took fire. The
building was affected and could not bear
the brunt of the torrential rains that
followed. The reconstruction of the
Ka'bah was thereupon undertaken. Each
citizen contributed according to his
means; and only the gifts of honest
gains were accepted. Everybody
participated in the work of
construction, and Muhammad's shoulders
were injured in the course of
transporting stones. To identify the
place whence the ritual of
circumambulation began, there had been
set a black stone in the wall of the
Ka'bah. dating probably from the time of
Abraham himself. There was rivalry among
the citizens for obtaining the honour of
transposing this stone in its place.
When there was danger of blood being
shed, somebody suggested leaving the
matter to Providence, and accepting the
arbitration of him who should happen to
arrive there first. It chanced that
Muhammad just then turned up there for
work as usual. He was popularly known by
the appellation of al-Amin (the
honest), and everyone accepted his
arbitration without hesitation. Muhammad
placed a sheet of cloth on the ground,
put the stone on it and asked the chiefs
of all the tribes in the city to lift
together the cloth. Then he himself
placed the stone in its proper place, in
one of the angles of the building, and
everybody was satisfied.
16. It is from this moment that we
find Muhammad becoming more and more
absorbed in spiritual meditations. Like
his grandfather, he used to retire
during the whole month of Ramadan to a
cave in Jabal-an-Nur (mountain of
light). The cave is called `Ghar-i-Hira'
or the cave of research. There he
prayed, meditated, and shared his meagre
provisions with the travellers who
happened to pass by.
Revelation
17. He was forty years old, and it
was the fifth consecutive year since his
annual retreats, when one night towards
the end of the month of Ramadan, an
angel came to visit him, and announced
that God had chosen him as His messenger
to all mankind. The angel taught him the
mode of ablutions, the way of
worshipping God and the conduct of
prayer. He communicated to him the
following Divine message:
With the name of God, the Most
Merciful, the All-Merciful.
Read: with the name of thy Lord Who
created,
Created man from what clings,
Read: and thy Lord is the Most
Bounteous,
Who taught by the pen,
Taught man what he knew not. (Quran
96:1-5)
18. Deeply affected, he returned home
and related to his wife what had
happened, expressing his fears that it
might have been something diabolic or
the action of evil spirits. She consoled
him, saying that he had always been a
man of charity and generosity, helping
the poor, the orphans, the widows and
the needy, and assured him that God
would protect him against all evil.
19. Then came a pause in revelation,
extending over three years. The Prophet
must have felt at first a shock, then a
calm, an ardent desire, and after a
period of waiting, a growing impatience
or nostalgia. The news of the first
vision had spread and at the pause the
sceptics in the city had begun to mock
at him and cut bitter jokes. They went
so far as to say that God had forsaken
him.
20. During the three years of
waiting. the Prophet had given himself
up more and more to prayers and to
spiritual practices. The revelations
were then resumed and God assured him
that He had not at all forsaken him: on
the contrary it was He Who had guided
him to the right path: therefore he
should take care of the orphans and the
destitute, and proclaim the bounty of
God on him (cf. Q. 93:3-11). This was in
reality an order to preach. Another
revelation directed him to warn people
against evil practices, to exhort them
to worship none but the One God, and to
abandon everything that would displease
God (Q. 74:2-7). Yet another revelation
commanded him to warn his own near
relatives (Q. 26:214); and:
"Proclaim openly that which thou
art commanded, and withdraw from the
Associators (idolaters). Lo! we defend
thee from the scoffers" (15:94-5).
According to Ibn Ishaq, the first
revelation (n. 17) had come to the
Prophet during his sleep, evidently to
reduce the shock. Later revelations came
in full wakefulness.
The Mission
21. The Prophet began by preaching
his mission secretly first among his
intimate friends, then among the members
of his own tribe and thereafter publicly
in the city and suburbs. He insisted on
the belief in One Transcendent God, in
Resurrection and the Last Judgement. He
invited men to charity and beneficence.
He took necessary steps to preserve
through writing the revelations he was
receiving, and ordered his adherents
also to learn them by heart. This
continued all through his life, since
the Quran was not revealed all at once,
but in fragments as occasions arose.
22. The number of his adherents
increased gradually, but with the
denunciation of paganism, the opposition
also grew intenser on the part of those
who were firmly attached to their
ancestral beliefs. This opposition
degenerated in the course of time into
physical torture of the Prophet and of
those who had embraced his religion.
These were stretched on burning sands,
cauterized with red hot iron and
imprisoned with chains on their feet.
Some of them died of the effects of
torture, but none would renounce his
religion. In despair, the Prophet
Muhammad advised his companions to quit
their native town and take refuge
abroad, in Abyssinia, "where
governs a just ruler, in whose realm
nobody is oppressed" (Ibn Hisham).
Dozens of Muslims profited by his
advice, though not all. These secret
flights led to further persecution of
those who remained behind.
23. The Prophet Muhammad [was
instructed to call this] religion
"Islam," i.e. submission to
the will of God. Its distinctive
features are two:
- A harmonius equilibrium between
the temporal and the spiritual (the
body and the soul), permitting a
full enjoyment of all the good that
God has created, (Quran 7:32),
enjoining at the same time on
everybody duties towards God, such
as worship, fasting, charity, etc.
Islam was to be the religion of the
masses and not merely of the elect.
- A universality of the call - all
the believers becoming brothers and
equals without any distinction of
class or race or tongue. The only
superiority which it recognizes is a
personal one, based on the greater
fear of God and greater piety (Quran
49:13).
Social Boycott
24. When a large number of the Meccan
Muslims migrated to Abyssinia, the
leaders of paganism sent an ultimatum to
the tribe of the Prophet, demanding that
he should be excommunicated and outlawed
and delivered to the pagans for being
put to death. Every member of the tribe,
Muslim and non-Muslim rejected the
demand. (cf. Ibn Hisham). Thereupon the
city decided on a complete boycott of
the tribe: Nobody was to talk to them or
have commercial or matrimonial relations
with them. The group of Arab tribes
called Ahabish, inhabiting the suburbs,
who were allies of the Meccans, also
joined in the boycott, causing stark
misery among the innocent victims
consisting of children, men and women,
the old and the sick and the feeble.
Some of them succumbed yet nobody would
hand over the Prophet to his
persecutors. An uncle of the Prophet,
Abu Lahab, however left his tribesmen
and participated in the boycott along
with the pagans. After three dire years,
during which the victims were obliged to
devour even crushed hides, four or five
non-Muslims, more humane than the rest
and belonging to different clans
proclaimed publicly their denunciation
of the unjust boycott. At the same time,
the document promulgating the pact of
boycott which had been hung in the
temple, was found, as Muhammad had
predicted, eaten by white ants, that
spared nothing but the words God and
Muhammad. The boycott was lifted, yet
owing to the privations that were
undergone the wife and Abu Talib, the
chief of the tribe and uncle of the
Prophet died soon after. Another uncle
of the Prophet, Abu-Lahab, who was an
inveterate enemy of Islam, now succeeded
to the headship of the tribe. (cf. lbn
Hisham, Sirah).
The Ascension
25. It was at thIs time that the
Prophet Muhammad was granted the mi'raj
(ascension): He saw in a vision that he
was received on heaven by God, and was
witness of the marvels of the celestial
regions. Returning, he brought for his
community, as a Divine gift, the [ritual
prayer of Islam, the salaat], which
constitutes a sort of communion between
man and God. It may be recalled that in
the last part of Muslim service of
worship, the faithful employ as a symbol
of their being in the very presence of
God, not concrete objects as others do
at the time of communion, but the very
words of greeting exchanged between the
Prophet Muhammad and God on the occasion
of the former's mi'raj:
"The blessed and pure greetings for
God! - Peace be with thee, O Prophet, as
well as the mercy and blessing of God! -
Peace be with us and with all the
[righteous] servants of God!" The
Christian term "communion"
implies participation in the Divinity.
Finding it pretentious, Muslims use the
term "ascension" towards God
and reception in His presence, God
remaining God and man remaining man and
no confusion between the twain.
26. The news of this celestial
meeting led to an increase in the
hostility of the pagans of Mecca; and
the Prophet was obliged to quit his
native town in search of an asylum
elsewhere. He went to his maternal
uncles in Ta'if, but returned
immediately to Mecca, as the wicked
people of that town chased the Prophet
out of their city by pelting stones on
him and wounding him.
Migration to Madinah
27. The annual pilgrimage of the
Ka'bah brought to Mecca people from all
parts of Arabia. The Prophet Muhammad
tried to persuade one tribe after
another to afford him shelter and allow
him to carry on his mission of reform.
The contingents of fifteen tribes, whom
he approached in succession, refused to
do so more or less brutally, but he did
not despair. Finally he met half a dozen
inhabitants of Madinah who being
neighbour of the Jews and the
Christians, had some notion of prophets
and Divine messages. They knew also that
these "people of the Books"
were awaiting the arrival of a prophet -
a last comforter. So these Madinans
decided not to lose the opportunity of
obtaining an advance over others, and
forthwith embraced Islam, promising
further to provide additional adherents
and necessary help from Madinah. The
following year a dozen new Madinans took
the oath of allegiance to him and
requested him to provide with a
missionary teacher. The work of the
missionary, Mus'ab, proved very
successful and he led a contingent of
seventy-three new converts to Mecca, at
the time of the pilgrimage. These
invited the Prophet and his Meccan
companions to migrate to their town, and
promised to shelter the Prophet and to
treat him and his companions as their
own kith and kin. Secretly and in small
groups, the greater part of the Muslims
emigrated to Madinah. Upon this the
pagans of Mecca not only confiscated the
property of the evacuees, but devised a
plot to assassinate the Prophet. It
became now impossible for him to remain
at home. It is worthy of mention, that
in spite of their hostility to his
mission, the pagans had unbounded
confidence in his probity, so much so
that many of them used to deposit their
savings with him. The Prophet Muhammad
now entrusted all these deposits to
'Ali, a cousin of his, with instructions
to return in due course to the rightful
owners. He then left the town secretly
in the company of his faithful friend,
Abu-Bakr. After several adventures, they
succeeded in reaching Madinah in safety.
This happened in 622, whence starts the
Hijrah calendar.
Reorganization of the Community
28. For the better rehabilitation of
the displaced immigrants, the Prophet
created a fraternization between them
and an equal number of well-to-do
Madinans. The families of each pair of
the contractual brothers worked together
to earn their livelihood, and aided one
another in the business of life.
29. Further he thought that the
development of the man as a whole would
be better achieved if he co-ordinated
religion and politics as two constituent
parts of one whole. To this end he
invited the representatives of the
Muslims as well as the non-Muslim
inhabitants of the region: Arabs, Jews,
Christians and others, and suggested the
establishment of a City-State in
Madinah. With their assent, he endowed
the city with a written constitution -
the first of its kind in the world - in
which he defined the duties and rights
both of the citizens and the head of the
State - the Prophet Muhammad was
unanimously hailed as such - and
abolished the customary private justice.
The administration of justice became
henceforward the concern of the central
organisation of the community of the
citizens. The document laid down
principles of defence and foreign
policy: it organized a system of social
insurance, called ma'aqil, in cases of
too heavy obligations. It recognized
that the Prophet Muhammad would have the
final word in all differences, and that
there was no limit to his power of
legislation. It recognized also
explicitly liberty of religion,
particularly for the Jews, to whom the
constitutional act afforded equality
with Muslims in all that concerned life
in this world (cf. infra n. 303).
30. Muhammad journeyed several times
with a view to win the neighbouring
tribes and to conclude with them
treaties of alliance and mutual help.
With their help, he decided to bring to
bear economic pressure on the Meccan
pagans, who had confiscated the property
of the Muslim evacuees and also caused
innumerable damage. Obstruction in the
way of the Meccan caravans and their
passage through the Madinan region
exasperated the pagans, and a bloody
struggle ensued.
31. In the concern for the material
interests of the community, the
spiritual aspect was never neglected.
Hardly a year had passed after the
migration to Madinah, when the most
rigorous of spiritual disciplines, the
fasting for the whole month of Ramadan
every year, was imposed on every adult
Muslim, man and woman.
Struggle Against Intolerance and
Unbelief
32. Not content with the expulsion of
the Muslim compatriots, the Meccans sent
an ultimatum to the Madinans, demanding
the surrender or at least the expulsion
of Muhammad and his companions but
evidently all such efforts proved in
vain. A few months later, in the year 2
H., they sent a powerful army against
the Prophet, who opposed them at Badr;
and the pagans thrice as numerous as the
Muslims, were routed. After a year of
preparation, the Meccans again invaded
Madinah to avenge the defeat of Badr.
They were now four times as numerous as
the Muslims. After a bloody encounter at
Uhud, the enemy retired, the issue being
indecisive. The mercenaries in the
Meccan army did not want to take too
much risk, or endanger their safety.
33. In thc meanwhile the Jewish
citizens of Madinah began to foment
trouble. About the time of the victory
of Badr, one of their leaders, Ka'b ibn
al-Ashraf, proceeded to Mecca to give
assurance of his alliance with the
pagans, and to incite them to a war of
revenge. After the battle of Uhud, the
tribe of the same chieftain plotted to
assassinate the Prophet by throwing on
him a mill-stone from above a tower,
when he had gone to visit their
locality. In spite of all this, the only
demand the Prophet made of the men of
this tribe was to quit the Madinan
region, taking with them all their
properties, after selling their
immovables and recovering their debts
from the Muslims. The clemency thus
extended had an effect contrary to what
was hoped. The exiled not only contacted
the Meccans, but also the tribes of the
North, South and East of Madinah,
mobilized military aid, and planned from
Khaibar an invasion of Madinah, with
forces four times more numerous than
those employed at Uhud. The Muslims
prepared for a siege, and dug a ditch to
defend themselves against this hardest
of all trials. Although the defection of
the Jews still remaining inside Madinah
at a later stage upset all strategy, yet
with a sagacious diplomacy, the Prophet
succeeded in breaking up the alliance,
and the different enemy groups retired
one after the other.
34. Alcoholic drinks, gambling and
games of chance were at this time
declared forbidden for the Muslims.
The Reconciliation
35. The Prophet tried once more to
reconcile the Meccans and proceeded to
Mecca. The barring of the route of their
Northern caravans had ruined their
economy. The Prophet promised them
transit security, extradition of their
fugitives and the fulfillment of every
condition they desired, agreeing even to
return to Madinah without accomplishing
the pilgrimage of the Ka'bah. Thereupon
the two contracting parties promised at
Hudaibiyah in the suburbs of Mecca, not
only the maintenance of peace, but also
the observance of neutrality in their
conflicts with third parties.
36. Profiting by the peace, the
Prophet launched an intensive programme
for the propagation of his religion. He
addressed missionary letters to the
foreign rulers of Byzantium, Iran,
Abyssinia and other lands. The Byzantine
autocrat priest - Dughatur of the Arabs
- embraced Islam, but for this, was
lynched by the Christian mob; the
prefect of Ma'an (Palestine) suffered
the same fate, and was decapitated and
crucified by order of the emperor. A
Muslim ambassador was assassinated in
Syria-Palestine; and instead of
punishing the culprit, the emperor
Heraclius rushed with his armies to
protect him against the punitive
expedition sent by the Prophet (battle
of Mu'tah).
37. The pagans of Mecca hoping to
profit by the Muslim difficulties,
violated the terms of their treaty. Upon
this, the Prophet himself led an army,
ten thousand strong, and surprised Mecca
which he occupied in a bloodless manner.
As a benevolent conqueror, he caused the
vanquished people to assemble, reminded
them of their ill deeds, their religious
persecution, unjust confiscation of the
evacuee property, ceaseless invasions
and senseless hostilities for twenty
years continuously. He asked them:
"Now what do you expect of
me?" When everybody lowered his
head with shame, the Prophet proclaimed:
"May God pardon you; go in peace;
there shall be no responsibility on you
today; you are free!" He even
renounced the claim for the Muslim
property confiscated by the pagans. This
produced a great psychological change of
hearts instantaneously. When a Meccan
chief advanced with a fulsome heart
towards the Prophet, after hearing this
general amnesty, in order to declare his
acceptance of Islam, the Prophet told
him: "And in my turn, I appoint you
the governor of Mecca!" Without
leaving a single soldier in the
conquered city, the Prophet retired to
Madinah. The Islamization of Mecca,
which was accomplished in a few hours,
was complete.
38. Immediately after the occupation
of Mecca, the city of Ta'if mobilized to
fight against the Prophet. With some
difficulty the enemy was dispersed in
the valley of Hunain, but the Muslims
preferred to raise the siege of nearby
Ta'if and use pacific means to break the
resistance of this region. Less than a
year later, a delegation from Ta'if came
to Madinah offering submission. But it
requested exemption from prayer, taxes
and military service, and the
continuance of the liberty to adultery
and fornication and alcoholic drinks. It
demanded even the conservation of the
temple of the idol al-Lat at Ta'if. But
Islam was not a materialist immoral
movement; and soon the delegation itself
felt ashamed of its demands regarding
prayer, adultery and wine. The Prophet
consented to concede exemption from
payment of taxes and rendering of
military service; and added: You need
not demolish the temple with your own
hands: we shall send agents from here to
do the job, and if there should be any
consequences, which you are afraid of on
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