Affirmation
of Prophethood
Summary
This section analyses the concept of prophethood from a scientific standpoint. Religion affirms that throughout the ages, God has conveyed His will to humankind through people of superior virtue, whom He has singled out from amongst all other human beings to be His prophets. Since there is no visible link between God and His messengers, claims of divine revelation are often doubted. However, their truth becomes apparent when we compare them with other events of this nature which have come to our knowledge.
Many sounds are produced around us that are aurally undetectable because their frequency is too low or too high or because they are too faint to impinge on our ear drums. But still, we know that they are a reality because we now have such supersensitive sound-detecting devices that can record the movements of even a fly moving miles away as accurately as if it were buzzing around our ears, and even the collisions of cosmic rays can be recorded. Such devices are widely available today, yet these refinements of detecting and registering sound might be thought to be simply impossible by someone who has somehow remained in ignorance of modern technological advances.
When we accept the reality of such natural phenomena, there should be no great element of mystery in someone claiming that he receives messages from God which are not heard by ordinary people. When there are voices which only mechanical devices can detect and record, and when there are messages that are transmitted that are picked up only by animals with specially- developed sensory perception, why should it appear strange that God communicates His messages to specially-endowed individuals in ways undetectable to other human beings? The truth is that Divine revelation, far from running counter to our observations and experiences, is a higher and more refined form of communication than our normal senses are capable of grasping.
Once we accept both the possibility and the necessity of Divine revelation, we need to ascertain whether or not a person who claims prophethood is indeed a true recipient of God’s word. We believe that innumerable prophets have been raised up by God. Affirmation of the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad implies affirmation of all the prophets who came before him, because the Prophet Muhammad testified to the veracity of all of them. He continues to remain a prophet for the present as well as for future generations.
The life of the Prophet Muhammad is recorded in history. He was born in 570 C.E. in Makkah and died in 632 C.E. in Madinah, after an illness lasting about two weeks. At the age of 40, he announced that God had chosen him as His prophet, that God had revealed His message to him and entrusted him with the duty of conveying it to mankind. This chapter provides glimpses of Prophet Muhammad’s words and character, of his sincerity and self-sacrifice. From the description given here, it will hardly be surprising if we accept such an extraordinary man to have been a messenger of God. We must further accept that the Prophet’s call, in all its intensity, is as relevant to us now as it was in his day. This is not a voice to be listened to with scant attention, for it makes a great demand and calls for deep thought. If, upon reflection, we find it false, we are at liberty to reject it, but if we find it true, we must accept it wholeheartedly.
The Second basic tenet of religious belief is the concept of prophethood. Throughout the ages, God has conveyed His will to mankind through men of superior virtue, whom He has singled out from amongst all other human beings to be His prophets. Since there is no visible link between God and His messengers, claims of divine revelation are often doubted. Their truth becomes apparent, though, when we compare them with other events of this nature which, have come to our knowledge.
Sounds are produced around us which are aurally undetectable, either because their frequency is too low or too high, or because they are too faint to impinge on our ear drums. But we know that they are a reality, because we now have such supersensitive sound-detecting devices as can record the movements of even a fly, moving miles away, as accurately as if it were buzzing around our ears. Even the collisions of cosmic rays can be recorded. Such devices are widely available today, yet such refinements of detection and registering of sound might conceivably seem impossible to one endowed only with the five senses provided him by nature, if he had somehow remained in ignorance of modern technological advances.
Such feats are not confined only to mechanical apparatus. The study of animals reveals that they have been endowed by nature with similar powers. A dog, for instance, with its highly sensitive nose, can smell an animal at a point from which it has long since departed. The special ability to track by scent is frequently used in the investigation of crimes. A lock broken open by a thief is given to a dog to sniff, then the dog is unleashed. Out of a whole crowd of people, the dog will pick up the real culprit just by using his highly developed sense of smell. Similarly, there are many animals which can detect voices at pitches above or below the normal range of human hearing.
Investigations have revealed that animals, who were formerly considered to communicate telepathically, actually emit signals which are inaudible to the human ear. A tiny creature like a female moth can emit signals which are picked up and responded to by male moths from great distances. The male cricket rubs its wings together to produce a sound which, in the silence of the night, can be heard half a mile away, vibrating 600 tons of air in the process. This is how the cricket calls its mate. The female answers in some mysterious ‘soundless’ way, yet the male receives this signal and sets off unerringly to join his mate. It has been discovered that the auditory ability of the common grasshopper is so refined as to be able to detect even the slightest movements of the radicals of a hydrogen atom.
There are innumerable examples of this kind which show that invisible and inaudible means of communication do exist, being perceptible only to creatures whose sensory abilities are more highly developed than man’s. In view of our acceptance of such natural phenomena, there should be no great element of mystery in someone claiming that he receives messages from God which are not heard by ordinary people. When there are voices which only mechanical devices can detect and record, and messages are transmitted which are picked up only by animals with specially developed sensory perception, why should it appear strange that God communicates His message to specially endowed individuals in ways undetectable to others? The truth is that revelation, far from running counter to our observations and experiences, is a higher and more refined form of communication than our normal senses are capable of grasping.
Studies of telepathy and clairvoyance have revealed that certain human beings can communicate with others without recourse to speech, hearing, mechanical aids, etc. This potential presumably exists in all human beings, albeit in a rudimentary form. Dr. Alexis Carrel states: “The psychological frontiers of the individual in space and time are obviously suppositions.”1
Just think that the hypnotist can cause his subject to fall into a trance without having recourse to any external medium. He can then make his subject laugh or weep, in fact, give any response he wishes, and he can also communicate certain ideas to the mind of the hypnotised person. It is an activity in which a hypnotist and his subject are linked together by an invisible bond; no other person save the hypnotist and his subject can feel the effects of it. How is it then that a contact of this nature between God and man seems so unthinkable? After having admitted the existence of God and having observed or experienced telepathic communication in human life, we are left with no grounds for denying divine revelation.
A suit was filed by the Bavarian authorities in December, 1950, against a hypnotist, one Fronter Strobel, for having telepathically interrupted a radio programme, while demonstrating his art at the Rijna Hotel in Munich. What happened was that Strobel picked out a playing card, handed it to a member of the audience and asked him to note the suit of the card without disclosing this to him or to anyone else. The hypnotist then claimed that, even without knowing the number and suit of the card himself, he would transmit these details to an announcer, who was reading the news on Radio Munich at that time. Seconds later the audience were astonished to hear the announcer say in a faltering voice, “Rijna Hotel, trump card.” The member of the audience who had co-operated in the experiment confirmed that this was indeed what he had mentally noted.
The horror of the announcer was evident from his voice, but he continued reading the news. Meanwhile, hundreds of listeners were telephoning the broadcasting station to find out what had gone wrong. They had obviously grasped that these words had no place in the context of the news and many of them alleged that the newsreader had been drunk. A doctor was immediately sent for and, examining the ‘patient’ found him in an extremely agitated state. He told the doctor that while reading the news, he had suffered from a severe headache all of a sudden, and that later he could not remember what had followed.
Now, if a mortal being can be endowed with telepathic faculties which permit him to transfer thoughts from one person to another without there being any visible link between the two and when, moreover, they are situated at prodigious distances from each other, why is it that the same kind of communication from the Lord of the Universe is considered inconceivable? Given this demonstration of a purely human capacity, we should have no difficulty in understanding how contact between man and God can be made without any visible medium, and how ideas can be transmitted from one to the other with no loss or distortion whatsoever. The perfect form of such communication is known specifically as ‘revelation’ in religious terminology. Revelation, in essence, is a kind of cosmic telepathy.
Evidence of its reality clearly emerges from the migratory habits of birds, who move from one part of the world to another along well-defined routes in search of more abundant food and better lives, returning with the changing seasons to their point of departure. Unlike man, who needs information and guidance about routes and destinations before he sets off on a journey, the birds fly swiftly and unerringly towards their destination along ‘flyways’ which take them across wide stretches of water at their narrowest points thus keeping them above land for the maximum period possible. There is no evidence that for this to happen any information-gathering process or any exchange of ideas takes place. We must assume then that their guidance is from some external source, just as, according to the Quran, God made certain revelations to the bee (16:68) which led to its existence being so highly organised. Birds do not, like man, carry out research and pass on information.
If man were to be denied access to the historical information which has been accumulating over the centuries or to the institutions which made the exchange of ideas a fruitful reality, he would be unable to accomplish anything. For instance, it is doubtful if Columbus would have sailed west in 1492 in the hope of finding India, if he had not been influenced by the ideas about the roundness of the world which were propagated by Latin translations of the works of Al-Idrisi (1100-1165), an Arab geographer and scientist who wrote one of the greatest mediaeval works on geography. The latter, in his day, had derived this idea from the Hindi concept of Arin. Columbus’ experiences in turn increased the knowledge of his successors, and so the chain of learning was added to the science of geography till it reached its present state of progress. If a captain with confidence sails his ship from one shore to another of a vast ocean, or a pilot makes a perfect flight across several continents, it is thanks to the accretion of centuries of experience.
The birds have no such source of knowledge or means of communicating experience. They do not exchange ideas in the way that men do. No bird can collect and write down its experiences in book form for the future guidance of its successors. In spite of this, these birds manage to travel enormous distances, just like human beings, but with much greater accuracy and economy of effort. They move from one place to another with the precision of a rocket going into space by means of radio control.
The map on this page shows the intercontinental journeys of the birds from the colder Russian and European countries to the hotter regions of Africa and Asia. During this long journey, they cross the Caspian, the Black sea and the Mediterranean—three seas no less. Far from flying in just any direction in an unaware, haphazard fashion, they unerringly follow the shortest route over the sea. In so doing, they can spend as little time as possible above water, where they can not alight periodically for food and rest. Have a look at this map from right to left. The first flock of birds from Europe arrives at the Caspian, makes a detour around it, splitting into two groups, one of which goes via the Karakeram, the other flying by the side of Caucasus. Both arrive in Asia and land at their desired destinations. Exactly the same course is followed when the birds arrive at the Black Sea. There they again divide themselves into two groups, one going by the west coast and the other by the east. And onwards they go until they reach the Asian regions. The third flock travels as far as Bulgaria, then diverts its course towards Turkey and follows the coast of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria in order to reach Suez, from where it enters Egypt, then travels onwards into Africa. The fourth flock wings its way to Greece with its many long promontories which help them southwards. The birds touch down in Greece and Crete while crossing the Mediterranean—at the narrowest point geographically. It is obvious that the birds take this route so as to spend the shortest possible time over the sea. The fifth flock of birds turns towards Italy, then Sicily, making a long flight southwards above the land and crossing the remaining narrow strip of sea to reach the north coast of Africa. The sixth flock flies towards France, then Spain, then crosses over the Straits of Gibraltar where the land masses of Iberian Peninsula and the coast of Africa are only ten miles away from each other. From there they reach West Africa.
There is something quite extraordinary about these flights. An ornithologist writes: “Birds have evolved a highly efficient means for travelling swiftly over long distances with great economy of energy.”2
But their minds are quite inferior to the human mind. And they have no way of receiving help from the various fields of science. Nor is there any evidence to indicate that the birds have acquired their abilities through a process of evolution. How is this astonishing phenomenon to be explained? A thorough examination of the subject produces only two possible suppositions: firstly, that these birds have a complete knowledge of the geography of Europe, Asia and Africa, and of their lands and seas, a notion which is purely conjectural, this never having been borne out by research; secondly, that they are being given constant geographic guidance by some invisible remote control arrangement such as is given to unmanned rockets by radio control.
This second supposition is closer to the facts and makes the concept of revelation fully understandable in terms of religion. It means, quite simply, that God sends His guidance to man by just such invisible means, to show him what he must do and what he must not do. There being no visible contact between God and man at the time of revelation, many people refuse to accept that any such thing takes place. But if we consider the lives of other creatures, in particular, those of migratory birds, it becomes clear that guidance which is in the nature of revelation does take place. The flight of these birds can have no other true explanation than that they do receive some kind of external guidance. When there exist no known causes within the birds, we have to attribute their uncanny sense of timing and direction to external causes. The claim of the prophet that he received unseen guidance from God was certainly quite extraordinary. But such unseen guidance should not seem strange in the present universe, where there are so many such examples, one very obvious example being that given to fish such as salmon and eel to enable them to return across half the world to their breeding places in order to spawn.
Once we have admitted the possibility of divine revelation, we must establish whether there is any real need for God to address Himself to particular human beings in order to have His message conveyed to the rest of humanity. The most telling evidence to this effect is the fact that the message the prophets bring – the truth – is man’s greatest need. From time immemorial man has gone in search of reality, but has found it impossible to discover unaided. He longs to understand what the universe is, how our life began, and what its end will be. He seeks to understand the true nature of good and evil, and how mankind may be controlled. He needs to know how to organise life so that all aspects of human relations are given due recognition and can have a balanced growth. So far, man’s attempts to find answers to these age-old problems have met with utter failure. It has taken us only a relatively short time to acquire a vast knowledge of the material world, and branches of such learning as pertain only to the physical aspect of life continue to proliferate. But in the sphere of human sciences, the most prolonged efforts on the part of the best brains have failed to determine even the most basic factors in this field. What greater proof can there be that we need the help and guidance of God? Without this, we cannot arrive at the fundamental principles on which we should lead our lives, we cannot understand what is meant by religion, and we shall certainly never discover what is ultimately the truth.
Modern man has admitted that life is still a great, unsolved mystery. He is, nevertheless, confident that one fine day he will unveil it. But the brains which are bent to the human sciences have yet to discover the reality; they are wandering adrift, in a world of their own fantasies. This is because the present environment developed by science and technology does not suit man as a living creature, and is, therefore, hardly conducive to the reception of divine inspiration. The sciences concerned with inert matter have made immense progress, but those concerned with living beings are still in a rudimentary state. The French Nobel Laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel states:
The principles of the French Revolution, the visions of Marx and Lenin, apply only to abstract men. It must be clearly realised that the laws of human relations are still unknown. Sociology and economics are conjectural sciences – that is pseudo-sciences.3
No doubt science has developed immensely in modern times, but human confusion has not been helped by this. In Limitations of Science, J.W.N. Sullivan points out that the universe that is in the process of discovery by science nowadays is the most mysterious issue in the entire history of intellectual thinking, and that although our present knowledge of nature is much richer than in any previous epoch, even this is insufficient because, no matter where we turn, we are faced with ambiguities and contradictions.
Attempts by material science to discover the secret of life have been such pathetic failures that they leave us with the uncomfortable thought, finally, that it is undiscoverable by man. If the reality of life is to remain unknown, how are we ever to function satisfactorily as individuals and as communities? Our finest feelings demand to know it. The intellect – the most superior part of our being has an eternal craving for this knowledge. The whole system of life is fast deteriorating and without it, there can be no improvement. Yet there appears to be no solving of this great mystery. It is the most urgent need of the hour, but it is something which we cannot achieve on our own. Is this state of affairs not proof enough that man is badly in need of revelation?
The indispensability of the knowledge of the reality of life, and this knowledge remaining undiscoverable, are clear indications that it must be provided from an external source, just as heat and light in the form of the sun’s rays are provided by nature. Once we accept both the possibility and the necessity of divine revelation, we have to ascertain whether or not the person who claims prophethood is a true recipient of God’s word. We do believe that innumerable prophets have been raised up by God. In the present chapter, however, we shall deal only with the claim of Muhammad, may peace be upon him, to definitive prophethood. An affirmation of his prophethood implies an affirmation of all the prophets who came before him, because the Prophet Muhammad, instead of denying the claims of his predecessors, testifies to the bonafides of all true prophets, being the last in the long series of prophets. He continues to remain a prophet for the present as well as for future generations. From a practical point of view, the salvation or damnation of mankind thus depends, solely upon, the affirmation or denial of his prophethood.
Muhammad was born in the early hours of the 29th of August, 570 A.D., in Makkah. But it was not until he had attained the mature age of 40 that he announced that God had chosen him as His last prophet, that He had revealed His message to him and had entrusted him with the duty of conveying it to all of mankind. Whoever obeyed him would be amply rewarded and whoever disobeyed would be destroyed.
This call, in all its intensity, is as relevant to us now as it was in the Prophet’s day. This is not a voice to be listened to with scant attention, for it makes a great demand and calls for deep thought. If, upon reflection, we find it false, we are at liberty to reject it, but if we find it true, we must accept it wholeheartedly.
According to modern thinking, it takes three stages for any idea to be accepted as a scientific fact; hypothesis, observation, verification. First of all, an idea, or hypothesis, takes shape in the mind, then it is subjected to observation and when observation testifies to it, the hypothesis comes to be recognised as an established fact.
According to this system, the claim of prophethood by Muhammad is now before us as a ‘hypothesis’, and we have to see whether observation confirms it or not. If observation speaks in its favour, this hypothesis will acquire the status of a verified fact and we shall have, perforce, to accept it.
Let us see what observations are required in order to testify to the ‘hypothetical’ claims of the Prophet. In other words, what are the external manifestations in the light of which it may be determined that he really was a messenger of God? What are those qualities which come together in the personality of such a messenger, the presence of which cannot be explained except in terms of his being a prophet of God? One who claims to be such must, of necessity, be in possession of two special qualities.
Firstly, he must be an absolutely ideal man. One who is selected from all mankind to have a special relationship with God for the purpose of revealing the divine way of life, so that the lives of all mankind may be reformed, must surely be the most superior individual of the entire human race. He must personify to perfection every high ideal. And if his life is, indeed, adorned with such ideals this is ample evidence of the truth of his claim. If his assertion were unfounded, the ideals he preached would not be enshrined in his person to such perfection, and he would not morally stand out from the whole human race.
Secondly, his message should be replete with such truths as are beyond the reach of common men—as might be expected only from one whose source of information is the Lord of the Universe. These are the criteria by which we have to judge the claim of prophethood.
So far as the first criterion is concerned, history bears witness to the fact that Muhammad, may peace be upon him, was of an extraordinary character. There are those who, out of sheer obstinacy, will doggedly assert the reverse, but anyone who studies the facts objectively and in an unprejudiced way will surely grant that the Prophet’s life was quite exemplary from the moral point of view. Prophethood was conferred upon Muhammad, may peace be upon him, in his fortieth year. The whole period of his life prior to this was so markedly of a high moral character that he had earned himself the title of “As-Sadiq al-Amin,” or “the truthful, the trustworthy”. Throughout the entire region where he lived, he was highly thought of by everyone, being considered the most honest possible person and incapable of telling a lie. Five years before the commencement of his prophethood, the Quraysh in Makkah, decided to reconstruct the Kabah after a sudden flood had shaken its foundation and cracked its walls. The work began, and new walls were built. 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 should have the honour of laying it in place. Competition was so keen that it almost led to a new civil war. Four or five days passed in this state. Then Abu Umayyah, son of Mughirah al Makhzum, suggested to the Makkans, “Let the first one to pass through the gate of the Ka’bah next morning be our arbitrator in this dispute.” And the first one to pass through the gate was Muhammad. When people beheld him they called out, “There goes al-Amin (the trustworthy)! We shall agree with his verdict.”
We know of no one in history whose life (before it became the object of controversy in the wake of prophethood) remained an open book before his fellow men for all of forty years without his extraordinary reputation for high moral values and sterling character ever once being assailed.
His first experience of divine revelation took place in the Cave of Hira. It was an astounding incident such as he had never before experienced. Trembling with fear and stricken with awe, he left for home. Shivering and shaking, he told his wife, Khadija, what has happened. She implored him not to feel afraid and reassured him by saying, “By God, He (God) will not let you down; you speak the truth, you help the needy, rescue the weary; you are kind to your kin; you are honest and trustworthy. You return good for evil and you always give people their due.”
When Muhammad, may peace be upon him, conveyed the message of Islam to his paternal uncle, Abu Talib, the latter did not accept it, saying, “I cannot abjure the religion of my father.” But it is interesting to note his reaction to his own son, Ali, coming under the prophet’s influence. In his book, The Ideal Prophet, Khwaja Kamaluddin records him as saying, “Well, my son, he (Muhammad) will not call thee to anything save that which is good; therefore thou art free to cleave unto him” (p. 211).
After being entrusted with the divine mission, the Prophet called his people together for the first time near Mount Safa. Before conveying his message to the people assembled there, he first asked them, “What is your opinion of me?” They all replied in unison, “We have never seen anything but truth in you.” This distinguished historical record of the Prophet’s life prior to his prophethood is unparalleled in history, and is such as no poet, philosopher, thinker or writer can lay claim to.
When Muhammad, may peace be upon him, proclaimed his prophethood, the Makkans, who were thoroughly acquainted with his virtues, could hardly repudiate him as a liar or a fraud, because this would have been totally at variance with the life he had led uptill then. His message was regarded rather as a form of poetic exaggeration, the result of mental disorder, or witchcraft, while some held that an evil spirit possessed him. His opponents gave voice to all these misgivings, but they did not dare cast aspersions on his personal honesty, truthfulness and integrity. How remarkable it is that a people, provoked to the extreme at his call, turned into his direct enemies, expelled him from his home town, yet continued to refer to him as being ‘honest’ and trustworthy’. In Ibn Hisham’s The Life of Muhammad,4 this is testified to: It happened that whenever in Makkah anyone had to keep anything safely, he would entrust it to the Prophet, as everyone was sure of his truthfulness and honesty” (Vol.II. p. 298).
In the thirteenth year of his prophethood, at the very moment when his opponents had blockaded his house in order to assassinate him as he came out, the Prophet was instructing Ali, his cousin, to tarry in Makkah until he had returned all the things given to him for safekeeping to their rightful owners.
Nadhr ibn Harith, one of the prophet’s opponents and the most seasoned of all the Qurayshites, one day addressed his people thus: “O, Quraysh, the message of Muhammad has put you in such an awkward (difficult) position that you are left with no solution. He grew up to a mature age before your very eyes. You know very well that he was the most sincere; most honest; most trustworthy and most dear to you all. Now when his hair turned grey and he presented before you something which you have received, it was you that said, ‘this fellow is a magician, a poet, an insane person.’ By God, I have heard him, Muhammad is neither a magician, nor a poet, nor insane, I am sure some calamity is going to befall you.”5
Even Abu Jahal, the Prophet’s worst opponent and deadliest enemy, said, “Muhammad, I do not say that you are a liar, but I hold that the message you are propagating is not true.”
Muhammad was a prophet sent not only to the Arabs but to all mankind. As such, he took it upon himself to send letters to the neighbouring kings, calling them to Islam. Dihyah ibn Khalifah al Kalbi was chosen as the Prophet’s emissary to Heraclius and met him at the time of his victorious return from the war with Persia during which he had recovered the cross which had been taken away by the Persians when they occupied Jerusalem. The vow which Heraclius had made, namely, to make a pilgrimage on foot to Jerusalem and return the cross to its original place could now be fulfilled. It was on this very pilgrimage to the city of Himes that Muhammad’s message was received. Heraclius was in no way upset by it and sent for some Arabs belonging to Muhammad’s tribe, who had come to Syria in a caravan of Quaraish6 traders, they duly arrived at his court and Heraclius first inquired of them as to who was the closest relative of the person who had claimed prophethood in their city. Abu Sufyan replied that he belonged to the Prophet’s family. Here is a part of the ensuing dialogue.
Heraclius: Have you ever heard him telling a lie before he made this claim?
Abu Sufyan: Never.
Heraclius: Has he ever failed to keep his word?
Abu Sufyan: No, he had never broken any promise, any agreement.
Heraclius: When it has been experienced that he never tells a lie when the matter is between men, then how can it be said that he can concoct such a great lie in the matter of God?
This dialogue took place when Abu Sufyan himself had not yet accepted Islam and had actually been leading military campaigns against the Prophet. Abu Sufyan admitted that he had not felt inclined to tell the emperor the truth, but, because of his fellow Arabs being present, he felt obliged to do so for fear of being dubbed a liar.
In the entire history of mankind we find no comparable paradox: a leader of men held in the highest of esteem by enemies so diametrically opposed to him that they were ready to assassinate him. The fact that even his deadliest antagonists could recognize his virtues is in itself ample evidence of being a prophet of God.
M. Abul Fazal, in his Life of Mohammad, quotes Dt. Leitner as saying: “If there be such a process as inspiration from the source of all goodness, indeed, I venture to state in all humility, that if self-sacrifice, honesty of purpose, unwavering belief in one’s mission, a marvellous insight into existing wrong or error, and the perception and use of the best means for their removal, are among the outward and visible signs of inspiration, the mission of Muhammad was ‘inspired.’”
When the Prophet began to propagate his message, his own people began to persecute him in a variety of ways. On one occasion his path was strewn with thorns. On another he was pelted with filth when saying his prayers. Once, when he was in prayer at the Kabah, Uqbah ibn Abi Muayt, a dire opponent of the Prophet, twined a sheet so tightly round his neck that he fell down in a swoon. When torment upon torment failed to deter him from his resolve, the Makkans imposed a social boycott upon him and all the members of his family, who were then forced to seek refuge in one of the hilly areas on the outskirts of Makkah. In their isolation, they suffered all kinds of privations often going without food and water. During this period, no one was allowed to buy from or sell to Muhammad or his family, not even eatables. The leaves of wild bushes had to serve as their food. One day one of them came upon a piece of dried leather. He picked it up, washed it, baked it on a fire and then ate it with water. This boycott went on for three long years.
In the face of such hardness on heart on the part of the Makkans, the Prophet (when the boycott was finally revoked) chose to turn his attention to Taif, a city located three miles away from Makkah, where he hoped to call the tribe of Thaqif to Islam, and to solicit their support.
The people of Taif not only refused to hear him, but repudiated him and his teaching outright. They made such insulting remarks as, “Couldn’t God find anyone but you for prophethood?” And that was not all. They incited the street urchins to jeer at him in the public thoroughfares. They pelted him with so many stones that his shoes were overflowing with blood. Whenever he sat down hoping to have some relief, the townspeople forced him to keep walking so that they could stone him on the move. They kept this up for three long miles until he was enveloped by the darkness of night. Bleeding and exhausted, he walked on until he came to the vineyard of ‘Utba ibn Rabia, a nobleman of Makkah, where he finally took shelter.
Once he said to his wife, Aisha, “I have suffered what I have suffered from your people, but the hardest of these days was the day of Taif.” The Prophet continued to preach the word of God even in the face of such terrible persecution. Finally, the chiefs of all the tribes unanimously agreed that assassination was the only way to bring his missionary activities to an end. The house of the Prophet was then laid siege to by young men selected by the Quraysh from different tribes to waylay him and murder him. But, by the grace of God, the Prophet was able to slip away from his house and reach Madinah in safety.
The Quraysh then resolved to wage war on him, and thus kept the Prophet and his companions embroiled in wars for ten long years. In these battles, the Prophet was badly wounded, even losing some of his teeth, and witnessed the martyrdom of many of his best companions, not to speak of all the suffering, misery and hardship which are inflicted on people in wartime conditions.
Makkah was finally conquered towards the end of the Prophet’s life, but only after twenty-three years of trials and tribulations. His enemies, who had shown themselves obdurate and unrelenting then stood before him in a state of utter helplessness. That was the moment to crush them completely. But this was not the way of the Prophet Muhammad. What other, lesser men would do in such a situation is common knowledge, but the Prophet did not avenge himself upon them for their past offences. He quite simply asked them, “O people of the Quraysh, how do you think I shall deal with you?” They replied, “You are our noble brother and son of our noble brother.” The Prophet then said, “Go, you are all free.” Stanley Lane-Poole, in his introduction to E.W.Lane’s Selection from the Quran elaborates upon the Prophet’s remarkable self-discipline:
Now was the time for the Prophet to show his bloodthirsty nature. His old persecutors are at his feet. Will he not trample on them, torture them, revenge himself after his own cruel manner? Now the man will come forward in his true colours: We may prepare our horror, and cry shame beforehand. “But what is this? Is there no blood in the streets? Where are the bodies of the thousands that have been butchered? Facts are hard things, and it is a fact that the day of Muhammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the Quraysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn they had infected on him: he gave an amnesty to the whole population of Makkah. Four criminals, whom justice condemned, made up Muhammad’s proscription list when he entered as a conqueror the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed the example, and entered quietly and peaceably and no house was robbed, no woman insulted.
Had such an example of superior conduct survived from pre-historic times, perhaps in the form of a myth, it would have been regarded as fiction, being too astonishing to be a fact. History, indeed, has no match for the magnanimity of the Prophet. Sir William Muir, speaking of the treatment meted out to the prisoners of Badr by the Muslims, gives another such shining example:
In pursuance of Muhammad’s commands, the citizens of Madinah and such of the refugees as possessed houses, received the prisoners and treated them with much consideration. ‘Blessings be on the men of Madinah!’ said these prisoners in later days. ‘They made us ride, while they themselves walked; they gave us wheat and bread to eat, when there was little of it, contending themselves with dates!’
The sincerity of purpose and selflessness that he displayed throughout his life have, indeed, no parallels in history.
Prior to his prophethood, he had been a successful merchant and had entered into marriage with a wealthy widow, Khadija. But when he was entrusted with the divine mission, he gave up trading and even used up Khadija’s wealth in the propagation of the faith, entering upon a period of untold suffering and persecution. The very necessities of life like food and water became scarce and it was no uncommon thing for his followers to go without them altogether.
Although the prospects of a far more comfortable life were always there before him, the Prophet continued to suffer all kinds of privations for the sake of his divine mission. During his stay in Makkah, Uqba was once sent to the Prophet on behalf of the Quraysh. He said, “Son of my friend, be it thy aim to acquire wealth by this affair, we will assess ourselves to make thee our lord, and will do nothing without thee. If it be the Jinn that has taken possession of thee, we will bring thee the most able physicians, and we will pour out our gold until they cure thee.” “Is that all?” asked the Prophet. “Yes”. “Well, now listen to me.” Then the Prophet, in answer, simply recited some verses from the Quran.7
In Madinah, the Prophet was the ruler of a state and had such a faithful band of followers as would be hard to find again in the whole history of mankind. But events show that right to the very last moments of his life, his daily existence was humble in the extreme.
Umar, one of his close companions, narrates how one day he went to see the Prophet at his home. “When I entered his room, I saw that he was resting on a mat of date palms and had no shirt on. The marks of the mat were visible on his back. Besides the mat, his only possessions were three skins, some bark placed in a corner and small quantity of barley. On seeing this, I could not help but weep. ‘What makes you weep? the Prophet asked. “The Roman and Persian emperors enjoy all worldly comforts, yet you—the messenger of God—are suffering so much’, I replied. On hearing these words, the Prophet sat up and said, ‘Umar, what on earth do you mean? Don’t you want those people to have the world and we to have the Hereafter?”
Often, month after month would pass without a fire being lit in the Prophet’s kitchen. When Urwah, one of his companions, asked the Prophet’s wives how they survived with food in such short supply, they answered that their diet consisted of dates and water. At times the Ansars (Madinan neo-converts) would send them some milk. It seldom happened that the Prophet’s family had enough wheat in store to last out three days in succession. When the Prophet finally left this world, the material conditions of his life were in no way better.
In spite of having access to all power, he passed his life in this state and left nothing behind him for his family. Neither did he leave a will. All he left behind him was the simple dictum: “We prophets have no heirs, whatever we leave behind is to be given in alms,” These were the words of the founder of the world’s greatest empire, knowing fully well that it was soon to annex Asia and Africa and cross the borders of Europe.
These glimpses of his words and character, of his sincerity and self-sacrifice are not trifling exceptions. His whole life was lived out in this way. It will hardly be surprising then if we accept such an extraordinary man to have been a messenger of God. What would be surprising, on the contrary, would be to refuse to accept him as such. In our acceptance of him as a prophet, we find an explanation for his miraculous personality. Conversely, if we do not accept his prophethood, we are left with no answer as to the source of his astonishing qualities, particularly when we know that in the whole of recorded history, he is absolutely unique. Bosworth Smith’s words are at one and the same time a recognition of the reality and a call to mankind to believe in his prophethood. “What more crowning proof of his sincerity is needed? Muhammad to the end of his life claimed for himself that title only with which he had begun, and which the highest philosophy and the truest Christianity will one day, I venture to believe, agree in yielding to him, that of a Prophet, a very Prophet of God.”8
Notes
1. Man the Unknown, p. 242.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 12, p. 179.
3. Man the Unknown, p. 37.
4. The oldest known biography of the Prophet Muhammad.
5. Seerat Ibn Hisbam.
6. The Arabian tribe from which the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, had descended, and of which his grandfather was chief. This tribe occupied a very prominent place on account of its strength and importance amongst the tribes of Arabia.
7. Seerat ibn Hisham, vol. 1. p.314.
8. Bosworth Smith, Mohammad and Mohammadanism, p.340.
