THE REVOLUTION OF
THE PROPHET
It is the will of God that His religion should reign supreme on earth. He wishes it to enjoy intellectual dominance over other systems of thought. But for this to happen, certain conditions must prevail. The coming of the Prophet Muhammad was the culmination of a lengthy process, extending over thousands of years, during which time the ground was fully prepared for his work. Conditions were created which would facilitate the accomplishment of his mission. What the Prophet had to do was understand these conditions and make wise use of them. This he did, giving Islam a position of intellectual ascendancy in the world.
Now, once again, a process has continued over the last one thousand years, in which God has created conditions conducive to Islamic revival. If they are fully exploited, Islam can once again dominate world thought, just as it did in the past.
But if these opportunities are to yield the maximum benefit, it will require an intense struggle, which only those with profound knowledge of contemporary conditions can undertake. It will be those who rise above reactionary psychology and concentrate on positive action who will be fit for this task; people who can sacrifice every other consideration and devote themselves wholeheartedly to one overriding goal—the ascendancy of Islam; those who steer clear of the confusions of human thought, and are guided by divine wisdom in their course of action. Such noble spirits will not be inspired by thoughts of national glory or material grandeur; it will be the greatest of God alone that they seek to establish. It was people such as these who made Islam great in the past—who gave Islam its position of intellectual dominance—and it is people such as these who can do so once again. If, on the other hand, we are lured by superficial slogans and distracted by every petty issue that arises, all we shall accomplish is the destruction of the opportunities God has created for us. We shall never then be able to convert possibilities into realities.
A Comparison
The Islamic revolution that occurred in the time of the Prophet was achieved at the cost of only 1018 lives. During the 23 years this revolution was completed, 80 military expeditions took place. However, the Prophet only participated in some 27 of them, and an even smaller number of expeditions involved any fighting. As a result, 259 Muslims and 759 non-Muslims died in these battles—1018 dead. This is a minimal number of casualties inflicted during such a great revolution that changed human history. Therefore, the Islamic revolution of the Prophet can be called a bloodless revolution.
Contemporary Muslim writers and speakers are wrongly eulogistic in comparing the Prophet’s revolution with modern non-Islamic revolutions. They point with pride to the fact that only a thousand people died in the Islamic revolution, while in the Russian revolution of 1917 alone; thirteen million people lost their lives. The democratic revolution in France also took a heavy toll, which ran into thousands.
The Muslims like this comparison because it gratifies their pride. But there is another comparison to be made here, which they have never considered. Perhaps their failure to give thought to this second comparison is simply a way of avoiding admonishment, for no one ever likes being admonished.
It would mean taking the number of dead in the initial Islamic missionary drive and comparing it with the toll that modern-day Islamic movements have exacted; in other words, seeing how many people died in the original Islamic revolution and how many have died in Muslim revolutionary attempts of modern times. The 20th century has seen grand Islamic revolutionary movements and great “holy crusades” in the Muslim world. Just as Muslims compare the Prophet’s Islamic revolution with modern, non-Islamic, secular revolutions, should they look at their movements in the light of the revolution of the Prophet and see how they stand up to the comparison?
Were the Muslims to take this comparison, they would be startled to find that their movements are, in relation to that of the Prophet, no better than revolutionary movements in the non-Muslim world. Just as non-Muslim revolutions have been highly expensive in human terms, so the death toll in Muslims’ revolutionary struggles has been incredibly high: two and half million dead in the Algerian war of independence, 500,000 Muslim martyrs in the Indian freedom struggle; 10 million lives lost in the formation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. The number of people who have given their lives for Islam in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine and various other countries runs into millions. And for all that, these sacrifices have amounted to nothing. The effects of the Prophet’s revolution were felt the world over, yet it was accomplished at the cost of only 1000 lives. On the other hand, Islamic movements of modern times have involved millions of human lives, yet, despite this, one cannot point to even a small area in which the Islamic revolution has been truly successful and effective.
The matter does not end there. Far from being successful, our recent struggle has produced an adverse effect. These words of the Bible ring precisely accurate concerning our efforts of modern times:
Ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. They that hate you shall reign over you. And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land produce their fruits.
Such has been the story of modern Muslim history. We conducted the Caliphate and pan-Islamic movements with great gusto, and made untold sacrifices for these causes, only to see the Muslim world split up under numerous national governments. We struggled for our country’s independence, but when it came, other parties took hold of the reins of government. We suffered significant losses in forming the Islamic state of Pakistan, but secular leaders took control when it came into existence. We gave our utmost to establish Islamic rule in Egypt, but finally, power fell into the hands—not of religious groups—but of military dictators. For nearly forty years, we have been crusading for the end of the state of Israel, making enormous human and monetary sacrifices in the process, but all that has happened has been the expansion and consolidation of the Jewish state. And now, after the indescribable tribulations of the people of Iran, it will not be long before we hear that the Islamic republic was only a stepping-stone for rule by unIslamic forces.
These are the hard realities of our times. We can pull the wool over our eyes, but we cannot expect future historians to do likewise. True, they will be forced to say that the Russian revolution took a vast toll on human lives, but it also brought about significant changes in the world thought. It caused the collapse of Tsarist, or monarchical rule, and replaced it with a republican form of government; it established the ascendancy of the socialist economic system over capitalism. As for Islamic revolutionary efforts have been even more costly in human terms, but they have left no stamp on the pattern of the world thought.
The revolution of the Prophet’s time shows us that if just a thousand people are ready to give everything they have for the Islamic cause, then God does not let their sacrifices go unrewarded; He establishes the supremacy of Islam on earth. In modern times millions of Muslims have shown themselves willing to make sacrifices, but God has not taken up our cause. Despite all our sacrifices, our efforts have been frustrating. This indicates that our efforts have been misdirected. If we had been following the straight path that God laid down for us, He would indeed have made us successful, as promised in this verse of the Quran:
We have given you a glorious victory so that God may forgive your past and future sins, perfect His favour, guide you to the right path, and bestow on you His mighty help.
A farmer who sows wheat will reap wheat. He is not telling the truth if he claims to have sown wheat, only for brambles to spring up in its place. It just does not happen that a wheat seed should yield a crop of brambles. Things do not work that way in this world of God. So it is with our efforts in modern times. If we had indeed been following the path of the Prophet and his companions and had made sacrifices in the same spirit, our mammoth efforts would have yielded positive results. It is no use deluding oneself into thinking that one is struggling in the path of Islam when one’s efforts are not producing the results which true Islamic struggle ought to ensure. One may live in a fool’s paradise in this world; a true paradise in the next world is for those who base their lives not on illusion and fantasy but on reality.
Divine Succour
Addressing the faithful, God says in the Quran, “Believers, if you help God, He will help you and make you strong.”46 Here, “helping God” means fitting in with His scheme. God has set a specific pattern for making things happen in this world; He has created favourable circumstances, which, if properly exploited, will yield good results. We can fit in with His scheme by coordinating our efforts with this pattern. God strengthens those who help Him in this way.
Here is an example of what happens when one fails to do so. A priest wanted to see a lush tree standing before his house. “If I plant a seed,” he thought, “it will take at least ten years to grow into a full tree.”
So what he did was to uproot a large tree and, hiring several labourers to transport it from where it had stood, he installed it in front of his house. “Good,” he thought, “I have achieved ten years of work in a single day.” How shocked he was, then, when the next day, he woke up to see the leaves of the tree withering away. By evening its branches were hanging limp, and within a few days, the leaves had died and fallen to the ground; all that remained in front of his house was a stump of dry wood. A few days later, a friend visited the priest, who found him walking restlessly in his garden. “What’s wrong?” he inquired. “Why are you so upset today?” “I am in a hurry, but God isn’t,” the priest answered, telling the whole story of the tree. In whatever happens in the world, there is a part played by God and a part played by man. It’s like a machine, which functions when two cog wheels revolve in unison: one is that of God, and the other is of man. Man’s success can only come from his keeping to God’s pace. If he tries to proceed independently, he will break because God’s wheel is stronger than his.
Over the millennia, God has made certain provisions for the growth of trees and plants: He has laid a layer of fertile soil on the surface of the earth; He has given them the heat that they need from the sun; He has provided them with water, and assisted their growth with alternation of the seasons; then He has created billions of bacteria which provide the roots with nitrogen. These arrangements are God’s cog-wheel. Next, we must attach our wheel to God’s, for only then will we be able to use these opportunities to form a tree. Once our wheel is connected to God’s, we have only to take a seed and plant it in the ground. Nature’s machine will then set to work, and production will ensue. If, on the other hand, we plant our tree on a rock, sow a plastic imitation seed in the ground, or do as the priest did and transplant a full-grown tree, then we have not set our wheel at work with God’s; we have not fitted in with God’s scheme. As a result, we cannot expect to see a lush tree growing in our garden.
So it is with the Islamic revolution. It likewise comes from recognizing the opportunities God has created and using them well. True Islamic revolution does not emerge from haphazard action. The initial Islamic revolution was achieved by a few of God’s servants fitting their wheel in with God’s. But, on the other hand, our sacrifices of modern times have all gone amiss because we have not followed God’s scheme. Instead, we have trodden the path of our desires, seeking to achieve by futile and irrelevant protests, which can only come from the wise use of the opportunities that God has afforded us.
The generations following Adam, the first man on earth, all worshipped one God. Humanity, as the Quran says, “was one community.” The situation continued for a few centuries, but worship of worldly phenomena, or polytheism, became prevalent. People found it difficult to focus on an invisible God, so they focused it elsewhere, on visible objects, reducing belief in God to the lowly and unimportant status of an abstract creed. At this time, the sun, moon and stars became objects of worship, and the mountains and oceans became considered gods. Divinity was even ascribed to those mortals who stood out among their fellows. So it was that, after about 1000 years on earth, people saw the end of the conceptual dominance of monotheism, and their intellect became clouded with polytheistic thought.
After other initial monotheistic religions declined, God started sending prophets to the world. These prophets, however, never achieved enough popularity to eradicate polytheism and reassert the dominance of monotheism. At that time, prophets came to every part of the inhabited world— according to one hadith, there were 124,000 of them—but each was scorned and laughed at.
When an individual rejects the truth, they do so for a reason; they do so because something occupies such an important place in their lives that they cannot forsake it, even for the truth. The Quran tells us the nature of the attachment that alienates individuals from the true message of the prophets:
When their apostles brought them clear signs, they exulted in such knowledge as they had; but (soon) the scourge at which they scoffed encompassed them.
Knowledge means the corrupted form of religion, which people have been adhering to for so long that they have come to think of it as sacred. The faith passed on from one generation to the next in this manner becomes lodged in people’s minds. When they think of it, they think of the saints whose names are associated with it. It becomes a part of the establishment, the foundation of a people’s national infrastructure. Enshrined in elaborate tradition, it assumes a position of dominance in society.
When prophets visit such people as adhere to established polytheistic religions, their teaching of monotheism is a lone voice in that environment. They assert the truth of their teachings, but their claim has yet to receive the ratification of history. They can only reason with their people, trying to persuade them to see the light. With the clamour of established religion on all sides, such quiet reasoning falls on deaf ears; the prophets appear insignificant compared to the grandeur surrounding the faith of their people’s ancestors. Take the case of Jesus Christ, homeless and sleeping under a tree, while the chief priest of the Jews resided in the lavish splendour of the palace of Haykal.50 How could people accept someone who slept under a tree as the bearer of truth rather than the occupant of the grand palace of Haykal? That is why people poured scorn on their prophets. They held established figures in reverence: why should they forsake them for an insignificant creature without status? True, prophets of the past were also objects of their esteem, but these prophets had become more national heroes than preachers of truth in the eyes of their admirers.
Attaching oneself to a message and quite another to an institution is one thing. Nothing is more difficult than service carried out following a message, and nothing is easier than service in an institution’s name. All a message has in support of it is its conceptual truth, while all sorts of material grandeur back up institutions. Those who extend their support to a message when backed up by nothing but simple truth will find honour and rank in the sight of God. When it gains the status of an institution, then its support of it will earn one no credit with God. Commitment to Islam as a message is an act carried out for God. However, commitment to Islam as an institution is all too often entered into for the material benefits that accrue from it.
Exaltation of the Word of God
Just as traffic lights are erected at crossroads to guide and control traffic, prophets have been sent by God to stand on the roads of life, show travellers the road leading to heaven, and warn them to steer clear of what leads to hell. The Quran has put this in the following words:
Thus We have made of you a people justly balanced, that you may be witnesses over the nations, and the Prophet a witness over yourselves.
For this purpose, when polytheism first displaced monotheism as the predominant religion of humanity, prophets came to the world. Bestowing on the knowledge of the truth, God sent them to guide people along the right path and warn them to steer clear of evil. All of the prophets fully discharged this responsibility. Their teaching of truth was both understandable and reasonable. Moreover, they left no stone unturned in their communication of truth: those who believed in them became worthy of paradise, while those who rejected them made themselves fit only for hell.
Yet God wanted more than a mere proclamation of truth on earth; He wanted it to be exalted once again. Proclamation of truth necessitates its complete exposition before us. It is to make the truth clear to all listeners, to enlighten them, using the “wise and mild exhortation” that the Quran prescribes for preachers of truth.52 People are left with no excuse for not accepting the truth when this is done. They can no longer say that they were left in ignorance. The only defence people who fail to follow the truth can offer a lack of awareness; where they have been shown every proof, there remains no pretext for denial.
Exaltation of the word of God is something more than this. It means religious thought assumes ascendancy over all other systems of thought. The word of God does not become exalted on earth by any legislative or political programme; it can only come from a struggle on an intellectual level. When the truth is engraved in people’s minds, the word of God becomes genuinely exalted, not when it is written in statute books. In this day and age, modern knowledge has stolen the limelight from ancient forms of knowledge: empirical science has taken over from analogical philosophy as the dominant mode of thought; socialism is a more prominent intellectual force than capitalism; democracy is a more forceful political theory than monarchy. These are all examples of conceptual ascendancy, the dominance of one system of thought over another. This nature of conceptual ascendancy of truth over falsehood must be achieved for the word of God to become exalted.
God can do all things. Therefore, it would have been easy for Him to make truth lord over all else, just as He has made the sun supreme over all other forms of light. But, since we are being tested in this world, God causes things to happen within the bounds of cause and effect. If events were to occur miraculously, we would have no choice but to see the hand of God in them: there would be no test involved. It was within the bounds of cause and effect that God established the dominance of His word on earth. He created all the necessary circumstances to achieve this end and then sent a prophet charged with bringing it to fruition. The Prophet’s task, therefore, was not only to proclaim the truth but also to make the truth a predominant force on earth, thus completing God’s favour to humanity and allowing us to avail of the divine succour of which their waywardness had deprived us:
They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God will perfect His light, much as the unbelievers may dislike it. He has sent His apostle guidance and the Faith of Truth, so He may exalt it above all religions, much as the pagans may dislike it.
A New Nation Is Born
The Prophet Muhammad once said: “I am the prayer of Abraham.” The prayer he was referring to was that offered by Abraham when he was building the Holy Kaaba in Makkah:
Lord, send them an apostle of their own people (the Children of Ishmael) who shall declare your revelations, instruct them in the Book and in wisdom, and purify them from sin. You are the Mighty, the Wise One.
Yet, approximately two and a half thousand years elapsed between Abraham’s prayer and the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet Zakariyya (Zachariah) prayed for a prophet-son, and within a single year, his wife bore him Yahya (John the Baptist). Why did Abraham’s similar prayer take so long to be answered?
This was because John the Baptist had a primary mission to carry out. He was to expose the religious pretence of the Jews by being martyred at their hands so that they would no longer be fit to be bearers of the divine scriptures; another nation would have to come to replace them. The Prophet Muhammad, on the other hand, had to reestablish the dominance of monotheism over polytheism. But, naturally, this could not be effected without the necessary antecedents: conditions conducive to this had to be created in the world; a nation upright enough to aid the Prophet in accomplishing this task had to come into existence. All this took two and a half thousand years to come about so that the event could take place within the bounds of cause and effect, as is the way of God.
In accordance with this scheme, Abraham was commanded to leave the civilized territory of Iraq for the dry, barren reaches of Arabia, where he was to settle along with his wife Hagar and son Ishmael. This was an uncultivable area, cut off from the rest of the world. Far from the trappings of civilization, in the lap of nature, a community could be raised where all the natural abilities were fully preserved. Abraham had prayed for the emergence of a people submissive to God, and this was a land ideally suited for the development of such a people:
Lord, make us submissive to You; make of our descendants a nation that will submit to You.
A nation of unprecedented dynamism would be required to establish the dominance of true religion on earth. Earlier generations, which had grown up in the artificial environment of human civilization, had lacked the dynamism and vitality needed to perform this task. This was the reason the previous prophets failed to elicit a positive response. Therefore, a new nation would have to grow up, nurtured under conditions especially suited to cultivating these qualities. This would involve a long process of human reproduction, extending over several generations. This accounts for the 2500-year gap between Abraham’s prayer and its fulfilment: when the stage was fully set, the prophet he had prayed for was born to Aminah, the daughter of Wahab ibn ‘Abd Manaf of the Banu Hashim in Makkah.
Nothing but dry land and inhospitable rubble awaited Abraham when he arrived in Makkah with his wife and infant son. Soon the water in their flask finished, and Ishmael started thrashing with his hands and feet because of his great thirst. It was then that the spring of Zamzam gushed forth, a sign that although God had indeed made them face a stiff test, He would not leave them to face it alone: they were engaged in God’s work, and He would always be there at crucial moments to grant them succour. When Ishmael was in adolescence, Abraham dreamt he was slaughtering his child. He interpreted it as God’s commandment and readied himself to carry it out. Then, as he held the knife poised over Ishmael’s throat, a voice came from heaven telling him to stop and sacrifice a lamb instead. This was a sign from God that Abraham would have to prepare himself for enormous sacrifices: but he was not required to make them; it was the will to sacrifice that was desired. Once he had shown that he could pass this test, he would be spared the actual deed. After all, God intended to use Abraham and his family to enact a great scheme; far from letting them pointlessly lay down their lives, He would protect them.
Ishmael grew up and married a girl of the Jurham tribe, which had settled in Makkah after the water of Zamzam had sprung up. Abraham was in Syria at the time. One day he came on horseback when Ishmael was not at home; only his wife was there, and she did not recognize her father-in-law. “Where has Ishmael gone?” Abraham asked. “Hunting,” she replied. “How is life treating you?” Abraham went on, and Ishamel’s wife complained to him about the poverty and hardship they had to endure. Then, as he was leaving, Abraham told her to convey his greetings to Ishmael and ask him to “alter his threshold.” When Ishmael returned, she told him the whole story.
Ishmael realized that the visitor had been his father, who had come to see how things were going. By “altering his threshold,” Ishmael knew what his father had meant: he was to marry a new wife, for this one was unsuitable for the creation of the progeny God had in mind. So he divorced that wife and married someone else. After some time, Abraham made another appearance on horseback. Again Ishmael was not at home. Abraham asked his new daughter-in-law the same questions as he had put to the previous one. This time, however, Ishmael’s wife was all praise for her husband and said that everything was fine with them; they had much to be thankful for. Abraham set off and told her to convey his greetings to Ishmael and to ask him to “keep his threshold.” This wife was ideally suited to the task at hand; Ishmael should keep her in wedlock.
So it was that, in the solitude of the Arabian Desert, the seeds of the progeny that was to be known as the Children of Ishmael were sown. These were the initial stages of preparation of a people who, 2500 years later, were to provide the Final Prophet with the support he needed in performing history’s most mammoth task.
The qualities of the nation that grew up in the barren expanses of the desert around Makkah can be summed up in one word—al-muru’ah (manliness). This was the word of the highest esteem that Arabs used to describe essential human qualities in a person. As an ancient Arab poet has written:
If a person fails to achieve manliness when young, he will find it hard to do so when he grows old.
This is how the eminent Arab historian, Professor Philip K. Hitti, sums up the qualities of the people that developed over hundreds of years in the Arabian Desert:
Courage, endurance in times of trouble (sabr), observance of the rights and obligations of neighbourliness (jiwar), manliness (muru’ah), generosity and hospitality, regard for women and fulfilment of solemn promises.
The Best Nation
The nation that emerged from this 2500-year development process was the nation most richly endowed in human qualities that humanity had seen:
You are the best nation that has ever been raised for humanity.
Commenting on this verse, ‘Abdullah ibn al-’Abbas refers to those who emigrated from Makkah to Madinah along with the Prophet. That small group of Muhajirs represented all those Arabians who made up the group known as the Companions of the Prophet.
Prophets of every age have confronted one major obstacle: the adherence of their people to an ancestral religion, which enjoyed unrivalled material grandeur. But, on the other hand, they were standing on the abstract ground of truth and reason. This nation that had grown up in the Arabian Desert had the unique ability to recognize truth abstractly—before it had gained any external lustre. They had been reared under open skies in the wilderness of the vast desert and had developed an extraordinary capacity for recognizing plain, unvarnished truth. Moreover, they were prepared to give up everything for the sake of truth when it was a solitary force and one that appeared to have nothing to offer them in return. ‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud summed up these qualities of the Companions in the following words:
They were the cream of the Muslim community, the most warm-hearted, the most knowledgeable, and the least formal. They were the ones that God chose to accompany His prophet and establish his religion.
What polytheism had deprived man of more than anything was the ability to see the truth on an abstract level. It had made him want to see and feel something before he would believe it. The prophets who came to the world spoke of a truth, which was an abstract force. Their peoples could not appreciate this, hence the scorn and ridicule to which prophets have been subjected in every age.
The polytheists had not denied the existence of God. What they had done was mould Him in the image of insensate objects. Finding it difficult to fathom a God that could not be seen, they depicted Him in material or human forms and made these visible objects the focus of their attention. The objects they chose to revere were invariably things that appeared great to them, so when the prophets came, they failed to achieve public recognition, for they appeared in the guise of ordinary people. No historical greatness was attached to them when they came to the world. It was only much later that they came to be considered national heroes.
Part of Abraham’s prayer when he commenced the construction of the Kaaba in Makkah went like this:
And remember when Abraham said: “Lord, make this town one of peace. Preserve my descendants and me from serving idols. Lord, they have led many men astray. He that follows me shall surely belong to me, but if anyone turns against me, You are surely Forgiving, Merciful. Lord, I have settled some of my offspring in a barren valley near Your Sacred House, so that they may observe the prayer...”
Polytheism had reached its zenith in Abraham’s time. Wherever one turned, great monuments glorifying idols were to be found. It appeared impossible for the human intellect to rid itself of the shackles of polytheistic thought. At this time, Abraham was commanded to settle in Makkah and start a new line of descent. God’s purpose was to raise a people in a land without polytheistic influence so that a nation with minds elevated enough to shun externals and think in terms of profound realities could develop. The Quran characterizes the final product of this human progeny in the following words:
God had endeared the Faith to you and beautified it in your hearts, making unbelief, wrongdoing and disobedience abhorrent to you. Such are rightly guided.
We can only understand this verse if we consider the situation that prevailed one and a half thousand years ago when the Companions adopted the Faith. It was surrounded by a host of visible “gods” that took an invisible God as their own; from many worldly greats, they recognized and believed in a prophet who commanded no worldly stature. Islam at that time was a religion strange to the world, but it was this outlandish religion that the Companions grew to love so much that they were willing to renounce everything for it. In short, they saw the truth when it was still an abstract force before the ratification of history backed it up before it had become a symbol of national pride. One had to be ready to give everything for it and to expect nothing in return.
One outstanding example of the selflessness involved in faith at that time was the event known as bay’at ‘aqbah thaniyah (The Second Oath of Allegiance), which was made before the Prophet emigrated to Madinah. Just when persecution of Muslims in Makkah had reached intolerable levels, some of them started spreading the message of Islam in Madinah, and soon it reached every home there. At that time, some of the people of Madinah resolved to go to Makkah, swear allegiance to the Prophet, and invite him to emigrate to Madinah. Jabir al-Ansari later recalled how, when Islam had spread to every house of Madinah, they held consultations among themselves. “How long can we let the Prophet wander around the hills of Makkah, fearful and distressed?” They said to one another. To those who judged from appearances alone, the fact that the Prophet was alone, with few supporters, was proof of his not being in the right: how could he be God’s prophet and be left in such an abject state? But the people of Madinah looked at the matter more profoundly. They had realized the truth of his prophethood and saw that helping him, they would earn God’s grace and good favour.
Seventy representatives of the people of Madinah took this oath of allegiance. We can tell under what precarious conditions they did so from the account of one of their number, Ka’b ibn Malik. He speaks of how they surreptitiously joined a regular party of pilgrims belonging to their tribe, pretending they were also going on a pilgrimage. Near Makkah, the Muslims pretended to have fallen asleep when the others put up camp. However, when a third of the night had elapsed, they rose quietly from their beds to keep their appointment with the Prophet, proceeding to rendezvous “like birds, creeping silently in the undergrowth.”
What an extraordinary time it must have been when, with the Prophet rejected by the world, a few individuals arose, eager to follow him. At that time, the Prophet had no place in his hometown; he had been chased out of Ta’if with a volley of stone-throwing and abuse; no tribe was willing to grant him protection. Yet, under such adverse conditions, the people of Madinah recognized the truth of his prophethood and responded to his call. When the Ansar64 went forward to swear allegiance, one rose and asked: “Do you know what your oath of allegiance will entail? It will entail the destruction of your properties and homes.” “We know,” they replied, “and it is an oath entailing the destruction of our properties and homes that we are entering.” They then asked the Prophet: “What will be our reward if we are faithful till the end?” “Paradise,” the Prophet replied. “Give us your hand,” they said to the Prophet, “so we can swear allegiance to you.”
The Ansar, en-masse, were giving their lives for a truth that was still disputed, for a reality that had found no place in the world of humanity. It was an act which no community had ever emulated before or after them.
Avoiding Extraneous Issues
It is generally the issues that are called nationalistic in modern terminology that capture the imagination of a people’s intelligentsia and lead to the establishment of popular movements. Issues of this nature faced the Prophet Muhammad also, but he scrupulously avoided them. The success of his mission depended upon his conforming to the scheme of God, which had been evolving over the last two and a half thousand years. If he had become involved in irrelevant side issues, all the opportunities, which had been created, could have been ruined.
The Arab border territory of Yemen had come under Ethiopian rule in A.D. 525, and Abrahah was appointed governor. This audacious individual attacked the Holy Ka’bah, aiming to demolish it and end the central position it enjoyed because it was a pilgrimage place. The year of his attack on the Ka’bah, with an army of elephants, was also the year of the Prophet’s birth (A.D. 571): the year of the Sassanians’ attack on Yemen and its assimilation into the Persian Empire. Bazan became the new governor. When the Prophet Muhammad commenced his mission, the Persian emperor heard about him and instructed Bazan to order the new prophet to desist from his claims; “Otherwise,” the emperor said, “bring me his head.”
This shows how great the problems posed by foreign domination on the borders of Arabia had become when the Prophet Muhammad commenced his mission. The Prophet could have incited his people to rise against the foreign invaders and drive them out of the Arabian territory. But to have done so would have been contrary to God’s scheme. It was His will that the Prophet should not clash with others over peripheral issues but should concentrate on the central theme of his mission, which was to spread the word of God. As history bears witness, the consequence was that Bazan, as well as most Christians residing in Yemen, accepted Islam. What a leader in his place taking up national issues would have attempted to solve unscrupulously through political activities, the Prophet successfully solved by communicating to others the ideas of Islam.
After the death of Abu Talib, Abu Lahab became the leader of the Banu Hashim tribe. Since the new chieftain refused protection to the Prophet, the latter was forced to seek the patronage of some other tribe. For this purpose, he visited many tribes, including the frontier-based Banu Shayban ibn Tha’labah. The chief of this tribe, Musanna ibn Harithah, explained to the Prophet that his people lived close to the Persian border, a territory which the Sassanian Emperor had allowed them to occupy only on receiving assurance that they would not preach any new doctrine or give refuge to anyone who did so. “Perhaps rulers would disapprove of your teachings,” the chieftain added.
This shows how foreign rule on the borders of Arabia constituted more than a political and territorial encroachment on Arab sovereignty; it also obstructed the Prophet’s missionary work. The Prophet could have used this as a pretext for starting active resistance to foreign powers, saying that no missionary work could be accomplished until all external obstructions had been eliminated. But to do so in the initial stages of his mission would have constituted a deviation from God’s scheme, which was for the empires of Rome and Persia to become weak by fighting each other for twenty years. Then, when the time finally came for them to be conquered, they had to shoulder the blame for initiating hostilities. It was, furthermore, relatively easy for the Muslims to subdue them, paving the way for the unprecedented conquests of the post-prophetic era. If the Muslims had confronted Rome and Persia prematurely, when these empires were strong and weak, the outcome would have been the opposite.
Fitting in with God’s Scheme
If a farmer is to grow crops, he must fit his cogwheel in with God’s. Providence has created unique opportunities for crop cultivation on earth, but to avail of them, there are certain things that a farmer must do. For instance, on the earth’s surface lies a layer of fertile soil, which is unique in the entire universe. But this soil, despite its innate fertility, will not yield a crop unless it is moist: the barrenness of the earth’s arid regions is due to a lack of such moisture. Now there is nothing in the universe which will broadcast this fact to farmers; they must find it out for themselves by reading the silent signs of nature and then acting upon them. What a discerning farmer will do, then, is wait until the ground is moistened by rain before planting. If there is no rain, he will irrigate his land. So will the great disseminator of truth. He will wait for or create the right conditions to plant the seeds of truth in the hearts of humanity. This was the method followed by the Prophet Muhammad. The spiritual ground of Arabia he came from was moist and fertile, ready to produce great fruits. Still, the Prophet had to employ the correct methods for his mission to advance; he had to fit in with God’s scheme to achieve success. There was no other way for him to utilize the opportunities provided.
The basic principle of the Prophet’s teaching mission was that emphasis should be laid entirely on matters about eternity. Under no circumstances was his teaching to dwell on worldly issues. The actual issue confronting man is that of his eternal fate. All other matters are transitory and superfluous. Material success and failure have no meaning, for they are bound to end. In the next world, where success and failure will be abiding, that man should focus his attention.
Furthermore, the Prophet aimed to build a society of upright individuals, and such a society can only be formed if each separate individual behaves with moral rectitude. Proper and consistent morality can come only from a profound belief in the hereafter. Belief in the hereafter means that we are not free to act as we please but will expect to be taken to task for our actions by God. It rids one of the wayward attitudes and makes one a disciplined and responsible human being. If one reads the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet with an open mind, one will find that life after death receives the most attention. Other matters are mentioned, but only incidentally. The purpose of the Prophet’s mission was to direct people’s attention towards the hereafter.
The Prophet’s second principle was to avoid any material conflict between himself scrupulously—the teacher—and those to whom he was addressing his teachings. No matter what price had to be paid, he would let no worldly rivalry come in between himself and his congregation. One outstanding example of this policy was the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. By constantly waging war against the Muslims, the Quraysh had made Muslims and non-Muslims into two parties eternally at loggerheads. Both sides were spending all their time preparing for and engaging in warfare. In this treaty, the Prophet accepted all the Quraysh’s demands in return for a ten-year truce. The treaty’s terms were so one-sided that many Muslims considered it a humiliation; in reality, it paved the way for what the Quran called a “clear victory.”67 This treaty ended the atmosphere of confrontation which had developed between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims could now freely communicate the teachings of their faith to non-Muslims, who, in turn, were free to accept them. No worldly rivalry or prejudice now stood in the way of disseminating the faith. After this treaty and the calming effect it had on non-Muslims, the message of Islam spread rapidly throughout Arabia. In just two years, the number of Muslims increased tenfold. There had seemed no way that Makkah could ever be conquered by force of arms, yet it succumbed two years later to the strength of Islamic teachings.
A critical aspect of the Prophet’s method was compassion towards his foes, even when they were wholly at his mercy. This was because he did not look upon anyone as an enemy; he saw all men and women as potential recipients of Islamic teachings and was keen to give them every possible chance to accept the faith. One outstanding example of this magnanimity, which the Prophet displayed throughout his life, can be found in his treatment of the Quraysh after Makkah had been conquered. The people who had been relentlessly persecuting the Prophet and his followers for the previous twenty years were now at the Prophet’s mercy. But, rather than punish them for past crimes, he forgave them all. When the Quraysh were brought before him in chains, he said to them, “Be on your way: you are all free men.” He pronounced suspended death sentences on some, but these were freed when they appealed for clemency, personally or through representatives. Seventeen people were sentenced to death, but only five —those who did not appeal—were executed. In the Battle of Uhud, the Prophet’s uncle, Hamzah, was slain by Wahshi ibn Barb, after which Hind bint ‘Utbah mutilated Hamzah’s corpse. When the Prophet learnt of this, he said, in the heat of the movement, “If God makes me triumph over them, then I will mutilate three of them.”
Wahshi and Hind were among the seventeen the Prophet condemned to death. But when they appealed to him for clemency, he forgave them both. This is because it was God’s will that His Prophet is lenient and forgiving towards his enemies, for this policy harmonized with God’s scheme to further the Islamic cause.
This principle is based on a profound insight into the nature of human society. Human society is a composite body of live, sensitive individuals in whom an urge for vengeance is kindled when one of their numbers is harmed. Human beings are unlike pieces of stone, which show no reaction when another stone is broken. To suppress one individual is to invite rebellion from those associated with him, which means that the time, which could be profitably spent on building up society, is frittered away in containing discontent. By forgiving all his past enemies after the conquest of Makkah, the Prophet ensured that at no future date would insurrection rear its head. Most of those he forgave accepted Islam and became a source of strength to it, one instance being that of ‘Ikrimah, the son of Abu Jahl, formerly an implacable adversary of the Prophet and his followers.
Once the Prophet’s authority had been established, specific social reforms had to be undertaken. However, the Prophet was careful to proceed gradually in introducing such reform; he never hastened to impose measures when people were not ready to accept them.
The people of Makkah were heirs to the religion of Abraham, but they had distorted the true faith of Abraham and taken up various kinds of innovatory practices. For instance, in the time of Abraham, Hajj (pilgrimage) used to be performed in the lunar month of Dhu’l-Hijjah. Since a year according to the lunar calendar is eleven days shorter than a solar year, so its months do not revolve around the seasons. Hajj, then, sometimes fell in one season and sometimes in another. This went against the Quraysh’s commercial interests. They wanted Hajj to fall in the summer each year, and for this purpose, they adopted a method known as nasi’. This consisted of adding eleven days to the lunar calendar every year. After this intercalation, they maintained the names of the lunar months, but in effect, their calendar was a solar one. This meant that for thirty-three years, all dates were removed from their actual place in the lunar calendar; every thirty-three years, when their annual addition of eleven days to the calendar had run the course of an entire year, Hajj would be performed on its proper date according to the lunar calendar.
One of the tasks entrusted to the Prophet was to end all the Quraysh’s innovations and have Hajj performed according to Abraham’s original system. The conquest of Makkah occurred in the month of Ramadan, A.H. 8. The Prophet was now the ruler of the whole of Arabia. He could have put an immediate end to all the Quraysh’s innovations. But instead, he bided his time. There were just two years remaining until the completion of the full thirty-three-year course of nasi’. The Prophet waited for these two years, and although he was the conqueror of Makkah, he did not perform Hajj during that time. Only in the third year after the conquest of Makkah (A.H. 10) did he participate in the pilgrimage. That was the year when Hajj was performed on the correct date of Dhu’l-Hijjah, in accordance with the system established by Abraham. This was the Prophet’s farewell pilgrimage, and during it, he announced that, in future, Hajj would be conducted the same way as in that year. Thus he ended the manipulation of the lunar calendar for all time. “Time has run its full course,” he announced. “It is now in the same position as when God created the heavens and the earth. And there are twelve months to a year in the sight of God.”
There was a profound reason for the Prophet’s delay in introducing this reform. People who have adhered to a particular religious practice for many years consider it sacred and find it extremely difficult to change their thinking. In two years, Hajj would fall on the day desired by the Prophet, so he avoided taking any premature initiatives, which would have made an issue of the matter. When the time came for Hajj to fall naturally on its proper day, he announced that this was the right day of the year for Hajj to be performed, and it would continue to be performed on the same day.
These examples show how the Prophet’s entire policy was moulded by the wisdom God had endowed him with. One can say that he fitted his cog-wheel in with God’s; his every move was designed to be in accordance with the pattern set by God. It was for this reason that all his efforts produced highly fruitful results.
