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His Life |
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The mission of Prophet Muhammad (s)
was to restore the worship of the One True God, the creator and sustainer of
the universe, as taught by Prophet Ibrahim and all Prophets of God,
and to demonstrate and complete the laws of moral, ethical, legal, and social
conduct and all other matters of significance for the humanity at large. The first few people
who followed this message were: his cousin Ali, his servant Zayd ibn
Harithah, his friend Abu Bakr and his wife and daughters. They accepted
Islam by testifying that: "There is no Deity
(worthy of worship) except Allah (The One True God) and Muhammad is the
Messenger of Allah." Islam means peace by
submission and obedience to the Will and Commandments of God and those who
accept Islam are called Muslims, meaning those who have accepted the message
of peace by submission to God. In the first three
years of his mission forty people (men and women) accepted Islam. This
small group comprised of youth as well as older people from a wide range of
economic and social background. The Prophet was directed by a recent
revelation to start preaching Islam to everyone. He then began to recite
revelations to people in public and invite them to Islam. The Quraish,
leaders of Makkah, took his preaching with hostility. The most hostile and
closest to the prophet was his uncle Abu Lahab and his wife. Initially, they
and other leaders of Quraish tried to bribe him with money and power including
an
offer to make him king if he were to abandon his message. When this
did not work, they tried to convince his uncle Abu Talib to accept the best
young man of Makkah in place of Muhammad and to allow them to kill Muhammad.
His uncle tried to persuade the Prophet to stop preaching but the Prophet
said: "O uncle, if they were to put the sun in my right hand and the
moon in my left hand to stop me from preaching Islam, I would never stop. I
will keep preaching until Allah makes Islam prevail or I die." The Quraish began to
persecute Muslims by beating, torture and boycott of their businesses.
Those who were weak, poor or slaves were publicly tortured. The first person
to die by this means was a Muslim women by the name Umm Ammar (the mother of
Ammar Ibn Yasir). The Muslims from well-to-do families were physically
restrained in their homes with the condition that if they recant they will be
allowed freedom of movement. The Prophet was publicly ridiculed and
humiliated including frequent throwing of filth on him in the street and
while he prayed in the Ka’bah. In spite of great hardships and no apparent
support, the message of Islam kept all Muslims firm in their belief. The Prophet
was asked by God to be patient and to preach the message of Qur’an. He
advised Muslims to remain patient because he did not receive any revelation
yet to retaliate against their persecutors. [Persecution]
When the persecution
became unbearable for most Muslims, the Prophet advised them in the fifth
year of his mission (615 CE) to emigrate to Abyssinia (modern
Ethiopia) where Ashabah (Negus, a Christian) was the ruler. Eighty people,
not counting the small children, emigrated in small groups to avoid
detection. No sooner had they left the Arabian coastline, the leaders of
Quraish discovered their flight. They decided to not leave these Muslims in
peace, and immediately sent two of their envoys to Negus to bring all of them
back. However, Negus allowed them to stay under his protection after he investigated Muslim
belief and heard the revelations about Jesus and Mary
(peace be upon them both), which appears in Chapter 19, entitled Mary, of the
Qur’an. The emigrants were allowed freedom of worship in Abyssinia. The Quraish then made
life even more difficult for the Prophet by implementing total ban on
contact with the Prophet’s family (Bani Hashim and Muttalib). The ban lasted
for three years without the desired effect. Just before the ban was lifted,
the Prophet was contacted by the leaders of Quraish to agree to a compromise
under which they should all practice both religions (i.e., Islam and
Idolatry). Upon hearing this, the Prophet recited a revelation (Chapter 109)
he had just received and which ends with the words: "... For you your
religion and for me mine." The ban was lifted when leaders of Quraish
discovered that their secret document on the terms of ban, which they had
stored in Ka’bah, was eaten by worms and all that was left were the opening
words ‘In Your name, O Allah.’ The effects of the three-year boycott left the
Prophet with more personal sorrow when he lost his beloved wife Khadijah (ra)
and uncle Abu Talib soon after the ban was lifted. After Khadijah's death
in 620 CE, the Prophet married a widowed Muslim woman, Sawdah (ra) who was
fifty years old. She and her husband had emigrated to Abyssinia in the early
years of persecution. After her husband died, she came back to Makkah and
sought Prophet’s shelter. The Prophet, recognizing her sacrifices for Islam,
extended his shelter by marrying her. Later in the same year, the Prophet
upon receiving the divine command in a dream, after approval of Sawdah,
contracted marriage to A’ishah, the daughter of his dear companion Abu Bakr. She
joined the Prophet in Medinah, completing the marriage contract. Sawdah and
A’ishah (ra) were the only wives until he was fifty-six years old. After the death of his
uncle Abu Talib, the Prophet went to Taif (about 50 miles east,
southeast of Makkah) to seek their protection. They flatly refused and mocked
at him, and severely injured him by inciting their children to throw stones
at him. Gabriel (as) visited the Prophet here suggesting that the angels were
ready to destroy the town if he were to ask Allah for the punishment.
Nevertheless, the
Prophet declined and prayed for future generations of Taif to accept
Islam [Taif].
It was on the return journey from Taif that the verses from Surah Al Jinn
(Chapter 72) were revealed. It indicated that the Qur’an is a book of
guidance to both the Jinns and
Humankind. Soon after the terrible
disappointment at Ta’if, the prophet experienced the events of al-Israa
and al-Miraaj (621 CE). In the Al-Israa, Gabriel (as) took the Prophet
from the sacred Mosque near Ka’bah to
the furthest (al-Aqsa) mosque in Jerusalem in a very short time in the
latter part of a night. Here, Prophet Muhammad met with previous Prophets
(Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others) and he led them in prayer. After this, in
Al-Miraj, the Prophet was taken up to heavens to show the signs of God
[More... The Dome of
the Rock]. It was on this journey that five daily prayers were
prescribed. He was then taken back to Ka’bah, the whole experience lasting a
few hours of a night. Upon hearing this, the people of Makkah mocked at him.
However, when his specific description of Jerusalem, other things on the way,
and the caravan that he saw on this journey including its expected arrival in
Makkah turned out to be true, the ridicule of the nonbelievers stopped. The
event of Israa and Miraaj is mentioned in the Qur’an - the first verse of
Chapter 17 entitled ‘The Children of Israel.’ In 622 CE, the leaders
of the Quraish decided to kill the Prophet and they developed a plan
in which one man was chosen from each of the Quraish tribes and they were to
attack the Prophet simultaneously. Gabriel informed the Prophet of the plan
and instructed him to leave Makkah immediately. The Prophet, after making
arrangements to return the properties entrusted to him by several
nonbelievers, left with Abu Bakr in the night he was to be assassinated. They
went south of Makkah to a mountain cave of Thawr [see Qur'an 9:40], and after
staying three nights they traveled north to Yathrib (Medinah) about two
hundred fifty miles from Makkah. Upon discovery of his escape, the leaders of
Quraish put up a reward of one hundred camels on him, dead or alive. In spite
of all their best scouts and search parties, Allah protected the Prophet and he arrived
safely in Quba, a suburb of Medinah [Qur'an 28:85]. This event is
known as the ‘Hijra’ (migration) and the Islamic calendar begins with
this event. The people of Aws and Khazraj in Medinah greeted him with great
enthusiasm in accordance with their pledge made at
Aqaba less than a year ago during the annual pilgrimage. One by one
those Muslims (men and women) of Makkah who were not physically restrained,
and who could make a secret exit, left for Medinah leaving behind their
properties and homes. |