In such a dark age and
in such benighted country a man is born. His parents die when he is very
young and a few years later the sad demise of his grandfather occurs.
Consequently, he is deprived even of that scant training and upbringing
which an Arab child of his time could get. In his boyhood he tends flocks
of sheep and goats in the company of Bedouin boys. When of age, he takes
to commerce. All his associations and all his dealings are with the Arabs
alone, whose condition has just been described.
He is completely illiterate and unschooled. He never gets the chance to
sit in the company of learned men, for such men were non-existing in
Arabia. He does have a few opportunities to go out of his country, but
those journeys are confined to Syria and are nothing more than the usual
business trips undertaken by the Arab trade caravans. These journeys
cannot have given him those conceptions and principles of religion,
ethics, culture and civilization: they were non-existing in the world of
those days. And they cannot have created that sublime and perfect human
character which was nowhere to be found in those days.
This noble man is totally different from the people among whom he is born
and passes his youth and early manhood and attains finally his full
stature. Even his worst opponents never accuse him of telling a lie. The
entire nation calls him 'Al-Amin' (the Truthful and the Trustworthy). Even
his opponents deposit their valuable belongings with him for safe
custody.
He is the embodiment of modesty in the mids of a society which immodest to
the core. His people were uncouth, uncultured and unclean, but he
personifies the highest culture and most refined aesthetic outlook.
Surrounded on all sides by cruelty, he himself has a hearth overflowing
with the milk of human kindness. He helps orphans and widows. He is
hospitable to travelers. He harms no one; rather, he suffers hardship for
others' sakes. Brought up in an idolatrous race, he regards nothing in the
heavens and the earth worth worshipping except the One True God. He does
not bow before any created thing and does not partake of the offerings
made to idols, even in his childhood.
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