Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets (Regulation of Fighting I)

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan  

In Medina the Muslims found themselves in a very precarious and unenviable situation. Their security was threatened not only by Quraish, who had put a price on the head of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, and had followed this up by serving an ultimatum, through Abdullah bin Ubayy, that unless the Holy Prophet was expelled from Medina, they would invade Medina in full strength and slaughter all the men in it and enslave all the women; but they were not secure against the machinations of the disaffected in Medina, and had to be wary of the Jews. Quraish had declared war upon the Holy Prophet and the Muslims and all those who might support them. The state of war thus initiated continued over six years and was interrupted only by the Truce of Hudaibiyya in the sixth year. Less than two years later Quraish committed a glaring breach of the Truce and hostilities broke out again which were terminated only when the greater part of the peninsula had acknowledged the supremacy of the Islamic state and had submitted to it.

In view of the ultimatum of Quraish, the Muslims were accorded divine permission to take up arms in their defence and in the defence of their faith:

Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets (Migration III)

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan
The Salat had been made obligatory while the Holy Prophet was still in Mecca, but except in the case of the Maghrib prayer service, which comprised three raka’as, the other services comprised only two raka’as. After the Migration to Medina the Holy Prophet, under divine direction, prescribed four raka’as for the three services other than Fajr and Maghrib, except that the old system continue in respect of services during a journey.

The Holy Prophet, peace be on him, laid the greatest stress, of all forms of worship, on the Salat. He observed that during the Salat a worshipper is in communion with his Maker. In his own case he was so fond of Salat that in addition to the five prescribed services he stood in Prayer for a long time in Tahajjud, after midnight, so that sometimes his feet would become swollen. He often observed that the Salat was the greatest comfort of his soul.

Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets (Migration II)

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan

Shortly after parting from Suraqa, the party encountered Zubair bin Awam, who was returning to Mecca with a small party of Muslims after a trading journey to Syria. Zubair presented a suit of white garments to the Holy Prophet and another to Abu Bakr, and submitted that he would soon return from Mecca and join them in Yathrab. Of other people whom they encountered during the rest of their journey, many who knew Abu Bakr recognized him and inquired from him who was the person who was riding ahead of him. Abu Bakr would reply, ‘He is the one who shows me the way,’ meaning, that he was his spiritual preceptor, but the inquirers understood that he was some person whom Abu Bakr had taken with him as his guide.

After journeying for eight days the party approached Yathrab. The Muslims in Yathrab had learnt that the Holy Prophet had set out from Mecca on his way to Yathrab. For some days they had been coming out of Yathrab to welcome him, but after waiting for him through the forenoon they went back disappointed. On the day of his arrival, they had just returned to their homes when they heard a Jew, who was for some reason standing at a height, and who perceived the Holy Prophet and his companions approaching in the distance, call aloud, ‘O ye Arabs, the one you have been awaiting is approaching.’ On hearing this the Muslims were overjoyed, and, taking up their arms in a hurry, emerged from the city to welcome the illustrious traveller.

When Ansar had the first glimpse of the Holy Prophet, their joy knew no bounds. They felt that on them had been bestowed all the blessings of the here and the hereafter. Bokhari has reported Braa bin Aazib as saying that on no other occasion did he behold Ansar exhibiting such spontaneous joy as they did on the arrival of the Holy Prophet in Yathrab. Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah have reported Ans bin Malik as saying: ‘The day the Holy Prophet arrived in Medina we perceived as if the city had been illumined, and on the day that he died it seemed to us that we had never seen Medina so dark.’

Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets (Migration I)

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan
This was the turning point in the life of the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, and in the history of Islam and the world. The Holy Prophet was deeply attached to Mecca where he had been born and spent more than half a century of his life. Here he had married, and had children, and here he had received the divine command to wipe out idolatry and call mankind to the worship of One God. It is true that he and those who identified themselves with his cause had endured great hardships in Mecca for the sake of their faith. But they had been sustained by God’s repeated assurances of support and ultimate triumph. They bore the severest persecution cheerfully and with steadfastness, and for all of them who had been left in Mecca after the two migrations to Abyssinia, the final departure from Mecca was a wrench. But God’s will was their supreme law, and giving effect to it was their greatest pleasure.

Hitherto, the precepts of Islam had been few and simple but they had wrought a marvellous and mighty work. Never had man witnessed the like arousing of spiritual life, and faith that suffered sacrifice and took joyfully the sacrifice of all for the sake of conscience.

From time beyond memory, Mecca and the whole peninsula had been steeped in spiritual torpor. The people were sunk in superstition, cruelty and vice. It was common practice for the eldest son to take to wife his father’s widows, whom he inherited with the rest of the estate. Pride and poverty had introduced among them the crime of female infanticide. Their religion was a gross idolatry; and their faith the dark superstitious dread of unseen beings whose goodwill they sought to propitiate and whose displeasure to avert, rather than belief in an over-ruling Providence. The life to come, and retribution of good and evil as motives of action were practically unknown.