Читать книгу Muhammad: Man and Prophet - Adil Salahi - Страница 15
ОглавлениеAS ESTABLISHED IN the preceding chapter, Muhammad was now a Prophet receiving revelations from God, through the Angel Gabriel, and a messenger required to convey God’s message to mankind. He was fully aware of the magnitude of the change which this message would bring about in the life of Arabian society at the time, and human life in general. He was also aware that when he had to make his message known to people, he was bound to meet opposition. He himself, however, accepted the new faith and declared his belief in God’s oneness, fully reassured that his was the true Divine Faith.
The enormous difficulty of the task ahead did not deter him from attempting it. The fact that opposition was bound to be fierce was not to stop him from dedicating all his energy and efforts to calling on people to abandon their erroneous beliefs in favour of the new message God was addressing to mankind through him. He was, however, directed by God to keep his message secret for the time being, and only to approach those whom he thought would give a favourable response. The first to accept the new faith was his wife, Khadījah. She already knew him to be a man of noble heart and upright nature. She trusted that her husband, who had never said something which he knew to be untrue, would have never contemplated making a claim to prophethood if it was not absolutely true. Knowing her husband to be exemplary in his honesty and truthfulness, she realized that he was the man God would have chosen as His Messenger to mankind. She willingly and assuredly declared that she believed in God’s oneness, and that Muhammad was God’s Messenger.
It was indeed a blessing that Khadījah should readily accept the new faith. She was to give the Prophet her unwavering support, and comfort him in the years to come when opposition to his message was to increase in ferocity and wickedness. When he went out to discharge his duty as a messenger, he might receive insults, ridicule and physical assault. He would return home sad and downhearted, but she would always be ready with her encouragement and support. She did her best to comfort him and he would soon regain his cheerful, optimistic attitude. For this unwavering support, Gabriel once came to the Prophet telling him to convey God’s greeting to Khadījah and give her the happy news that she had a special home in heaven where she would enjoy total bliss and happiness. An authentic ḥadīth related by Muslim quotes the Prophet as saying: “The best woman in it [meaning heaven] is Mary, daughter of ʿImrān, and the best woman on it [meaning the earth] is Khadījah.”1
The first male to accept Islam was a ten-year-old boy named ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. He was the Prophet’s cousin, reared in the Prophet’s home. Some years earlier, the Quraysh had been through hard times. Although Abū Ṭālib, the Prophet’s uncle, was the chief of his clan which also enjoyed a position of honour in Makkah, he was a man of limited means and large family. In those hard times, Muhammad wanted to do something to help his uncle. He therefore went to speak to another uncle of his, al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, saying: “You know that your brother Abū Ṭālib has a large family, and everyone is going through very difficult times. I suggest that you and I go to him with a proposal of help: you take one of his sons and I take one to rear in order to reduce his burden.” Al-ʿAbbās agreed and they went and spoke to Abū Ṭālib, proposing that they should have two of his children for as long as the difficult period continued. Abū Ṭālib agreed, provided that they left his eldest son, Ṭālib, with him. The Prophet took ʿAlī to his home and al-ʿAbbās took Jaʿfar. ʿAlī continued to be with the Prophet until he received his message, and he was in the fortunate position of accepting Islam in its very early days. Jaʿfar was also to become one of the early Muslims.2
The First Muslim Man
The first man to accept Islam after the Prophet was his servant, Zayd ibn Ḥārithah. The fact that Zayd should not have a moment’s hesitation before accepting Islam comes as no surprise when one remembers his history with the Prophet. When Zayd was eight years old, his mother, Suʿdā bint Thaʿlabah, took him on a journey to visit her people. On the way, a group of horsemen attacked them and kidnapped Zayd, and subsequently sold him as a slave child in one of the Arabian bazaars called Ḥubbāshah. Apparently Zayd was sold once or twice before he ended up in Syria. Some time later, a man from the Quraysh called Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām bought him and took him to Makkah. Ḥakīm, who was a nephew of Khadījah, brought with him several young slaves. His aunt went to visit him after his return. He said to her: “Aunt, look at these slaves and choose whoever you like.” She chose Zayd and took him home. This happened when she was already married to the Prophet, but long before he started to receive his revelations. When the Prophet saw Zayd, he liked him and asked Khadījah to give him Zayd as a present. She willingly complied.
Zayd’s father felt his loss very painfully. He could not forget his son because he realized that the boy would have been sold as a slave. As was the habit with the Arabs, he expressed his sorrow in highly moving poetry: “I wonder would you ever come back? My dearest wish would then have come true. I am reminded of him by the sun when it rises; and his memory comes back to me when the sun goes down. When the wind blows, I am also reminded of him. Long is my sorrow, little is my hope.”
Reciting such poetry at gatherings and bazaars was the surest method for news to travel in Arabia at that time. Travellers memorized such poetry as they heard it, and probably chanted it as they travelled. When they encamped somewhere, reciting that poetry would be the means through which the news was transmitted. It was not surprising, therefore, that in his new dwelling place in Makkah, Zayd should hear his father’s poetry. He replied to his message, reciting several lines of poetry in which he mentioned that he was living in Makkah. Before long, his father got wind of this and resolved to travel with his brother, looking for Zayd in Makkah.
It was some time before Muhammad’s prophethood when Ḥārithah and Kaʿb, sons of Sharāḥīl, arrived in Makkah to learn that Ḥārithah’s son, Zayd, was in Muhammad’s household. Therefore, they went to him and made this passionate appeal: “You are the grandson of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the old master of this city; you are the son of the great master of his people. You and your people are neighbours of God in this blessed city. Your reputation has been established for a long while that you feed the hungry and help those who are in need. We have come to you on account of our son, your slave, to request you to be benevolent and to agree to sell him to us.” Muhammad replied: “What would you say if I made you a better offer?” They asked: “What sort of proposal?” He said: “I will call Zayd and give him a choice. If he chooses to go with you, that will be it. But if he chooses to stay with me, then, by God, I would not disappoint someone who chooses me.” They said: “Your proposal is more than fair.”
Muhammad called Zayd and asked him: “Who are these two?” Zayd said: “This man is my father, Ḥārithah ibn Sharāḥīl, and this is my uncle, Kaʿb ibn Sharāḥīl.” Muhammad said: “I am giving you the choice: if you wish, you may go with them, or if you wish, you may stay with me.” Zayd unhesitatingly said: “I will stay with you.” This came as a shock to the two men. His father said: “Zayd, do you prefer to remain a slave to rejoining your parents, your home and your tribe?” Zayd replied: “I have seen certain things with this man and I will never leave him to go anywhere.”
At this point Muhammad took Zayd by his hand and together they went to where the people of the Quraysh used to meet near the Kaʿbah where Muhammad declared: “Bear witness that this chap is my son: he inherits me and I inherit him.” That was the formal method of adoption practised in Arabia. Zayd’s father was pleased by this outcome of his mission, because he was sure that Zayd would come to no harm in the company of Muhammad. From that day, Zayd used to be known as Zayd ibn Muhammad. People continued to call him by this name for many years, until adoption was totally forbidden some years after the Prophet’s settlement in Madinah. It was then that God ordered Muslims to call their adopted children by their own parents’ names. Adoption was totally forbidden. Zayd then reverted to his name, Zayd ibn Ḥārithah.3
It was some time before prophethood that Zayd realized that there was something special about Muhammad. He loved him, and his feelings were reciprocated by Muhammad before and after he became a Prophet. Two or three years after Zayd’s death, the Prophet mentioned him and said that “he was one of the people I loved most”. Over the years, Zayd learnt enough of Muhammad’s integrity and kindness to prompt him to accept his message and believe in him without hesitation.
The Early Believers
Thus the first Muslim family came into existence. There was a man and his wife, a ten-year-old child and an adult servant, all believing in the new message which proclaimed the eternal truth of God’s oneness.
The first person to become a Muslim outside the Prophet’s immediate family was his close friend Abū Bakr. It is well known that Abū Bakr was not his real name. A person is rarely called Abū—when he is born. He gains this title after his first son is born, because the word ‘Abū’ means ‘father of’. However, the title Abū Bakr has become so well known that his real name is not known for certain. Some reports suggest that he was called ʿAtīq; some say that he was called ʿAbd al-Kaʿbah. One report suggests that his mother had several children before him, none of whom lived long. She pledged that should she have another son, she would call him ʿAbd al-Kaʿbah and would make of him a servant of the Kaʿbah. When the boy reached a certain age he came to be known as ʿAtīq, as if he was freed from death by that pledge of his mother. The Prophet, however, changed his name to ʿAbdullāh because no Muslim could be called servant of anyone or anything other than God.4
When the Prophet spoke to his childhood friend about Islam, Abū Bakr did not hesitate for a moment: he accepted Islam immediately. The very close friendship between the two men was enough to make Abū Bakr realize that Muhammad said nothing but the truth. There is also a report which suggests that one reason why he accepted Islam without hesitation was that a short while earlier he saw in his dream that the moon descended over Makkah and was split into small pieces, with each piece going into a different home. Then it was reassembled as a moon in his lap. He mentioned his dream to some people who followed Christianity or Judaism and they interpreted the dream to him, saying that he would follow the Prophet who was soon to appear. He would be the happiest of people for following him. Therefore, when the Prophet called on him to become a Muslim, he had no hesitation.5
How authentic this report is one cannot tell. There was, however, a better reason for Abū Bakr not to hesitate before accepting Islam. Abū Bakr was one of the most distinguished authorities in Arabia on the tracing of people’s lineage. He knew how every person descended in his tribe. This was a branch of study which was of great importance to the Arabs. In their tribal society, everyone took pride in his lineage. There was a strict hierarchy which distinguished clans and tribes from one another. To maintain their relative positions, this study of lineage was very important. A person well versed in it was a sort of historian. He knew not only the lineage but also the history of the people of each clan and tribe. He knew the weak points in everyone’s history. Later, when the Quraysh launched a determined campaign of abusive poetry against the Prophet and Islam, Muslim poets, particularly Ḥassān ibn Thābit, were quick to respond. The Prophet told Hassān to go to Abū Bakr in order to learn about the weaknesses and shortcomings of every clan of the Quraysh.6
His knowledge and his long-standing friendship with Muhammad gave Abū Bakr an insight into his character. He knew that Muhammad was always truthful. There was no reason why he should not be telling the truth now that he was speaking of a relationship with God, the Lord and the Creator. To Abū Bakr, the most logical thing was that Muhammad was telling the truth. Therefore, as Muhammad called on him to accept a message which he stressed would bring him, the Arabs and all mankind happiness, his attitude was one of immediate acceptance.
Abū Bakr realized that it was not enough that he himself should become a Muslim. Since God had sent a new message and a messenger to convey it to mankind, it was necessary that people should hear of it and learn that God wanted them to believe in this message. Therefore, he started to speak to some people whom he knew well. Abū Bakr was very well respected in his community. He was a merchant, well known for his kindly and gentle character. People loved to come to him and listen to him talking about the history of Arabian tribes and Arabs in general. Moreover, he was very kind to everybody. Hence, people of all ages came to see him and frequented his home. It was therefore easy for him to select some of the most intelligent and promising of the young people who came to him, to explain to them the message of Islam and to call on them to believe in God and His Messenger.
Abū Bakr realized that a new faith needs advocates. As a new believer, he set out to speak to people whom he trusted to be intelligent and judicious and explained to them the essence of the new message of Islam. Soon some of them responded favourably. The first one to become a Muslim as a result of Abū Bakr’s efforts was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, who belonged to the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh. Four others were soon to follow: al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, who was Khadījah’s nephew, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn-ʿAwf, Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ and Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbaydellāh. When all five had accepted Islam, Abū Bakr brought them together to see the Prophet and they declared before him that they believed in God’s oneness and in the message of his Prophet, Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh. All five, together with Abū Bakr, were among the ten persons to whom the Prophet gave, towards the end of his blessed life, the happy news that they were sure of admission into heaven. The other four were ʿAlī, his cousin, whom we mentioned as the first boy to become a Muslim after the Prophet, ʿUmar, who became a Muslim several years later, Abū ʿUbaydah ʿAmir ibn al-Jarrāḥ and Saʿīd ibn Zayd. These last two also became Muslims in the very early days of Islam. Abū ʿUbaydah was later to be given by the Prophet the title of ‘the trusted one’ of the nation of Islam. Saʿīd was the son of Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl, who was mentioned earlier as travelling in search of the truth and following the religion of Abraham. We also mentioned that the Prophet said that on the Day of Judgement, Zayd “would be resurrected as a nation on his own”. Saʿīd, his son, was among the first people who accepted Islam in its early days.
Others followed, such as Abū Salamah, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Asad, al-Arqam ibn Abī al-Arqam, ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn and his two brothers Qudāmah and ʿAbdullāh, ʿUbaydah ibn al-Ḥārith, Asmā’ and ʿĀ’ishah, the two daughters of Abū Bakr, Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt, ʿUmayr ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, Saʿd’s brother, and ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd and Masʿūd ibn al-Qārī. Biographers of the Prophet also mention, among the people who accepted Islam in those early days, Salīṭ ibn ʿAmr, ʿAyyāsh ibn Abī Rabīʿah and his wife, Asmā’ bint Salamah, Khulayṣ ibn Hudhāfah, ʿĀmir ibn Abī Rabīʿah, ʿAbdullāh and Abū Aḥmad, the two sons of Jaḥsh ibn Dhi’āb; Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib and his wife, Asmā’ bint ʿUmays, Ḥāṭib ibn al-Ḥārith and his brothers Khaṭṭāb and Muʿammar, as well as the wives of the first two, al-Sā’ib ibn ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn, al-Muṭṭalib ibn Azhar and his wife Ramlah, Naʿīm ibn ʿAbdullāh, ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, a servant of Abū Bakr, Khālid ibn Saʿīd and his wife, Āminah bint Khalaf, Ḥāṭib ibn ʿAmr, Abū Ḥudhayfah Mahsham ibn ʿUtbah, Wāqid ibn ʿAbdullāh, Khālid ibn al-Bakīr ibn ʿAbd Yālīl and his three brothers ʿĀmir, ʿĀqīl and Iyās, ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir and Suhayb ibn Sinān.7
That makes about 40 people altogether who accepted Islam in a period of three years when the Prophet was preaching his message in secret. However, what the early converts to Islam lacked in numbers, they compensated for in calibre. Most of these people possessed qualities of leadership and vision which distinguished them and made the new call stronger than the mere number of its advocates suggests.
When one looks closely at those people who accepted the call of Islam, one finds that many of them were still very young – many were not yet 20 years old. A new message which advocates a total change in the social order often attracts young people whose vision of a better life gives them a strong motive to work hard for their beliefs. Among those in their teens were al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbaydellāh, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, al-Arqam, ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd and Saʿīd ibn Zayd. But it is a mistake to think that the idealism of youth was the only motive for such people to become Muslims. Islam has a simple message which appeals directly to the human mind and strongly appeals to human nature. Many of these young people were of excellent character.
ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd first learnt about Islam when he was tending his sheep, since he worked as a shepherd. The Prophet and Abū Bakr saw him as they were crossing over to some place outside Makkah. They were thirsty, so the Prophet asked ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd: “Have you got any milk?” ʿAbdullāh said; “Yes, but I am in a position of trust.” The Prophet asked him: “Have you a female sheep which has not yet mated?” ʿAbdullāh brought a sheep whose breasts had not yet appeared. The Prophet rubbed her at the position of the breast and soon she had breasts full of milk. ʿAbdullāh brought a piece of rock which looked like a bowl. The Prophet milked the sheep and gave Abū Bakr and ʿAbdullāh milk, then he drank. He then said to the breast: “Return to your position”, and it did. When he saw this, ʿAbdullāh wondered and asked questions. The Prophet told him about Islam and he accepted it. He reports: “I said, ‘Messenger of God, teach me.’ He went with his hand over my head and said: ‘May God bless you, you are an educated fellow.’ Later, I went to meet the Prophet and as we were with him, over the mount of Ḥirā’, the sūrah entitled al-Mursalāt was revealed to him and I learnt it as he was reciting it for the first time. I learnt twenty sūrahs direct from him over the years. The rest of the Qur’ān I learnt from some of his companions.”8
There were others who were not so young, like ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān and Abū ʿUbaydah, who were in their late twenties. Such people were normally of temperate character and sound intellect. ʿUthmān ibn Maẓʿūn was probably in his early thirties when he became a Muslim. Before Islam, he declared that he would never drink intoxicants. Alcoholic drinks were very much a part of the social life of Makkah. His sound judgement, however, led him to feel that a drink which caused a man to lose his ability to think properly and judge things accurately was unbecoming of any self-respecting man.
There were others in this group of early Muslims who were a little older. The best example was Abū Bakr, who was of the same age as the Prophet, or a year or two younger. These were mostly people who knew the Prophet closely. They knew his integrity and his noble character. Therefore, they were absolutely certain that he told the truth. They followed him as a logical consequence of their conviction.
One thing to be stressed about the composition of this distinguished community is the fact that those early Muslims did not belong to any single clan or tribe or social class. They came from all strata of Makkan society at the time. They included people of distinction who commanded high esteem in their community, such as ʿUthmān and Abū ʿUbaydah. Among them there were some former slaves, like Ṣuhayb, who was probably not even an Arab. Indeed, some were still in the bonds of slavery. As Muslims, however, they all enjoyed equality and a brotherhood that was so real that it eclipsed all blood relationships. Hence the universality of Islam was established and practised right from the outset.
Those early Muslims formed the nucleus of the community of believers which was soon to create the most noble society humanity had ever known in its long history. As headquarters they used the house of one of their number, al-Arqam, in a central position close to the hill known as al-Ṣafā. It became the first Islamic school where the followers of the new religion received their instruction in the principles of their faith directly from the Prophet.9 Indeed, al-Arqam’s house was a mosque, a school and a meeting-place where the new community discussed its affairs. The Prophet spent a considerable amount of time in that house looking after his companions, educating them and guiding them in their new mission.10
In those early days, the Muslims were instructed by God to attend to their prayers. The Angel Gabriel taught the Prophet Muhammad the form of prayer which was to become the mark of all Muslims. There are varying reports on the number and length of prayers the Muslims were asked to offer in those days. What is certain is that these were not five obligatory prayers every day. Probably these were only two, one in the morning and one at dusk. They were to be increased later. A report exists by a man called ʿAfīf al-Kindī, who was a friend of al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the Prophet’s uncle. Al-ʿAbbās used to visit him in Yemen when he went on his trade missions. ʿAfīf also visited him in Makkah. He reports:
When I was at al-ʿAbbās’s place in Minā, a respectable man came along and had his ablution and stood up to pray. A woman followed him and had her ablution and joined him in prayer. Then a boy close to adolescence did his ablution and stood next to the man praying. I said: “ʿAbbās, what is this religion?” He replied: “This is the faith of Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh, my nephew, who claims that God has sent him as a Messenger. This boy is my nephew, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, who has followed his faith and this woman is his wife Khadījah, who also believes in his religion.
Many years later, after he became a firm believer in Islam, ʿAfīf said: “I wish I was fourth of that little group.”11
NOTES
1. Ibn Hishām, al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah, Dār al-Qalam, Beirut, Vol. 1, p. 257. Also, A. al-Suhaylī, al-Rawḍ al-Unuf, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, Beirut, p. 415.
2. Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, ʿUyūn al-Athar, Dār al-Turāth, Madinah, 1996, pp. 179-180.
3. Ibn Hishām, op.cit., pp. 264-266.
4. Ibid., pp. 266-267.
5. A. al-Suhaylī, op.cit., p. 431.
6. Ibn Hishām, op.cit., p. 267.
7. Ibid., pp. 267-280.
8. Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, op.cit., pp. 187-188.
9. Ibn Hishām, op.cit., pp. 259-262.
10. Ibid., p. 270.
11. Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, op.cit., p. 181.
