MUHAMMAD (P.B.U.H) THE PROPHET AND STATEMAN BY BABA ALI MUSTAPHA

          In the year 571 of the Christian era, a child was born to Amina a widow who just lost her husband Abdallah. Abdallah belonged to the famous family of Hashim amongst the Quraish. This baby Orphan was left in the care of his mother who also passed away when he was only six. It therefore, fell to the lot of his hundred year old grandfather to bring him up. The old man saw in the child the lost ‘Abdullah come back, and took good care of him. But he did not live long to see the boy grow up, and the duty developed upon his uncle Abu Talib.

            This unfortunate orphan was Muhammad (the English rendering of the name is highly praised). Ibn Hisham, the oldest biographer of the life of Muhammad has given some details about Muhammad’s boyhood on the authority of Ibn Ishaq and say that as a boy he was selective in making friends, had refined manners and paid respect to the elders. People gave him an honoritic title and called him Al- Amin (the trustworthy).

            Muhammad as he grew up accompanied his Uncle on trading journeys. But perhaps the most significant of all his journeys is one when twelve years he accompanied his uncle Abu Talib on a caravan journey to Syria and met a Christian monk named Bahira who wanted to know all about Muhammad. After enquiry from his uncle he said to Abu Talib “Go back home with your nephew and keep an eye on him; if the jews see him and get to know about him, they will certainly do him harm for he is going to be a great man”.

            ‘One other circumstance’ say Thomas Carlyle “we must not forget about Muhammad is that he had no school learning of the thing we called School learning, none at all. The art of writing was but jus introduced in Arabia; it seems to be the true opinion that Muhammad never could write. Life in the desert with it’s experiences, was all his education. What of this infinite Universe he, from his dim place, with his own eyes and thoughts, could take in so much and more was he to know.

            This is Muhammad’s early life; a gifted but an unfortunate orphan deprived of any facility to learn reading and writing. But, from an early age, he had been remarked upon as a thoughtful man. He began to visit a little cave on a hill outside Mecca called Hira to engage himself in meditation.

            At the age of twenty-five, he married a Qurashite widow named Khadijah who was fifteen years his senior, and travelled in her business again to Syria. As long as Khadijah lived Muhammad has none other for a wife.

            He was forty before he talked of his messengership (Risalat) from God. The Arabs believed in every bit of black wood pretending to be God. The Quraish were idolators and worshippers of al-uzza, al-lat, al-manat whom they considered as the three daughters of Allah and they placed their idols in the Ka’abah, their women used to dance naked and some of them were poet who used to compose poem concerning every part of their body. A poet was considered to be a leader of the community, and they used to bury their daughter alive, and blood feuds were quite common amongst them. When a father dies, he used to instruct his son to take revenge which was due from another tribe. Such was Arabia before Muhammad began his preaching. The Arabs historians call it the Period Jahiliya (Period of darkness or ignorance).

            On the night of glory (Laylat al-Qadr) which fall toward the end of Ramadan, Muhammad received his first call to his mission in the year 610 AD. The first revelation came in the Ghar al-Hira (cave Hira) in a voice commanding “Recite thou in the name of thy Lord”. Those revelations as the Qur’an say were received through Gabriel, the Ruh al-Quda or the Holy Spirit.

            In his call and message Muhammad first made it clear that he was not an incarnation of God but merely a human being and a messenger of God, he said,        

                        I am but a man like yourselves (but) the inspiration has come to me that your God   is One God; whoever expect to meet his Lord, admit no one as partner.

            He stood on the mount Safa which is situated opposite the Ka’aba, where so far 365 idols of different names, both male and female, were glorified. He addressed his people:

            “Supposing I now told you that just behind the slopes of this wall there was an enemy         cavalry force changing on you would you believe?

“We never knew you lied” they replied. Then he said:

            “ I warn you I have a message from God, and I have come to you as a warning and as a    forerunner of a dreadful punishment. I cannot protect you in this world, nor can I     promise you ought in the next life, unless you declare that there is no god but the One God”. 

            The majority of the Qurashite became Muhammad’s enemies on hearing this. It is pertinent here to examine the reason which prompted the Quraish to exorable hostility against Muhammad’s message. Muhammad’s message sought to dismantle the belief which has been handed down for them for long centuries, a belief, indeed which had given him like their forefathers, the excuse to rule over the bodies and souls of their countrymen from North to South of the Arabian Peninsula. Beside, there was an age old rivalry amongst the House of Banu Umayyad, a name from which the Umayyad Dynasty took it’s name and the Clan of the Quraish. Muhammad was a Hashimite, and Abu Sufiyan belonged to the House of Banu Umayya. This explain the hostility of Abu Sufiyan against Muhammad. Perhaps, one of the cause appears to the uneasiness felt by the Quraish about having restriction placed upon their moral turpitude such as wine-drinking, exhibition of the naked women in the annual fairs, adultery, etc. Whatever might be other causes, they scattered the new Muslim when they went apart to pray. They drowned the voice of Muhammad by coarse songs and tremendous noise when he tried to preach. Abu Jahl, his distant uncle, threw a Sheep’s placenta at the back of Muhammad’s neck when once he absorbed in prayers. He said nothing and asked his daughter to another Quraishite, ‘ Ugaba, spat in his face; he without losing his temper simply wiped his face. At Taif, stone were thrown at him so much so that his shoe were soaked with blood. They passed derogatory remarks against him and called him Majnum ( a madman).

            But the new recruits mainly from amongst the poor and slaves began to swell the rank of the believers. Abu Bakr was the first among the elderly people to embrace Islam; Ali was the first youth from Quraish; Khadijah was the first among the ladies and Zaid was the first amongst the slaves to accept the teachings of the Prophet. The Quraish now resorted to active persecution, and it resulted in the migration of Abyssinia of eleven Meccan families followed in the year 615 A.D by eighty-three others. Chief among them was the famous companion of the Prophet Uthman Ibn Affan. The emigrants found shelter in the kingdom of Negus, a christian King, who plainly refused to deliver them into the hands of the Quraish. The Quraish sent a delegation to Negus representing the case. Negus asked Ja’far Ibn Abu Talib, the leader of the emigrants to reply to the delegation and explain as to why they had accepted Islam. Ibn Hisham has reported Ja’far’s vivid reply as follows:

            “We were the Jahiliyyah (ignorant) people worshipping idols, feeding on dead animals practicing immorality , deserting our families and violating peace, with the strong man amongst us always devouring the weak. Such was our state until Allah sent us a messenger from amongst ourselves whose ancestry is known to us, and verocity, fidelity and purity we recognize”.

            “It was the Prophet who summoned us to Allah in order profess Him as One and worship Him alone discarding whatever stones and idols we and our forefathers worshipped instead of Allah. He moreover commended us to be truthful in our talks to render to others what is due them. To stand by our families and refrain from doing wrong and shedding blood. He forbade committing fornication, bearing false witness, depriving the orphan of his legitimate right and speaking ill of chaste women. He enjoined on us the worship of Allah alone, associating with Him no other. He also ordered us to observe prayer, pay alms (Zakat) and practice fasting”.

            The above passage from Ibn Hisham give us a true picture of the Jahiliya society. In fact, ‘whatever notions they had of morals, culture and civilization were primitive and uncouth. They could hardly discriminate between pure and impure, lawful and unlawful, civil and uncivil.

            But Muhammad fearlessly continued preaching and by persuation converted many Meccans. The most important among them were Umar and Hamza who played a significant role in the history of Islam. In the meantime, three years before the Hijrah, Khadijah, his wife and Abu Talib, his uncle and great supports, died. The menacing threat continued to be made to Muslims.

            When their threat did not work, the Quarishites offered bribes to Muhammad saying that they would make him a king and that he could marry the most beautiful among their girls. Muhammad replied:

            “May God be my witness, if they were to place the sun in my right hand and the moon in the left, I would not renounce my message but would rather perish instead”.

             At last Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina in the year 622 A.D, the year from which the Muslim Hijrah era begins.

            The Meccan period came to an end with the Hijrah and the Medinite period proved as a turning point in the Islamic History. Those who migrated from Mecca were called the Muhajir, the emigrants and those who welcomed them in Medina were named as Ansar or the helpers.

            In Medina, the Prophet is also seen as a statesman. The struggle between the Muslims and the Quraish was now open and often violent. Incidents of Molestation of the Prophet’s followers were growing in numbers. But nothing could prevent Muhammad from preaching the message of the Unity of God. It is in this Medinite period that the Prophet established some important institutions; Friday was substituted for Sabbath, the Adhan or the call to the faithful for the compulsory five-time prayer was decreed. Ramadan, became the month of fasting and the Quiblah ( the direction to be observed during the prayers) was changed from Jerusalem to Mecca. Muhammad’s concern at Medina was to form the Muslim Ummah (nation) which transcended any ethnic or other narrow loyalties.

            Muhajirun (the Emigrants) and the Ansar (the Helpers) were now united under one banner and the leadership of the Prophet. The first encounter came between reinforcements of the Quraish under the leadership of Abu Sufiyan and the Madinites. The Muslim met at Badr which is situated eighty-five miles South-West of Medina in the month of Ramadan in the year 624 A.D. There were only three hundred Muslims and over a thousand Meccans, and the Muslims became victorious under the inspiring leadership of the Prophet. This was the first and the decisive victory of the Muslims and the Muslims historians consider it as a Divine Sanction of the faith that the Prophet preached. After this, in 627 A.D, the next encounter at Ahzab ( confederates) took place, and in 628 A.D the prophet led a body of 1400 believers to the city of his birth and exacted the act of Hudaibiya. Two years later, towards the end of January 630 A.D (A.H.8) the conquest of Mecca was complete and the prophet entered Mecca with those Quranic words in his mouth; Truth has come and falsehood has vanished. Professor Hitti report on the authority of the well known historian Waqidi that the people of Mecca, through non muslims were treated with special magnanimity. In 631 A.D/A.H 9  a garrison was stationed at Tabuk by the Muslims and without bloodshed, the prophet concluded treaties of peace with the Christian headman of the al-Aqabah tribe and Jewish tribes on the Oasis of Magna, Adhruh and al-Jarba to the south. The Jewish and Christians communities were taken under the protection of the newly arising Islamic community. On that memorable day, the prophet asked the Meccans, “What do you think I will do to you? They answered: “You are generous brother and the Son of a general brother”. “Go” the prophet rejoined, “You are freed”.

            Lane Poole write: “The day of Muhammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his greatest victory over himself. He freely forgave Quraish all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn with which they had afflicted him, and gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mecca. Four criminals whom justice condemned made up Muhammad’s proscription list when as a conqueror he entered the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example and entered quietly and peaceable; no house robbed, no women insulted.

            In the last year of his 632 A.D or the tenth year of the Hijrah, the prophet entered Mecca to offer his “farewell pilgrimage” and gave a noble sermon in which he laid emphasis on Man’s duties to his fellow beings. The prophet attached too much importance to this aspect of man’s life that he repeated his sermon five times during that Hajj season.

            Ya’gubi, the historian, records that the sermon of 7^th Dhul-Hajja was delivered by the prophet on the back of a camel after the afternoon prayer and the sermons on 9^th Dhu-I-hajjah in the desert of Arafat in the afternoon first before the afternoon prayer and again after finishing the afternoon prayer; on both those latter occasions he spoke on camel back. The sermon at Mina was delivered after the Morning Prayer, also on camel back. His companion, Bilal was in attendance, holding the reins. On all those occasions the prophet had a crier to repeat his words, sentence by sentence, after him. During the Mina sermon it was his son-in-law Ali, who acted as the crier, while on other occasion it was a young man of vigorous voice named Rabiah Ibn Umayya Ibn Khalat. The prophet Muhammad had him standing very close to him and asked him to repeat after him each sentence.

            During that farewell pilgrimage (632A.D), there were present at Arafat between 80 to 120 thousand men and women. The prophet Muhammad repeated his sermon again and again because everybody could not make it convenient to attend only one assembly. As pilgrim’s presence in the plain of Arafat forms an integral part of the pilgrimage rites and his stay at Arafat is obligatory, the prophets soon after the whole congregation was ready to perform the afternoon prayer, mounted his camel and opened his historic sermon with these words: “O People! I am a man like unto you. It is possible that you may not see me again in this place (the prophet passed away about three months later, 8^th June 632 A.D). Therefore, listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take those words to those who could not be present here today”. Upon this the prophet said” May God bless the person who after having heard me, guards my words and take them to others”. The prophet continued to say: “it is possible that you do not understand the importance of my words here, but there are people in the world who could understand that you should take my words to other who are not present here today, for it happens often that the messenger does not know the importance of the message he is carrying”.

            When the Prophet Muhammad had finished his sentence and his crier Rabiah had repeated it, the prophet Muhammad stopped and asked the audience of it had heard his words well. When everyone shouted to say that they heard him , the prophet turned his face upwards and said: “O God! Thou art my witness, I have conveyed Thy Message”.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROPHET’S FAREWELL ADDRESS

            In his farewell pilgrimage address delivered by him on 23^rd February 632 A.D, the prophet spoke of fifteen social aspects which touch the life of everyone in his human relationships. Before we proceed further, let it be pointed out that in this sermon, the one thing which catches one’s eyes is that the prophet never once mentioned the importance of rituals- the prayers, the Zakat or the fasting and that whatever he said and emphasized had a bearing on human relationship tending to establish peace amongst men and security in the world. Ritualism as given no pride in his address. The points that the prophets made are:

1. The blood, property and honour of Muslims are sacred to one another. In this regard, the prophet Muhammad said: “O men! Listen to my word and take them to heart. Know that every Muslim is a brother to other Muslim, and that you are now one brotherhood. It is not legitimate for any one of you, therefore to appropriate to himself anything that belong to his brother unless it is willingly given to him by his brother.

2. Equality of rights: In this regard the prophet said: “All men are from Adam and Eva. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, also a non Arab has no superiority over an Arab, except by good action”.

3. The abolition of family distinction. He said that people should not take pride in their genelogy. It is the good action alone they should take pride in.

4. Interdiction of bloodshed resulting from old feuds. The prophet said; “Blood feuds of the pre-Islamic days are under my feet” i.e. forbidden.

5. Interdiction of Usury. The prophet said; All Usury money chargeable from the Pre-Islamic periods is under my feet (i.e. cancelled) and the first usury money which I cancel is the money that belonged to my uncle “Abbas Ibn Abal Muttalib”.

6. The enforcement of the law of “cease-fire” during certain month of the year. The prophet Muhammad emphasized the importance of observing peace and the ceasefire during the four “sacred” month of the Arab calendar. The meaning underlying this observance of the sanctity of the four “sacred” months was that the elders and leaders of the Arab community would thus be able to consolidate peace.

7. Safeguarding of the right of women.

8. Safeguarding the right of the slaves who, the prophet emphasized should be looked after in the same way as one did oneself.

9. The brotherhood of Muslims. The prophet pointed out that Muslims were brethren to each other and that they should each one of them respect to rights and privileges of the other, they should not backbite, and they should safeguard the property and live of one another.

10. From the sacred Ka’abah as a result of promulgation of the doctrine of the ones of God, the prophet said; the Satan has departed; but do remember that it may try to come through other ways, be prepared, therefore, to fore it’s moves and machinations.

11. The prophet Muhammad anathematized transgression in any form or shape. He said that the worst enemy of God was he who struck someone who had not struck him.

12. The prophet Muhammad said that those who took pride in affiliating themselves to others who were not theirs and those who did not pay the full price of work done by a workman were far removed from the mercy of God.

13. Muslims should try to effect peace between two fighting Muslims factions.

14. The prophet said “I am leaving behind with you two things which will bring you salvation – The Qur’an and My Sunna i.e. the Qur’an and my ways.

15. All men are jointly responsible to God’s commandment and for the propagation of the sermon. The prophet said: those who hear this sermon should convey it to others who are ignorant of it’.

           Three months after his return from Mecca, the prophet unexpectedly took ill and died on the 8^th June in the year 632 A.D of the Christian era the 13^th of Rabi’al Awwal of the 11^th year of Hijrah. To complete our assessment of the life of the prophet, I quote Professor Hatti, he says:

            Even in the height of his glory, Muhammad led as in his days of obscurity an unpretentious life in one of those clay houses consisting of few rooms opening into court yard and accessible only therefrom. He was often seen mending his own clothes and was at all times within the reach of his people. The little he left he regarded as state property.

            Baba Ali Mustapha is with the department of Planning and Research, Ministry of Environment, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria.

Reference:

For more knowledge, consult the book” The Cardinal Principles of Islam, by A. Rahman I. Doi,

Published by

Hudahuda Publishing Company, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria