A
perusal of the map of the major hemisphere (from the point of view of
the proportion of land to sea), shows the
Arabian Peninsula lying at the confluence of the three great
continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. At the time in question, this
extensive Arabian subcontinent composed mostly of desert areas was
inhabited by people of settled habitations as well as nomads. Often
it was found that members of the same tribe were divided into these
two groups, and that they preserved a relationship although following
different modes of life.
The
means of subsistence in Arabia were meager. The desert had its
handicaps, and trade caravans were features of greater importance
than either agriculture or industry. This entailed much travel, and
men had to proceed beyond the peninsula to Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia,
Iraq, Sind, India and other lands.
We do
not know much about the Libyanites of Central Arabia, but Yemen
was rightly called Arabia Felix. Having once been the seat of the
flourishing civilizations of Sheba and Ma'in even before the
foundation of the city of Rome had been laid, and having later
snatched from the Byzantians and Persians several provinces, greater
Yemen which had passed through the hey-day of its existence, was
however at this time broken up into innumerable principalities, and
even occupied in part by foreign invaders. The Sassanians of Iran,
who had penetrated into Yemen, had already obtained possession of
Eastern Arabia.
There
was politico-social chaos at the capital (Mada'in = Ctesiphon), and
this found reflection in all her territories. Northern Arabia had
succumbed to Byzantine influences, and was faced with its own
particular problems. Only Central Arabia remained immune from the
demoralizing effects of foreign occupation.
In
this limited area of Central Arabia, the existence of the triangle of
Mecca-Ta'if-Madinah seemed something providential. Mecca, desertic,
deprived of water and the amenities of agriculture in physical
features represented Africa and the burning Sahara. Scarcely fifty
miles from there, Ta'if presented a picture of Europe and its frost.
Madinah in the North was not less fertile than even the most
temperate of Asiatic countries like Syria. If climate has any
influence on human character, this triangle standing in the middle of
the major hemisphere
was, more than any other region of the earth, a miniature
reproduction of the entire world. And here was born a descendant of
the Babylonian Abraham, and the Egyptian Hagar, Muhammad the Prophet
of Islam, a Meccan by origin and yet with stock related, both to
Madinah and Ta'if.
From
the point of view of religion, Arabia was idolatrous; only a few
individuals had embraced religions like Christianity, Mazdaism, etc.
The Meccans did possess the notion of the One God, but they believed
also that idols had the power to intercede with Him. Curiously
enough, they did not believe in the Resurrection and Afterlife. They
had preserved the rite of the pilgrimage to the House of the One God,
the Ka'bah, an institution set up under divine inspiration by their
ancestor Abraham, yet the two thousand years that separated them from
Abraham had caused to degenerate this pilgrimage into the spectacle
of a commercial fair and an occasion of senseless idolatry which far
from producing any good, only served to ruin their individual
behaviour, both social and spiritual.
In
spite of the comparative poverty in natural resources, Mecca was the
most developed of the three points of the triangle. Of the three,
Mecca alone had a city-state, governed by a council of ten hereditary
chiefs who enjoyed a clear division of power. (There was a minister
of foreign relations, a minister guardian of the temple, a minister
of oracles, a minister guardian of offerings to the temple, one to
determine the torts and the damages payable, another in charge of the
municipal council or parliament to enforce the decisions of the
ministries. There were also ministers in charge of military affairs
like custodianship of the flag, leadership of the cavalry etc.). As
well reputed caravan-leaders, the Meccans were able to obtain
permission from neighbouring empires like Iran, Byzantium and
Abyssinia - and to enter into agreements with the tribes that lined
the routes traversed by the caravans – to visit their countries and
transact import and export business. They also provided escorts to
foreigners when they passed through their country as well as the
territory of allied tribes, in Arabia (cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar).
Although not interested much in the preservation of ideas and records
in writing, they passionately cultivated arts and letters like
poetry, oratory discourses and folk tales. Women were generally well
treated, they enjoyed the privilege of possessing property in their
own right, they gave their consent to marriage contracts, in which
they could even add the condition of reserving their right to divorce
their husbands. They could remarry when widowed or divorced. Burying
girls alive did exist in certain classes, but that was rare.
It
was in the midst of such conditions and environments that Muhammad
was born in 569 after Christ. His father, 'Abdullah had died some
weeks earlier, and it was his grandfather who took him in charge.
According to the prevailing custom, the child was entrusted to a
Bedouin foster-mother, with whom he
passed
several years in the desert. All biographers state that the infant
prophet sucked only one breast of his foster-mother, leaving the
other for the sustenance of his foster-brother. When the child was
brought back home, his mother, Aminah, took him to his maternal
uncles at Madinah to visit the tomb of 'Abdullah. During the return
journey, he lost his mother who died a sudden death. At Mecca,
another bereavement awaited him, in the death of his affectionate
grandfather. Subjected to such privations, he was at the age of
eight, consigned at last to the care of his uncle, Abu-Talib, a man
who was generous of nature but always short of resources and hardly
able to provide for his family.
Young Muhammad had
therefore to start immediately to earn his livelihood; he served as a
shepherd boy to some neighbours. At the age of ten he accompanied his
uncle to Syria when he was leading a caravan there. No other travels
of Abu-Talib are mentioned, but there are references to his having
set up a shop in Mecca. (Ibn Qutaibah, Ma'arif). It is possible that
Muhammad helped him in this enterprise also.
By
the time he was twenty-five, Muhammad had become well known in the
city for the integrity of his disposition and the honesty of his
character. A rich widow, Khadijah, took him in her employ and
consigned to him her goods to be taken for sale to Syria. Delighted
with the unusual profits she obtained as also by the personal charms
of her agent, she offered him her hand. According to divergent
reports, she was either 28 or 40 years of age at that time, (medical
reasons prefer the age of 28 since she gave birth to five more
children). The union proved happy. Later, we see him sometimes in the
fair of Hubashah (Yemen), and at least once in the country of the
'Abd al-Qais (Bahrain-Oman), as mentioned by Ibn Hanbal. There is
every reason to believe that this refers to the great fair of Daba
(Oman), where, according to Ibn al-Kalbi (cf. Ibn Habib, Muhabbar),
the traders of China, of Hind and Sind (India, Pakistan), of Persia,
of the East and the West assembled every year, travelling both by
land and sea. There is also mention of a commercial partner of
Muhammad at Mecca. This person, Sa'ib by name reports: "We
relayed each other; if Muhammad led the caravan, he did not enter his
house on his return to Mecca without clearing accounts with me; and
if I led the caravan, he would on my return enquire about my welfare
and speak nothing about his own capital entrusted to me."
Foreign traders often
brought their goods to Mecca for sale. One day a certain Yemenite (of
the tribe of Zubaid) improvised a satirical poem against some Meccans
who had refused to pay him the price of what he had sold, and others
who had not supported his claim or had failed to come to his help
when he was victimised. Zuhair, uncle and chief of the tribe of the
Prophet, felt great remorse on hearing this just satire. He called
for a meeting of certain chieftains in the city, and organized an
order of chivalry, called Hilf al-fudul, with the aim and object of
aiding the oppressed in Mecca, irrespective of their being dwellers
of the city or aliens. Young Muhammad became an enthusiastic member
of the organisation. Later in life he used to say: "I have
participated in it, and I am not prepared to give up that privilege
even against a herd of camels; if somebody should appeal to me even
today, by virtue of that pledge, I shall hurry to his help."
Not much is known
about the religious practices of Muhammad until he was thirty-five
years old, except that he had never worshipped idols. This is
substantiated by all his biographers. It may be stated that there
were a few others in Mecca, who had likewise revolted against the
senseless practice of paganism, although conserving their fidelity to
the Ka'bah as the house dedicated to the One God by its builder
Abraham.
About the year 605 of
the Christian era, the draperies on the outer wall of the Ka'bah took
fire. The building was affected and could not bear the brunt of the
torrential rains that followed. The reconstruction of the Ka'bah was
thereupon undertaken. Each citizen contributed according to his
means; and only the gifts of honest gains were accepted. Everybody
participated in the work of construction, and Muhammad's shoulders
were injured in the course of transporting stones. To identify the
place whence the ritual of circumambulation began, there had been set
a black stone in the wall of the Ka'bah. dating probably from the
time of Abraham himself. There was rivalry among the citizens for
obtaining the honour of transposing this stone in its place. When
there was danger of blood being shed, somebody suggested leaving the
matter to Providence, and accepting the arbitration of him who
should
happen to arrive there first. It chanced that Muhammad just then
turned up there for work as usual. He was popularly known by the
appellation of al-Amin (the honest), and everyone accepted his
arbitration without hesitation. Muhammad placed a sheet of cloth on
the ground, put the stone on it and asked the chiefs of all the
tribes in the city to lift together the cloth. Then he himself placed
the stone in its proper place, in one of the angles of the building,
and everybody was satisfied.
It is from this
moment that we find Muhammad becoming more and more absorbed in
spiritual meditations. Like his grandfather, he used to retire during
the whole month of Ramadan to a cave in Jabal-an-Nur (mountain of
light). The cave is called `Ghar-i-Hira' or the cave of research.
There he prayed, meditated, and shared his meagre provisions with the
travellers who happened to pass by.
He
was forty years old, and it was the fifth consecutive year since his
annual retreats, when one night towards the end of the month of
Ramadan, an angel came to visit him, and announced that God had
chosen him as His messenger to all mankind. The angel taught him the
mode of ablutions, the way of worshipping God and the conduct of
prayer. He communicated to him the following Divine message:
With
the name of God, the Most Merciful, the All-Merciful.
Read:
with the name of thy Lord Who created,
Created
man from what clings,
Read:
and thy Lord is the Most Bounteous,
Who
taught by the pen,
Taught
man what he knew not. (Quran 96:1-5)
Deeply
affected, he returned home and related to his wife what had happened,
expressing his fears that it might have been something diabolic or
the action of evil spirits. She consoled him, saying that he had
always been a man of charity and generosity, helping the poor, the
orphans, the widows and the needy, and assured him that God would
protect him against all evil.
Then
came a pause in revelation, extending over three years. The Prophet
must have felt at first a shock, then a calm, an ardent desire, and
after a period of waiting, a growing impatience or nostalgia. The
news of the first vision had spread and at the pause the sceptics in
the city had begun to mock at him and cut bitter jokes. They went so
far as to say that God had forsaken him.
During
the three years of waiting. the Prophet had given himself up more and
more to prayers and to spiritual practices. The revelations were then
resumed and God assured him that He had not at all forsaken him: on
the contrary it was He Who had guided him to the right path:
therefore he should take care of the orphans and the destitute, and
proclaim the bounty of God on him (cf. Q. 93:3-11). This was in
reality an order to preach. Another revelation directed him to warn
people against evil practices, to exhort them to worship none but the
One God, and to abandon everything that would displease God (Q.
74:2-7).
Yet another revelation commanded him to warn his own near relatives
(Q. 26:214); and: "Proclaim openly that which thou art
commanded, and withdraw from the Associators (idolaters). Lo! we
defend thee from the scoffers" (15:94-5). According to Ibn
Ishaq, the first revelation (n. 17) had come to the Prophet during
his sleep, evidently to reduce the shock. Later revelations came in
full wakefulness.
The
Prophet began by preaching his mission secretly first among his
intimate friends, then among the members of his own tribe and
thereafter publicly in the city and suburbs. He insisted on the
belief in One Transcendent God, in Resurrection and the Last
Judgement. He invited men to charity and beneficence. He took
necessary steps to preserve through writing the revelations he was
receiving, and ordered his adherents also to learn them by heart.
This continued all through his life, since the Quran was not revealed
all at once, but in fragments as occasions arose.
The number of his
adherents increased gradually, but with the denunciation of paganism,
the opposition also grew intenser on the part of those who were
firmly attached to their ancestral beliefs. This opposition
degenerated in the course of time into physical torture of the
Prophet and of those who had embraced his religion. These were
stretched on burning sands, cauterized with red hot iron and
imprisoned with chains on their feet. Some of them died of the
effects of torture, but none would renounce his religion. In despair,
the Prophet Muhammad advised his companions to quit their native town
and take refuge abroad, in Abyssinia, "where governs a just
ruler, in whose realm nobody is oppressed" (Ibn Hisham).
Dozens of Muslims profited by his advice, though
not all. These secret flights led to further persecution of those who
remained behind.
The
Prophet Muhammad [was instructed to call this] religion "Islam,"
i.e. submission to the will of God. Its distinctive features are two:
A harmonius equilibrium between the temporal and the spiritual (the
body and the soul), permitting a full enjoyment of all the good that
God has created, (Quran 7:32), enjoining at the same time on
everybody duties towards God, such as worship, fasting, charity, etc.
Islam was to be the religion of the masses and not merely of the
elect.
A
universality of the call - all the believers becoming brothers and
equals without any distinction of class or race or tongue. The only
superiority which it recognizes is a personal one, based on the
greater fear of God and greater piety (Quran 49:13).
When a large number
of the Meccan Muslims migrated to Abyssinia, the leaders of paganism
sent an ultimatum to the tribe of the Prophet, demanding that he
should be excommunicated and outlawed and delivered to the pagans for
being put to death. Every member of the tribe, Muslim and non-Muslim
rejected the demand. (cf. Ibn Hisham). Thereupon the city decided on
a complete boycott of the tribe: Nobody was to talk to them or have
commercial or matrimonial relations with them. The group of Arab
tribes called Ahabish, inhabiting the suburbs, who were allies of the
Meccans, also joined in the boycott, causing stark misery among the
innocent victims consisting of children, men and women, the old and
the sick and the feeble. Some of them succumbed yet nobody would hand
over the Prophet to his persecutors. An uncle of the Prophet, Abu
Lahab, however left his tribesmen and participated in the boycott
along with the pagans. After three dire years, during which the
victims were obliged to devour even crushed hides, four or five
non-Muslims, more humane than the rest and belonging to different
clans proclaimed publicly their denunciation of the unjust boycott.
At the same time, the document promulgating the pact of boycott which
had been hung in the temple, was found, as Muhammad had predicted,
eaten by white ants, that spared nothing but the words God and
Muhammad. The boycott was lifted, yet owing to the privations that
were undergone the wife and Abu Talib, the chief of the tribe and
uncle of the Prophet died soon after. Another uncle of the Prophet,
Abu-Lahab, who was an inveterate enemy of Islam, now succeeded to the
headship of the tribe. (cf. lbn Hisham, Sirah).
It was at this
time that the Prophet Muhammad was granted the mi'raj (ascension): He
saw in a vision that he was received on heaven by God, and was
witness of the marvels of the celestial regions. Returning, he
brought for his community, as a Divine gift, the [ritual prayer of
Islam, the salaat], which
constitutes
a sort of communion between man and God. It may be recalled that in
the last part of Muslim service of worship, the faithful employ as a
symbol of their being in the very presence of God, not concrete
objects as others do at the time of communion, but the very words of
greeting exchanged between the Prophet Muhammad and God on the
occasion of the former's mi'raj: "The blessed and pure greetings
for God! - Peace be with thee, O Prophet, as well as the mercy and
blessing of God! - Peace be with us and with all the [righteous]
servants of God!" The Christian term "communion"
implies participation in the Divinity. Finding it pretentious,
Muslims use the term "ascension" towards God and reception
in His presence, God remaining God and man remaining man and no
confusion between the twain.
The news of this celestial meeting led to an
increase in the hostility of the pagans of Mecca; and the Prophet was
obliged to quit his native town in search of an asylum elsewhere. He
went to his maternal uncles in Ta'if, but returned immediately to
Mecca, as the wicked people of that town chased the Prophet out of
their city by pelting stones on him and wounding him.
The annual pilgrimage
of the Ka'bah brought to Mecca people from all parts of Arabia. The
Prophet Muhammad tried to persuade one tribe after another to afford
him shelter and allow him to carry on his mission of reform. The
contingents of fifteen tribes, whom he approached in succession,
refused to do so more or less brutally, but he did not despair.
Finally he met half a dozen inhabitants of Madinah who being
neighbour of the Jews and the Christians, had some notion of prophets
and Divine messages. They knew also that these "people of the
Books" were awaiting the arrival of a prophet - a last
comforter. So these Madinans decided not to lose the opportunity of
obtaining an advance over others, and forthwith embraced Islam,
promising further to provide additional adherents and necessary help
from Madinah. The following year a dozen new Madinans took the oath
of allegiance to him and requested him to provide with a missionary
teacher. The work of the missionary, Mus'ab, proved very successful
and he led a contingent of seventy-three new converts to Mecca, at
the time of the pilgrimage. These invited the Prophet and his Meccan
companions to migrate to their town, and promised to shelter the
Prophet and to treat him and his companions as their own kith and
kin. Secretly and in small groups, the greater part of the Muslims
emigrated to Madinah. Upon this the pagans of Mecca not only
confiscated the property of the evacuees, but devised a plot to
assassinate the Prophet. It became now impossible for him to remain
at home. It is worthy of mention, that in spite of their hostility to
his mission, the pagans had unbounded confidence in his probity, so
much so that many of them used to deposit their savings with him. The
Prophet Muhammad now entrusted all these deposits to 'Ali, a cousin
of his, with instructions to return in due course to the rightful
owners. He then left the town secretly in the company of his faithful
friend, Abu-Bakr. After several adventures, they succeeded in
reaching Madinah in safety. This happened in 622, whence starts the
Hijrah calendar.
For the better
rehabilitation of the displaced immigrants, the Prophet created a
fraternization between them and an equal number of well-to-do
Madinans. The families of each pair of the contractual brothers
worked together to earn their livelihood, and aided one another in
the business of life. Further he thought that the development of the
man as a whole would be better achieved if he co-ordinated religion
and politics as two constituent parts of one whole. To this end he
invited the representatives of the Muslims as well as the non-Muslim
inhabitants of the region: Arabs, Jews, Christians and others, and
suggested the establishment of a City-State in Madinah. With their
assent, he endowed the city with a written constitution - the first
of its kind in the world - in which he defined the duties and rights
both of the citizens and the head of the State - the Prophet Muhammad
was unanimously hailed as such - and abolished the customary private
justice. The administration of justice became henceforward the
concern of the central organisation of the community of the citizens.
The document laid down principles of defence and foreign policy: it
organized a system of social insurance, called ma'aqil, in
cases
of too heavy obligations. It recognized that the Prophet Muhammad
would have the final word in all differences, and that there was no
limit to his power of legislation. It recognized also explicitly
liberty of religion, particularly for the Jews, to whom the
constitutional act afforded equality with Muslims in all that
concerned life in this world (cf. infra n. 303).
Muhammad
journeyed several times with a view to win the neighbouring tribes
and to conclude with them treaties of alliance and mutual help. With
their help, he decided to bring to bear economic pressure on the
Meccan pagans, who had confiscated the property of the Muslim
evacuees and also caused innumerable damage. Obstruction in the way
of the Meccan caravans and their passage through the Madinan region
exasperated the pagans, and a bloody struggle ensued.
In
the concern for the material interests of the community, the
spiritual aspect was never neglected. Hardly a year had passed after
the migration to Madinah, when the most rigorous of spiritual
disciplines, the fasting for the whole month of Ramadan every year,
was imposed on every adult Muslim, man and woman.
Not content with the
expulsion of the Muslim compatriots, the Meccans sent an ultimatum to
the Madinans, demanding the surrender or at least the expulsion of
Muhammad and his companions but evidently all such efforts proved in
vain. A few months later, in the year 2 H., they sent a powerful army
against the Prophet, who opposed them at Badr; and the pagans thrice
as numerous as the Muslims, were routed. After a year of preparation,
the Meccans again invaded Madinah to avenge the defeat of Badr. They
were now four times as numerous as the Muslims. After a bloody
encounter at Uhud, the enemy retired, the issue being indecisive. The
mercenaries in the Meccan army did not want to take too much risk, or
endanger their safety.
In the meanwhile the
Jewish citizens of Madinah began to foment trouble. About the time of
the victory of Badr, one of their leaders, Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf,
proceeded to Mecca to give assurance of his alliance with the pagans,
and to incite them to a war of revenge. After the battle of Uhud, the
tribe of the same chieftain plotted to assassinate the Prophet by
throwing on him a millstone from above a tower, when he had gone to
visit their locality. In spite of all this, the only demand the
Prophet made of the men of this tribe was to quit the Madinan region,
taking with them all their properties, after selling their immovables
and recovering their debts from the Muslims. The clemency thus
extended had an effect contrary to what was hoped. The exiled not
only contacted the Meccans, but also the tribes of the North, South
and East of Madinah, mobilized military aid, and planned from Khaibar
an invasion of Madinah, with forces four times more numerous than
those employed at Uhud.
The
Muslims prepared for a siege, and dug a ditch to defend themselves
against this hardest of all trials. Although the defection of the
Jews still remaining inside Madinah at a later stage upset all
strategy, yet with a sagacious diplomacy, the Prophet succeeded in
breaking up the alliance, and the different enemy groups retired one
after the other. Alcoholic drinks, gambling and games of chance were
at this time declared forbidden for the Muslims.
The Prophet tried
once more to reconcile the Meccans and proceeded to Mecca. The
barring of the route of their Northern caravans had ruined their
economy. The Prophet promised them transit security, extradition of
their fugitives and the fulfillment of every condition they desired,
agreeing even to return to Madinah without accomplishing the
pilgrimage of the Ka'bah.
Thereupon
the two contracting parties promised at Hudaibiyah in the suburbs of
Mecca, not only the maintenance of peace, but also the observance of
neutrality in their conflicts with third parties.
Profiting
by the peace, the Prophet launched an intensive programme for the
propagation of his religion. He addressed missionary letters to the
foreign rulers of Byzantium, Iran, Abyssinia and other lands. The
Byzantine autocrat priest - Dughatur of the Arabs - embraced Islam,
but for this, was lynched by the Christian mob; the prefect of Ma'an
(Palestine) suffered the same fate, and was decapitated and crucified
by order of the emperor. A Muslim ambassador was assassinated in
Syria-Palestine; and instead of punishing the culprit, the emperor
Heraclius rushed with his armies to protect him against the punitive
expedition sent by the Prophet (battle of Mu'tah).
The pagans of Mecca
hoping to profit by the Muslim difficulties, violated the terms of
their treaty. Upon this, the Prophet himself led an army, ten
thousand strong, and surprised Mecca which he occupied in a bloodless
manner. As a benevolent conqueror, he caused the vanquished people to
assemble, reminded them of their ill deeds, their religious
persecution, unjust confiscation of the evacuee property, ceaseless
invasions and senseless hostilities for twenty years continuously. He
asked them: "Now what do you expect of me?" When everybody
lowered his head with shame, the Prophet proclaimed: "May God
pardon you; go in peace; there shall be no responsibility on you
today; you are free!" He even renounced the claim for the Muslim
property confiscated by the pagans. This produced a great
psychological change of hearts instantaneously. When a Meccan chief
advanced with a fulsome heart towards the Prophet, after hearing this
general amnesty, in order to declare his acceptance of Islam, the
Prophet told him: "And in my turn, I appoint you the governor of
Mecca!" Without leaving a single soldier in the conquered city,
the Prophet retired to Madinah. The Islamization of Mecca, which was
accomplished in a few hours, was complete.
Immediately after
the occupation of Mecca, the city of Ta'if mobilized to fight against
the Prophet. With some difficulty the enemy was dispersed in the
valley of Hunain, but the Muslims preferred to raise the siege of
nearby Ta'if and use pacific means to break the resistance of this
region. Less than a year later, a delegation from Ta'if came to
Madinah offering submission. But it requested exemption from prayer,
taxes and military service, and the continuance of the liberty to
adultery and fornication and alcoholic drinks. It demanded even the
conservation of the temple of the idol al-Lat at Ta'if. But Islam was
not a materialist immoral movement; and soon the delegation itself
felt ashamed of its demands regarding prayer, adultery and wine. The
Prophet consented to concede exemption from payment of taxes and
rendering of military service; and added: You need not demolish the
temple with your own hands: we shall send agents from here to do the
job, and if there should be any consequences, which you are afraid of
on account of your superstitions, it will be they who would suffer.
This act of the Prophet shows what concessions could be given to new
converts. The conversion of the Ta'ifites was so whole hearted that
in a short while, they themselves renounced the contracted
exemptions, and we find the Prophet nominating a tax collector in
their locality as in other Islamic regions.
In
all these "wars," extending over a period of ten years, the
non-Muslims lost on the battlefield only about 250 persons killed,
and the Muslim losses were even less. With these few incisions, the
whole continent of Arabia, with its million and more of square miles,
was cured of the abscess of anarchy and
immorality.
During these ten years of disinterested struggle, all the peoples of
the Arabian Peninsula and the southern regions of Iraq and Palestine
had voluntarily embraced Islam. Some Christian, Jewish and Parsi
groups remained attached to their creeds, and they were granted
liberty of conscience as well
as
judicial and juridical autonomy.
In
the year 10 H., when the Prophet went to Mecca for Hajj (pilgrimage),
he met 140,000 Muslims there, who had come from different parts of
Arabia to fulfil their religious obligation. He addressed to them his
celebrated sermon, in which he gave a resume of his teachings:
"Belief in One God without images or symbols, equality of all
the Believers without distinction of race or class, the superiority
of individuals being based solely on piety; sanctity of life,
property and honour; abolition of interest, and of vendettas and
private justice; better treatment of women; obligatory inheritance
and distribution of the property of deceased persons among near
relatives of both sexes, and removal of the possibility of the
cumulation of wealth in the hands of the few." The Quran and the
conduct of the Prophet were to serve as the bases of law and a
healthy criterion in every aspect of human life.
On
his return to Madinah, he fell ill; and a few weeks later, when
hebreathed his last, he had the satisfaction that he had well
accomplished the task which he had undertaken - to preach to the
world the Divine message. He bequeathed to posterity, a religion of
pure monotheism; he created a well-disciplined State out of the
existent chaos and gave peace in place of the war of everybody
against everybody else; he established a harmonious equilibrium
between the spiritual and the temporal, between the mosque and the
citadel; he left a new system of law, which dispensed impartial
justice, in
which
even the head of the State was as much a subject to it as any
commoner, and in which religious tolerance was so great that
non-Muslim inhabitants of Muslim countries equally enjoyed complete
juridical, judicial and cultural autonomy. In the matter of the
revenues of the State, the Quran fixed the principles of budgeting,
and paid more thought to the poor than to anybody else. The revenues
were declared to be in no wise the private property of the head of
the State. Above all, the Prophet Muhammad set a noble example and
fully practised all that he taught to others.
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