Prophet
Muhammad
Imam Al Bukhari
The
Life of Prophet Muhammad
PART I
In Makkah |
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The Prophet’s Birth
Muhammad, son of Abdullah,
son of Abdul Muttalib, of the tribe of Quraysh, was born
in Makkah fifty-three years before the Hijrah. His
father died before he was born, and he was protected
first by his grandfather, Abdul Muttalib, and after his
grandfather’s death, by his uncle Abu Talib.
As a young boy he traveled
with his uncle in the merchants’ caravan to Syria, and
some years afterwards made the same journey in the
service of a wealthy widow named Khadijah. So faithfully
did he transact the widow’s business, and so excellent
was the report of his behavior, which she received from
her old servant who had accompanied him, that she soon
afterwards married her young agent; and the marriage
proved a very happy one, though she was fifteen years
older than he was. Throughout the twenty-six years of
their life together he remained devoted to her; and
after her death, when he took other wives he always
mentioned her with the greatest love and reverence. This
marriage gave him rank among the notables of Makkah,
while his conduct earned for him the surname Al-Amin,
the “trustworthy.”
The Hunafa
The Makkans claimed
descent from Abraham through Isma`il and tradition
stated that their temple, the Ka`bah, had been built by
Abraham for the worship of the One God. It was still
called the House of Allah, but the chief objects of
worship here were a number of idols, which were called
“daughters” of Allah and intercessors. The few who felt
disgust at this idolatry, which had prevailed for
centuries, longed for the religion of Abraham and tried
to find out what had been its teaching. Such seekers of
the truth were known as Hunafa (sing. Hanif), a word
originally meaning “those who turn away” (from the
existing idol-worship), but coming in the end to have
the sense of “upright” or “by nature upright,” because
such persons held the way of truth to be right conduct.
These Hunafa did not form a community. They were the
non-conformists of their day, each seeking truth by the
light of his inner consciousness. Muhammad son of
Abdullah became one of these.
The First Revelation
It was his practice to
retire often to a cave in the desert for meditation. His
place of retreat was Hira’, a cave in a mountain called
the
Mountain of
Light not far from Makkah, and his
chosen month was Ramadan, the month of heat. It was
there one night toward the end of his quiet month that
the first revelation came to him when he was forty years
old.
He heard a voice say:
“Read!” He said: “I cannot read.” The voice again said:
“Read!” He said: “I cannot read.” A third time the
voice, more terrible, commanded: “Read!” He said: “What
can I read?” The voice said:
“Read: In the name
of thy Lord Who createth.
“Createth man from a clot. “Read: And it is thy Lord the Most Bountiful “Who teacheth by the pen, “Teacheth man that which he knew not.”
The Vision of Cave Hira’
He went out of the cave on
to the hillside and heard the same awe-inspiring voice
say: “O Muhammad! Thou art Allah’s messenger, and I am
Jibril (Gabriel).” Then he raised his eyes and saw the
angel, in the likeness of a man, standing in the sky
above the horizon. And again the dreadful voice said: “O
Muhammad! Thou art Allah’s messenger, and I am Jibril
(Gabriel).” Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)
stood quite still, turning away his face from the
brightness of the vision, but wherever he turned his
face, there stood the angel confronting him. He remained
thus a long while till at length the angel vanished,
when he returned in great distress of mind to his wife
Khadijah. She did her best to reassure him, saying that
his conduct had been such that Allah would not let a
harmful spirit come to him and that it was her hope that
he was to become the Prophet of his people. On their
return to Makkah she took him to her cousin Waraqa ibn
Nawfal, a very old man, “who knew the Scriptures of the
Jews and Christians,” who declared his belief that the
heavenly messenger who came to Moses of old had come to
Muhammad, and that he was chosen as the Prophet of his
people.
His Distress
To understand the reason of the Prophet’s diffidence and his extreme distress of mind after the vision of Hira’, it must be remembered that the Hunafa, of whom he had been one, sought true religion in the natural world and regarded with distrust the intercourse with spirits of which men “avid of the Unseen” sorcerers and soothsayers and even poets, boasted in those days. Moreover, he was a man of humble and devout intelligence, a lover of quiet and solitude and the very thought of being chosen out of all mankind to face mankind, alone, with such a message, appalled him at the first.
Recognition of the Divine
nature of the call he had received involved a change in
his whole mental outlook sufficiently disturbing to a
sensitive and honest mind, and also the forsaking of his
quiet, honored way of life. The early biographers tell
how his wife Khadijah “tested the spirit” which came to
him and proved it to be good, and how, with the
continuance of the revelations and the conviction that
they brought, he at length accepted the tremendous task
imposed on him, becoming filled with enthusiasm of
obedience which justifies his proudest title of “the
Slave of Allah.”
First Converts
For the first three years,
or rather less, of his mission, the Prophet preached to
his family and his intimate friends, while the people of
Makkah as a whole regarded him as one who had become a
little mad. The first of all his converts was his wife
Khadijah, the second his first cousin Ali, whom he had
adopted, the third his servant Zayd, a former slave. His
old friend Abu Bakr also was among those early converts.
Beginning of
Persecution
At the end of the third
year the Prophet received the command to “arise and
warn,” whereupon he began to preach in public, pointing
out the wretched folly of idolatry in face of the
tremendous laws of day and night, of life and death, of
growth and decay, which manifest the power of Allah and
attest His sovereignty. It was then, when he began to
speak against their gods, that Quraysh became actively
hostile, persecuting his poorer disciples, mocking and
insulting him. The one consideration which prevented
them from killing him was fear of the blood-vengeance of
the clan to which his family belonged. Strong in his
inspiration, the Prophet went on warning, pleading,
threatening, while Quraysh did all they could to
ridicule his teaching, and deject his followers.
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