The Life of Muhammad

by M. Husayn Haykal

  With all these successes which Islam had been scoring in Yathrib, the people of Yathrib looked forward quite eagerly to the arrival of Muhammad when they heard of his emigration. For many days before his arrival, they went out to the outskirts of their city at dawn to spend the morning seeking signs of the Prophet’s arrival.

  The month was July and the days were hot. Muhammad reached Quba’, two leagues from Madinah,[Six and a half miles south of the city. -Tr.] and stayed there four days with Abu Bakr being constantly with him. During this interval, he founded a mosque and before he left for Madinah, ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib had joined his party. ‘Ali had returned the trusts left with Muhammad which Muhammad had asked him to return to their rightful owners, and he came to Yathrib on foot, walking during the night and hiding during the day. He had been on the road for two whole weeks in order to join the Prophet and his fellow Muslims in Madinah.

  Muhammad’s Entry into Madinah

  One day, as the Muslims waited the arrival of Muhammad, a Jew of Yathrib announced to them, “O People of Qaylah, your man has finally arrived.” It was a Friday, and Muhammad performed his prayer in Madinah at the mosque situated in the valley of Ranuqna. The Muslims of Yathrib arrived there from all quarters in order to see the man whom they had not seen, but whom they loved with all their minds and hearts, in whose message they had believed, and whose name they had mentioned many times in their daily prayers. A number of notables invited the Prophet to stay in their houses and to enjoy the comforts, security, and protection of their quarters. As Muhammad apologized, he rode his camel, which he allowed to go free, toward the city. As it ran forth surrounded by the Muslims who opened the way for it, the people of Yathrib, whether Jews or unbelievers, looked with surprise on the new agitation and vitality that had suddenly seized their city. They looked at this great visitor who was equally acclaimed by al Aws and al Khazraj, who had until recently been death enemies of each other. No one among them apparently grasped the new direction which history was taking at that auspicious moment, nor the great destiny at work to make their city immortal. The Prophet’s camel continued to run until it stopped at a yard belonging to two orphans of Banu al Najjar. There, the camel lay down and the Prophet dismounted. Upon inquiring who the owner of the yard was, he learned from Mu’adh ibn ‘Afra’ that it belonged to Sahl and Suhayl, sons of ‘Amr, of whom he was the guardian. He asked the Prophet to build a mosque there and made a promise to satisfy the two orphans. Muhammad accepted the request by building his mosque as well as his living quarters there.

  Chapter 11

  Beginning of the Yathrib Period

  Explanation of the City’s Welcome

  Having heard the news of his emigration, of Quraysh’s plot to kill him, and of his travel in midsummer on an untrodden path ridden with hardships across rocky mountains and valleys aglow with fire under the torrid sun individuals and groups of men and women went out to welcome Muhammad to their city. Excited by their own curiosity after the spread of the news of Muhammad’s mission throughout the Arabian Peninsula, the people of Yathrib went out to see and meet the author of this call to renounce the holy faith and sacred beliefs of their ancestors. More importantly, they went out to meet Muhammad and to welcome him because his intention was henceforth to live with them in their own city. Every clan and tribe of Yathrib well knew what political, social, and other advantages it stood to gain should it succeed in convincing the new guest to reside in its midst. Indeed, they went out to take a look at this man that they might confirm their intuition concerning him. Hence, neither the unbelievers of Yathrib nor its Jews were any less enthusiastic than the Muslims, whether Muhajirun or Ansar. That is why they came from all sides to walk in his procession although each was naturally moved by different feelings. As Muhammad allowed his camel to run loose, they followed him in a disorderly manner; it was as if he had intended it that way in order to give each one of them a chance to come closer to him to take a nearer glimpse of his face. It was as if everyone had come out in order to gather in one moment of consciousness all that he had heard about and all that he could see of the person to whom he had given the grand oath of allegiance at al ‘Aqabah where he pledged to lay down his life when necessary in fighting any man whatever that stood in the way of the faith. It was, furthermore, as if everyone wanted to see the man who taught the unity of God based upon a scientific investigation of the cosmos and an objective search for the truth: a doctrine for the sake of which he had abandoned his native town, its people, and borne their enmity and harm for some thirteen consecutive years.

  Buildings of the Prophet’s Mosque

  We have seen that the Prophet’s camel stopped in the courtyard of Sahl and Suhayl. The Prophet bought the land in order to build his mosque there. While the mosque was being erected, he stayed in the house of Abu Ayyub Khalid ibn Zayd al Ansari. In the construction of the mosque, Muhammad worked with his own hands as did the Muslims, whether Muhajirun or Ansar. When the mosque was completed, they built on one side of it living quarters for the Prophet. These operations did not over-tax anyone, for the two structures were utterly simple and economical. The mosque consisted of a vast courtyard whose four walls were built out of bricks and mud. A part of it was covered with a ceiling made from date trunks and leaves. Another part was devoted to shelter the poor who had no home at all. The mosque was not lit during the night except for an hour at the time of the night prayer. At that time some straw was burned for light. Thus it continued to be for nine years, after which lamps were attached to the tree trunks on which stood the ceiling. The living quarters of the Prophet were no more luxurious than the mosque although they had to be more closed in order to give a measure of privacy.

  Upon completion of the building, Muhammad left the house of Abu Ayyub and moved into the new quarters. He began to think of this new life which he had just initiated and the wide gate it opened for his mission. The various tribes and clans of this city were already competing with one another; and they differed among themselves in ways and for reasons unknown to any Makkan. Yet it was equally obvious that they all longed for peace and freedom from the differences and hostilities which had torn them apart in the past. Moreover, they were ambitious for and willing to build a peaceful future capable of greater prestige and prosperity than Makkah had ever enjoyed. That is not to say that these matters concerned Muhammad in the least. Rather, his concern, whether immediate or ultimate, was the conveyance of the message God had entrusted to him. The people of Makkah had resisted that message with every weapon they knew, and their hostility prevented its light from shining in the hearts of most men. The injury and harm the Quraysh were wont to inflict upon anyone who ventured into the new faith was sufficient to prevent conversion of those who were not yet convinced of its truth and value. Hence it was a cardinal need that Muslims as well as others feel certain that whoever followed the new guidance and entered into the religion of God was absolutely secure against attack. This precaution was necessary in order to confirm the believers in their faith and to enable the weak, the fearful, and the hesitant to enter into the faith with confidence. This consideration preoccupied Muhammad as he moved to the security of his new home in Yathrib. In the years to follow, it constituted the cornerstone of his policy. All biographies have emphasized this orientation of Muhammad’s policies. At the time, he thought of neither property, nor wealth, nor trade, but only of realizing the security of his followers and their right to worship as they pleased on an equal footing with men of other faiths. It was absolutely necessary that the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian have an equal opportunity in their exercise of religious freedom as well as in their freedom to hold different opinions and to preach their own faiths. Only such freedom can guarantee victory for the truth and progress of the world toward perfection in the higher unity of mankind. Every war against this freedom furthers the cause of falsehood. Every limitation of it gives power to the forces of darkness to cut off the light shining within the soul calling man to unity with mankind and the w
orld to an eternal bond of harmony and love instead of alienation, war, and extinction.

  Muhammad’s Aversion to War

  Ever since the Hijrah, revelation persistently confirmed this orientation of Muhammad and caused him strongly to incline toward peace, away from fighting, hostility or war. It made him regard fighting as the last resort in defense of this freedom and this faith. When, at the cry of the Qurayshi spy, the people of Yathrib who pledged to him their allegiance at the second al ‘Aqabah meeting proclaimed, “By God who sent you as a messenger of the truth, if you wish us to pounce on the quarter of Mina tomorrow morning with swords drawn, not one of us will stay behind,” did Muhammad not respond: “God has not commanded us to fight”? Did not the first verse granting such authority say: “Permission to fight is granted to those who are being fought, for they suffer injustice, and God is certainly capable of coming to their assistance”?[Qur’an, 22:39]. Was not this verse immediately followed by the revelation,

  “And fight them until all persecution has stopped and religion has become all God’s”[Qur’an, 8:39]

  Muhammad’s thought was then guided by one final objective, namely, the guarantee of freedom of religion and thought. It was for the sake of this freedom alone that fighting was permitted. It was in its defense that repulsion of the aggressor was allowed, that no one might be persecuted on account of his faith and that no injustice might befall anyone because of his faith or opinion.

  The Thinking of Yathrib

  While Muhammad was occupied by this line of thought and pondered over the measures necessary for guaranteeing this freedom, the people of Yathrib entertained different ideas. Each clan and party followed a line of thought peculiar to itself. The Muslims were either Muhajirun or Ansar; the unbelievers belonged to either al Aws or al Khazraj and were committed to a long history of mutual hostility, as we have shown earlier. There were also the Jews, of whom the Banu Qaynuqa‘ lived within the city, the Banu Qurayzah in the suburb of Fadak, the Banu al Nadir, nearby, and those of Khaybar toward the north. As for the Muslims, Muhammad feared that, despite the strongest ties with which the new religion had bound them together, the old hatred and prejudice might some day break out anew between them. The unbelievers, from al Aws or al Khazraj, were exhausted by the previous wars; they found themselves situated, in the new configuration of society, between the Jews and the Muslims. The unbelievers’ strategy concentrated on dividing Jew and Muslim and pulling them farther apart. The Jews, for their part, gave Muhammad a good welcome in the hope of winning him over to their side. Their strategy demanded that they make use of the new unity of the Peninsula which he could help forge to bolster their opposition to Christendom. For to avenge their banishment from Palestine, the land of promise, and their national home, was the guiding concern of the Jews who saw themselves as God’s chosen people. Each group followed its own train of thought and began to seek the means to realize its objective.

  Muslim Brotherhood

  At this time a new stage, unlike any other prophet before him, began in the career of Muhammad. Here began the political stage in which Muhammad showed such great wisdom, insight, and statesmanship as would arrest attention first in surprise and then in awe and reverence. Muhammad’s great concern was to bring to his new home town a political and organizational unity hitherto unknown to Hijaz, though not to ancient Yaman. He consulted with Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, his two viziers, as he used to call them. Naturally, the first idea to occur to him was that of reorganizing Muslim ranks so as to consolidate their unity and to wipe out every possibility of a resurgence of division and hostility. In the realization of this objective, he asked the Muslims to fraternize with one another for the sake of God and to bind themselves together in pairs. He explained how he and ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib were brothers, how his uncle Hamzah and his client, Zayd, were also brothers, as were likewise Abu Bakr and Kharijah ibn Zayd, and ‘Umar ibn al Khattab and ‘Itban ibn Malik al Khazraji. Despite the Muhajirun’s rapid increase in number, following the emigration of the Prophet, everyone of them was now bound to a member of al Ansar group in a bond of mutual assistance. The Prophet’s proclamation in this regard transformed that bond into one of blood and real fraternity. A new, genuine brotherhood arose which forged the Muslim ranks into an indivisible unity.

  The Traders

  Al Ansar showed their Muhajirun brethren great hospitality which the latter had first accepted with joy. For when they emigrated from Makkah, they had left behind all their property, wealth, and goods and entered Madinah devoid of the means with which to find their food. Only ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan was able to carry with him enough of his wealth to be prosperous in his new residence. The others had hardly been able to carry much or little that was of use to them. Even Hamzah, the Prophet’s uncle, had one day to ask the Prophet to give him some food to eat. ‘Abd al Rahman ibn ‘Awf and Sa’d ibn al Rabi‘ were bonded together in brotherhood. The former had nothing. The latter offered to split his wealth with him. ‘Abd al Rahman refused and asked that he be shown the market place. There he began to sell cheese and butter and in short time achieved a measure of affluence fair enough to enable him to ask the hand of a Madinese woman as well as to send caravans in trade. Many other Muhajirun followed the example of ‘Abd al Rahman; for, the Makkans, it should be remembered, were quite adept in trade. Indeed, they were so expert at it that it was said of them that they could by trade change the sand of the desert into gold.

  The Harvest

  Those who could not engage in trade such as Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib and others, took to farming on the land owned by al Ansar under the system of sharecropping. Another group of truly helpless people, with a past full of suffering and hardship, put their hand to menial jobs, preferring hard labor to living as parasites on the earnings of others. Despite their meager earnings, they found consolation in the new peace and security of their own persons and of their faith. There was yet another group of emigrants so poor and helpless that they could not find even a place to sleep. To these, Muhammad permitted the use of the covered part of the mosque during the night. That is why they were called “Ahl al Suffah,” “suffah,” meaning the covered area of the mosque. To these, Muhammad assigned a ration from the wealth of the more affluent Muslims, whether Ansar or Muhajirun.

  Muhammad’s Friendliness to the Jews

  By this new brotherhood, Muhammad achieved an operational Muslim unity. Politically, it was a very wise move destined to show Muhammad’s sound judgment and foresight. We shall better appreciate its wisdom when we learn of the attempts to divide al Aws against al Khazraj, and al Ansar against al Muhajirun. The politically greater achievement of Muhammad was his realization of a unity for the, city of Yathrib as a whole, his construction of a political structure in which the Jews entered freely into an alliance of mutual cooperation with the Muslims. We have already seen how the Jews gave Muhammad a good welcome in the hope of winning him as an ally. He, too, returned their greeting with like gestures and sought to consolidate his relations with them. He visited their chiefs and cultivated the friendship of their nobles. He bound himself to them in a bond of friendship on the grounds that they were scripturists and monotheists. So much had Muhammad defended the Jews that the fact that he fasted with them on the days they fasted and prayed toward Jerusalem as they did increased his personal and religious esteem among them. Everything seemed as if the future could only strengthen this Muslim Jewish friendship and produce further cooperation and closeness between them. Similarly, Muhammad’s own conduct, his great humility, compassion, and faithfulness, and his outgoing charity and goodness to the poor, oppressed and deprived, as well as the prestige and influence which these qualities had won for him among all the people of Yathrib-all these enabled him to conclude the pact of friendship, alliance, and cooperation in the safeguarding of religious freedom throughout the city. In our opinion, this covenant is one of the greatest political documents which history has known. Such an accomplishment by Muhammad at this stage of his c
areer had never been reached by any prophet. Jesus, Moses, and all the prophets that preceded them never went beyond the preaching of their religious messages through words and miracles. All of them had left their legacy to men of power and political authority who came after them; it was the latter who put their powers at the service of those messages and fought, with arms where necessary, for the freedom of the people to believe. Christianity spread at the hands of the disciples of Jesus and after his time, but only in extremely limited measure. The disciples as well as their followers were persecuted until one of the kings of the world favored this religion, adopted it, and put his royal power behind its missionary effort[The allusion here is to Constantine who began to show favors toward Christianity in 312 C.E. and decreed the Edict of Toleration in 313. He supported both paganism as well as Christianity. To the end of his life he bore the title of pontifex maximus, being the chief priest of the pagan state cult and classed among the gods by the Roman Senate. He was not baptized until the latter part of his life. -Tr.]. All other religions in the East and the West have had nearly the same history, but not the religion of Muhammad. God willed that Islam be spread by Muhammad, and that the truth be vindicated by his hand. He willed Muhammad to be prophet, statesman, fighter, and conqueror, all for the sake of God and the truth with which he was commissioned as prophet. In all these aspects of his career Muhammad was great, the exemplar of human perfection, the typos of every realized value.

  The covenant of Madinah concluded between Muhajirun and Ansar on one side and Jews on the other, was dictated by Muhammad. It was the instrument of their alliance which confirmed the Jews in both their religion and position in society, and determined their rights as well as their duties. Following is the text of this important document: